Olimpia

Excerpt From The Legion's Scholarly Manual On Casting—

One of the most common misconceptions about the third tier of the telekinetic discipline is that anyone can jump to that level without progressing through the tiers properly.

It is — I must admit — a belief I also held in my youth. This folk tale stems from the healers and their unique use of psy.

While at least one healer exists in every city and most of the larger to mid-sized towns, they are far from common.

Like most things in casting, intent matters above all. Due to the healers' natural inclination to heal, they can instinctually aspect their psy. This allows them to inject psy into others without the recipient's body rejecting it, where the healing psy will stimulate the regeneration of flesh.

It might not be an element like fire, water, or earth, but the process of aspecting psy is still the same even if the results are far apart. There are even studies that show different healers' psy are better for different types of wounds.

The healers' capability to access their natural ability to change their psy into healing energy at any level of skill leads others to the misguided belief that they, too, can do it.

This is far from the truth. And it leaves those talented children — who can draw out an elemental aspect while controlling one or two strands — to pay a price they do not understand.

Reaching the third tier of telekinesis, and becoming a Knight, puts a strain on the body.

Our bodies are not, and never will be, designed to wield and hold the elemental powers of nature. There is always a price whenever one has the audacity to control the primal forces.

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It was as if the world had been ripped open. An unending crackling, tearing screech thundered its way through the sky. For a timeless stretch of time, the night had a line of blinding light, bringing the day to the world.

Even after the light vanished, Kathren and all those around her were subjected to the sound for long seconds. Working her jaw, she wished she could rub her ears with her hand, as there was still a distant ringing in her ears that was not going away. It was a distraction she did not need at the moment.

Despite the blinding light and deafening sound, Kathren's shield never wavered.

"Straighten out the line! Fill in those gaps!" Ordered a centurion somewhere from behind her. After a while, he sent a message again. "Prepare to move! Forward, step!"

When the order came, Kathren acted in unison with the rest of the shield wall. Those on the front line of their formation stepped forward while thrusting out their shields, throwing the beastkin pounding on their shields into their compatriots.

Beastkins on average were taller than Olimpians, usually by one to two feet, with all the extra mass that size entailed. But weight mattered for nothing against the will of the legion.

Everyone on the front line had a psy tendril extended from their forearm strapped to their shield and spread the strand across the entire back of their shields.

With that one action, the front line of the formation had two feet of space. The moment was brief, but Kathren enjoyed the fresh air. The putrid smell of rotting meat of the beastkin called breath was almost as wearing on her as blocking their clubs.

Like they had practiced the motion a hundred times, Kathren and her shield mates stepped forward while spears stabbed over their shoulders into the chests and guts of the off-balance and vulnerable beastkin. While hurting your enemy was necessary, the spear thrusts were more for guaranteeing the beastkin couldn't stop their advance.

Planting their shields again, Kathren stabbed over her shield with a shout, sinking her sword's tip into the shoulder of a snarling beastkin. The beastkin's arm had dropped as he covered the weeping wound in his gut, leaving his upper body unprotected by his shield.

As she attacked, she got a flash of his appearance. The beastkin had no inherently animalistic features like a muzzle, but his teeth were fanged and coated in crimson. His chest was bare with what looked like intricately pattered tattoos covering it.

Letting out a whine of pain at her attack, the swing of his club at the woman to her right stopped cold. Not many want to swing an arm with an inch of steel in it.

At her distraction, her shield mate sent out a short, savage slash, tearing out a chunk of the beastkins throat with a spray of blood.

As the now body of a beastkin collapsed, a perfect gap in the beastkin's line revealed itself to Kathren.

The first thing she saw was a battle raging on the bottom quarter of the bridge. Legionaries were being pushed further down the bridge every second. It was only because of the stubborn bastards stationed on the bridge who managed to not be washed to the far side of the courtyard at the bridge's base with the rest of their comrades that the beastkin hadn't already taken the bridge.

Even the century positioned in the square to charge up the bridge to support the two centuries laying on the bridge only had a fraction of their number still on their feet and ready to act.

Not that all hope was lost, as a continuous stream of legionaries rushed through the square towards the bridge to help push the beastkin back, but it might be a too little too late situation.

The plan, as Kathren knew it, had gone to shit within moments of the beastkin appearing.

They had underestimated the beastkin spells and were now paying for it.

Before the beastkins ever extended their stupidly long ladders from their absurdly tall towers built on a barge, arrows were claiming the lives of legionaries on the walls. And then the beastk— I mean, the fucking tower is seventy feet at a minimum, and the five-foot wide ladder are over a hundred feet. I might be uneducated, but I ain't stupid. How in forsaken Elementals is that even stable! Kathren grumbled to herself.

And then, before anyone could react, a fist, a literal fist made of water, lifted into the air.

This wasn't an 'Ohh~ look! Little Yarha formed a hollow tendril and lifted it over her head, soaking herself~' fist of water.

Nah, this was two fists of a hundred-foot giant hanging dozens of feet over the walls of the Middle Fort, then like an eel, the fists snaked forward, slamming into the closed gates of the fort.

Spays of water filled the courtyard as the walls held firm, but the water was too much. The unlucky few standing next to the gates found that out firsthand as the water cut them in half before scoring the walls.

No matter how strong the walls of the fort might be, they were no match for the combined weight of hundreds of tons of compressed water.

There was no warning. From one moment to the next, the iron gates and the surrounding stone were ripped from their home of millennia.

Kathren was standing on the wall watching the flood of water, and the strangest part was after the iron and stone were dislodged. The water guided the remnants of the western and northern gates, stacking them at the southern gate, blocking it.

Then the tons of water from the fists splashed onto the bridges and fort, washing most of the legionaries able to hang onto the drains of the bridge out into the courtyard far below.

Kathren had to admit, she kind of wished that she and the legionaries gathered at the base of the stairs hadn't managed to stand firm against the raging water filling the fort. Sliding down the bridge would have been quite the ride.

But the reality of the situation was grim. In one swoop, the beastkin had broken through the defenses and shattered the legion's trap.

Leaving her position with the huddled together legionaries, Kathren sloshed through the five inches of water covering the stone ground. In a matter of seconds, she arrived at where the western gate of the Middle Fort was once placed, only slightly impeded by the water.

She arrived in time for what looked more like the trunk of a tree to slam into the railing of the bridge, bars of hooked metal falling forward over the stone ledge.

Moments after the 'ladder' appeared, pictures appeared in her mind of the barges below and the hundreds of beastkin swarming up the ladder.

In the ruins of the gate, Kathren drew her sword planting her feet while covering all but her armored shins with her shield.

She watched the first clawed, shockingly human hands grab into the stone ledge, pulling their bodies onto the wet stone.

Without any hesitation, the beastkin's head snapped toward Kathren. Before the beastkin could take more than two leaping steps toward her, three more of the creatures jumped onto the bridge behind him, charging after him.

Kathren didn't waver, her steely eyes showing no hint of fear, only resolve. "On me!" she shouted, sending out her impatience and an image of the charging beastkin.

Even with the shock of the situation, and it only being seconds after the events, centurions and commanders were shouting for their legionaries to form up and move to the gaps in the walls. Her mental message put new urgency into their commands.

But urgency mattered little when people were packed into piles into the fort's corners. Some of which she could feel were in shock.

Figuring out that mess took time. Time they didn't have.

Kathren knew others were quickly approaching, those like her, who had managed to remain standing at the edge of the group as the torrent of water smashed into them.

But they wouldn't make it in time, not for the first wave. While everyone in the fort with her was a veteran, that was all. The limited number of Knights in the 15th were being held in reserve or other strategic locations. Or so she assumed, as she hadn't seen one all damn night. And without the physical capabilities of a Knight to arrive in time, she was on her own.

When the beastkin took one more bounding leap, a leap that would cause him to slam his oversized club into her shield, she stepped forward.

It was more than a step, though, as she pulled on her harness with a strand, causing her step to take her farther than any step should.

Crouching down as she stepped, Kathren slid forward four feet while lifting her shield, blocking the hastily redirected swing of the beastkin. His shield was hopelessly out of the way as he held it over his head, blocking the arrows starting to rain down on him. In what looked almost lazy and half-hearted, she thrust upward.

Shifting her strand from her harness to her sword, Kathren's cold steel became like an implacable pillar. One still standing strong and alone after weathering decades out in the elements.

The top six inches of the blade sank into the lower abdomen of the beastkin. As the momentum of the beastkin's leap carried him forward, he gutted himself against her sword.

In the next moment, the blade collided with his hip, and the beastkin's body contorted as he spun around the unmovable blade, causing it to be torn out of his flesh. Repositioning her shield, Kathren caught the body — giving off groans of agony — dumping it to the side.

Ignoring the too-soon-to-be corpse, she raised her stance while bringing her shield in front of her body once more.

The three beastkin charging after the first stutter-stepped at her brutal display, but that was all. Their faces were set into one of rage, their eyes filled with the conviction of their cause.

Still, Kathren stood unwavering. She was positive a line would form in the gap, as everyone had gotten their acts together, but it will be a few feet behind her current position. Just out of reach of the beastkin smashing her body into the cobbles of the bridge.

She was not some legendary warrior able to fight alone against unending numbers. These three will kill her, but she would take… two, maybe even all three, with her.

Pulling the strand from her sword, she looped the tendril through a spike to throw it at one of the beastkin when a command to step back blasted into her mind.

Following the command on impulse, she stepped back as a figure of a man encased in armor fell from the sky in the middle of the beastkin. Before Kathren could even blink in surprise, the figure blurred, and the three beastkin rushing toward her were bisected.

Then the Knight, for that was all he could be, stomped on the ground, and a wave of light blue crackling arcs danced down the bridge and curled up the legs of the beastkin like a loving caress.

Freezing mid-step, the beastkins' bodies convulsed as they started to burn under the electricity's heat.

Two dozen of the bastard dead, killed in a second.

Without warning, the Knight was flung into the sky, disappearing as fast as it had appeared.

All Kathren could do was blink, taking in the fact that she was no longer going to die.

In her shocked state, the rest of the legionaries arrived, forming a shield wall for the once again oncoming beastkin. They didn't seem to care about the dozens that had already died.

Then the real grind of the battle started.

A constant struggle of bodies, blood flowing freely, coating the grooved stone and trickling around the bodies lining the bridge's surface before making it to the gutters adding to the forming river. Both sides knew there would be no retreat from this battle. Only the victors and corpses of the defeated would remain.

And then, Kathren was nearly blinded and deafened by a massive bolt of lightning.

When she saw past the mass of bodies, shields, and weapons pressing against her shield, she saw what the lightning was aimed at. Of the two dozen siege towers, six had small fires burning on them that went out before her eyes.

Only one had its top half shattered and was blazing with fire.

Worse than that, it was apparent that the towers, less than half of the height of the walls before, now stood above the ramparts.

"By the holy Elementals, the fucking bastards raised the ground halfway up the wall." Her voice was filled with horrified awe as she stated a fact. "How is that possible?"