The Scourge - Page 63

"Weevil!" I yelled. "Get down!"

He turned and reached for a rope up in the tree with him. Probably the rope that held the cage suspended from the tree. I couldn't see the cage right now, though, only the rope.

"Ani, run!" he yelled back at me.

I was already running. But he knew that, which meant he was warning me to go back, to run away from him.

I spun around, trying to see anything through this storm, and was immediately tackled to the ground by Warden Brogg. Jonas crashed into the two of us, fighting the warden off, but then Gossel came and several more wardens with him, as if they had all been searching for us together. From the corner of my eye, I saw Della creeping toward us. I wanted to warn her to stay back, but didn't dare call attention to her.

Jonas and I were both pushed into the mud. It took the effort of every warden there to get our arms pulled behind us. I made sure of that.

"I only brought enough rope for the girl," a warden said. "I didn't think we'd find another one out here."

"Tie up the boy," Gossel said. "The governor has other plans for the girl anyway."

Whatever they were, I didn't care. My eyes were on Della. She had snuck in close enough to grab the laundry bin and was now racing toward Weevil. I doubted the wardens even noticed her or cared what she was doing if they did notice. They wanted me, and Jonas had been a fugitive for even longer. Della was considered harmless.

"Two for the infirmary, then," a warden said. "Jonas, we wondered where you had gone. I figured you were dead."

"If you had found me before, I would've been dead by now," he said.

"Well, we can take care of that."

They sat us up, and my eyes immediately went to Weevil. Della was almost to him with the laundry bin, but now that she had crossed into the fenced yard, I couldn't really see her anymore. With a shout down at us, Weevil held on to the rope and jumped into the air. Now I understood. He was using the cage as a counterbalance. It would rise up as it lowered him.

But he hadn't dropped far before lightning struck the tree, exactly where h

e had just been standing. Weevil was thrown off the rope, and limbs from the tree exploded away from its base. With so many wardens around me, I couldn't see where he fell. The fierce rain blinded me, or maybe it was my own fear and anger doing that. I couldn't see what was happening to him or Della.

I stifled a scream in my throat. They could be hurt--very seriously hurt from either the lightning, or the fallen branches, or Weevil hurt from the fall itself. If I told the wardens, they could go check on them and ... and then what? They'd leave my friends to die or bring them into the infirmary with Jonas and me. To die.

I lowered my head and let the tears fall while the wardens forced us to our feet and began walking Jonas and me toward the infirmary.

Where people went in, and nobody ever came out.

If the old prison had been cold and unwelcoming, it was nothing compared to the infirmary. At least some effort had been made to remove the feeling of the prison having once been an ancient dungeon.

No such effort had been made here.

Without its thick main doors, this infirmary would have been heavily flooded by now. As it was, it might've been the safest place in the Colony. Despite the serious situation, the irony of that thought gave me a grim smile.

We walked down a narrow hallway, passing rows of cells with more thick wooden doors and heavy locks. There was some moaning in here, but most of the voices I heard seemed stronger than I'd have expected from the people dragged in here during recent days. One man in a cell to my right even yelled that he felt well and begged to be released. His words were echoed by others nearby, sounding equally strong. I struggled to figure that out.

The moans obviously came from the sickest prisoners of these cells, but what were healthy people doing here? They hadn't come in healthy--at least, everyone I'd seen entering the infirmary looked like they were in their final moments of life.

The Scourge was a poison made of spindlewill, slowly killing the Colonists outside of the infirmary. The medicine they took to stay numb was just a weaker form of the same poison.

Yet in here, they were getting better.

They weren't bringing people into the infirmary to die. They brought them here to live, but why?

A Colonist had to be broken before coming to the infirmary. That was the reason the wardens hadn't been allowed to bring me here before. The governor wanted broken spirits, and whole bodies.

None of this made sense. I wished Weevil were with me because he could help me sort these things out.

No, I immediately corrected myself. No, I did not want Weevil here with me. I wanted him safe at home, laughing and diving to the bottom of the rivers and working hard for his family, and ... and I wanted to be there with him.

I didn't even know if he was still alive. Nor if I would be alive by the end of this night.

Tags: Jennifer A. Nielsen Fantasy
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