"Without rest, jump ahead!"
After tearing his throat for the third and last time, Ophar tickled the sides of his mount with his heels.
For a moment, Ophar wanted nothing more but to kick with his legs instead, to indicate the greatest level of hurry. His mount was trained well enough to understand the message. And after years spent on the road and in battle, it was aware that following the orders of the human it carried was often, against its instincts, the best way to see the day through.
As much as Ophar wanted to just charge ahead as fast as he could to escape the kill zone... He couldn't. For he wasn't just a simple soldier but a commander, one of the major elements that made up the battalion's morale.
'If I show any sign of panic, they will rout us on just a few steps!'
Despite being in charge of one of the most elite units in the entire empire, Ophar knew better than to trust in the heroics of his people.
They were all veteran who went through hell and back before even getting their nomination to the Golden Legion. And by now, with the great war ending just two years ago, most of his companions were actual survivors of the Lunagar's hell.
All in all, Ophar's people were masters of survival, soldiers who braved through the absolutely worst fighting of the recently concluded war and survived to see the day and tell the tale.
Which, counter-intuitively, meant they weren't as reliable as the legionaries in the normal legions, who knew drill better than their name and feared their sergeants more than the enemy.
'If I show them a single sign of weakness, they will scatter to save themselves,' Ophar thought, gritting his teeth as he adjusted the speed of his mount to match the soldiers both ahead and behind him. 'Ultimately, they are all human. And pride and glory be damned when you are about to lose your life without even knowing!'
In the end, though, the only thing they could do, right now, was to ride as fast as they could to get out of the kill zone of the enemy mage... No, archmage. Or, a bit more realistically, some advanced magical troop who somehow managed to achieve the impossible and conquer the forest without the empire noticing, and now engaged them at a distance to keep their conquered territory safe.
'Whatever it is, we need to...'
BOOM!
A new explosion missed the mark, shattering someone's shield up at the front of their formation. And while the discharged flames went below the rider and slaughtered his mount instead...
Ophar's face tensed up as his heart nearly stopped.
'They were ahead quite a while by now!' His mind screamed out. 'And they were still in the killzone?!'
Ophar never saw anything like what was going on like now. In fact, even the hell of Lunagar couldn't compare to the intensity of the fire they were on the receiving end of.
'It has to be some sort of magical troop,' gritting his teeth, Ophar tickled his horse's sides again. His calmness continued to deteriorate.
Pushed by the strike to his left shoulder, Ophar nearly fell off his horse.
'FUCK!'
The middle-aged man screamed out internally, feeling how at least three different bones, two of which were within his ribcage, gave up under the pressure.
'Shit! Shit! Shit!'
With nothing but curses flying through his mind, Ophar laid himself down on his mount's back before reaching out and grabbing his own crutch.
'FUCK IT ALL!'
Focusing all of his mind on the curse, he collapsed his fingers on the small satchel before slamming it down on his dislocated shoulder.
For the next while, the world around the major lost its value. Filled with nothing but the agony of having his body forcefully restored back to its prime state, he couldn't care less about the ongoing onslaught all around.
The seconds ticked by. Their horses covered the vast distance of the open field at a faster and faster rate.
'We are going too fast...'
With his mind dulled by the pain, Ophar noticed the irregularity.
'Wait, was this some sort of improved artillery spell after all?'
The middle-aged veteran suddenly rose up from his mount's neck. The pain of the crutch was already receding, allowing him to properly gather his thoughts. And once he did...
'Did it stop?'
Even in a state of shock, Ophar wouldn't miss this kind of realization.
For a moment, the attacks stopped. And with how effective those attacks were... There were no pained screams of the wounded to fill the void of silence that suddenly ensued.
For this fleeting moment, only the noise of the hooves striking the decrepit road shook the air. And just like a ray of hope shone upon the major's soul...
BOOM!