Olimpia

Excerpt From The Legion's Scholarly Manual On Casting—

The debate has raged in scholarly circles since the founding of the Olimpian Academy. And I do not see the argument ending with any degree of finality within my or my grandchildren's lifetimes.

Does Control have the right to be considered a discipline?

It is a simple question, and if you read further into this text, you will develop your own opinion on the topic.

The core of the argument is simple. Control is the foundation of all mental castings, and neither of the other branches can have a single step taken in them without progressing further into the branch of Control.

Some of the more complicated castings require a foundational understanding of all three branches.

The Control branch itself has the first tier focusing on either the Telekinetic or Telepathic Branches, depending on the individual, and the second tier mainly focuses on telepathic perception, with hints of the Telekinetic Branch. Both tiers, however, are interconnected with the other two, like some kind of melding of the branches.

While this isn't wholly accurate, it is a fact that a perception sphere can pick up physical objects without a mind, and we use strands as both telepathic and telekinetic appendages at will.

If there was actually an attainable third tier to Control — and not just the superstitious oral stories of the elves — the argument might end. But without such a clear-cut reality, we all must come to our own conclusions.

Some even say that Control is a hybrid of the two main branches, offering a higher order of power if followed to its end.

I, for one, have settled my mind on a reasonable answer to the question. The Control Branch exists for the simple purpose of organization of skill levels. It offers a simple and easy path to identify the skill level of our fellow casters.

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"Pick up the pace and move closer to the core. You're getting a little far out," Markus sent to those acting as rearguards. "Report." He ordered to the northern side of their formation. There was too much going on for him to shuffle through the sensations of those on that flank.

"The beastkin are already circling around us. We could punch through, but…" She left the rest unsaid as something called for her attention. She didn't need to say it; where would we go?

Half of us are malnourished, and the others are injured or exhausted.

Markus hadn't expected to exit the bridge and find themselves walking into the unwelcoming arms of an approaching army. At worst, he expected a couple of hours before the beastkin could look for them on this side of the river in large enough numbers to matter.

But reality turned out to be very different. The legionaries hardly had a moment from walking off the bridge that they weren't being harassed.

Markus used every trick he knew to throw off the beastkin and break threw the line while dissuading pursuit. Traps were set in their wake. The tracks of the fish were covered. Smaller groups were sent out into the forest, making false trails in their wake, while the main group heightened their efforts to conceal their passage.

None of it worked.

The thought crossed his mind to scatter the force and hope someone would make it back to a legion, but the beastkin had already proven they were more than capable of finding and capturing them. Finding and killing would only make it easier. The fish won't even have a chance…

Every time the thought crossed his mind, the order stuck in his throat. But with every moment that passed, making them a step closer to being trapped, the burden of duty was making the order easier to voice.

Not that the probable result had stopped him from already making a similar order, as Markus had already sent five scouts into the forest to make their way back alone. Hopefully, they would live, but he had little faith.

Reports of contacts with beastkin continually filled Markus's mind. They came from all but one side, and that was because they had their right side to the river. There were still some reports of beastkin across the river, but they were unimportant.

At first, he tried to move the group away from the river and into the forest but quickly decided against it when the attacks started. The beastkin were moving faster than them in the overgrown forest, and their only chance was to make a run for it on the mostly clear banks of the river. Never thought I would be thankful for the nearly seasonal floods. Markus thought in wry amusement.

For the last hour, they had been moving as quickly as they could through the trees no more than a dozen yards from the river.

There was no way they were making it out of this, not while fighting. I wonder if it's possible to negotiate. Not with the wolves, but the Red Tail Faction? If they are truly opposed to the spell Scout Green was in, they might… Or, more likely, kill us to cover up the fact it exists. He thought with stern certainty. Internal politics did not mean they would suddenly betray their kin.

"But at least they have proven to be a bit more… open-minded. At least they talk to us." Markus muttered to himself. Some of the fish looked at him with faith and hope as he spoke, prompting him to finally make up his mind.

Their looks had kept him searching for an answer this long, but all he was doing was delaying the inevitable. "Gather up! We are going to punch through and—

"Centurion," interrupted a horse voice. Looking over, Markus saw it was Sathera. It was surprising. He could feel her understanding of the decision he had reached through the mental link, but he also felt her conviction.

Her face was covered in streaks of sweat and grim, and on her back was Green, who she and the other trainee had traded off carrying him since the bridge.

Though her face was practically hidden under a mask, he could tell she was young, no more than twenty-five. Every citizen was required to serve, the age it starts varying from fifteen to twenty, but no one escaped their decade. Many tried to run, saying it was unjust that they waited a decade of their lives, but what was a decade to an average life span of a hundred and fifty years.

She must have been one of the ones to sign up as early as possible, and then she got into the scouts. She has skill. And spirit, Markus thought in admiration as she met his look. There was a fire burning in her eyes.

Chest heaving to catch her next breath, her hand was steady as she pointed to the river. "Make a raft." She gasped out.

Markus's face was blank for a moment, then a half-crazed smile spread over his face as she sent him her idea, “…Yes!" He shouted in excitement.

Boats traveling on the rush this far north was not something people did. There was just nothing up here. And when the snow melted, the river was impassible with the torrent of water.

Every year down south on the river, sailors complained of their damaged boats or being trapped for a few weeks at isolated villages. But past The Triad? Never saw a soul on the Rush.

There were a few river merchants that worked the Forks, but they were strange folk up there. Sailing down the Rush? Never crossed Markus's mind.

"Squads two through four, start chopping down trees, trimming them, and moving them to the shore!" Markus barked out, causing the area to burst into motion before he sent, "Perimeter squads, keep them away for as long as you can but pull back when pressed!"

He waited a moment before shouting, "The rest of you are on me! We're going to lay the trees out!"

Before, the few scouts leading the fish had a sunken, resigned look in their eyes. They knew death was coming. But now, they had a real chance and were filled with purpose.

Within moments, the sounds of impacts and saws against wood could be heard. Forming a tendril into teeth small enough to be called a saw and working it through a trunk might be difficult for most, but forming a wedge and smacking it into a tree hard enough to shatter rocks was not.

All around him, Markus saw chips of wood fly into the air as the legionaries worked their castings.

It wasn't long until the first cracks and pops of a tree falling sounded, followed by screams of fear and shouts of anger.

"Ahh! Fuck!"

"Watch what you're doing, fucking idiots!"

"By the elementals, at least guide the crow-begotten tree!"

"Don't fucking chop into one side! You need a fucking wedge to guide it and a back cut! By the Elementals, does anyone even know what in the damnation they're doing?!"

The last voice that sounded Markus recognized as Kimel. She was a hard woman who liked spending her time in the forest more than at camp.

"Timber!" Shouted an enthusiastic male voice.

"Out of the way!" Shouted Kimel, "Move to the fucking sides!"

Markus looked over at the sounds of more screams and cracks of branches smacking into each other.

"Who was the fucking idiot that dropped that on us! I'm gonna do a favor to Olimpia by castrating you! We can even make a game out of it. I'll grab your legs and pull them to the sides until we find out which side your balls end up on. Heh, we can still call it a fucking wishing bone; if you got anything down there worth mentioning!"

As she talked, the youthful face of a man in his early twenties drained of color, becoming ashen. His eyes flicked to others for support, but Kimel wasn't the only one almost crushed by the falling tree. All he found were angry or indifferent faces.

"Kimel," Markus sent, "Show them how to cut down a tree safely but make it fast. We don't have much time." Kimel paused for a moment, making the young scout sweat for a few more seconds before turning to Markus and saluting her fist to chest.

"Gather around, morons. I don't know how you joined the legions without learning this," Kimel shouted, "but this is how you chop down a tree!" At her words, rapid chopping sounds could be heard for half a minute before the sound stopped. "Once you have the wedge angled where you want the tree to go, you start on the back while pushing with a strand until it falls. Make sure to—"

Markus stopped listening to Kimel talk as he had more important things to do.

"Twenty coming in from behind!" Came a man's mental voice along the Union link.

"Ten from downstream," A female Sent.

"Two groups of twenty from the north," Came a third voice with traces of fear suffusing the message.

Markus took in the rapid-fire reports, overlaying the information on the mental map he had made of the area. The front and back of the formation had a mile separating them, with the northern flank a third of a mile inland from the river.

"First squad stall the advancing beastkin and fall back. Sixth and eighth squads move to support the seventh squad as they delay and pull back. Ninth squad, perform a controlled retreat to us." Each sentence that Markus sent to his people was only delivered to those he was addressing. While a commander could never have too much information so long as it didn't cause indecision, the troops didn't need a distraction from an overall battle plan. And all its risks.

"Keep me up to date." Markus sent to everyone.

Seconds passed into minutes, and what felt like every few seconds — but he knew he was longer — he felt a pang as a mind was torn from the Union. In the back of his mind, he added another mark to the death toll as their chances of escape lessened.

Shouts filled the trees around Markus as fish and those from the 1st turma bit out chunks from the trunks of the trees.

As time passed, they all could feel the growing pressure to hurry as the perimeter of scouts slowly compressed, supporting each other as they retreated.

The workers' movements became frantic as they knew time was running out, causing those commanding them to shout at them to get their heads out of their asses and think. Rushed as they were, every thirty seconds, another one of the two to three-foot-in-diameter trees fell to the ground and was swarmed over like a colony of ants.

Finally, the outer perimeter had no more room to retreat, only a dozen paces beyond the workers.

A rush of three dozen beastkin came storming out from the depths of the forest at the exact moment uncertainty filled the mental network. "Charge!" Shouted Markus, leading the scouts into battle. Using a tendril on his bar, he swept it out around him and slammed it into the legs of the leading beastkins, knocking them off their feet. He did not stop his stride to finish them off, leaving them for the fifty scouts and fish coming in his wake to handle.

Screams of rage and those wrought from savage wounds filled the afternoon forest. Bodies mingled, dancing in the oldest struggle in existence, that of bloody conflict.

One moment literally bled into the next as Markus surged along the battle line, supporting all he could reach with his gore-stained rod. But try as he might, he could not save all his men. Their lack of equipment and fatigue were too much of a burden for them to come out of this battle without losses.

After the initial rush, the beastkin quickly realized they were outnumbered and quickly falling. A howl echoed off the trees, and the beastkin fell back like a receding wave.

Doing a quick check, Markus counted another thirteen dead, putting the total cost to hold this ground at twenty-three. But finally, the rafts were ready.

And though Markus hated to admit it, the dead helped them more than the living, as they decreased the number of rafts they needed to build.

Constant reports of spotting more beastkin flooded into Markus's mind, but it no longer mattered.

"Let's go!" Markus shouted and sent to his legionaries.

Bodies turned and rushed towards the logs laid next to and on top of each other.

"Pound in those bars!" Markus heard someone shout as he raced over the leaf-strewn forest floor.

Markus leaped off the bank, passing the last tree and dropping to the river's beach a few feet below.

Sand flew up behind him as he ran with those who had held the perimeter.

He watched as the bars they took from the cages were pounded through the tree trunks piercing multiple logs holding them together.

Markus paused on his last stride before moving onto the raft, searching the darkness of the forest. He thought he could see the flickering forms of beastkin among the trees. Sending out a pulse, he made sure no one was left out there. Not that it would matter, they couldn't save anyone now. Maybe not even themselves.

Turning, Markus stepped onto the raft as those already on it pushed and pulled it out into the wide river.