Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—
With the legionaries gone, the battle entered a momentary lull. The few legionnaires still fighting on the ground were quickly overwhelmed, and the hoard as a whole seemed to pause.
The bird beastmen in the air still threw themselves down at the battlements in waves. And those at the base of the walls clawed at the smooth stone as they futilely struggled to climb it. But the implacable motion of the hoard when they overran the earthworks was gone.
Out in the distance, the churning sea of creatures stopped as if they were hesitant to throw away their lives at the base of our walls.
Then a lone howl rang out as a beastman found a gate leading into our fortress, and then another and another howl rang out at other parts along the wall as more beastmen found gates. At the noise, the sea of beasts surged forward once more.
Beastmen swarmed through the gates, and their bodies pressed into a fifty-foot square courtyard, packing it to bursting before explosions threw back and ripped apart those at the entrance. As the hoard was momentarily pushed back, a foot-wide patch of stone rippled out from the sides of the gates, closing off the passage for the rest of the hoard.
Archers appeared at the sides of the courtyards' walls, and they released flights of arrows. Wave after wave slammed into the packed creatures, killing them until none moved. Though they were so packed into the space, most were still standing upright as their blood dripped to the ground.
Three of the walls of the courtyard pulled back, and knights terra stepped out and pressed their hands against the ground. At their touch, the ground began pulling away from the courtyard's center, causing the bodies to fall into the pit below. Once the bodies were gone, the knights covered the hole before retreating into their alcoves.
The courtyard, once filled with death, was ready for its next usage. A courtyard and was just one of a dozen.
**********
I crouched low as I slipped between the blades of tall grass. I used the occasional mental strand to brush the grass clump to the side, but I mainly used my hands. There was no point in wearing myself out this early.
No real need either. We were still close enough to the fort that I could see the occasional horse picket or flight of knights off in the distance. While it took special equipment and training for knights to fly long distances, three to five miles from a camp was easy enough for them to manage without much of an issue.
Everything came down to me being relatively sure that there was no beastkin this close to the fort. So I was paying less attention to looking for beastkin scouts and more attention to looking for mistakes by my trainees.
This isn't the nitpicky, 'I see a spot on your blades, so clean all of your equipment again' the fish have to endure. It's the, 'you dropped your shield for a moment and left a trace, and now you're going to get an arrow in the back' kind of mistakes.
I wasn't expecting to encounter and beastkin until we got to the forest, so I planned to make the most of the time and check over my troops for any obvious faults as we traveled across the plain.
To make the task easier on me — in I could view them in somewhat isolation — I broke the trainees into small four-man squads.
Technically I was a part of one, but until we got into a more dangerous location, I was not going to help or lead them.
As for the leaders of the squads, I made those who had the most potential, which was Traig, Anooha, Joxin, and Kathren. The rest I didn't really pay attention to as they were divided.
Currently, I was trailing behind Joxin's group. He was the last that I was going to inspect before I returned to mine.
They were spread out in a loose line about ten feet from each other, with Joxin slightly ahead where everyone could see him.
Yeah, his teammates could totally see him if they knew where to look and could separate him from the tall grass he slipped through without much, if any, of a ripple marking his location. Joxin knows his stuff. I thought with respect.
Even I lost him a few times and had to use the other three as reference points to get an approximate location and wait to catch sight of his cloak or another piece of clothing.
His teammates were having an even harder time, and the pulses they sent out every few minutes said just how lost they would have been without their mental powers.
The waste of their energy was bad enough. But their paths through the tall grass was like they curled up into a ball and rolled forward along the ground.
Though I wasn't sending out a mental pulse to alert them, I roughly knew what castings they were using, thanks to my detector. Which was a half dome a couple feet in diameter and could be used to pick up the traces of mental castings in its immediate area. Useful as it might be, it takes a lot of practice to interpret the impulses I get from it.
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No matter how controlled, any mental casting sent out small vibrations into their surroundings and can be picked up on by those who listened. Usually, a casting had to be strong to register on someone's senses when they weren't using a perception sphere or pulse, but that wasn't an option when you have as little raw power as me or want to stay hidden.
The detector was one of the tricks my father passed down to me. The range wasn't great, only a couple hundred feet, but it was far more than I could project my mind. Though the casting wasn't much of an advantage when dealing with beastkin, I found it invaluable when I was stationed on the border with the Imperium.
And the information that it was telling me now was that every one of Joxin's squad members other than him was having trouble maintaining their shields. They would drop low in power before surging in strength, only to drop again and vanish before popping into place again.
Seeing all I needed, I glided forward, picking up the pace. Within a few minutes, I was ten feet from Joxin's back.
I thought about starting by speaking but thought better of it. He looked rather tense and liable to lash out with an attack, so I dropped the shield shrouding my mind and waited.
Unsurprisingly, the first person to notice me was a man to my left. He was having the most trouble keeping track of everyone and was sending out a pulse at regular intervals.
The immediate pulse after the first gave away that he must have seen me and caused everyone else to send out their own in response to see what had startled him.
When I felt Joxin's pulse, I put on a welcoming smile as he whirled around to see me, his hand lowering to the hilt of his knife.
I gave him a moment to register who I was before waving for him, along with his squad, to come near me.
As they gathered around, I crouched down below the grass and spoke in a whisper. "As you can guess," I said, looking at three of the scouts, "you're shit at fieldcraft and need to work on controlling your shields. Nothing we can do about that but time and practice."
They didn't like the words, not many did when you were saying how bad they were at something, but I could see they accepted them. Looking at Joxin, I continued, "Your fieldcraft is good, and even I lost you a few times, but you need to realize you are with an untrained team. Even if the beastkin can't find you, if they find your team and you're with them, it's the same. Keep an eye out behind you." Joxin's eyes widened at my words, and he nodded with understanding.
Then I paused for a second, looking at everyone, my face falling into a solemn mask as I said, "And you all made the same deadly mistake."
Looks of confusion appeared on their faces, and their eyes flicked to each other, searching for an answer. A moment passed as they said nothing, as none of them could think of it.
"You relied on your pulses for what was around you. None of you even checked behind you, and I walked right up." I finally said.
I saw Joxin's mouth open, only to snap shut a moment later. I knew what he was going to say.
But that assumption was no longer accurate. Only those with mental powers who were focused on control could shroud their minds, which was a group the beastkin were definitely not a part of. However they did it, the fact remained, the beastkin could now shroud their minds. We had to deal with that reality.
Not that anyone but me had seen it. But at this point, everything else I reported was verified, so it wasn't like anyone would doubt that tidbit.
"Yeahhh~," I said, drawing out the word. "If you remember anything from this, remember they can shroud their minds now. I believe…" Looking over my shoulder at the distant forest, I said, "It will serve you the best on this mission."
Don't know why I thought that, but it was what my gut told me. And I was these people's trainer. And they all seemed like good enough folks that I didn't want to see them killed like Prick and his associates… So I would do what I thought was right.
"Thank you, sir," Joxin said, slamming his fist to his chest and was copied by the rest of the squad.
I nodded to him as I stood, "Remember, only go two miles into the forest, then fall back to the tree line and wait for me. If I'm not back by morning, and you don't hear from my squad, report back to the Triad." They nodded as I restated their orders. "Good, now hurry up and get back into position," I said, motioning for them to continue their advance.
I watched them spread out, and threw a few glances behind them for a bit, then slinked off into the grass, looking for my own squad.
Seventeen minutes of solid movement passed, and I was closing in on the position of where my squad of three should be.
It took a moment for me to catch sight of some movement as I was off of their location by a few hundred feet. They drifted more to the right than I would have guessed.
Within a few minutes, I was behind the trio, inspecting them. I gave them some pointers right after I made the group, and we started traveling, but I soon after left them to inspect the others.
They were closer together than the other groups. All were within ten feet and were making a small arrow, with Kathren at the front.
None of them looked like they were experts in the field, but they all knew what they were doing and were leaving less of a trail than the three with Joxin, but not quite as good as him.
I was impressed by what I saw. None of them could be called proficient in using their shield, so they made mistakes. Even with their mistakes, they took to heart my warning their pulses couldn't be trusted.
They positioned themselves so each could take up a third of the area around them. And I could detect the traces of a mental link running between them. But it might also just be updates they were telepathically sending each other.
More than any of the other groups, it seemed like they had taken my warning to heart.
As I crept up to them, I kept my mind shrouded as I wanted to see how close I could get to them.
When I was fifty feet out, I felt a rapid series of messages between them after one of the men's eyes caught on my position for a moment.
As they whirled around, weapons raised, I was already standing up with my hands razed.
"Instructor," Kathren said sheepishly as she hid her drawn sword behind her back.
I smiled at her and her men, "Good," I said, causing a look of puzzlement to appear on their faces, "With reactions and strategies like that, you lot might actually make it back."
My words did not appear to fill them with confidence.