Olimpia

Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—

There was no fanfare for the elves' appearance. And at first, we didn't even know it was them, thinking it was all a dream.

From one second to the next, there was a rush of air, and then the tunnels became quiet.

It was a blissful silence. Something that hadn't occurred in so long that it took us several seconds to understand what we were hearing. Or what we weren't.

We trickled out of the alcoves we were huddling in, trying to rest, and into the main tunnel.

As we exited the chambers, we saw the backs of a line of dumfounded legionaries standing shoulder to shoulder, weapons still raised mid-strike. And beyond them, nothing.

The tunnel, packed with dead bodies moments ago, was empty. There weren't even the constant streams of partially congealed blood leading to the basins we built into the walls to collect the blood.

We asked what happened, but those on duty would only say they were sucked away.

Hesitantly, we walked forward. We thought we were in a dream. We feared that we would wake up the step before exiting our hell.

With every step that we found nothing and got closer to the exit, our fragile hope grew.

Until we exited into the light of the noonday sun and saw our crumbling fortress. But still, we saw no bodies.

Shards and pieces of stone were scattered about in piles of rubble and half-standing walls. Broken and splintered spear and arrow shafts littered the ground like leaves in a forest.

But there were no bodies. And the only blood was that which had dried itself onto the shafts of the weapons.

**********

Gasping in a ragged breath of air, I raced through the tall grass with my trainees to either side. Sweat beaded my forehead, and I could feel a cooling trickle running down the center of my back.

In my experience, one of the most annoying things that can happen on a run is having the wind blowing into you. Makes it so much harder.

Having wind blowing into you is nothing compared to running through a field of endless grass as tall as your shoulders while being chased by beastkin on the ground and air, though.

"Duck!" Came a mental shout.

Diving forward, my chest thumped into the ground, and I felt dozens of blades of grass give way beneath my weight.

A gasp escaped my lips from the impact, but before it could make its way all the way out of my mouth, a whoosh and slicing sound passed above my head.

Thrusting my arms into the grass-covered ground, I threw my body upward, scrambling to get my feet under me, as the top two feet of the grass fell onto my back.

"Argh!" I grunted in annoyance, and it was not from the burning in my arms. This was far from the first time I had thrown myself to the ground and then jumped to my feet, so my arms were feeling the strain.

As I pumped my burning legs to get me moving again, I took a moment to wipe off the pieces of grass sticking to my skin and trying to move down the collar of my leather armor. Stupid grass.

Taking a hopping step, my head and shoulders cleared the tops of the grass, and I had a clear view of my surroundings as I whipped my head around, trying to take everything in.

"Blood and ashes," I gasped, putting on another burst of speed.

What had started out as an easy-going, careful stalk through the grasslands, as we wanted to try and remain unnoticed as long as possible, quickly turned into an all-out sprint.

And it wasn't like we were able to sneak for an hour or two before being spotted. No, we got noticed within thirty minutes of setting out from the forest.

As good as some of us were at going unnoticed by anything on the ground, we were pretty obvious when a bird was flying overhead. And if the flying beastkin somehow missed us at first glance, all they had to do was follow the disturbance in the grass we left in our wake, which led right to us.

At first, they left us alone.

It was a blissful forty-three seconds. The only interaction the beastkin had with us was when one of the three creatures hovering overhead cast shadows across us as they slowly circled. Then one dived away, vanishing into the forest.

We were already running at that point, and our fears were proven right as the bird beastkin returned with friends. Lots of friends.

It was then that these blades of wind started being fired at us.

We lost a trainee on each of the first two passes as we failed to spot the danger quickly enough. The ten of us still moving didn't feel like sharing their fate, so we were constantly looking for the signs of wind blades around the beastkin.

Which was little more than a shimmer in the air hanging around a beastkin when they swooped down at us. I tried using my detector to pick up the signs of their attacks for a little while, but it was like trying to hear someone flipping you off. There's nothing to detect until it hits you in the back of the head, and by then, you're headless. Not an outcome I wanted.

So it left us looking for the slight shimmer or seeing the blade start scything its path through the grass before it was too late.

Which was weird. Because they were giving us plenty of time to react…

Dozens circling above while playing games with us. And nothing but grass for as far as we can see. It's over. They're just trying to slow us down…

"Circle up!" I shouted, "Flatten the grass."

A moment after I spoke, I felt the acknowledgment in the mental link. The grass between us for a twenty-foot oval was smashed to the ground in a wave, like the concussive blast of an explosion.

The flattened grass revealed all of us in the network. I was in the center of the formation, and my trainees formed a loose spearhead formation to my sides.

"Lutious!" I ordered, "Get two others and start digging! We're gonna need another bunker!"

"Sir!" I heard him shout in reply, "Bellous! Kella! On me!."

I watched him take a few strides into the center of the formation, where the lengthy blond-haired female and stocky man of our group joined him.

They stood in a circle five feet round, and in their center, the grass and dirt in a two feet sphere were ripped from the ground and compressed into a mostly round ball no larger than my clenched fist.

The rest of the scout trainees were forming a tight circle around the three workers, and I moved to join them while looking into the sky.

My heart sank. The beastkin were already diving towards us, giving up on their little game, and I drew my blade, clenching it in my fist.

While not all of them had the shimmering signs of wind blades forming around them, a good third of them did.

"Sheilds!" I shouted and sent through the network. I felt the energy of all ten of us burst out from our bodies and gather into a single mass.

I guided the energy into a shell that would cover us all, then solidified it. The ever-present wind blowing across the grasslands stopped for an instant as everything outside the shell was cut off.

Then my mind shuddered under the seven impacts of wind blades that struck the shield I had formed.

"Haaa!" I gasped, dropping to my knees. I had never felt something so strong impact a shield I was holding in place before, and it was only a single blade.

As more fell, I felt jagged cracks spike along the shield as wind blades fell one after another. When the ninth blade struck, I lost control of the shell's energy as it shattered and started to dissipate.

Since I was the primary controller of the energy, I took the full force of the backlash of the mental working shattering, causing me to lose control of the network linking us, further adding to my pain.

The world spun around me, and I found myself looking at my folded knees and a carpet of grass below them, numb hands hanging at my sides. My eyes focused on a strand of blood dripping from my head, linking me to the ground.

I tried to move my left arm to the ground to leverage my body to a standing position, but somehow, I missed the ground and fell onto my side.

Or my arm didn't move. I wasn't sure which one happened.

Rolling onto my stomach, I climbed onto all fours, feeling a pang in my right hand for some reason. Ignoring the slight feeling, I lifted up my head to look around.

Traig was standing with his back to me. Thirty feet from him, standing surrounded by grass, his back wings stretched out to the sides with pride, was a beastkin. He wore leather pants, but his upper body was bare of clothing and covered in intricate tattoos, though he did ware many necklaces, along with bracelets on his arms, on top of each other. His chest was covered in intricate tattoos.

I could see a fuzzy figure one moment, then the next, he became a blurry, shifting form of blobby colors. There were also two more lines of blurriness to either side of the beastkin, but that could have been me seeing things for all I knew at the moment. Work properly, you damn eyes. And get up, body!

I watched as Traig swung his arm, releasing a metal spike. As the spike left his hand, it rocketed forward, greatly increasing in speed.

Shifting my vision to the clang, as I couldn't follow the spike's travel, I saw the knife bouncing back toward Traig, flipping uselessly through the air. Continuing my look to the source of the noise, I saw the blobby figure again and could have sworn a sneer was filling his face.

With a slight flick of his wrist, the two blurs hanging in the air on either side of him disappeared.

“Gaa—!"I heard the grunt of effort Traig let out, stop as suddenly as it started. And before I even had time to turn my eyes, I heard a wet thump.

When I finally focused my eyes, I saw Traig's body was vertically sliced in half.

My head was throbbing, and my body didn't listen to me and get up on its own, so I would have to fight this bastard on my hands and knees. Clicking my teeth together, I was preparing to scamper forward and bite his ankle off. Before I could manage more than a single pace forward, Lutious stepped in front of me.

Two rocks were hovering at his sides, and as he stepped forward, they were flung toward the fancy beastkin. Ya got lucky, fur-brains. I thought while deciding which fancy beastkin to focus on.

Before the rocks ever reached his skin, they shattered upon an unbreakable surface. I could hear Lutious let out a curse, but before he could act again, a furry mass came from the side, driving him to the ground.

I flung myself forward across the ground on instinct and thrust out with my right hand, amazed to find it was still clutching my sword. The blade sunk deep into the creature's side, and as my body hit the furry mass on top of Lutious, I pushed him onto his side.

The beastkin was whimpering, but I didn't pay attention as I leaned over Lutious, fumbling at the hilt of my sword. I gave it a few yanks, finally pulling it free as I fell onto my butt.

My head hurt, and my vision wasn't working all that great, but I was well enough to raise my sword and look around. I might not be on my feet, but sitting on your ass, sword in hand, was basically the same, right?

Dozens of wolven beastkin were stalking out of the still-standing tall grass around me, spears and clubs clasped in their hands and lips pulled back, showing off their teeth.

I slowly glanced over my shoulder at what I hoped would be a complete bunker we could defend, but the hole was bearly an arm's length into the ground.

And including me, only three and a half people were still on their feet. Wobbling while somehow remaining upright on my butt had to count for something.

Raising my blade, I turned to face the beastkin with all the necklaces.

The fancy beastkin looked me in the eye, his appearance back to being fuzzy rather than blobby, the sneer I knew I saw plain on his face before he flicked his wrist. I saw a flash of movement before I was knocked backward, head over ass.

When I came to a stop, I was lying on the ground looking at the blue sky, gasping for air despite my sore chest. I tried to move, but something struck me in the head, and the world turned black.