Blood

Blood flowed from the wound, but the harpoon had only penetrated a few centimeters into the body. It was stuck in the muscles. If Aron had not covered the skin in this spot with an aura at the last moment, the force behind the harpoon would have pierced right through him and it would have been the end of him.

The stunned young man looked around and almost immediately raised his head towards his attacker. The creature who had thrown the harpoon was a large hobgoblin standing ten meters away from him. The hobgoblin was bigger than the last one Aron had met. Its dark green skin made it barely visible at night.

Both Aron and the hobgoblin were panting. When the hobgoblin saw that his goblins were losing, he ran out of the woods to try to save them and targeted the young knight to quickly end the battle.

Aron knew he didn't have time. The adrenaline gave him strength and, gritting his teeth, he tore the harpoon out of his side, almost fainting from the pain.

The hobgoblin was frozen. He had been surprised to see the man rip the harpoon from his body, making him even more scared of him. He had assumed that his attack would go smoothly and that weak people would quickly be on their plates. Now, after throwing his favorite weapon, he stood there unarmed, defenseless, a few meters from the wounded Aron.

The young man knew that with a wound in his side, his combat abilities had dropped by half, and he had exhausted his entire aura to save his life. He had to act fast and stop the bleeding as quickly as possible, or kill the monster faster than he would lose all blood. However, the goblins were also fast. The few remaining archers, seeing the wounded opponent, began to draw new arrows on the strings. The hobgoblin was also shaken. Aron jumped towards him and the hobgoblin drew his ax and covered himself with it.

As soon as the young man took a step towards opponent, he miraculously avoided all the arrows that landed in the place where the wounded man stood moments ago.

The first blows of the wounded knight struck the void as the creature dodged back. After a while, as part of a counterattack, he swung towards the young man, shortening the distance. The hobgoblin wondered why a stupid man fought and did not run even though he was heavy wounded. However, Aron, awaiting a blow from the hobgoblin, was already making another slash towards him.

Seeing this, the hobgoblin at the last moment managed to postpone his death by sacrificing his left hand. A severed dark green limb whirled in the air and fell at the feet of the young knight.

Meanwhile, the rest of Silem's defenders, seeing the wounded master, lunged with even greater verve at the goblins. Five spearmen led by Morris in a simple formation pierced everything in their path with their spears. Bron himself, wanting to save his master, broke through the goblin lines and went to save him.

Several archers stood in his way, and he cut them almost in half without hesitation. Without a shirt, covered with gust and blood looked like a berserker. Everything that stood in his way was deprived of life. When he was not far away, he saw that Aron was just cutting off the strongest opponent's hand.

This moment changed everything. A terrible squawk escaped from the hobgoblin's mouth and when he made distance from the knight, immediately ran straight for the forest without his hand. All the goblins seeing this, began to flee, leaving behind their wounded and dead comrades on the hill. All of the goblin silhouettes disappeared in a blink of an eye beyond the line of trees.

After a few moments, there were only tired people on the slope. But no one let their guard down. Bron ran up to Aron immediately and asked worriedly.

"Are you okay sir?"

Aron now was barely keeping on his feet. With one hand on the sword stuck in the ground and the other clutching his side, he looked at the henchman.

"How can everything be okay with a bleeding hole in the side? You... better help me… let's go to the camp before we bleed out. "

Aron replied, moving his unsteady step upwards.

"We?"

The squire asked in surprise.

"Well… that arrow... in your arm... will stay there permanently?"

Only now did Bron remember he had been hit by an archer. It wasn't anything serious, but a lot of blood flowed from the wound. His master's life, however, was more important to him than such a scratch. So he quickly took a wounded knight under his good hand.

Aron looked around the battlefield and ordered the rest of his man in a waning voice.

"Kill the wounded and clean this mess... If something can be useful to the village... take it... You have to ... Stay ... vigilant, the goblins may return. "

"As soon as you command, my lord!"

Five men answered at the same time. Fortunately, neither of them had any more serious wounds apart from small scratches. Only Aron and Bron, who acted alone, were injured more severely.

Seeing that the battle was over, from the camp came voices of cheering. After a while the lumberjacks were bringing Aron and placed him on the table in front of one of the hats. Amilia started dressing Aron's worse wound straight away.

Three men who did not take part in the fight guarded the hat and women, in case the enemy attacked even from a different side. Now the lumberjacks and the new farmer, with axes in their hands, were looking every now and then at the wounded master.

"It doesn't look very good."

Frightened, Amilia said as soon as she cleaned the wound. The hole was torn by the pugnacious harpoons. Fortunately for him, the weapon bypassed important organs, from the wound was flowing blood in normal color. However, the sheer magnitude of the injuries was quite large. After cleaning her, seeing blood flowing, Amilia had an idea.

"I have to sew it up, the wound is too big! I heard that medics from cities where there are no magicians who know healing magic do just that to heal similar wounds. "

Aron, due to the pain and the loss of blood, was dizzy. Pulling the harpoon out certainly didn't help. So, barely keeping consciousness, the young man could no longer delay his decision. If he wants to survive, he has to let her act, so he nodded. Amilia rushed for the needle and thread, which she washed in the water that was already boiling over the fire.

Accepting the seamstress's suggestions with the last of his strength, Aron sent one of his subjects to the tent to bring him a bag. Inside it, was already tested the magister's anesthetic potion.

After applying it to the wound, after a few moments the entire side was already anesthetized. So, wasting no time, Amilia started sewing. Aron, due to stress, fatigue, high blood loss and the anesthetic herb properties, slowly drifted away to the land of sleep.

______

He was awakened by a terrible headache that seemed so strong that it was unnatural.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaa!"

With a scream, he opened his sore eyes from which blood was leaking instead of tears. However, after a while the pain stopped and his body felt extremely light and hot. Blood trickled down his cheeks and now dripped onto the white floor.

He realized that everything around was white. The floor, the sky, the horizon, everything was white. Nothing but white was around. No trees or buildings. Nothing.

The frightened young man only wiggled his eyeballs. But when he tried to move his head or take a step, his body refused to obey him. As if only the eyes were still his.

"Dum"

A sudden sound as if something heavy had hit the ground. Then silence and now much closer again this sound.

"Dum dum!"

Something was clearly approaching him. And with the sound, the pain inside my head kept coming back and growing. But there was nothing in his field of vision. Something must have been approaching from behind. Only the blood that he felt was dripping down his body from his eyes formed puddles at the young man's feet. There was an unnaturally large amount of it and it now covered a few meters from man. Even though he felt blood coming out from his eyes, it wasn't blocking his vision, everything was still white except for the pool of red blood on the ground.

When the pain was unbearable, the sound suddenly stopped. And the blood on the floor, as if waiting for a sign, began to live its own life. Stunned by the pain, the young man was barely able to follow the strange movement. Blood began to rise in the air and formed a pattern. So large that it was barely within the young man's field of vision.

When blood froze in place, the pain stopped as if it had never been there. No new blood was coming out of his eyes. And the young man could finally focus on what he saw in front of his eyes.

The blood formed a circle of runes in the air. He recognized two of them from somewhere. The rest felt familiar too. They were runes that he had already carved in his mind. But when? He did not remember. The very arrangement of the circle reminded him of nothing he had known before.

However, something inside him, some force made him look and remember these runes and their arrangement.

After a moment of glancing, the young man could swear that he understood the meaning stuck in the runes suspended in the air. That they make up the words and words then make up the sentence, and that this sentence is very important. However, the same force that made him look at them, kept him from knowing the truth and the meaning of these words. As if some inner voice in his head was telling him it was too early, that there would be time for it.

He stared at the circle for so long that he forgot quite who he was and why he was looking at those runes. They made up for him the whole and were beautiful. Nothing else existed here except this circle.

Nothing else matters...

Time seemed to stand still for him, it could be a second or an eternity.

He no longer was scared.

Then he closed his eyes. But when he opened them again, the white space was nowhere to be seen. All he saw was a pair of large eyes of a little girl playing with a lock of his hair.

"Aaaaaaaaaa"

A frightened child screamed while falling backwards.