Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—

But we were not prepared to stand on our own.

Only a few of the first generation that commanded troops in combat were still alive. And of those still puttering about, most were in no condition to go anywhere beyond their living room.

Regardless of how old and infirm those of the first generation were, they were incomparably better than the filth that saturated the rotting corpse of The Ninth.

The Ninth had become a civic legion when we founded the city, but as the need for them continued to fall, they became little more than a collection of bullies and drunkards.

As the monsters invaded, the supposed legion fled, hiding from their duty.

More than our near none existent leadership and army, our city had no proper defenses. And even the ones we managed to build were nearly useless.

The relentless beasts would throw themselves at the walls and trenches as we killed them by the scores. Until ramps of the dead would lead up to and over our defenses, and we were forced to make a fighting retreat.

But we still struggled. We fought, for we would not accept an easy death.

Old legionaries, once-thought relics of the past left to be forgotten in dark rooms, could be seen in squares and auditoriums teaching the young how to fight as a legion. How to lead troops.

Even as the young learned from the old, they adapted the teachings to their new reality. Because the young were not limited like the first generation.

The young created harnesses to lighten their weight and allowed them to pull themselves out of danger. They practiced reinforcing their shield and weapons with their mind making them heavier and lighter as the situation demanded. And with the help of the city's elves, they created the Unity of the Mind for the legion.

Simply put, the Unity of Mind was a mass telepathic linking.

It was a melding of minds for a legion. Allowing a legionary with their back turned to know to dodge the slash of a beastman's claws.

Unity installed a level of coordination unmatched by any legion of the past.

**********

Trudging through the rows of tents, the sounds of a legion camp washed over me. It might have been somewhat pleasant to walk through the camp, but the noonday sun was beating down on me.

Thanks to the rivers and foggy morning, the air was still cool, so I had that going for me. But the sun's rays were hot and getting hotter by the hour, making me more and more uncomfortable. And my ankle hurt from all the walking I did earlier this morning. And I was walking all over the place because everything was a mess…

It was making me… annoyed.

Before coming to the new fish camp, I returned to my room and then the supply tribune to outfit myself with a full set of scout gear. Had to make an impression on the trainees. No way they would respect and follow me otherwise, I thought sardonically.

Then I walked back to the fish camp outside the northeastern fort, only to find half the camp was gone. I was kind of happy, as it was being moved outside the fort on the northwestern spur of The Triad. Apparently, someone was taking the beastkin threat a little seriously.

So, yay~, scouts!

But it also made me walk for an hour as I passed through two forts and over a bridge with growing ankle pain.

So… boo~, scouts…

At least I was almost there, as I was mostly through the fish camp.

Occasionally, I could hear shouts and groans breaking through the camp's din, but they were the exceptions. Underlying every sound was the gentle roar of conversation and the subtle rustle of clothes. Punctuated by the constant clinks of pots and roasting spikes over cooking fires.

It wasn't like the legionaries were intentionally making noise, but once you get this many people together, the sounds of daily life became nearly deafening.

Everywhere I looked, I could see the fish sharpening their blades, oiling, cleaning, and checking their armor and harnesses. Tents were being set up or remade as drill instructors shouted at the fish for not properly doing one of the former.

Walking across the increasingly trampled grassy field in front of the fort's walls, I made it to a section of the tents in the camp that was unique. Not for its differences, because while there were differences, they were minor at best, but the lack of scrambling and disorder.

"Thank the Guardians…" I said in relief.

It was like from one step to the next, the ambiance of borderline panic and frantic energy from the fish was replaced by a calm surety. It was just another day on the job for these men and women.

Which was the way that this part of the camp should feel. Because this was where the instructors slept. It was also where the specialists in training stayed while they remained at The Triad.

For all the grandeur that The Triad once held, it was now little more than a training center. The southeastern spike of The Triad was hardly even a fort and was more of a tribune training and social gathering school. It kept growing past its walls and now counted as one of The Republic's cities, not a fort. The northwestern spur was a play fort for the fish to practice manning the walls. And the northeastern spur — where I was stationed — remained the only fully manned fort of The Triad, as we still saw the occasional warband raiding the Foothills.

While we did serve a legitimate purpose, we were normally just an extra pair of hands the fish instructors could call upon.

The forts legion hadn't seen a real battle since my father was in the legions. So The Triad's position as the unofficial training ground for the northern half of The Republic remained.

Which was turning out to be a blessing rather than the hassle it usually was.

The 15th Legion and The Triad were mostly ignored by The Senate and City Lords. Any calls for reinforcements — or even personnel replacements — took weeks, if not months, to process. And that wasn't counting the travel time. The nearest city with a guaranteed legion presence was slightly over two hundred miles away by air.

Not that the air distance mattered. The 15th wasn't important enough to have a flyer and pilot lying around, so any messenger would have to travel longer on the ground. Having both the control and raw power to pull yourself through the air for hours on end was something only the high nobility or the bastards of high nobility could do. One of those being at this backwater fort was… unlikely.

I believe we had someone who could connect to the Tele-Net in camp, but there was no way the Captain would burn the mind stones to call for aid without a solid idea of what we were facing.

The only thing we could do was send messengers to Basetown and maybe Cross. We had a duty to inform them we might have a major incursion of beastkin on our hands. After all, they'll be at the forefront of the defense right along with us.

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And if The Triad did need help, Basetown and Cross were honor bound by long tradition to come to our aid.

But the end of the matter was there was no way we would receive a reply from the messengers for weeks. And any report to the Senate would take months for a response, let alone replacements for the dead or missing scouts.

Without information from scouts, we had no idea what we were up against, so we needed more scouts.

What no one but my immediate superiors could stop me from doing was sending the scout applicants out on actual scouting missions. And the Prime told me to do it… so that wouldn't be happening soon.

Not that I wanted to send them out before they were ready, but if I had to… I would. It was better than the legion — and all it protected — being destroyed.

I walked through the small, somewhat calm section of the camp, looking for a group of board legionaries. They would all be veterans with years of experience.

While they were in scout training, they would technically be trainees, but there was no reason to treat them like the fish. They were here to expand their skill sets, not learn the basics as they were broken down and remolded. There would still be some braking, just not in the same way as the fish.

Seeing A few heads that didn't look like they were doing anything poking up over the tents, I headed for them.

Turning the corner, I saw what must be my trainees. There was no other reason for them to be lounging around in the fish camp.

There had to be twenty legionaries sitting around a couple fires or lounging partially inside tents. From what I could see, they were gambling, taking care of equipment, or any other of the other daily necessities legion life demanded.

Stopping next to the first lounging legionary, I kicked her in the leg.

She started to stir and grumble, waving her hand in a shooing motion, so I kicked the leg harder.

One of her hands snapped up, ripping the cloth draped over her eyes, while the other went down to a knife on her belt.

Her arm with the cloth drove into the ground, lifting her torso while her legs curled under her for a leap. Knife half unsheathed, she stopped, her face going pale.

Her eyes were darting around to different sections of my equipment, finally settling on the pin holding my cloak together under my neck. It was a clump of three layered ash leaves splayed out in a quarter arch and symbolized the scout cohort.

At least she stopped before getting her knife all the way out, I thought to myself.

Her mouth opened, and she was going to stutter something, but I cut her off. "Are these the scout trainees?" I waited for her nod and started to speak again before I continued talking, "Good. Gather everyone and meet me out on the Grounds." I said, nodding to the section of grassland beyond the camp's edges the fish were practicing in.

Not waiting for her to answer, I continued walking down and out of the alley of tents.

I took six steps before I heard the woman scrambling to get up and start shouting at her fellow trainees. Some looked at her in annoyance and tried to shout her down at first, but others took a second to look around their surroundings, quickly taking note of me walking through their area.

The more perceptive people dropped what they were doing and rushed to get ready. At that, even the densest trainees took a moment to notice me, or so I assumed since they shut up.

Making a mental note to watch the perceptive ones, I continued walking through the increasingly chaotic section of tents.

Their movements weren't like the frantic motions of the fish, as they were controlled and practiced. But anyone without a large amount of time in the legions might mistake their controlled chaos for actual disorder.

As I made it through the tents, I took in the training ground filled with fish and their instructors.

Taking in the familiar sight for a moment, I took in a breath filled with the smell of grass and dust, then walked forward.

I kept up a quick walk but never an actual jog as I blended into the mayhem of a couple thousand fish. It wouldn't do for the fish to see anyone but themselves rushing about.

As I walked through the mass of people, I kept an eye on my recruits as I inspected the fish camp. The last remnants from the northeastern side of The Triad were trickling over. And already, most of the camp was surrounded by earthworks.

Not bad for the fishes' morning work. They might not have the skill yet, but no one could deny the effort.

Picking up my pace, I kept a cohort of fish between me and the thirty-eight trainee scouts I could see looking for me at the edge of the training grounds.

They were searching for me. I knew that. I could see the growing desperation on their faces as they failed to find me. Because if they couldn't find me, well, that was on them. And it could be grounds to be kicked out of the scout's training course.

A smile twitched at my lips as they continued to fail.

If there was one thing an army with a thousand years of history had in spades, it was traditions.

What better tradition for the scout cohort trainees than finding their instructor? …And having their instructor hunt them without their knowing.

We might soon be fighting for our lives, and there might be a warband of thousands — could be tens of thousands — of beastkin on the horizon. But that was no reason to deprive these recruits of this wonderful tradition.

And more importantly, it was a chance for them to come to the realization that no one could force on them. I was a scout, and they would have to listen to me to learn the skills they needed to become a scout.

While most of them had faint memories of their fish days, I doubted many remembered full legionaries wandering and running about the training grounds searching for something. But there were always the stories of the few scout trainees who put two and two together over the years.

Usually, it started exactly as it was now. The trainees standing around with their eyes wide as the panic set in and a thumb up their collective asses.

As the instructor, it was my job to walk back and forth across the field without being spotted until I got close enough to act.

On my second pass, I noticed the group begin to split. The more perceptive trainees I noticed and the young woman I kicked in the leg started slipping away from the main group and began looking for me in other places.

The rest stayed in the mass as they wandered around the training field, searching for me.

While I applauded the initiative of those who tried to slip away, they stuck out like a sore thumb and were my first easy targets. So long as they didn't brake up too much.

Picking up my pace, I used a group of marching fish to cover me as I slipped into a group of resting fish, where I waited. Even with my cloak making me stand out compared to the leather armor of the fish, I blended right in when I flopped to the ground.

And the fish were too tired to give more than a glance, and usually not even that, at me in curiosity.

I sent out pulses tracking the scout trainees as they passed when I couldn't see them. Once the primary group went by, I waited for another ten or so seconds, letting those trailing the mass of trainees pass my hiding spot.

As they passed, I rose and fell into step behind them, forming four mental strands and slipping them into a pouch at my waist. I pulled out four stones and then flung them forward.

Turning away, I began walking down a line of fish, practicing the basic legion slashes and stabs against dummies.

"Ough! Oww!" I smiled as I heard their screams of pain.

At this point, they must be looking at their hands, wondering why they were covered in red chalk and who hit them.

Coming around the end of the row of practicing fish, I could see an instructor gathering up the four marked individuals, ushering them to the side of the training grounds.

Refocusing, I saw the other perceptive trainees clumping together as they pointed out their compatriots. They had to be suspecting something was up.

A few steps to the side and a quick flick of my wrist marked the five trainees — which included the female — and whatever concerns they were hatching about their situation were dealt with.

Creating five strands was a bit of a strain, but hitting them as they stood in place talking about their brethren being led away, was far from the hardest thing I have ever done.

With the perceptive trainees out of the way, I slowly began sneaking up on the backs of the other twenty-seven trainees.

I began picking off the people in the back in ones and twos.

Even though it looked like the drill instructors weren't paying attention to the scout trainees, hardly three seconds would pass after I marked a trainee before an instructor would grab the marked individual and pull them away.

In that way, it wasn't long until there were eight scout trainees left. They were getting suspicious as people shouted or grunted in pain before being pulled away by an instructor.

But who really questions a superior pulling someone away? Pretty much everyone when no one came back, and their numbers just kept decreasing. Not that it mattered what they noticed at this point.

Getting within ten feet of the last eight, I sent out two quick volleys of rocks, hitting each in the neck or head.

The chorus of screams was music to my ears as they all turned around, eyes widening as I held two chalk-covered red stones spinning above my hand.

Nodding to the side, I turned and walked away, moving the stones back to my pouch.

With the trainee scouts following, we walked through the field, ending a few feet from where they started.

The rest of the trainees were waiting, standing or squatting on the ground with sullen expressions. I gave a nod to the instructor watching over them, receiving a smile in return as he saw the rest of the trainees with red splotches. "Got five silver because of you," he said with a smile and nod as he passed.

Waving to those following me to join their comrades, I waited a few seconds for them to stand at attention, which all of them did. Even if some did it begrudgingly.

Giving them a shit-eating grin of enjoyment, I said, "Welcome to the scouts."