"...Sir…" Mosa wheezes as his mouth opens, blood oozing at the corners.
The lord puts his firm yet gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Can you speak?"
Mosa raises his head slightly to meet the Lord's gaze.
I'm not even sure that I can make it to the next minute…
But I have to.
ACK! ACK!
More blood splashes on the ground as his body convulses.
"Where's the damn waiter with the healer?!" Snoino mutters, his foot rapidly tapping against the cold stone.
Mosa grunts—His breath, ragged but stronger.
I can't die here!
Even If for just a moment more…
Mosa clenches his blood covered hand—so tightly that it spurts…
I have to pass on what I know.
So it won't be in vain!
A fire lit in his abdomen. Warm and cold at once, it surges through his fading body.
Mosa snaps his head up, staring at the lord, his face marked by three scars across the lip, medium-length hair, and a cold, unreadable gaze.
"I-It…was…" Mosa's lips part.
Blood flowing as he pushed words out.
His jaw clenched. His body trembled.
"I-It w-wasn't the marauders…" He swallows hard.
"...It was the king sir."
"Him and his damn forces!"
The words echoed, landing like hammers in the quiet.
Just like that, as quick as a snap, the Lord's face turns pale, eyes hollow.
So did everyone else's.
"...What do you mean by this?" Snoino's voice tightens.
"Are you absolutely sure?!" Sweat glistens down his temple.
Mosa nodded, blood dripping from his nose.
Snoino's face froze, his mouth agape, hands unmoving.
"Hmm…" The lord breathes out as he lowers his head slightly.
"And how are you so sure of this?"
Mosa enters his gaze with bloodshot eyes.
"I ordered Fashma to tell the garrison defence to assist the king's forces with outlaws…"The lord fixes a piercing gaze on the man decorated with badges on his left chest.
"Y-Yes my lord! I did exactly that!" Fashma swiftly bows with his hands glued to his side.
"You do know what you're accusing him of, don't you?" The lord turns back towards Mosa. His tone a blade.
Mosa's head sways left to right.
His breathing, shallow.
…
"Y-Yes sir… I'm sure…" Mosa nods his voice barely a whisper.
"They wore the king's clan's crest."
Those words broke something on the lord's face, like a mask cracking.
Suddenly, images tore against Mosa's eyes, his body stiffening.
Its as if I'm right there again…
Arrows…
Hundreds of them…
The blue sky dotted black…
The sun, gone.
Just like a god's retribution.
Their screams and grunts still lingering.
The wind gently blew the bushes and the leaves on the trees.
The stench of death, bodies littered everywhere.
Outlaws…
And men from the garrison.
"Ahhhhn!" Mosa screamed, veins bulged on his neck as he clutched his leg.
Can't believe I took an arrow to the knee.
Blood erupted from it like a volcano.
Other soldiers were shot down, anywhere from between the forehead to the chest.
Everywhere dropping like flies.
Then there they were…off in the horizon. Their horses, thumping against the earth.
They swung their swords into our men.
"ARGH!" Mosa widened his mouth as he shouted, his face all red.
"Oh no…" A fellow soldier beside him stood up, all covered in dirt and blood.
"We gotta run." He said as he looked like he had just seen a ghost.
"No…" Mosa gripped the arrow tightly, pulling it as he sweated more profusely.
More blood all over as his flesh released it.
He quickly put his two hands on the wound and applied pressure.
*Huff* *Huff* *Huff*
There…all better…
"…"
"We can still at least do something…" As Mosa tossed the damn arrow to the side.
"Are you retarded?" The soldier said while the helmet hid his face. His blonde hair flowed out of the sides.
But even the helmet on his face couldn't hide the disgust.
Mosa's eyebrow twitched as he subtly recoiled.
"We're short on men…" The soldier sighs.
"You're injured as well, and on your leg of all places!" He pointed at Mosa's leg.
"How do you want to even run?! Let alone fight?!" He put his finger on his temple as his voice raised up.
"..." Mosa's vision, fixed on his injured knee.
This can't be it…right?
"No… what's the least we can do? Huh?" The soldier waved his hands in the air.
"Arghh…"
He stopped as he gently pressed his right arm.
He was bleeding from his shoulder area.
"There's no hope for us."
"They're on horses and we're on foot." His eyes facing downwards into a puddle of blood, his face barely reflecting in it.
The remaining soldiers—the ones that could still run at least.
All passed them by… Some even dropped their helmets, parts of their armour.
They bolted away.
Mosa, his hands tensed up as he took in a deep breath.
"Even if we run—"
An arrow swiftly flew towards them, it moved at what seemed as instant as sound itself.
Their eyes seeing this, but their bodies not able to react in time.
They both braced themselves in anticipation of whoever it'll hit.
…
But they felt nothing.
"AHHHR!!"
Instead… a soldier that was running behind them, his chest plate gone, an arrow sticking out of his back.
THUD!
The soldier beside Mosa sighs…
" —It still wouldn't make a difference." His eyes sockets, hollow.
The soldier's body dropped towards the ground.
"No… it can't be…" Mosa's face squinted as his eyes dotted hastily.
His face relaxes…
"So this is it huh…" He slowly released his hands from his knee.
"No…not exactly…" The fellow soldier continued.
Mosa looked at the soldier, his eyebrows about to touch each other.
"That your will to fight… it could come in handy…"
"And it sort of gives hope…y'know…"
"But what could you mean?" Mosa looked directly at him.
His face squeezed up like paper.
"You just said that—"
"Yes! I do know what I just said!" The fellow soldier interjects.
"Allow me to finish dammit!"
"We don't have much time left before they get here."
He came closer to me as the thumping of the horses and shouts became louder.
Squatting his knees and extending his hand out forward.
"Give me your leg." He grabbed my leg where the wound was.
"What could you do?" My breath shakes as blood spurts.
Shit I'm losing blood fast… think Mosa! Think!
"What do you wanna do with it?"
He asked him, his eyes all over his face.
"Grrr…" The fellow soldier groans as he drags Mask's knee closer.
He hovered his hand over his knee.
Then suddenly out of nowhere.
A black star shaped thing appeared above the wound.
"What? I know this…" My mind, disarranged, It scanned through memories as my eyes dotted around the thing.
"This is gonna hurt…" He sighed.
He then stood up, his hand still hovered above Mosa but for him, another star-shaped thing appeared on his right knee.
But it was above his like it was for mine. This time a burn mark in the shape of the thing was on the cloth around his knee.
All of a sudden—
—The thing over Mosa's own knee started spinning.
It spun around and around at an incredible speed.
The injury started to close up…
Every fibre around it was growing back…
Bit by bit…
Till it finally all grew back together.
The wound was completely gone… as if it never happened in the first place.
The black thing still spun around, but it evaporated into the air.
N-No way…
As sweat rolls down Mosa's face.
"Hehe." The fellow soldier chuckled.
Then over his right knee where the burn mark was, it had seemed to turn into ashes and was blown off to the wind as the patches of tall grass and weeds also danced in the wind.
In its absence, blood stains appeared over his knee, penetrating the cloth area rapidly.
"Ahh!" As he grunted and fell towards the ground.
"Dammit…" He cursed under his breath.
Maso's neurons clicked.
"Wait–You're a healer?!"
—The end of chapter 2—