Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—
…
As Areekail finished speaking, his words settled into our minds. And with the words came the full scope of the elves' actions, the cost which we — and our descendants — would have to pay.
At the unfairness of it all, a flicker of wrath was embedded in our chests at that moment. But then we looked over the walls into the unending city stretching to the horizon. Over every surface, the wretched forms of beastmen crawled.
Life is never fair, and my hatred for the elves was smothered as I looked over the walls. The elves were, are, and will remain, suffering the cost for their actions for… who can say how long.
They tried their best to atone. To set us up for success.
But they could no longer hold up the burden that was crushing them. As their last act, they would give us time to grow.
High King Areekail stood at the railing of the broken citadel of at the corner of the raised city.
His dual forms — that of a decrepit old man and one in the prime of life — flickered before settling into the one of youth for an instant.
Then the mask of youth solidified as the air around him shuddered with power.
Stretching out his hand, he flicked his wrist, and a line of dirt a hundred feet tall shot through the city. At first, we saw nothing. Then second by second, a crevice running through the city started to grow. In the blink of an eye, the canyon was swallowing buildings, the speed of its expansion increasing.
The cracks and booms of splitting stone filled our ears as if the world itself was breaking apart.
Turning to our bloodless faces, he gave us a smile filled with remorse and relief as he whispered a word that carried over the destruction of the world, "Run."
**********
Spots filled my vision, my eyes watered, and a slight ringing filled my ears, but I didn't care. My eyes were locked on the new bridge arching across the Rush.
The charred and slightly melted stone blocks which were put into place and fused by lightning. Blocks that were taken from the walls of the fort… while killing all those who manned them.
Finally blinking, banishing the spots filling my vision, I looked around the deck of the barge.
Everyone I looked at had a pale face as they looked up at the clear night sky — the now visible stars somehow appearing like they were mocking us — or stared at the bridge a creature made of living lightning constructed.
After the first few seconds of the lightning assaulting our ears and eyes, the knights erected a barrier around the ship to block out most of the noise. We could still hear the sounds, but they were like someone dropping a pot on the other side of the house. Everyone knows what it is, but the racket is only deafening to the one in the room.
I turned from those on the barge to look at the Northern Fort of the Triad, remembering all the bolts of lightning crashing to the ground. Falling on a fort filled with legionaries.
It was an impossible event. But so is ripping out someone's soul… I suppressed a shudder at the thought. Never again can anyone deny a soul existing without me thinking them a fool. Any disbelief was literally ripped from my mind.
And If it was impossible but still happened… the lighting was a targeted attack.
How many people survive a lightning blast? With all the stories, the odds have to be pretty good, right? But how many would be able to fight afterward?
I could feel the growing hole in my gut tell me the answer. Few, if any, would be able to shrug it off. And with the defenses torn open, those still able to fight would be overwhelmed before they could gather.
A thud sounded to my right, and I looked over at Brackus standing on the deck, his helmet under one arm and face set into a grim mask.
"I received word that what is left of the legion is pulling back to the Southern Fort. Beastkins are pouring into the Northern Fort and will soon cut off the bridge, leaving hundreds, even thousands, of legionaries trapped. We have been ordered to gather as many legionaries from the Northern Fort as we can, then escort them to safety." He stopped talking, and the light of the burning barge towers turned the slant of his lips vicious, "I believe we can do far more than escort a few." His head turned slightly, and he examined the lines of barges upriver. Sections were filled with sinking ships, but most weren't. More than enough to stretch across the river.
The despondent mood growing on the deck vanished as we were given a course of action.
No matter our origins, our ranks, or the view of the rest of the republic about our fort and the 15th legion as a whole, we were proud. Our fort and legion's history stretched back a thousand years.
Watching the deaths of our brothers and sisters was not something that we could take lying down. Because we were Legion.
Pushing aside my exhaustion and growing fears about my mental energy, I was ready to charge forward again.
I would not be alone.
Even Celeste had a fire burning in her eyes as she looked at the new bridge.
It did not matter if the beastkin had powers we couldn't comprehend or hope to mimic. We would fight.
The knight commander looked at our faces and nodded in approval.
"Kaloma and Veelam, take your squads and clear and capture enough barges to span the river. Move them to the northern docks and line them up. Pekloo, secure the Docks on the Northern Fort with your squad. Lukus, move into the fort and stall the advance of the beastkin. the rest of you scatter into the fort and spread the word of a new route." Orders given to those on the deck, he took a step and leaped into the air, throwing his body toward the slightly smoldering tower barge and those knights still on the deck.
I saw him stand on the charred wood for a moment, then as one, all of the knights on the tower barge started climbing up the tiered ladders leading up to the bridge.
They climbed up and disappeared in moments, but the knights on our boat were not waiting and watching them like I was. The ship was already moving, propelled by the knights on deck, while the others had leaped into the water.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Despite becoming a small city of little import, the Triad had once been a major base for the republic. It functioned as the supply hub for the legions stationed in the northeastern territories. To facilitate the traffic, four docks were built on the Triad, one in both the Western and Northern Forts and two on the Southern Fort, one on the Rush, and one on the Twins. All of those docks still existed today, if in far more disrepair than they once were.
The docks for the Northern Fort were located at the fort's easternmost section on the Twins. A straight shot across the river was the smaller docks of the Southern Fort, as not that much trade was coming to the fort from Basetown.
With the full might of the knights behind it, the barge shot forward, going faster than it had ever gone before. Standing at the deck's edge, I could feel the spray of chilly water as we hit the waves and the shudders in the wood as we hit chunks of ice.
I half turned to the nights at the prow as I felt the ship shudder but held my tongue. They didn't seem to care about the potential damage to the boat and continued to plow through the river as fast as before, their eyes locked on our destination.
They had to be in a Union, and couldn't miss the impacts rocking the boat, so all I could do was have faith they had a plan.
After minutes of moving at such a speed, the barge was pulling up to the docks.
The four piers of the Northern Fort stuck a hundred feet into the water, along a hundred yards section of the river bank. The fort's walls angled around the region, forming a rectangular area of land fifty yards deep, with the steel gates to the fort at its center. Past the docks, the walls only continued another fifty or so yards before turning.
Coming up to the dock, a knight shouted, "Brace yourselves!" The words were hardly out of the knight's mouth before the boat spun one-hundred-eighty degrees, sliding up next to the dock. The smallest of bumps signaled our arrival. "Move into the fort and gather those you find! But don't go too far!" The knight shouted, unfazed by the maneuver.
Carefully getting to my feet after we stopped moving, I held down my building nausea, eyeing the ship beneath me in concern. The creeks and groans from the straining wood were no longer there, but I could clearly make out the gurgling of water. Like it was slipping into…
Eyes widening in realization, I shot to my feet, ignoring the flop in my stomach, and quickly moved to the far railing, joining the crowd gathered there.
The knights already had whatever mental conversation they needed and were rushing down the docks after throwing some ropes onto the ship's railings.
Hastily tying off the rope, we jumped down the seven feet to the dock before moving down the pier after the knights.
As we stomped down the dock, I saw a knight standing on the shore waving his hands towards the river. I missed a step in surprise as the water next to the pier started boiling before it pulled back like a curtain revealing the start of a mud path leading right to the sinking ship. Guess the holes don't matter.
Stepping onto dry land for the first time in far too long, I looked to my sides. Sathera and Bellous had taken up positions to my left and right, making us a team of three. The rest of the legionaries on the boat had come to the same unspoken consensus and also broke up into groups of two and three as we moved.
The stone cobbles beneath my feet were covered in so much dirt that they might as well not even be there. Very little was built in this area, as the river's yearly surge made structures nearly impossible to keep standing.
The only reason a dock remained was that this was still technically a Legion Fort, even if it had become more of a school. According to the manual, all permanent forts on a river needed a place to stage supplies in case of a siege.
Muscles burning from the run and slightly puffing for air, we reached the rising steel portcullis as the stone gates behind swung open, causing relief to surge through me.
The whole time we were running to the gate, I was throwing glances at the walls and wasn't seeing any movement on them. This might have been the back of the battle, but the legion knew beastkins were coming from the river. Someone should have been keeping watch. That's not a good sign.
Running into the passage, I saw a figure in armor drop to the ground at the far end with a clatter of metal. Over each shoulder of the knight were the limp forms of legionaries. Shit.
Stepping past the knight who had started jogging down the tunnel with their passengers, I moved into the fortress proper and froze in place.
The immediate area around the gates to the docks was a collection of warehouses.
But the stone structures couldn't house anything anymore. It looked like their roofs were smashed inward by a massive hammer, exploding the walls out to the sides. The sunstones that were supposed to hang on the walls of the buildings were either mostly destroyed or buried, throwing the area into shifting darkness.
My eyes moved past the immediate neighborhood of destruction, seeing more of the same, if to a lesser scale. I watched the lightning creature build the bridge from the destroyed wall, but the sight was… distant. Like I was in a dream, watching the events happen without it really affecting me.
I knew from wandering around this location in the past on midnight strolls that the last time the warehouses were maintained was measured in decades, if not longer. Most only held long-collected dust.
But as I saw the destroyed buildings, I heard a distant thought. Nothing more than a whisper flickering across the back of my mind. …Why am I fighting?
"Argh!" I grunted in pain, hand clutching my tunic over my chest as if it would soothe the spear of pain deep inside my heart. At that moment, my eyes locked on a figure lying among the scattered blocks of a building.
Bricks were stacked next to the head, casting a shadow over the face. I reared back as the streaks of light and shadow twisted, and I saw Bark's face. Her body was surrounded by collapsed stone, her chest weakly moving as she took a shuddering breath.
Blinking, the shadows snapped back into place, and I was looking at the face of a woman in the prime of life, blood caking one side of her face from a wide gash at her temple.
My brows wrinkled in confusion as I thought of the old woman, my breathing hitching as I felt a flare of concern. I had never felt the like in all my years of service.
Starting at the woman's face, the sides of my vision turned black, encroaching on the center with every rapid beat of my heart.
"Are you okay, Instructor?" Sathera asked, snapping my mind into focus. Looking at her, I saw her look of concern.
"Fine," I gasped, waving her off, trying to shove away the pointless thoughts writhing in my head and focus on the job. I could tell she didn't believe me, but I ignored her piercing eyes.
After taking a few breaths to focus my mind, I stated, "let's move." I needed to get moving.
I saw others move off, some to the stairs leading to the wall, and others like me into the heart of the destruction, but I did not care. I had a goal in mind, and not much else mattered.
At first, all we found were destroyed buildings. The atmosphere turned heavy as the tension built with every step we took. The cries and clangs of a fierce battle were all around us. Whenever we turned a corner, we thought we would find a battle raging on the street.
But every time, we found nothing.
I could faintly hear the slaps of our footsteps as we passed one line of empty barracks after another, the sharp smell of ozone and iron filling my nose. After dozens of minutes of running and nearing the middle of the fort, we stepped around the corner leading to the main boulevard running through the camp.
Hesitating for a second, I looked at the street filled with legionaries.
The wounded — and I couldn't see one who wasn't — were shuffling down the length. Open wounds and bloody bandages were everywhere, some with shocked, dull expressions covering their faces. Shouts of centurions and commanders echoed off the walls as they tried to instill order, but all these people wanted was to retreat.
I flinched back from the desperation pouring out from their muddled thoughts. The burning hope of the bridge flickered in their minds, as everyone knew it was their only way out.
Except the flashes and sounds of combat were the strongest to the south. If any of them were thinking clearly, they would know their hope was fruitless.
"Spread the word," I told the two following me as I took off down the street. "To the docks!" I shouted, "Go to the docks!"
Some of those around listened to me, but I never stopped moving to find out. I didn't even really care if they followed their last hope for life. Because they don't care about me…
But I kept shouting anyway, doing my duty. Over and over, I yelled, not stopping until the crowd had nearly vanished and I was a few streets from the fort's outer walls. I could not move any further.
The building I was standing before was in the center of the wall's arch, placed in an optimal position for any wounded. Because where else would a forward aid station be.
A medico ward I knew Bark would be at.
A ward that was smashed like a child hopping onto a sandcastle by the boulder in its center. My eyes flicked to the arms and legs poking out of the destruction, causing a fist to clench at my heart.
Slumping to the ground, I stared at a single calloused arm and hand locked into a mockery of a wave by two pieces of stone.
Time passed, and I didn't move a muscle, only coming out of it when a soft voice spoke, "I am truly sorry for the loss of life. But this is necessary."