"Sir!"
I bark at the top of my lungs, tearing through the idle chatter in the room.
Busting through those thick heavy doors.
It goes quiet.
Every damn head turns…
Their faces are so clean, so well fed.
"The king was so generous, wasn't he?" A man sips his wine.
His cheeks, a plumpy red.
If only they knew…
My sword drags…
Not because it's heavy…
I clearly just lack the strength to lift it anymore…
People cover their ears against the screech.
If they think this is a sight… they should've been there…
Those stuck up waiters.
Their trays trembling.
Almost as if in tandem with the screeching of my blade.
Hmm… not so different from my bones probably about now hehe…
They stare, work forgotten.
No one offers me help at least?
…
A lone piece of gold rolls forward. Slow.
Dominating the silence.
The banners above seem to sway.
With what wind though…
Almost like they want to fall…
The only person sitting up high…
My great lord.
High on his gold and silver throne.
Radiating power.
Our power.
What we stand for!
…
He fixes his gaze on me.
A confused one at that.
I need to tell him…
Mustering all the strength that's left…
I move towards him…
Each clank of my dented breastplate echoes my fractured breath.
Crimson stains the once polished steel.
Thick, wet.
My crest, tarnished…
Unrecognisable.
Drying to a dull brown crust.
My right leg buckles with each step, dragging it across the polished ground.
Leaving a slick, dark smear that widened with each gruntled, agonizing step.
"Ughn! That smell?!" A lady uses her cloth to cover her big nose.
"Eww!" Other ladies follow.
Drones to a queen bee.
The metallic scent of the armour and blood hangs heavy in the air.
An eerie silence looms over the people.
"Mosa…?" An old man with his voice breaking halfway.
Well what a sight for sore eyes…
My mouth, struggling to smile.
Almost didn't have recognised him.
If it wasn't for his signature bulk.
It's that bastard Snoino…
Hahaha…Glad to see his plumpy face.
His silver goblet, meaningless now.
And he does love his wine.
He rushes towards me.
Silver clatters.
The wine spills.
Staining it, making the stone floor bleed.
"Oh no… Mosa my boy…" Snoino gets closer to me with each step.
ZAPP—
ARGH!
Shit…
My legs…
They twist under me…
Boneless…
I'm losing my balance…
Quickly I use my blood and rust stained sword to stop myself from kissing the hard marble.
Only my right knee touching the ground.
My left still upright…
Although bent.
…My chest—
ACK! ACK!
"Charitas, this is disgusting!" White bony hands cover a mouth.
"No he's fought well…" A man grasping the sword on his waist.
General Fashma…
His knuckles, red.
His veins, ready to burst.
Blood droplets on the ground.
Mine?...
My free hand covers my mouth.
Blood seeps through the gaps between my fingers.
"No No No…No…" Snoino reaches me.
Actually surprised he could move that quick.
"Haha–"
–ACK ACK!!!
He holds me.
Supporting me…just like he always has.
Rust and blood stain his odd, yet fitting clothes.
"Hehe…"
"Still have that weird style…"
The air thins in my lungs.
I feel myself teetering between light and darkness.
My lips part…
It requires effort now…
A wheezing sound emanates from my mouth…
"They…T-They… Came…"
The Adam's apple in my throat feels like it will burst.
"What happened? Speak, my boy!"
Snoino presses his hand on my chest.
His hand recoils.
My insides, hollow.
Lungs fighting to pump air.
My lord leans closer, fingers tapping the throne's edge.
Cat's eyes on me.
"What is the meaning of all this?!" He grunts.
I stare back.
My vision blurs.
Can't focus.
N-No… I can't…
Nah… look at me…
It's already too late…
I have to… at least.. pass it on.
Blood drips, thick.
Gravity's pull stronger with each drop.
"My…Lord…"
"T-They… Those bastards!"
I slam my teeth together.
My muscles tense up.
My body, shaking.
"No… save your strength Mosa…" Snoino's motherly voice…
Well he was something exactly like that…
Even better than her…
"Someone get me a healer!"
"Or are you all just dumb?!"
His voice slams right into my ears.
"Y-Yes sir…" A waiter bows.
He runs.
Forgetting his tray mid air.
"Mosa…" That voice…
That voice that I swore my life to…
He rises. Throne seems to shine brighter.
Every one of his steps commanding authority.
My neck loosing all strength…
My head falls.
"My lord." Snoino bows his head down.
Others follow.
…Damn I feel awful that I can't even raise my head to look at him…
Even my head as it's bowed down isn't of my own control…
Can't see him.
But his presence growing more and more…
So that means…
He must be coming here… towards me!
"Mosa was it?" Authority oozes.
"Yes sir!" Snoino answers for me.
"I see…"
"Your armour…"
"I take that you're part of the garrison defence right?"
That's just my lord!
He's already figured out what branch I'm from.
Just by looking at me…
Even in my current state!
"Y-Yes…sir…" The words wheeze from my mouth…
"What happened?"
"Do you have the strength to speak?"
"..."
ACK! ACK! ACK!
More blood…
"To be honest sir… I don't even know…"
Not sure if I have any strength left in me to even make it to the next minute…
"Where's that damn waiter with the healer?" Snoino mutters.
His foot tapping the cold stone.
But… I have to tell him…
Then as if I'm right there again…
Arrows flash right in my eyes.
The blue sky dotted black…
The sun, gone.
Hundreds of them in the air descending on us.
Just like a god's retribution.
Their screams and grunts still lingering.
No!
I can't die here!
Even If for just a moment more…
I grasp my blood covered left hand.
So tightly that the blood there spurts…
I have to pass on what I know.
So it won't be in vain!
Suddenly, I feel a fire lit right in my abdomen.
So warm and at the same time fiesty.
My neck forces my head back up.
Blood flowing from my mouth as I try to speak.
"I-It… was…"
No! I can't!
My teeth grinding against each other.
Sparks would've formed, if not for blood.
"I-It…wasn't the marauders…"
"It was… the king sir!"
"It was his damn forces!"
Immediately, my Lord's face…soulless.
Not only him…
The people around all gasp.
I hear silver clattering on the ground.
Wine drips.
Snoino's face mirrors the Lord's.
"What do you mean by this?"
"Mosa, are you absolutely sure?"
"I hope you're just being your usual block headed self." Snoino's sweat glistens.
"…How are you so sure that it was the king?"
"I ordered Fashma to tell the garrison defence to go help the king's forces with outlaws…"
My Lord's piercing gaze on Fashma.
"Y-Yes My lord, you did! And I carried it out accordingly!" He immediately bows, his hands glued to his body.
"You do know what you're saying has weight?" My lord turns back.
His voice, stern cold.
Trying to collect my breaths…
I can't even feel my own chest going up.
"Y-Yes sir… I'm sure…"
"Our assaulters had the king's clan's crest."
It seems that just that phrase alone—cemented the lost face on my lord.
Then like a dam, bursting with raging water.
Memories violently flooded my brain.
The wind gently blowing the bushes and the leaves on the trees.
The irritating smell of corpses I've already grown used to.
I see dead outlaw bodies from my left to my right…
…But also ours too…
I took an arrow to the knee.
Blood erupted from it as if it was a volcano.
Two men besides me…
Instantly dropped to the ground.
One shot right in his forehead.
The other, in his throat.
The rest that were ahead of me…
All dropped like flies.
Then there they were…
Off in the horizon.
Their horses, thumping against the earth.
They swung their swords into our men.
"ARGH!" I widened my mouth as I shouted, veins bulging on my neck.
"Oh no…we gotta run." A fellow soilder besides me said as he looked like he had just seen a ghost.
"No…"
I gripped the arrow tightly.
Pulling it with all my might.
Blood spewed all over as my flesh released it.
I immediately put my two hands on the wound, applied pressure.
*Huff* *Huff* *Huff*
"…"
"We can still at least do something…" As I 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 I saw the disgust on his face.
I felt it.
"We're short on men, you've even injured your knee."
"Which means you can't even run…"
"I'm all out of energy and injured as well." He pressed his right arm gently.
Blood oozed out from his shoulder area.
"There's no hope for us."
"They're on horses and we're on foot."
As our fellow soldiers…
…The ones that could still run at least.
All passed us by… Some even dropped their helmets, parts of their armour.
They bolted.
"Even if we run—"
An arrow quickly flew towards us.
It moved at what seemed as instant as sound itself.
As our eyes saw this.
We both braced ourselves…
But I felt nothing.
"AHHHR!!"
Instead… a soldier that was running behind us.
Chest plate gone, arrow sticking out of his back.
THUD!
" —It still wouldn't make a difference."
The soldier's body dropped towards the ground.
"No… it can't be…" My face tried to grasp reality.
"So this is it huh…" I slowly released my hands from my knee.
"No…not exactly…" He continued.
"That your will to fight… it could come in handy…"
"And it sort of gives hope…y'know…"
"But what could you mean?" I looked directly at him.
My face squeezed up like paper.
"You just said that—"
"Yes! I do know what I just said!" He shouted.
"Allow me to finish dammit!"
"We don't have much time left before they get here."
He came closer to me.
Squatting his knees.
"Here gimme your leg." He grabbed my leg where the wound was.
"What could you do?"
"What do you wanna do with it?"
I asked him, my eyes all over his face.
He hovered his hand over my knee.
Then suddenly out of nowhere.
A black star shaped thing appeared above the wound.
"What? I know this…" My mind, puzzled.
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 me.
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 my own knee started spinning.
It spun around and around at an incredible speed.
Then my 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 I never had it in the first place.
The black thing still spun around.
But it evaporated into the air.
No other way for me to had processed what just happened to it.
"...No way…"
I couldn't believe what just happened.
"Hehe." He 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.
It was flowing around his cloth area rapidly.
"Ahh!" As he grunted and fell towards the ground.
"Dammit…" He cursed under his breath.
Then suddenly my neurons clicked.
"Wait–You're a healer?!"
He breathes heavily as blood flows down the cloth.
"Y-Yeah…Got contracted with a god of healing before all this." He chuckled.
"But why?" My face still looked puzzled.
"Your will to still want to fight… even though its futile." He said as he pressed the wound.
"That spirit… It just can't go to waste."
"Since the others are running for their lives…" He removed one of his hands from the wounded area.
He pointed his bloodied hand right at me.
It was shaking as it was suspended in the air.
"You need to inform the rest… you need to inform the lord… what just happened."
At that moment, I didn't know what I could reply with.
My eyes just widened—staring right at him as he was staring at me.
I heard the shouts and the horses with their hooves digging into the ground getting closer.
"Now go! Before it'll all be in vain."
Out of haste, I quickly stood up and made my way into the bushes.
I paused.
"What about you? And why do all this?" I looked back at him.
There as he sat on the ground with the rest of the corpses.
His face quickly spoiled into rage.
"Are you dumb?! I had just told to go before they get here!"
"Don't ask me stupid questions or it all would've been for naught."
The intensity of those words—his voice.
They were so sharp and thick that I was forced to swallow my own spit.
I shakily nodded my head at him.
He replied with spitting to the ground.
Then just as soon as I blinked.
I saw a tall man standing right in front of him.
He was covered in a long black coat with a hood.
Everything from head to toe was covered in black—I couldn't even see his skin.
What seemed out of a nightmare…
A long black spike emerged from him.
It went right through my comrade's head.
The head was still stuck with that look of hate—staring right at me.
I finally saw the horses with the men on top of them nearing them.
They shouted and laughed as they rode past the man and the corpse.
W-Wait… that symbol…
It's a crest…
I tried to make what it was as they passed by.
It was all blurry and the leaves and branches blocked my vision the more.
The man in all black, slowly moved his head.
And looked directly at me.
My skin whitened as I ran.
My heart skipped a beat.
Not looking where I was going…
BAM!
My head collided with a branch.
For a moment…
I saw black and white…
The hit caused me to loose my balance…
I then slipped passed the bushes, with the tiny thorns and branches scratching me.
And rolled down hill.
My metal armour colliding with my body.
My body smacked a large stone.
The pain spreading all over my body and not stopping as I tumbled downwards.
Only a river on the flat bottom of the hill stopping me.
"Ughhhh…" Groaning as I couldn't feel my body.
The sound of the river drowning out my moans…
…And also my vision and hearing.
Everything then washed out to nothing.
…
"Huhhhh?!"
I gasp back for air.
My lungs seemed to have stopped for a moment.
I feel them raising…
Then suddenly they deplete once more.
Opening my blurry eyes to see that I'm right on Snoino's laps.
I could see him…
He seems to be having a conversation with somebody.
My hearing though blocked…
I could still make what they were saying…
"Where is that damn waiter with the healer?!" He shouts.
"Do you all want him to die?!"
"What's taking so damn long?!"
"If what he said was true…then that means…" My lord still looking puzzled.
"And right after we offered for us to become a noble clan."
General Fashma, his hands rubbing against his temples.
He breathes out of his mouth.
Huh…Everyone's mind is racing—but for some reason…
…Mine is clear…
I feel so at peace than I was a few moments ago.
Hehe well I did it… you happy now?...
My mouth slowly forming into a smirk.
"I can't believe the King did this…after everything we've done for him."
"Even gave up being outlaws."
My lord, clenching his fist.
Gnawing his teeth as veins slither up his hands.
Snoino looks towards my bloodied face.
His eyes suddenly droopy.
His brows wrinkled together.
"Don't worry… Everything is—"
I…suddenly couldn't hearing him anymore.
What's happening?
My vision becoming blurry.
I'm trying to speak… but I can't even move my lips.
Air isn't even blowing out.
But I still feel that warm feeling.
Slowly I try to move my hands.
My right hand was on my stomach…
It felt so warm and moist.
Then it struck me—It was my blood.
So I've been bleeding there all this while huh?
Damn…
So that warm feisty energy I felt earlier… was just…
Nah too late to think of it now…
At least I've warned them… I was useful to very end.
Hahaha
Why I'm I at this much ease?
Is it because there's this odd silence?
Not even a ringing noise… Just complete silence…
The evening light piercing through a window.
Shining on my bloodied and worn out body.
Illuminating the dust particles in the air.
As they flow upwards and towards the window.
I just… admire it.
My eyes, slowly closing…
My mouth gapped apart…
My muscles, loosening up…
My body slowly going numb…
Everything fades to drakness… complete black just like that man…
I…Can't…even…
...
…
No sound can be heard, even his light breaths came to a complete halt.
Snoino's face growing from caring…to something more dreadful.
"Hey… Mosa?" Snoino gently taps him on the face.
"Mosa!" He then slaps him on face repeatedly.
"No…"
Tears immediately began to fill up his old weary eyes.
The lord, clenching his fist as he's standing there just like a statue.
General Fashma, bowing his head down.
An eerie silence enveloped the room.
So silent that if a pin was dropped…
It'll be heard.
The people around not even moving…
Their heads down.
They seemed to have turned into statues as well.
"MOSA!!!!"
"NO!!!!"
Only Snoino's cries filled up the room.
Giving life back to it.
"Heyy… I finally found a healer… and someone that we could use as a—" The waiter finally comes in.
Walking gleefully.
His smile as bright as his white teeth.
Everyone stares at the waiter.
"How dare you?!" Snoino shouts at him.
He grabs Mosa's worn down sword.
He throw's it at the waiter.
"Eeek!"
The waiter ducks down with his hands above his head.
CLANK! CLANK
The sword hitting the wall behind him.
"What took you so long?!" General Fashma raises his voice, a lone vein bulging on his forehead.
The lord standing there, still stiff.
He grunts and mumbles to himself.
"I swear… I swear…"
"They will pay…"
"He will pay…!"
The gold and silver ornaments, blocks, decor and cutlery started trembling.
Even the throne itself started wobbling and glowing.
The evening light above Snoino and Mosa.
The dust particles seemingly absorbing the lights coming from the windows.
Flowing towards the window themselves.
As birds fly past the old stronghold.
Care-free and oblivious to what had just happend—no… to any of the world's woes.
Only going where they feel like going, as they fly into the sun.
The light blinding.
…
Then somewhere off…
Far from what just happened…
Birds fly overhead on someone riding a horse as it drags its foot through the mud.
Wind softly blows, moving the person's hair and the horse's mane.
"Tch!"
I just hate this!
—The end of chapter 1—