Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—
They came with teeth and claws.
Monsters more likely to be attributed to the legends of gods and heroes than found in daily life. Or they would be where I was born.
The beasts had aspects of humans — such hauntingly similar features and mannerisms — but you could never mistake them as such. They have forelimbs reaching almost to their knees and are covered in fur while spending most of their time on all fours.
The beasts jumped between the trees into the clearing before racing across the ground and through the tall grass.
At first, only a few scattered soldiers around the large clearing noticed the charging beasts. And few cared or heeded their calls of alarm as everyone was shouting and looking around, searching for answers to what had happened. Why we were here.
Who cared about wild animals? For what beast would willingly rush toward a mass of thousands of humans?
When the frontrunners of the beastmen leaped onto the first ranks of legionaries, the beasts dug their claws into the backs and shoulders of the men who had turned around before burying their fangs into the base of their necks. The unlucky legionaries' blood-chilling screams of pain lanced into the air, snatching everyone's attention.
The desperate fear-filled voices fell to gurgles before anyone could act as the beasts reared back, ripping out a chunk of the soldiers' throats.
Then howls filled the clearing as the beasts poured out from the surrounding ring of trees by the thousands.
And all we knew — all we needed to know — was these monsters must be killed. Or we would be.
**********
The cry of the eagle beastkin still rang in my ears.
And even after running for what must be over a minute, I still felt like the cry was ringing in my head.
It was like I had been marked as prey, and it was somehow tracking me while I was under the trees.
On foot, I might be able to outrun a pack of beastkin. Not because I could out skint or outlast them but because I could lose them by running through the tops of trees or through a river.
They would eventually find my trail and start hounding me again, but those tricks were usually enough for me to get some rest or get out of the area.
I had spent more than my share of time running through forests and along the slopes of mountains being chased by beastkin.
In all those encounters, only a single time was a flying beastkin involved. I think it might have been a hawk, but I really didn't care what subspecies it was at the time. All that mattered was it could fly.
Over the day and night it chased me, the beastkin only lost track of me a few times, and that was when I slipped under some cover. Whenever I started moving again, it was right there in the sky.
It always seemed to hover miles overhead, taunting me before it swooped down to signal the feline beastkin tracking me through the mountains.
In the end, I had to jump over the side of a waterfall to bait the bird close enough to shoot it with my bow.
As I jumped from the rocky ledge, I used a mental strand to guide a tied-off rope and catch it onto an outcropping on the cliff face. At the same time, I coiled the rope around my waist and tied it off, securing me.
When the rope went taught, it swung me inward towards the wall of stone. Absorbing the impact with a bend of my knees, I planted my feet before extending to my full height while standing perpendicular to the granite rock.
Raising my bow, I drew the arrow nocked on the string back to my cheek and waited. The cocky bird did exactly as I hoped a few seconds later, as it flew a dozen feet above the edge, putting him less than fifty feet from where I hung.
I missed killing the bastard, but I hit him in the wing. Which was enough to force the creature to land, letting me get away from the pursuing cats.
I was knocked out of my memory when I heard a loud thump behind me.
Moments later, I heard the crack of something slamming into a tree at high speed to my side. It was followed by creaking, crackling pops as a tree trunk broke and started to fall.
As the leaves whoosh through the air and the trunk hit the ground, I could faintly make out a second thump.
I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw what I expected. A hundred feet to my right side was a newly collapsed tree, and a few feet past the downed tree farther down the hill was a cloud of dust above a crater. Turning my head nearly all the way around, I could faintly make out a second cloud of dust through the trees.
I grumbled mentally in jealousy as more thumps rapidly distanced themselves from me.
Markus was making a run for it.
He should make it back to camp, which was a weight off my mind.
If the information was going to make it back to the legion, then all I had to do was survive. No reason to waste a valuable piece of legion property. I'm sure they have plans for me to die in other places.
But now the beastkin had an obvious point to start a search and a reason to do so. One of the two they could track was already gone.
I only really had one option at this point. There was no way I was sneaking out of this forest with the numbers that would soon flood through it. I had to find a hiding spot and wait for the warband to pass.
Five feet from my body, I began projecting a sphere of perception filling the area with a tenth of my mental energy and willpower. It was all that I could manage.
It wasn't much, considering it was said a High Lord can project a perception sphere around themselves for a quarter mile in every direction, but it was more than most people could do. Regardless of how much control I had, certain facts could not be avoided.
The main limitation for a perception sphere, in most cases, wasn't the area one could project their mental energy into. It was the amount of information they could process.
Even I, the lowest of the low when it came to raw power, could form a perception sphere for a quarter of a mile in diameter.
I wouldn't be able to tell much, if anything, about the area before the information flooding my mind turned it to mush, and I died, but I could technically form it.
A perception sphere wasn't like a pulse that only showed what it was currently passing over. A sphere showed everything from the boundary to your skin.
The colorless shapes of everything within the sphere flowed into the caster's mind every moment. Information you had to process and push into your subconscious. Having a near-endless stream of disjointed information flow through one's mind was… disconcerting, to say the least.
Eight out of ten people who attempted a sphere without the standard mental energy reserves either went mad or became mindless husks on their first attempt.
After that, we survivors are fine so long as we don't overly strain ourselves. Usually.
It still nearly knocks us on the ass every time with a migraine for an hour or two.
Nearly being the keyword. There are ways those of us with less… power can push ourselves to become more. If we are willing to take risks and suffer pain.
Risks I have long been willing to take since they allow me to find the beastkin warband as quickly and relatively safely as I did.
The facts still remained the same, though, if you wanted a larger perception sphere, you needed more mental energy. There is no way around it.
And while you can slowly increase the amount of mental energy you have with time and training, it is like a year of effort to add a single drop of water to a bucket. After adolescence, there are no large spikes in mental energy.
I have read scholarly works that theorized that the correlation between handling the mental load of a larger perception sphere and larger reserves of mental energy was an individual's innate ability to naturally offload the mental strain onto their powers. Making an impossible task for most people little more than an afterthought for those with power.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
It wasn't like the more power one had, the bigger your brain was or anything like that. As people with lots of mental energy weren't any more intelligent than anyone else, they could just do stuff no one with less mental energy could hope to accomplish.
Which really begged the question of why that was the case. But I had better things to worry about than a scholarly question with no answer, like running through this forest while leaving as little of a trail as possible.
There is no one running through the forest — while being chased by beastkins racing across the ground and flying in the air — who has time to ensure they aren't leaving a trail. They aren't going to blaze a path through the forest, but leaving no signs at all is impossible. Those being pursued need to find a place to hide and hope they aren't found.
That didn't mean I couldn't minimize my trail.
Telekinetic tendril snapping out, I wrapped it around a branch. As I passed the bush, the branch caught on my clothing. The branch began bending to the point that it should have cracked before bounding back undamaged.
The next step I took became a half step as I leaped forward over a decaying log covered in moss. My perception sphere showed me it couldn't hold my weight, and the damage I could leave would make an obvious trail.
I landed on the balls of my feet as I danced around twigs and patches of grass, searching for clear ground or rocks just under the detritus making up the forest floor.
It was not perfect, as my sphere was not large enough to be perfect, and I had little to no time to react. And often, I was left with no way forward without leaving a footprint in the soft patch of soil.
Which left me to make my best guess on where to go based on what I could see. I was usually right.
When I wasn't, and depending on how much of a mess I made when I fucked up, I either left it hoping it would go unnoticed or spent a few seconds leaping about, hoping to make it unclear which direction I had gone.
Minutes passed as I continued to run through the forest, passing oak and beech trees while slipping around the reaching branches of small bushes. I tried to stay under the thickest trees, but I knew time was running out.
The beastkin must have made it to where we had started our escape. And with the canine beastkin, even a casual inspection of the area would reveal the scent of an elf.
I couldn't speak for Markus, but my concealment castings slipped for a while there. Not that they needed anything more to know someone was about with two of theirs dead.
Right now, I wasn't even bothering to do more than the most basic scent concealment casting. Those castings were meant for measured, controlled movements, not sprinting.
The fuckers weren't as good as tracking hounds, but they weren't all that much worse, either.
Making it to the bottom of the valley, I ran for a minute or two before coming across a shallow stream mostly hidden by the trees.
There was a definite patch running down the center that was bathed in sunlight, but it was hidden enough… Right?
It had to be.
Only hesitating at the edge of the small stream for a second, I jumped down the bank onto one rock after another as I made my way downstream.
Splashing downstream for two minutes, the stream's banks became little more than a large step. The western bank was calling me. Asking me to hop over them and into the welcoming embrace of the shadows under the forest's boughs.
Then I felt a gaze stabbing into the back of my head, sending a shiver down my spine.
There was no need to look. I knew what I would find, but I looked regardless.
Up in the sky, what looked like a miniature human figure with wings and golden feathers hovered in the air.
The gold-feathered bastard looked like a lord sitting on his thrown overlooking his city and all its subjects. Specifically, me. Shit~.
I did not like the arrogance in his eyes as he looked down on me.
As the figure turned, a screeching cry rang out. The very air seemed to shake from the cry's power.
Like a rabbit startled into flight by a snapping twig, I bolted from the river and into the forest. But not before I flipped off the bird brain with both hands.
All I did was run, forgetting any attempts to obscure my path. I needed distance and time, and I was not going to get either by a half-hearted flight.
Even if the bird could catch sight of me through the trees, there was no way it could dive down on me through all the limbs.
"Bloody crows take you all!" I huffed at the beastkin as I ran. My sword slapped against my waist with every stride. I clenched my bow in my fist while my quiver slapped against my back.
For the briefest moment, I thought about dumping everything and seeing how far I could run at a dead sprint, but the thought left as fast as it came.
I knew they would catch up sooner rather than later, and when they did, I would go down swinging like a legionary.
Down the valley parallel to the river, I ran. I angled myself so that I would ever so slightly climb out the valley's eastern slope. Not that I would make it that far, but the western slope was closer to the warband.
I wasn't inclined to go in that direction for some reason, couldn't say why.
Without a doubt, I was in shape. And I was assisting my movements with a tendril pulling forward slightly on my harness, making it even easier, but being in shape and running up and down rolling valleys that made up the Northern Forest was something altogether different. Only crazy people ran up mountains for fun. I thought, beginning my climb up the foothill.
There had to be beastkin scouts out here somewhere, but why would they pursue me without them seeing me or meeting one of their kin? Well, not unless they were already ord—
A howl echoed across the valley, causing my steps to stutter in a primal moment of fear. I knew I was being hunted, and I did not like it. Didn't need the howling reminder, either.
It was hard to tell exactly how far it was with the noise echoing off the slopes of the valley, but it was at most a mile, maybe a mile and a half behind me if I was lucky.
All around the valley, more howls sounded, combining to make a chorus.
"Fuck~!" I moaned. They were everywhere.
Sighing to myself, I slowed my pace and started searching my surroundings.
While I was running, I hadn't really taken the time to look around, but the area I was in was strange. There were a lot of rocks scattered around the trees. It was almost as if…
A crooked smile spread across my face, and a barking laugh exploded from my throat. Now? Of all the times in my life? I thought sardonically.
I inspected the trees growing around and on the piles and overly large square stone blocks scattered around, becoming more sure by the moment.
As I traveled deeper into the significant depression hollowed out of the hillside, it looked like someone had gathered all the stones that were once scattered around the entire valley and tossed them here in random piles.
My eyes scanned the area, searching for the densest clusters of rocks. It worked. After a few hundred feet, I could hardly take a step without tripping over another pile of stones.
The howls behind and to my sides were getting louder and coming more often, but I didn't care.
If I was right — and had a bit of luck — I would live. If not, I would take as many beastkins as I could with me.
And at least I was in an area so overgrown with trees that there was no way the bird could see or get to me. The shrieks of annoyance overhead were music to my ears.
I squinted my eyes as I thought I could make out a clearing a few hundred yards in front of me.
A scrape of claws against a stone, followed by a clatter of a rock falling, sounded behind me.
Diving forward, I tried to roll over my back before spinning around to face my attackers, but I forgot where I was.
Well, not really. I knew exactly where I was…
…I was pretty sure I knew where I was.
I also knew the ground was covered in piles of rocks, and I needed to watch my step. Otherwise, I would fall over from tripping on them like an idiot.
The fact rocks covered the ground and rolling would be a monumentally painful and stupid idea did not cross my mind.
Not until the first rock jabbed into my back. "Gahh! By the Guardians!"
The first rock wasn't that bad. Sure, it bruised my kidney, and I was pretty sure I would be pissing out blood for a while, but then I rolled into some tall grass that would be nice and soft.
Instead of coming to my feet after a semi-graceful roll, I hit the boulder hidden by the tall grass with my back. Thrown to the side, I landed on a stupidly pointy rock that stabbed right under my bottom rib and into my chest.
Flopping to my stomach, I drove my hands into the ground, hopping to my feet. The pain and potential stone embedded in my side pushed to the back of my mind.
I let out a few grunts and moans along the way, but what mattered was I got to my feet only a second or two after the roll I imagined performing would have.
As I looked up, annoyance flared inside of me.
I was right.
There was a male canine beastkin behind me. Two actually. Well, one was a woman, but who cares about semantics.
What there was not was an arrow or spear lodged into the ground right in line with where I was running before I… dodged. The bastards didn't have any ranged weapons at all. I hate both of you. I thought with squinted eyes.
Sighing, I rolled my shoulder and leaned to the side, stretching my back with a groan, trying to loosen up the knot that had suddenly formed. Then started walking towards the pair of beastkin charging at me on all fours.
Dropping my bow to the ground, I drew my blade as I casually took one step after another toward the two.
When I was ten feet from the beastkin, my eye twitched, and four arrows lept out of my quiver and then shot forward almost as fast as an unassisted bow.
The two leading arrows shot at the faces of the beastkin, making them rear up and knock the arrows out of the air with their claws as they continued toward me.
The other two arrows slammed through their trailing feet, pinning them to the ground.
Both of the beastkin stumbled as they ripped the arrows out of the ground and fell, somehow missing all the rocks strewn about and smashing their unusually large muzzles into a soft patch of soil.
Before the pair had even started falling, I was lunging forward with my drawn short sword.
As the leading beastkin hit the ground, I slightly adjusted my aim, slamming half my sword's length into the back of his skull. Hate.
The female received an arrow through her throat as she fell. You.
Looking at her with squinted eyes, I used another strand of mental energy to slam an arrow into her back. Both.
Turning away, I sheathed my sword, picked up my bow with a strand, and started running toward the clearing.
Beastkins were tough bastards. The young beast-woman might live. I've seen other beastkin that have lived with an arrow through the throat.
Not that I cared one way or the other. All I needed to know what that she wouldn't be a problem for the foreseeable future.
I was barely halfway to the clearing as the constant howls of the canine beastkin grew ever closer and more aggressive. They must have scented the blood of their fallen drifting into the air.
Pushing myself to run harder, my eyes flicked to the deep shadows of the forest around me as I imagined beastkin leaping out of them.
Stumbling to a stop at the edge of the clearing, an astonished smile crept over my face.
It looked like I might not die.