Chapter 1: The Great Plague

Part 1 :

“What have I done wrong to see my people suffering like this?”

thought the Proffad as he lay on his death bed.

His tribe had gone through the worst of nature’s vehemence

but nothing had affected them as bad as the epidemic. It started

with the illness which the young ones got while playing in the

great Khaugusa River. They came back feeling sick and could not eat

or sleep properly since. The Medhan who examined the young ones

told them not to go out of their homes and gave to their parents the

Costhemaar. A medicine made from leaves of the Aesache Shrub boiled

along with the Sap of the magical Ghamtaf tree and powdered horn

of Charech.

The Costhemaar had before this healed even the worst of illnesses

that had ever afflicted the tribe of Guandonn. But the young ones

never got better.

They said they felt too pained to even move and could not bear it.

Death consumed them within a short time. The parents even through

their grief thought something was amiss as they too started feeling

the unusual weakness growing in them. Within days nearly everyone

in the tribe had the illness. Something even the Medhans couldn't explain.

Rumors spread that the very air they breathed was cursed.

Darkness spread through the land as fingers were pointed, fights were fought

and death was everywhere. The medhans, whom the tribe believed

to be the ones chosen by the gods,

were now looked upon desperately to somehow end their despair.