Chapter 2293 - 1626: What? The Priest Is Gone?!

Chapter 2293: Chapter 1626: What? The Priest Is Gone?!

In the Taino mountain village, the busy work of healing continued unceasingly. The Taino Mazi burned wood ashes, charcoal, and earth, and kept fetching water from the riverside. The figures of medical staff ran back and forth, with the faint sounds of painful groans from the village, featuring accents from the Mexican Plateau, cries from the wilderness, and the wails of local tribes.

"Chief Divine! Let me die! I have become... a rotting fish... a decaying... salamander..."

"Red Earth Mother! I... want to tear my body... let my flesh and blood... return to your... embrace..."

"Ancestors... it hurts... so much! I am going to die... give me just one more puff of Cohiba..."

Warrior Captain Kepili and Priest Martin stood side by side, watching the village from afar, observing the chaotic yet bone-like orderly scene.

A few of the surviving Taino elders were chewing bitter grass, then mixing it with crushed balm and charcoal to make some sort of herbal paste. Then, someone took this herb and lightly smeared it on the patients’ foreheads and limbs. The surviving women used wooden bowls to scoop stream water, adding baked bark, chili, and cassava powder to cook medicinal food soup, taking turns to feed the patients. Some strong men guarded the bonfires, placing garlic-scented grass (anamu) roots and healing wood (guayacán) bark into earthenware pots to simmer, emitting a pungent yet calming smell, cooking out the locally inherited sticky ointment.

"Herbal paste is for applying to wounds, garlic-scented grass and healing wood can slightly reduce suppuration. Only with some warm food can they endure a few more days. Unfortunately, there’s no intoxicating medicine from the highland here, many tribespeople died painfully!"

Huitu Ma Zhipuapu squatted at the village entrance, like a shriveled pumpkin, oddly resembling the old militia. While watching the situation in the village, he shouted a few sentences loudly, simultaneously chatting with Kepili from ten or twenty steps away.

"Chief Divine! Kepili, why did you bring Priest Adin, the white-skinned priest who handles firearms, here? The Taino people on Brave Island now fear and resent the white-skinned demons. If Adin runs around alone, he might be killed by the Taino strong men!"

"Huh? The Taino strong men on Brave Island already dare to act against the demons? That’s much braver than I thought!"

"Alas! The demons who landed this time were too ruthless, killing many, harming many, and spreading the plague! Last time Mique and Tai Giant Eagle rescued some Mazi strong men back, spreading the news of the demons’ atrocities everywhere, driving these Taino people to the extreme, and finally squeezing out some courage! But the coastal Taino tribes are too miserable, not knowing if they can survive one or two out of ten? Some coastal tribespeople affected by the plague fled to the Central Mountain Range for help; the tribes in the mountains dare not treat them but sent them here! Most are strong men; most elderly women and children died from illness on the way... when they arrived here, only two or three out of ten could survive! May Chief Divine bless them!"

Ma Zhipuapu shook his head in sighs. Going through such a journey between life and death drained much of his body’s vigor, yet his spirit seems more settled, gaining a more translucent feel. Occasionally touching the Chief God’s Amulet on his neck, murmuring prayers, appearing much more devout.

Kepili watched this senior Kingdom general from the island, also one of his familiar comrades. He stayed silent for a moment, then asked about two other comrades.

"What about Mique and Tai Giant Eagle? Can they endure?"

"Alas!"

Upon hearing this question, Ma Zhipuapu’s expression instantly darkened, pursing his lips without speaking. Kepili felt a pang in his heart, sensing ominous forebodings.

"Apu! The two of them, wouldn’t they have already? Already?!"

"No! Don’t speak nonsense, ptooey ptooey! That Tai Giant Eagle guy is as strong as a jaguar, fat and robust, promptly treated; it seems like he can endure! But... but Mique, he... their canine descendants’ bodies..."

Saying this, Ma Zhipuapu’s eyes turned red, moist again, and his vision blurred. He seemed to see the red-haired Mique’s dull, swollen face and that comatose high fever, resembling a fish dying onshore. He wiped his eyes, whispering.

"The canine descendants are swift and agile, but thin and not robust, inferior to the Samurais by a lot... these guys usually don’t cherish themselves, making all efforts without care. When facing a deadly infection, they don’t think about surviving, still talking nonsense about having lived enough, ready to return to Earth Mother’s embrace!... "

"Right now, out of forty or fifty infected canine descendant shooters, half have already died from the illness! They still have ten days to go until the scabbed phase, with ten more days of dangerous torment, that’s the peak of death!... "

"I... I fear, judging by Mique’s condition, he might... might not endure! A couple of days ago, he kept asking me to tell Red-haired Chabo something. I covered his mouth, not letting him speak, fearing if he said it, he’d be gone. But now his fever doesn’t subside, unconscious. I feel terrified again, fearing he left no final words... woo woo! Of my fifteen brothers, only two survived! The rest all died from the plague! And the brothers I brought to the island, a full fifty of them, fifty!... "

Seeing Ma Zhipuapu’s teary face, Kepili’s eyes also reddened, speechless for a moment. Priest Martin remained silent; although he didn’t understand the camaraderie between the Kingdom generals, he could sense the relation between Cuba Kingdom generals was much closer than within the Kingdom of Portugal. This resembled less a mature monarchic Kingdom, more like the early records of Germanic Tribes rising from the forest...