Nalyx headed for the desk. “Bandage change,” he said simply, holding up his hands, and the nurse at the desk smiled at him. “Take a seat. I’ll put you on the list. It shouldn’t be more than half an hour until someone can see you.”
He nodded, then led Gantalla over to the row of chairs.
“Is this sort of thing common?” Gantalla asked Nalyx, as they both took a seat. “There was no hospital in my hometown. Okay, so it wasn’t a very large town,” she amended quickly. For all she knew, hospitals were commonplace in the human world, and she might well sound odd for not knowing that. But back in Ranaka, there had been no such place. Anyone who was injured went to see the local witch, or if the injury was severe, to one of the mages.
“Not really,” Nalyx said. “The bigger cities usually have one, but they’re nothing like as big or as fancy as this. This one’s mostly because we have the gate. A lot of warriors are injured on a regular basis and we need somewhere to treat them. And then, since it’s here, the rest of the townsfolk make use of it as they need it. Most towns just have a healer or a herbalist and make do the best they can with that. But we’ve got five doctors and twelve nurses. Palashran’s got a hospital, but it’s only got two doctors. We’re very lucky.”
“Have you been injured before?”
Nalyx shrugged, intending to brush the question aside… but then he reconsidered. Most of the townsfolk would look down on him if he admitted to getting himself injured, seeing it as a failing as a warrior, but he was rapidly learning that Gantalla had quite a different view of the world. “A few times,” he said. “Mostly just superficial cuts. But during one of my first cycles at the gate, I got stabbed. Green demon, small but quick. I spent a week in bed with a raging infection. Thought I was going to die at one point. But the herbalists here are pretty special. They got the infection under control, and somehow I managed to pull through.” He looked sideways at her. “What about you? Ever been badly injured?”
“No. Never. One of my brothers broke his arm as a child. He fell out of a tree. But it healed well.” Being the king, her father had sent for the town mage, and the man had spent three hours casting spells over the boy, finally reporting to her father that the arm was set, and then going on his way with a bag of gold for his efforts. But so far, Gantalla had neither seen nor heard any hint of magic in this human world, so she left out that part of the story.
“Most of the injuries here are pretty minor, if you don’t count the ones from the warriors. Someone burned themselves in a fire, or an axe slipped and cut their leg.” He nodded to where the pregnant woman was scolding her child. “They’ve got a birthing ward, as well. That’s a big thing for the women. A lot of women die in childbirth, but here, they manage to save at least half of the ones who run into trouble.”
Gantalla felt a flush of warmth at the knowledge. The humans weren’t all barbarians and savages, then. If they took the time to look after their women and children, perhaps that made up for some of the slaughter that happened at the gate? After all, the women who had carted away the dead bodies had said they believed the warriors kept them safe. How odd it all was, seeing the other side of the situation. But nonetheless, Gantalla felt uncomfortable about it. In Chalandros, most people believed the humans were brutal and unfeeling. And here, the humans believed her own people were demons. How different might their two worlds be if they ever managed to see things from another perspective?
Suddenly, the front door burst open and a frantic woman rushed inside. “Help me! My boy’s dying! Help me! Somebody, he’s choking!” She was carrying a small child in her arms, screaming hysterically. The nurse at the desk leapt up and ran over to her, and a moment later, two more nurses rushed in from down the hall. One of them took one look at the limp boy in the woman’s arms and immediately turned around.
“I’ll get a doctor,” she called, as she sprinted for the hallway.
“Easy. Let them do their job,” Nalyx said, planting an arm in front of Gantalla, and Gantalla realised she was on her feet, her heart pounding.
“Give him here,” the nurse from the desk said. She took the boy in her arms and tipped him forward, striking his back hard. “What’s he choking on?”
“We were eating over in the square,” the boy’s mother said, tears streaming down her face. “He was eating a grape, then he started choking.”
The nurse shoved her fingers into the boy’s mouth, but came up with nothing.
The door to the hallway opened and a man rushed through, with greying hair and a wrinkled face. “Let me see him,” he ordered, and the nurses parted. He took the boy and laid him out on the floor. He was a tiny thing, and Gantalla guessed he could only be about five years old. Her heart broke for the woman. To lose a child so young was horrendous.
The doctor held his hand above the boy’s mouth, feeling for breath, then bent down and pressed his ear to his chest. The boy’s mother, along with the nurses, waited for long seconds, expressions of horror frozen on all their faces.
Then the doctor sat back, his entire body sagging. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his bushy eyebrows furrowing. “He’s gone to join the gods.”
“No!” the woman screamed. “He’s not dead. You have to save him! He’s my only boy! You have to save him!” She lashed out, battering the doctor about his shoulders, but he merely shook his head.
“I’m sorry. He’s not breathing. There’s nothing I can do.”
Before she’d even realised she was moving, Gantalla found herself marching across the room, and she actually shoved one of the nurses aside. “How long ago did he choke?” she asked the woman.
“Gantalla! Leave him be,” she heard Nalyx shout at her.
“Not two minutes ago. We were only across the street, in the town square.”
Though the nurse had already done so, Gantalla stuck her fingers in the boy’s mouth, finding nothing inside that might have choked him. She picked him up, turning him upside down, then, supporting his body with her knee, she struck him hard right between his shoulder blades, once, twice, three times.
A small, green object flew out of his mouth and landed on the floor. Gantalla had no idea what a ‘grape’ was, but this object looked just the right size and shape to choke a small child.
She set him back on the floor, lying on his back, and knelt down. Then she placed her hands over his heart and thrust downwards.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the doctor demanded.
Gantalla didn’t answer. She couldn’t use her full weight, she remembered, since this was only a child, but she set up a rapid rhythm, shoving her palms against his chest, right over where his heart would be. Once she’d counted to thirty, she paused, covering the boy’s mouth with her own and puffing a breath into his lungs. She was careful not to breathe too much air into him. His lungs would be a lot smaller than hers. Then she started pumping his chest again.
“Get the hell away from him,” the doctor ordered, but out of the corner of her eye, Gantalla saw Nalyx step between her and the doctor.
“Let her work,” he said, calm and commanding.
