Imperial Crown.

Chapter 107 Go Home for Me
The weather in Bloody Heights was as gloomy as ever.

The seriously injured soldiers did not camp by the lake like ordinary soldiers, but chose several houses for accommodation.

Now, outside a civilian house, soldiers of the Eagle Army gathered. Most of them were from the First Battalion led by Mosing Gan. They all had trepidation in their eyes. When they saw Raven coming, they made way for him and saluted him one after another.

Raven nodded in return and made his way through the crowd to the house.

As soon as he entered the room, he smelled a strong stench of decay, the smell of festering wounds.

The room was packed with people, including Eric, Simon, Link, and even Vesdon.

They gathered around the bed, chatting with Mosingam one after another, about what they had seen and heard in the Bloody Highlands over the past month, and the two brutal battles.

They were talking, laughing, and joking, as if it was an ordinary gathering, but when their eyes shifted, there was an lingering sadness in everyone's eyes.

Mosingam lying on the bed had a sallow complexion, the bandages wrapped around his stomach were oozing yellow-brown pus, his face was covered with sweat, but he was surprisingly energetic.

Seeing Raven coming, Mosingan's eyes lit up and he shouted loudly:

"Lord Baron!"

Although the sound was full-bodied, it was like a hammer hitting a clay pot. It was loud, of course, but it made people start to worry for no reason.

Everyone fell silent, took a few steps back and saluted Raven.

Sitting next to Mosing Gan, looking at this soldier who had followed him from the very beginning and seeing the wound on his stomach, Raven felt heavy in his heart.

This day is finally coming.

The healing potion was not a panacea and could not cure the infection of the wound. There was nothing he could do to cure Mosing Gan's injury.

Lei Wen can speak polite words, words for show, words to win people's hearts for three days without repeating himself.

But facing Mosingam at this moment, he didn't want to say a word of this kind. It would be an insult to the soldier and to himself.

But maybe it was because he told too many lies in the past, so when he was asked to speak from the bottom of his heart, he just couldn't say anything.

"You know your own body. I'm afraid I can't hold on for much longer." Facing death, Mosingan showed an open-minded smile: "Baron, before I die, I have one last favor to ask of you."

"Tell me, I'll promise you anything." Raven stared into Mosingan's eyes.

Mosingan was silent for a moment, looked down at the blood-soaked daylily pendant on his chest, and said in a hoarse voice: "Please, Baron, bury my body in the Rustwater Oasis."

"What?" Raven frowned and looked at Mosing Gan in surprise.

Everyone else in the room also froze in place, unable to believe what they heard.

The Nord Province is located in the northwest border of the Keynes Empire. It has a long tradition of ancestor worship and attaches great importance to death.

Although it cannot reach the level of "treating death as life", there has always been a custom of returning the dead to their homeland for burial. No matter where the dead are, they must return to their homeland. This is the persistence in the bones of every Nord.

Only by being buried in one's hometown can the soul return to the embrace of ancestors.

"No!" Volav was the first to step forward and objected, his words were excited: "If you bury it here, what will happen to your family? Your mother is still waiting for you at home. Do you want me to go back and tell her that her son didn't come back and was abandoned outside by us!?"

"Brother, don't worry, listen to me." Mosingam smiled and looked at Volaf, comforting his old friend: "Unlike other brothers, who died quickly and easily, I have a big hole in my stomach. Once the bandage is untied, my intestines will flow out. Not only will my death be ugly, but I will also stink."

"If I really go back like this, it will definitely scare my mother. It's better to let her not see it and not be bothered. She can still have a thought in her heart. When she thinks of me, I am in my best form."

Volav didn't want to accept this reason at all, but before he could say anything, Mosingam began to cough violently.

"Cough-cough-"

Sweat beads fell from his forehead, blood spread and overflowed from the bandage, and Mosing Gan's face began to become more and more pale. "My Lord Baron, I spent the first half of my life in a muddle-headed way, only knowing how to farm. When bandits came, I stayed at home like a quail, not daring to make a sound. It was only after I followed you that I was able to eat enough and know what I should do..."

"So far, I have played with women and killed bandits. I am satisfied that a peasant can die as an extraordinary person! But I feel sorry for my mother and you, my lord..."

Raven felt his heart tighten and his nose blocked, and he could hear Volaf's low sobs in his ears.

"So, my lord..." Mosingan's bloodshot eyes looked at the roof, completely without spirit and focus: "Just bury me here... at the gate of the Bloody Highlands, I will continue to watch for you!"

His face began to turn pale at a speed visible to the naked eye. He inhaled less and less air, exhaled more and more, panting like a bellows, and his voice was as erratic as the wind:
"Vlav..."

Volav rushed to the bedside and held Mosingam's hand, which was frantically grasping at the ground.

With a relieved smile on his face, Moxingan opened and closed his lips gently: "My mother, I'll leave it to you..."

"Go...home...for me..."

After exhaling his last breath, Mosingan's hands slid down to the side of the bed.

The room fell into silence, with only the sound of Volav's suppressed crying and everyone's continuous sobbing.

Raven pursed his lips slightly, grabbed Moxingan's still-warm hand, and began to hum softly.

It was not a prayer from the Church of Light, but a ballad that was popular in the Nordic province.

"The wanderer is buried over there."

"Don't cry, don't be confused."

“Wherever the snow falls, that is my hometown.”

At first, it was just Raven, but gradually, the simple melody began to be sung by everyone, and the resonance vibrated, filling the room.

Bobby, who was guarding outside the door, heard the song and suddenly felt a chill on his face.

He looked up and saw snowflakes falling like goose feathers.

Snowing.

What a heavy snow!

That afternoon, Volav and several other officers dug a grave beside the Rusty Water Lake, buried Mosingam, who was dressed neatly like a knight, in it, and erected a simple tombstone.

"Mosingam - a brave warrior, a dutiful son, and an excellent friend."

On one corner of the tombstone is engraved the emblem of the Eagle Army.

The snow soon covered Mosingam's tomb, blending in with the surrounding environment, as if it had always been there, as it had always been and would be so from now on.

The next morning, the snow stopped and the sky was as clear as a mirror. Raven and his party left the Rustwater Oasis and set out on the journey back to Eagle Territory.

With the experience of the previous march, although there were some unexpected incidents on the way this time, no additional casualties were caused.

Another seven days passed.

At noon on January 1194, 1 in the Guangming calendar, which was the forty-seventh day after the departure.

The outline of Eagle Town finally appeared before Raven's eyes.

……

(End of this chapter)