Olimpia

Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's wall—

When we arrived on these shores by some mysterious magic — wherever we are — we were not ready. There was no way we could be. For we could not comprehend what challenges we would face or what we would find.

We should not have survived. It is as simple as that.

They let us survive, and no one will acknowledge the debt that will come due. The price that will be demanded by the fickle mistress of fate.

I remember the stormy night the Ninth Legion marched through the forest. A storm washed out the bridge crossing a river we had to pass the night before, and it took longer than expected to repair the bridge.

The Legatus demanded we make it to town before we could make camp, so we would make it to the town.

As we marched through an ever-darkening storm-torn night, a massive clap of thunder tore across the sky, shaking the ground and blinding everyone with its brilliance, and searing our skin with heat.

When we opened our eyes after the blinding flash, a clear blue sky and a noonday sun replaced the stormy night.

It was easy to conclude we were no longer in Britannia.

No longer in the Roman Republic.

**********

In the distance, I could faintly hear dried leaves cracking and shifting.

They were getting sloppy, as we had been tracking it for More than an hour, and they knew it.

Desperation can do that to a person.

Or a beastkin.

It was all the same.

No matter what the higher-ups said to the populace, I knew better. All the scouts did. Most of the legion grunts did too.

Oh, the beastkin were bestial. Both in their appearance and actions, no one on Olimpia would deny that.

It was just that they were not the purely savage beasts driven by their own instincts that everyone said they were.

Whenever I get close enough, I can feel their depth of emotion.

Anyone with a decent telepathic perception could tell you the same if they were honest.

Sure, their emotions were sharper. And their language was mainly grunts, barks, and growls, but you could feel the communication.

My eyes flicked to the side, catching Markus's eyes as I nodded in the direction of the sound.

Slowly nodding, he closed his eyes for a moment, then I felt a pulse of information roll off him and slide through me.

I skimmed the information contained within the pulse to ensure we were on the same page, then threw my will behind the package signaling my agreement and helping to send the message out to the rest of the squad through our Union, fragile as it currently was. We're stretching it too far, I thought, frowning at how much willpower it took to send the message.

The whole process only took a fraction of a second, and my foot had yet to touch the ground from the moment I first heard the sound.

Like specters in the middle of the darkest nights, we passed behind trees and bushes while slipping along the shadows cast by the sun.

We wore the same dark green cloth cloaks and leather cuirass, concealing the leather straps crossing our chests and waists. On our backs was a quiver of arrows, our belts holding a short sword, knife, and pouches filled with various useful items.

Dropping into a crouch and freezing, my eyes slowly moved over the surrounding foliage. I tensed my arms as I pulled back on the string of my bow slightly.

I saw nothing, but that meant little. Beastkin could hide behind a tuft of grass or a small, thumb-thick sapling and remain hidden. They were sneaky bastards.

Gathering some mental energy, I released it in a pulse, looking for the knots of packed emotion that signified a mind.

Animals were simple creatures. Their wants were base things like hunger, sleep, fear, pleasure, and boredom.

Their thoughts were one-dimensional.

Sure, you can run across smarter animals, but it would be like looking at a painting with a splash of color compared to a painting in black and white. Different, but not really.

No matter the age, a sentient being was like looking at a mental kaleidoscope of colors signifying their thoughts and emotions, adding layer after layer of depth.

A beastkin's mind didn't have the level of depth as an Olimpian's, but it had far more than an animal's mind.

As my pulse rolled outwards, it pinged off a rabbit searching for food, A few lizards bathing in the sun for warmth, and some birds starting to get concerned in a tree off to my left as they chirped to the sky.

Then I felt the mind. If it was anyone else on the squad, they would have missed it, and even the little I felt was… off. It pricked at the back of my mind.

While it was impossible to completely hide one's mind, with enough training — or pure instinct born from a predator — creatures could lessen their imprint on the world. Making it appear flat and hollow, blending into the surroundings.

Remaining in my half-crouch, I raised my bow aiming it as I pulled back on the string, bringing it to my ear before releasing it.

At the same time, I gathered my will, reached out to Markus's mind, and sent him an impression of what I was aiming at.

He did not hesitate. We had worked together long enough that he trusted my instincts absolutely.

I had proven myself more than enough for that, not that the other scout teams would say as much.

Nearly as one, our arrows shot out, streaking through the air and disappearing into a bush.

The thunk of the arrow hitting flesh was followed by a soft gurgle of pain.

Drawing another arrow and placing it onto my string, I continued to look around. I released another pulse, searching for anything I might have missed.

Assuming one was out of danger got one killed, and I intended to die of old age. Or a couple centuries at the earliest.

Long seconds passed as I continued to search our surroundings, unmoving. I could feel Markus releasing his own pulses, searching with his mind, but if he found something I didn't, we were already in trouble.

After I was sure nothing was around, I walked forward to where we shot, Markus following a few steps behind.

Every step I took weighed on my mind and body as the mental focus and the controlled, smooth movements it took to move silently through a forest added up. I was tired and just wanted this day to be over.

Anyone that had walked through an old-growth forest knew it could be challenging. Deciding to take the wrong path leads to constantly fighting against brush and tree limbs while getting scratched. At a minimum, it was an annoying hassle. At worst, you were blazing a path for anyone to follow.

One needed to read the forest and move with its flow to make good time.

And regardless of the type of forest — though some types make it more challenging than others — moving through a forest without making any sound is tricky.

It takes practice, careful movements, complete control of one's body, and time. Mostly time.

Why does a slug not make any noise? Cause it never moves fast enough to rustle something. My father's voice said in my head.

Rushing equals sound.

Sound equals death.

It was a simple equation I lived my life by.

I was moving through the forest at what could be considered a better-than-average walking down any city street without making any noise at all.

Which was a testament to my skill.

I was testing the ground for my next step with a strand of telekinesis. Anything that might brush against my body — that I could not easily avoid — was being nudged to the side by my mind.

And any slight sound I made when I lowered my foot to the ground, I was dampening with another strand shaped into a cone that encased my foot and ankle, muffling the sound into what amounted to two leaves brushing together.

I didn't have the raw power to do anything serious for long, but no one I knew could match my control.

Stopping at the bush, I brushed the branches to the side, revealing a lumpy, worn black cloak lying on the ground with two arrows sticking out of it, one in its chest and one in its throat area. My eyes locked onto a clawed hand flopped to the side of the body.

Definitely a beastkin, I thought, quieting the small concern I had killed an Olimpian.

Pausing for a moment, I glanced around the forest once more before throwing a curious look at Markus.

As his voice entered my mind, I felt a slight mental pressure. "I got you covered, Green. Retrieve the arrows, search the body, then let's move."

"Understood," I responded before reaching down and grabbing the shaft of my arrow.

It only took me a moment to wrap a tendril of mental energy around and down the shaft to the arrowhead, fully encasing it. I enlarged the tendril pushing back the flesh and cartilage before I pulled the arrow right out.

If the tips can't catch on anything, how is retrieving an arrow hard?

A second later, I retrieved the other arrow from the beastkin's chest, tossing it over my shoulder to Markus.

Before the arrow left my hand, I felt a strand of force wrap around it and pull it toward Markus's.

Moving the cloak to the side, I patted down the beastkin's body.

Blinking in surprise, I looked at the corpse. I didn't even need to pat the body down to see if something was different. The beastkin was wearing the expected gear… of a legion scout. Not something they scavenged from the legion, either. The quality is… decent, too.

A cloak, quiver and bow, a knife, and a few pouches on the creature's belt containing food and flint, and finally, what I was looking for.

"Ancestor preserve us…" I sighed to myself, standing up and looking around.

"Is he a scout? Or an outcast?" Asked Markus, his mental voice already telling me he knew how I would answer.

"Yeah, he's a clan scout."

"What clan?"

"No idea, it's definitely some kind of canine, but I have never seen the clan markings before." bending down, I grabbed the beastkin's knife cutting off a patch tied to the creature's belt with a few quick motions.

Tossing it to Markus, I said, "Wolf's paw with a crescent moon behind it, never seen the like before. And his gear is strangely good."

"So, we either have an up-and-coming clan or an old one. Either way, things are about to get interesting." He transmitted before shrugging indifferently. "And we have seen beastkin using tools before."

I nodded in agreement at the first part, "Yeah, but this feels… different to me," I said, my voice uncertain. Shrugging, I turned and started moving away. We needed to get away from the body and had better things to do than have a pointless conversation.

Before I could take a step, the Union our squad was in broke. The distance had finally put too much of a strain on the links. It had lasted longer than I thought it would.

Taking a moment to process the change, I continued stalking forward. We had expected the network to collapse soon and had already all but cut ourselves off from it.

Markus spent another second processing the backlash — if there was any — and looking at the patch before he moved to join me.

Beastkin hardly ever travel alone, especially the canine type.

You could bet your last copper that where there was one of these bastards, there would be more.

The spilled blood — along with whatever bond the beastkin seem to have with their clan — will attract them to the body like moths to a flame. You could never kill one and not have the rest of the warband stay unaware for long.

I had seen the bastards separated by miles across a valley, and when one of the beastkin on the edges was killed, within minutes, they had all turned and headed directly to the body.

We needed to get away from the body but could not return to camp.

There was a job to do, a warband to find.

We were sent out here to find out what was stirring up the forest. Animals have been wandering out of the Northern Woods and causing havoc on the livestock and farming villages in the Cradle for the last few weeks.

There were only a few reasons why there could be such a migration. And well… they all involved the beastkin in some way.

So… not a surprise we found a scout.

What we needed to know was how big of a warband we were talking about.

Once we had traveled up most of the northern slope of a nearby hillside, Markus stood still, his eyes clouding in concentration.

My skin prickled as the pulse of mental energy he was charging up was released. A faint pang of jealousy passed through me as I felt the power of the casting.

The casting didn't look like it had drained him at all. For me, forming such a casting would take up a significant chunk of my mental energy reserves.

Really pushing myself, I could lift up a decent-sized tree and throw it about the same distance as Markus could throw a fist-sized rock unenhanced. I would pass out a moment afterward, but I do it. I knew that for a fact.

Markus could do the same for half an hour or more.

My level of skill and finesse was unparalleled by most, but nearly everyone surpassed me in raw power. I had long ago accepted that my strength didn't overcome their weaknesses.

Anything that would take all of my skill and focus, backed by my willpower, to perform would take anyone with real power half a thought as they flicked their wrist.

Markus caught up with me within a few seconds as I kept moving up the hill while he cast and processed the pulse.

Glancing at him, I saw his eyes flick around to different spots as we felt an echo of his message bounce back. The other scout groups moving through the forest had heard and acknowledged the message.

Stopping, Markus turned to look at me with sober eyes, "We need an earth pulse."

Though he was my commander, I knew it wasn't a command. What he was asking would be the same as asking for the death of anyone else. Even for me, it was only likely that I would live.

But he was right. Lives were on the line, and we needed to find the beastkin. …It’s the least I can do.

I stifled the sigh that rose up in my chest and focused on my surroundings before gathering my will and mental energy.

It didn't take much energy to perform, but the mental energy requirement was not why the task was so hard. Extending a single strand of mental energy, I buried it an inch into the ground.

Then I gathered energy at the tip before releasing the pulse like any other pulse, but with one change. I shifted the resonance of the pulse so it better matched the ambient energy of the world.

The result was immediate and nearly overwhelming.

I felt the bugs crawling along and just below the ground like it was my own skin. I could see the trees rising up all around me. The scent and vibrations of nature and those that inhabited it filled my nose and mind. Then the pulse extended beyond the ten immediate feet around me.

It was too much information, more than any mortal mind could handle. Even with the information only staying in the forefront of my mind for the briefest instant before I forgot it, I was throwing my power across the forest. The pressure only increased as it forced its way into my mind scraping away at its edges as it made me confront it, becoming exponentially worse, giving me a splitting headache.

The vice of knowledge was squeezing ever tighter. If that wasn't telling me I was pushing myself well past my limits, I didn't know what would.

Then I felt it, I knew, but I didn't know what I knew. Stopping the casting, I suppressed the last of the information and tried to center my ravaged mind.

After some amount of time, I opened my eyes and wiped away the blood running across my lip and into my mouth. Then I got up from where I was kneeling on the leaf-covered ground and started shuffling forward.

I was no longer using my powers to stifle the sound of my movement. I wasn't even using my normal skills. Doing anything more than putting one foot in front of the other might break my mind.

Maybe literally.

People who performed a casting too much for their skill had their minds turned to mush, and they died from constantly bleeding from their ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.

The stories of those who pushed too far did not paint a pretty picture.

Every child is told very clearly to stop any casting they are performing when they feel a spike driven behind their eyes and a throbbing at their temples. When people kept pushing too far… bad things happened.

I was well past that. I might have had serious problems if I had held onto my casting for another couple of seconds, but now I should be fine, given some time to rest… Probably.

Even with my feet barely rising above the leaves, I moved up the hill with the grace of long repetition. As if I had traveled up the slope a thousand times before.

At the rim of the hill, I went prone and crawled under some bushes, looking down into the valley. After a feeling of rightness passed through me, I motioned to Markus to lie down beside me.

I looked at Markus as he settled down, whispering, "We wait here."

He nodded in acknowledgment as he sent out a pulse to the rest of the squad to inform them to find cover.

Hours passed as the sun traveled through the sky, and my headache gradually lessened, allowing me to perform minor castings without a problem.

A few turns of a glass past mid-day, we saw the front edge of a warband already numbering in the hundreds after a couple of minutes entering through the valley's far end.

If the vanguard was this large, with no signs of stopping, we were looking at a warband numbering in the thousands.

My eyes widened as a shiver ran down my spine, "Shit!" I hissed as I pushed off with my right leg and arm while I added to the momentum with a tendril pulling on my harness, making the leap strong enough to throw myself up and to the side.

Reaching down as I flew to the side, I grabbed Markus, pulling him after me.

I could see the question on his lips die as two arrows thunked into the ground where we were lying a moment ago.