"You just said that----" Mosa's voice trailed off, confusion etched across his face as he stared at the fellow soldier.
"Yes! I know what I just said!" the soldier interjected, his voice sharp.
"Allow me to finish, dammit! We don't have much time left before they get here." The thumps and shouts grew louder, pounding against the very ground.
He moved closer to Mosa, dropping to his knees, and extended a hand.
"Give me your leg." Without waiting for a response, he firmly grasped Mosa's wounded leg.
"What could you do?" Mosa's breath hitched, a fresh spurt of blood darkening the fabric around his knee.
"What do you want to do with it?" His eyes, wide with a mixture of fear and desperation, scrutinized the soldier's face.
"Grrr…" The soldier groaned, pulling Mosa's knee closer. He hovered his hand over the gash, and suddenly, a black, star-shaped symbol shimmered into existence just above the wound.
What? I know this…
Mosa's disoriented mind raced, frantically searching through fragmented memories as his eyes darted around the strange object.
"This is gonna hurt…" The soldier sighed, a grim resignation in his tone. He then stood, his hand still suspended above Mosa. Over his own right knee, another star-shaped thing appeared.
This one, however, wasn't floating, instead, a distinct burn mark in the shape of the symbol seared itself onto the cloth around his knee.
Then, with a sudden surge, the black symbol over Mosa's knee began to spin. It revolved faster and faster, a blur of motion. As it spun, the injury started to close, every fiber of flesh knitting back together, bit by bit, until it was completely gone----as if the arrow had never struck.
The black symbol continued its furious rotation for a moment longer before dissolving into the air like smoke.
N-No way…
Sweat, cold and slick, rolled down Mosa's face, leaving trails on his dust-streaked skin.
"Hehe," the fellow soldier chuckled, a weak, strained sound. Over his own right knee, where the burn mark had been, the charred fabric seemed to turn to ashes, dissolving and blowing away in the wind.
The patches of tall grass and weeds danced in its wake. In its absence, stark bloodstains blossomed across his knee, rapidly soaking through the cloth.
"Ahh!" The soldier grunted, his body giving out as he crumpled to the ground.
"Dammit…" he cursed under his breath.
Mosa's neurons clicked into place.
"Wait----you're a healer?" Mosa asked as the soldier laid there, breathing heavily, blood seeping steadily from his knee into the dirt beneath him.
"Y-Yeah...Got contracted to a god of healing some time back." The fellow soldier let out a faint chuckle.
"B-But why?" Mosa's face was still squeezed in disbelief and confusion.
"Why what?" the soldier replied, placing a hand over his bleeding knee. The wind lightly rustled the leaves, and the thumping of approaching hooves grew nearer, a relentless rhythm of doom.
"Why do all this? For a random soldier like me?" Mosa stared at him, the area under his eyes sagging with exhaustion and shock.
"...Hahh…" The soldier breathed loudly, a ragged gasp.
How was he bearing this?!
"It's hope," he stated, his voice stern, unwavering despite his pain.
"H-Hope?" Mosa wondered, his hair gently stirred by the slight breeze.
"Your will to still want to fight----even though it's futile." The soldier smiled, a weary, almost defiant curve of his lips.
"It sure is stupid," he added, a light, humorless chuckle escaping him.
"But that spirit…it just can't go to waste." He removed one hand from his wound, motioning vaguely.
"Since the others are running for their lives…" His gaze drifted to the soldier's corpse, the arrow still protruding from its back.
"Some not even having it anymore…"
He then pointed his bloodied hand directly at Mosa, his shaking finger suspended in the air.
"You need to inform the rest----you need to inform the lord about what just happened."
"So they can be ready, so the next troops can be ready!" The soldier's voice resonated in Mosa's head, cutting through the growing chaos.
"For the Lord, this is the little I can do as an appreciation for him." He chuckled again, slow tears forming in his closed eyes, a stark contrast to his resolute tone.
At that moment, Mosa was at a loss for words, his eyes widened, the only sound the pounding of his own heart.
The shouts intensified, and the horses' hooves dug into the dirt, flinging bits of it into the air as they drew closer.
"Now go! Before it'll all be in vain!" the soldier shouted, a spray of spit accompanying his words. propelled by urgency, Mosa scrambled to his feet and instinctively moved towards the bushes.
He paused, gripping his palm, then spun back to face the soldier, who lay prone on the ground.
"At least…"
"...Tell me what your name is."
Horses neighed, and the chilling clanking sound of metal drew closer, already a mere few meters away. The soldier sat on the ground amidst the corpses, his face quickly contorted into a mask of pure rage.
"Are you dumb?! I just told you to go before they get here!" He shouted, throwing his hand in the air in a gesture of exasperation, like one does to shoo a stray dog.
"Don't ask me stupid questions or it all would've been for naught." The intensity of those words, imbued with his raw anger, were so sharp and thick that they physically impacted Mosa, making him sway slightly and lose his footing.
"R-Right!" Mosa shook his head, then turned to flee.
"It's Gerl…" The soldier replied, spitting onto the ground as he faced Mosa's back. The name made Mosa pause, he tightened his grip on nothing, and prepared his legs to bolt.
Gerl…
The name resounded in Mosa's mind, a fresh echo in the cacophony of war.
Then, within a blink, Mosa saw a tall man standing directly in front of the soldier, cloaked in a long black coat with a hood that entirely obscured his face. Everything from head to toe was covered in black----not even a sliver of skin was visible.
What then seemed like a nightmare made real, a long, obsidian spike erupted from the man, piercing straight through Gerl's head.
SPLAT... SPLAT… SPLAT…
Gerl's head remained attached to his body as the spike protruded from the other side, bits of his brain clung to it while his blood dripped onto the dirt already saturated with the dead.
"Gerl!!" Mosa paused and shouted.
The opposing forces on their horses finally reached them, but instead of stopping, they all rode past the man in black, like a swarm of ants flowing around an immovable stone.
W-Wait… that symbol… It's a crest… It looks familiar…
Mosa thought, straining to see the people on horses as they passed. He tried to decipher it, but it was all a blur, compounded by the leaves and branches further obstructing his vision.
The man in all black slowly twisted his neck; each turn sounded like a sickening crack of bone. His head then stopped moving, now facing Mosa's direction, slowly tilting.
Mosa's skin whitened, his hands trembled uncontrollably, and his feet felt nerveless, rooted to the spot. The man in all black began to move gently towards Mosa, the horses still flowing past him.
"Hey, where the heck is he going?" Someone on one of the horses asked as he looked back at the man in black.
"It's best not to question him…" The person beside him answered, a tremor in his voice.
"Or even talk to him." The person behind them both added, his face etched with pure dread. The two in front then looked back at the third person, and fear consumed all of them.
A jolt of electricity finally surged through Mosa's legs. He ran, his feet pounding against the ground as the man in black slowly picked up his pace, his black coat flowing ominously in the wind.
Mosa's heart skipped a beat, sweat beaded and glided across his face, his mind raced with a thousand thoughts as his eyes remained glued to the ground, then---
---BAM!
His head collided with a thick branch, and for a fleeting moment, Mosa's vision exploded into black and white. The impact caused him to lose his balance, sending him sprawling past the bushes, the tiny thorns and sharp branches scratching his skin.
He tumbled down a steep hill, his metal armor clanking against his body as he smacked hard against a large stone. Pain, sharp and unrelenting, spread throughout his body, never ceasing as he continued his uncontrolled descent. Only a river at the flat bottom of the hill finally halted his agonizing roll.
"Ughhhh…" Mosa groaned, unable to feel his body. The rushing sound of the river drowned out his moans, overwhelming his sight and hearing. His vision descended further, everything slowly washing out, until his eyes opened back to a figure's face that blocked out the light behind it.
---The end of chapter 5---