Well, it did not take long for shamon to appear back down into the formation room. I am sure that I will be of more use upstairs but the events of the last hour had shaken me more than I would like to admit. Weakness is not something that you show to your underlings.

Shamon took about ten minutes to appear. The instant that I look at him I can tell that the man is coming here bearing bad news.

“Captain, the patrols have come bearing news.“, he speaks, his voice serious enough that I know we are in deep shit.

“Well, get on with it. Do you really need to follow the protocols now.“, I speak to him getting a bit annoyed.

“The four troops that have lost their captains are all now heading in our direction.“, he speaks. “They also seem to be reinforced by three more troops that do not seem to have any leaders as well. Where these leaders are we have no idea.“

“Seven troops. This is going to be a tall order all right.“, I speak “but they do not have any of their leaders. With my help I am sure that you will be able to manage it. After all, how long before they attack us.“

“Well, we do have a couple of hours.“, he replies. “But I did not complete my report. The creatures are in a death trance, captain.“

“Now what is a death trance?“, I am seriously not in the mood for learning right now. I am shaking, a mixture of exhaustion and adrenaline. It is a wonder that I am on my feet at this moment.

“Well, to explain that, I will have to discuss about the troops a bit. As I have explained to you before the troop leader has the ability to force his commands into his creatures.“ He replies. “This ability works in a pretty insidious way, you see. It is like a whisper at the back of their mind, telling them what to do. They say that most of the time the creature is not even able to tell that it has been commanded.“

“Well, does this explanation have to be this long?“, I reply, getting annoyed. It almost feels like the man is rambling now.

“well, the death trance is like the whispering suddenly becoming screaming. Right now these creatures are not able to think about anything else other than breaching the fort. They will throw their bodies at the wall if they have to achieve this.“, he speaks. “The snow tribe must really hate this legion of yours. Every single troop will die within the week due to this trance. Such a waste within such a short time.“

“Well, that means that we only need to hold our own against them for a single week.“, I reply. “I think that we should be able to manage that at the very least.“

“I wish things were that easy. Let's just say that a creature in the death trance has a kind of passion that you won't be able to find anywhere else.“, he replies. “This is not going to be easy is all I will speak on this. Something are better of witnessed, captain.“

“Well, regardless of how hard it is we will need to figure out how to fight them.“, I reply. “All you need to do is buy me a couple of days. I will be able to inscribe a spell into the formation. Once that happens, we can screw things up for the enemy. Once the spell is completed we will be able to kill any troops that come at us. I almost succeded at it too yesterday. If I just did not fumble at the ending.“

“Certainly captain, but first I will have to assign you guards. At this moment we have three troop leaders unaccounted for. Seeing what happened just now, it would be wise that you do not remain alone.“, he replies. His expression has taken the vacant look of a man in the middle of pondering.

“Well, I am not one to be that unaware on the battlefield, shamon. It has just been that inscription is a exhausting process. On top of that I have attempted to inscribe two spells back to back. I am not going to be attempting such a feat.“, I reply, not understanding why I needed to justify myself. “I am sure that you need to do not such thing.“

“You have quite a few spells to inscribe, captain. Now would be the time that you focus on your work. I will manage against the enemy. They will have to give a pound of their flesh if they wish to take our fort“, he speaks. “I have to make sure that the soldiers are prepared for this fight. I will be taking my leave today.“

Saying that he leaves me, leaving me pondering on my screw up today. I guess I can justify it in a thousand ways, but however intense the attacks were before, things are going to be much harder. Even now shamon does not realise one thing. The enemy has not yet made a move knowing that I am of the legion. Whatever move they have made, it had to have been made a while ago.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

While their reaction up till now have been pretty extreme, it will be nothing compared to the hell that they are going to be throwing at us now. A snowlord coming to attack us is now a guarantee. The only question that is left is of when.

The snow tribe is one of the many forces that has sworn to destroy the iron legion and it seems to be one of the more passionate ones at doing that. There seems to be quite a bit of history between the two forces. Something that I am not allowed to read up on.

Regardless, Every single soldier trained in the battle arts of the legion are also taught from a diverse and varied group of battle styles that do not resemble our legion's style. The problem is due to how easily recognisable it tends to be. All of our enemies tend to be always on an active lookout for the soldiers of the legion. It certainly does tend to make our work much harder.

That is why we have been trained to hide our identity every moment of our life that we are outside of the hexmountain. This is true even if we are sleeping as well (especially if we are sleeping). Let's hope eric isn't reading this log. The bastard would gloat a bit too much on this to my liking.

Well, as for why the legion tends to be such a hated figure. Well, part of that is due to the black mountain and part of it is just due to the legion. Basically, the black mountain uses the legion to wipe out any other force that they deem to be a threat to them.

Publically, their primary duty is to ensure that nobody breaks the hexmountain treaty. For this they have about the same access that a scholar would have. They also handle the work of defending magical ruins in contested areas and assign ownership for when the scholars do come.

Secretly, they have also destroyed hundreds of forces that the black mountain have decided were trying to create their own “scholars” or have tried to compete with the black mountain in the business of knowledge. Some of these threats might have been legit, but most of them were the result of the paranoia of the black mountain.

This is to a point that our enemies call us the “mad dog of the scholars“, that the black mountain throws at its enemy. This mad dog then proceeds to rip you into pieces.

When you tend to attack people without a solid enough reason, it tends to leave quite a bit of bad blood with them. Well, bad blood would be wrong. It would be more equivalent to a death promise at least to the level of the death trance that shamon just described.

Still, the major problem with the legion has been the fact that they are absurdly good at their task. They have a nearly hundred percent completion rate at exterminating their enemy. Every single force they have been sent to destroy has been crushed to fine powder. Such kind of perfection does tend to breed quite a bit of fear in every force.

After all most forces can never be sure if the single legion soldier passing through their lands, is a ssoldier doing a routine inspection or a scout promising the attack of the legion. It is this fear that drives our enemies more than anything. After all, you can never tell when the black mountain will decide you to be the enemy and release their mad dog on you.

Yet the worst enemies to the legion you can find are among the tribes. Why that is the case, I have absolutely no idea. When I was in the legion, I was not allowed to read their history and when I got out, there is no way that they will let me read their history. Some things even the scholars know not to be curious about. All I know is that there is a lot of bad blood between the following tribes and the legion.

I guess that I should speak about them some day, but for now all you need to know is that any person from a tribe would sacrifice his life if it meant that he can kill a soldier of the legion.

I guess that I should begin with speaking about the tools that I have at hand. Firstly, I have completed the body of the ballista at the very least. Where I have failed is the string of water that almost ended up burning the core.

If during the inscription process, one of the runes were to destabilize just as I start the inscription, it can cause that spot to be burned. Essentially the spell will be inscribed into the formation core, but with a couple wrong runes it will be useless. In the worst case it can also end up causing the entire thing to explode.

That would mean that I would essentially have only nine working class nine spells. If that were to happen then the only thing that I would be able to do is to just change the formation core, which would be quite impossible at this moment. The class eight spell that I am inscribing needs all ten spells to work.

I have given the man two days and I will have to push myself to achieve that. I will have to be more careful doing this though. This time, I will have to spend today resting and leave the spell for tomorrow.

With the exhaustion that I am feeling, a single day of rest will not be enough but that is all I can give at the moment. At the moment, I am seriously considering if I should just run away from this place. I could take the soldiers and run away to the frozen peak. I would certainly be in a pretty bad position, but it feels like it is going to be better than my present situation.

I can only consider this if the enemy troops do not catch up with us. If they do, the fort is the only thing that we will have left. Otherwise this creatures outnumber us almost eight to one now.

Fuck, I can feel the exhaustion creep into my mind. The adrenaline of the last hour has begin to fade. Even now, I can feel my mind struggle to remember the runes that I need to craft. What would have taken me a minute at my peak, now feels like it will take me ten. I cannot risk inscribing now.

The funny thing is that I have put myself in my present situation. I cannot blame anybody else. After all, I have been explicitly warned from trying to inscribe two spells back to back like this more than once.

The exhaustion caused by the first spell would more than guarantee the inscription of the second spell would fail. I just could not help myself. With a completed ballista it would have given me an edge that would have more than guaranteed that I would be able to deal with the troops.

Well, I have to try and sleep now regardless of how wrong it feels to me.