Olimpia

Excerpt From The Legion's Scholarly Manual On Casting—

Though there is no grand conspiracy from the upper echelons of our society to hide the information contained within these pages, the fact remains that many of the common men have no understanding of the workings of psy. Mandatory schooling provides a basic foundation, but youths as a whole are loth to spend their time on study and contemplation, and life being what it is, few parents push their children to excel in casting outside of their family's chosen profession.

Whether you understood what was just said or not, understand this, you wasted your youth. If you don't learn the basics and expand your skills fast, you will be killed in battle.

The first thing to understand, and a surprising number don't, is that the basics of casting are founded in three disciplines, all of which are interlinked to some degree. And while natural, innate psy reserves matter to casting, they do not count as a discipline.

Control is the first discipline and foundation of all casting. It encompasses how well one manipulates and uses psy. We — the scholars — have found the first step of gaining the ability to cast the next tier of techniques within any discipline is determined by how many simultaneous tendrils one can manipulate.

This includes changing the shape of tendrils into any shape one may desire and having them act independently, not just forming multiple standard tendrils linked together.

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Markus's legs pumped as he sucked in one breath after another, pushing himself up the arch of the bridge. Reaching the apex, he stopped, taking a moment to look back over his shoulder.

Green's trainees, the two still alive, were halfway to him. Behind them, steadily backing their way up the bridge, was the rear guard, consisting of most of the scouts that were in the cages. Which were Squads one, six, seven, eight, and nine.

One of their number was carrying Green's unconscious body over her shoulders, following after the trainees while the forty-seven others faced off against the increasing numbers of beastkin at the bottom of the bridge. The stream of beastkin rushing through the fort's gate was only increasing.

No matter how skilled his scouts were, they could only hold off those numbers for a short time. But Markus only needed a couple minutes to get his bearings and make a decision.

The coming deaths were already weighing on his shoulders, joining those already there, but he needed to shove them away and clear his mind. If he made the wrong choice, they all could die… And then their deaths, and all those before, would be worthless.

Pausing as he looked backward, he closed his eyes for a single second. In that moment, he let the guilt press down on his soul. He let himself wallow in self-pity. That was all he allowed himself. Opening his eyes, he drove the inconsequential thoughts away, focusing on the moment.

Turning forward, his eyes swept over the mud-covered clearing making up the bridge's exit on the eastern side of the Rush, then he kept turning to look downstream.

His body froze as his mind raced to come up with a solution to their situation. And to help the 15th Legion.

It did not take a tactical genius to realize what it meant that the thousands — tens of thousands — of troops he watched marching over the bridge and the obvious signs of construction on the beaches of the Rush were gone.

And while he had never seen or heard of beastkin showing this level of intelligence, the facts were impossible to deny. The threat could not be underestimated. Olimpia needs to know…

His eyes drifted down the river, his mind racing down the twists and turns until he imagined looking upon the three-pronged bridge with the forts at its base. A testament to Olimpian innovation. Then his mental picture was intruded on by thousands of beastkin.

Beastkin who controlled rivers of fire and could alter visible reality at a whim. Like the dome of splotchy colors he had looked at throughout his entire imprisonment until this morning. Markus believed in Olimpia and her legions. They stood firm against the hoards and Imperium for thousands of years.

Markus had no doubt in his mind that the legions could hold back the beastkin…

If they understood what they were facing. If we had the numbers. If they were a veteran legion, not a backwater training guard force.

With all of them — shit with one of them — Markus would be confident that the Triad had a chance to stand firm. But they didn't have any…

The Triad is going to fall. Markus acknowledged to himself in resignation. Word of these events has to get out, especially with the 1st turma dead.

Not one to turn away from reality, Markus's eyes and head turned to look upstream. Where they were on the river's course, it ran north to south, but it did start to curve to the west before turning back north.

The path would take them a bit out of the way, but they could eventually find or make a way to pass over the river. What was really important to Markus was getting out of the theater of this battle. While the beastkin came from the northeastern side of the forest, the majority of their troops had to have passed by, right?

Making it much easier to slip by any scouts and making their way to Cross.

His glazed-over eyes snapped into focus as a plan coalesced in his mind. Turning his head from the river, his eyes widened in shock and fear.

The bridge's apex put him about halfway up the trees on the riverbank, and being in the center of the river gave him a better angle to look upstream.

More excuses flashed through his mind, but he knew the real reason. The fish were just too untrained.

The reasons no longer mattered, though. Markus was the first to notice, and he was just happy someone did.

Motion filled the forest upstream. On the banks of the river, he could make out figures moving between the trees. Not a few, but dozens. Hundreds.

Last he checked, there were no Olimpians north of them.

As he searched the shoreline upstream, something came around the distant bend in the river. At first, he couldn't make it out, but as more came into view, he realized. It was a barge.

A massive one.

Figures were moving around its edges, as the center was filled with wooden crates and other piles covered in cloth sheets.

With his spike of alarm filling the mental network, the fish at the base of the eastern side of the bridge entered a heightened state of awareness.

In quick succession, they sent out warning signals as they spotted movement in the tree line. Better late than never, I guess. Markus thought with a resigned sigh.

"Move it, people!" Shouted Markus mentally and with his words. While it was unnecessary, he found that people often responded faster when a voice was shouting in their faces.

One of the unspoken lessons the legion taught was how to drown out others while in a link. While you were never supposed to block out the link, as life-saving information could come through at any time, when someone was in shock, it could happen subconsciously.

Shouting in their faces while sending a message directly into their mind always seemed to snap them out of their thoughts. And the jump is always entertaining. He thought, a smile almost coming onto Markus's face.

Putting his words into action, Markus ran down the arching bridge. Behind him, he heard the trainees shuffle along with Scout Harrena — who was carrying Green — sticking next to them.

He could not see it, but Markus felt the rear guard rip off and throw a portion of the bridge at those threatening them before turning and sprinting away. The shock they felt at the disruption of their psy strands was impossible to miss.

Sliding to a stop on the muddy ground, Markus's gaze quickly took in the empty clearing before turning around with a grim look.

"Feed me, psy," Markus sent to the nearby squads.

The flood of energy made his head swim for a moment as the rush hit him all at once. Then he reached out with two tendrils to either side of the bridge.

"Hurry the fuck up!" Markus shouted in encouragement to those still coming over the bridge.

Their little trick gave them a few moments to get up to a full sprint, but it did not matter. The beastkin are far faster than any Olimpian, even when augmenting themselves with psy.

At the bridge's apex, those in the rear were set upon by the pursewing beastkin.

The moment Markus saw it, he sent an order to those at the rear, "Hold them back for thirty seconds, then jump over the sides."

There was a moment of mental silence before the reply came, “…yes, Centurion! Long live the Republic!"

"Long live the Republic," Markus replied, his voice solemn. Instantly the five in the back turned and faced the hoard, bars raid.

Seconds passed, each one like the toll of a bell, and the five legionaries at the rear desperately fought against the rust of enemies. They used their steel bars as spears thrusting with psy-enhanced power at those who got close.

Even as they fought, they continually took steps back to avoid being overwhelmed.

He might not have been the Scout Centurion long, but Markus could not be prouder of the scouts' skill. Those were the legionaries he led. And more ashamed that he was forced to ask them to do such a task.

His scouts had long since left behind fighting in a shield wall, but he would put them up against any cohort in the legion. In perfect centricity, two of the five thrusts out while the others took a step back. The three thrust their own makeshift weapon as the two others stepped back.

When one was in trouble, one or both of their neighbors stepped forward to block or miss direct the attack.

After ten seconds and dozens of rapid beats of his heart, Markus felt the slightest hope flicker to life in his chest. They might just live to jump off the bridge into the ice melt of a river.

Then a beastkin lunged forward, reaching from the legs of one of the legionaries.

She tried to step to the side while the man beside her attempted to slam the close end of this bar into the warrior's head, but both failed. There were too many beastkin around them, and they were too few.

Pulling back with his hind legs, the beastkin pulled the screaming woman out of formation, her screams silencing from one moment to the next.

With the woman out of formation, the legionaries were brought down within seconds. Stabbed in the chest by those with spears and then smashed in the head with clubs. One man was ripped in half, his skin shredded by the claws of a particularly large and scarred beastkin.

Markus watched it all.

And as the last of his scouts streamed past him a moment later, his heart was heavy with their deaths, but he knew it was the right call. A few die, so many live…

"Head to the southeast, back to the Triad!" Markus shouted and sent out, "Our only chance is to slip past the lines!" His plan was smashed to dust when he saw the thousands of beastkin making their way towards them.

With a mental surge of effort, Markus smashed the two tendrils on opposite sides of the bridge down onto it.

There was a brief moment when a large portion of the psy he was controlling was sucked away, making him gasp in shock. Then the tendrils smashed the stone bridge like it was nothing more than a tree.

Actually, it was easier than that. It was like he was pushing over a collection of loosely stacked rocks.

A fierce smile of vengeance flashed onto Markus's face as the bridge collapsed, and the charging beastkin fell into the river mixing with the rubble and creating larges splashes of water.

The splashes were loud, but they could not drown out the screams of fear tearing their way from the beastkin's throats.

It did not make up for the deaths of his people, but it was something.

Turning away, Markus signaled the scouts to follow in the wake of their fellows, acting as a rear guard.