The troop leaders are at the moment hiding in the battlefield. If it was any other time I would be throwing spears at them already, but there must be a reason these creatures are taking such a risk and I need to know their reason.
Right now the beasts are trying to hide in a group of their underlings. If shamon had not warned me of this particular tactic of theirs it would be easy for the troop leaders to sneak in like this. I might have been actually fooled by the creatures too if I did not keep a very keen eye out for them. I have no desire of repeating my mistakes.
The creatures have managed to suppress their mana outputs to an absurd degree. The reason that I actually managed to detect them is that their mana output is actually lesser than the mana that the ice beasts that they are using to hide themselves with. They also seem to have shrunk in size making them only a bit larger than their soldiers. The size is enough for them to be mistaken as their soldiers if nobody was keeping a keen eye out for them. Such a method must certainly be quite damaging to the creatures. I wouldn't be surprised if the creatures end up dead by the end of the next year.
As for why we are waiting to attack them is mainly to figure out what exactly these beasts were attempting to do. I am studying them at the same time trying to figure out what exactly the creatures are. Something tells me that these troop leaders are not the only ones that I will be facing. I don't know how but the creatures are being compelled by their masters to attack us. (Any kind of magical method of ensuring obedience will simply not work this faraway.)
Now when I am relatively in control of the situation would be the ideal time to study them. Maybe if I figure out how exactly they are being compelled to attack me, I could manipulate it to my benefit.
They must be planning to attack me somehow. I cannot explain their behaviour with anything else. The creatures have been sneaking into the battlefield for the last couple of days. First they would dip into the battlefield cautiously, ready to escape in an instant. Then they began to make their way closer to the fort. Now, they are almost a part of the group that is reaching the wall and trying to breach it. Whatever they are planning they are very careful of me and my mana sense.
Thanfully they overestimated my mana sense. Otherwise, if they were to attack me the instant that they made it into the battlefield I might have been actually ambushed by them. I don't even want to imagine being attacked by them without my mana shielding me.
That is why I am not able to figure out what they are planning. What they are doing is just decreasing their chance of harming me. Instead, what they are attempting to do seems to be more like they are trying to study me, though shamon argues that the creatures are too dumb for such a thing to be possible. After all, I have been quite active on the walls for the last couple of days and it feels like they have been trying to enter into the fort since then.
I have not been doing much, just using the mana in my core to attack a few of the creatures that had managed to breach the wall of this place. The attacks are only strong enough to push the creatures out of the wall. The reason for this is that I have been careful in making sure that the enemy beasts would not be able to track my mana. Well, it looks like I have not been particularly successful at this as I would have hoped to be based on the way that the beasts have been trying to infiltrate this place.
Well, I guess that I should have not been on the wall at all. It is not like my presence would have helped the soldiers here much. All I can really claim to have done in the last couple of days is to boost the morale of the soldiers. I can't even claim to have been very good at that as well. After all, two more soldiers have died yesterday.
They were two of the soldiers that were infected with the chill. I could have done little to help them anyways. The morale has become heavy enough that it has begun to affect the performance of the soldiers.
That is part of the reason why I am suddenly helping out the soldiers after staying out of their way for so long. It is also due to the fact that I have managed to push out all of the chill in my body finally. It was a grueling process to say the least. If I was in meditation at the very least I would not have felt this process so viscerally, but I dared not enter into meditation.
Without meditation, I could feel every bit of the ice mana in my body being pulled out. All I will speak about the process is just how fucking cold the process was. If before with the chill I felt as if I was sitting on a block of ice, now it felt like ice is flowing in my blood. Still, with every cycle of my vital mana I could feel the ice mana being pulled out of me.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
That is why I am not working on my formations at this moment. I guess that I could work on the ballista but right now my mind is too exhausted to even consider working on it. All of the runes will just collapse even if I were to work now. Better to do it after relaxing my mind. That would certainly not be happening if I were to stay cooped up in the formation room, with the four walls and the injured soldiers who could die at any moment as my only company.
The death of the two soldiers have been particularly demotivating, since I did not manage to do anything that might have helped them out in the situation. I was awake when the soldiers were discovered. They had gone completely blue and still. So still that the soldiers next to them had gone to check what was happening. Just yesterday these soldiers were fine. I would go so far as to say that they were hearty even.
To seem them fall like a corpse like that when I could see them so fine yesterday has affected me in a way that I do not understand. Let's just say that at this moment it is not only the soldiers who are suffering from a case of low morale. Still, I don't know how long I can stay away from that room. Delaying my work like this is dangerous.
Well, speaking of the formation room reminds me, that I had managed to complete the quiver formation about half a week ago as well. Completing the formation did not release as much mana as I would have expected it to release. I don't know if I should feel happy or sad about that. The fact that barely any mana was released is proof that I had managed to inscribe it in the formation core almost perfectly.
Regardless, being active on the battlefield has certainly been more than helpful to me. People tend to forget that even formation mages tend to be humans. It is quite hard for us to spend days and weeks in a single location trying to craft the runes that we are trying to inscribe into a formation. I was literally going crazy down there.
Well, it is not all bad news. The organisation of the ice beasts has begun to falter finally. There are holes that are being formed in the creatures ranks during the assault that shamon has been using to cut through the enemy numbers. (Not much, but at least five of these creatures die in every encounter.) I have to admit that I have not been particularly skilled at finding all of these flaws myself. I do recognise a few but I certainly would not have been able to exploit them if I were in command.
Part of the reason for this I have to assume is the fact that nobody is present among these beasts to lead them. Before the troop leaders would always be present at the edge of the battlefield leading these creatures. Now they are hidden among the rank and file. (How they expected to hide their presence when their absence would have such a obvious affect I don't know.)
With that, I have completed much of my report today. The only thing that I have left is what I have learnt from shamon and his bunch of soldiers (people tend to forget that a mage has ears. One that can hear much of what you are speaking even if you are whispering across the room). I guess that I should begin to talk about the general situation that we are in. Most of what I have learnt has come from shamon who is nothing more than a farmer that has become a soldier here. He knows more than the average soldier but he is still a soldier. Much of what he knows, he has learnt from the stories and boasts of his superiors. (Some things do not change with the nobles anywhere.)
The enemy that the snowwinders are facing are also called as the snow tribe. Most of the tales that shamon has heard is about the snowlords but there are stories about the tribe themselves as well.
Based on what I have heard, the snow tribe is a tribe of blood thirsty humans each with the ability to survive in the northern wastelands with just their bare flesh. The creatures are supposed to come from beyond the wastelands as well.
There is very little that is known about this land, other than the fact that the mana that is flowing here is supposed to be so chaotic and so deadly that it makes the chill look like a party trick in comparison. As for the reason that they make their yearly raids down south, I would assume it is for resources. (Well, shamon claims that it is for the blood of the warmblooded soldiers but the man himself speaks of it with such disbelief that it is kind of funny.)
The snowlords and their hordes are supposed to be the main vanguard of the snow tribe. The snow lords are supposed to be masters of manipulating the mana of this land. This is to a point where shamon claims that they are stormbringers. Most of the snowstorms of this season are also the fault of the snowlords at least according to the soldiers.
Other than that, the snowlord are supposed to have bodies that are equivalent to iron. As for the degree of this, I have heard a tale where an arrow shot into the eye of the snowlord got deformed after hitting his eye. The snowlord was even supposed to be unharmed after this. Well, features like this do tend to get quite exaggerated.
What else, what else. Yeah, the snowlord is able to look through the eyes of their troops leaders. They also are supposed to be able to command these creatures remotely. Some of the soldiers even claim that the snowlords are able to forcefully possess the body of their creatures as well.
While it does seem like a tall tale, I have to admit that possession would certainly explain quite a few things.
Most of what I have heard comes from soldiers that have heard this stories from soldiers that are either boasting their success or justifying their failure. The truth tends to get twisted quite the bit in either case.
Well, I am getting tired of maintaining this record. I will send in the next record when the damn beasts actually end up attacking. Until then, the only thing that I will really have are complains which will end up benefiting nobody, not even me.