"Keep running!" I shouted. "If a single one of you wastes of space drops your shield, all of you will do ten more laps! If you get hit, you will do two more laps alone!" I stood at the railing of an observation tower, standing in the center of an exercise course.

The course consisted of stretches where the trainees were supposed to break into sprints and leap over and through walls of wood, tracks of mud they had to crawl through, and balanced courses of upright poles and laid-out logs. The entire course also had nearly invisible wires strung across its path, which was altered periodically by an attendant. In my opinion, the part that was by far the most challenging section was where they had to dodge and block nets being thrown at them while avoiding falling into the five-foot round and six-foot-deep pitfalls.

They had to traverse all that while the archers standing next to me let out flights of blunt arrows at a steady rate toward them. By this point, the trainees were exhausted mentally and physically. They had been doing this for hours since my little speech while wearing their entire standard legionary kit… It might seem like unnecessary abuse to some, but this training performed several functions.

First off, it was good endurance training, which no one could ever overestimate in its importance. The other two lessons that the scout trainees will come to understand at some point are that they can only rely on themselves in the field and that scout equipment is lighter and less protective for a reason.

This course would be demanding for me to run for hours, and I was expected to be in better shape than all of them. While the basic level of exercise for legion grunts was good, it was not so good that they could run this course for hours without serious effort. Throw in the requirements for mental abilities, and what they were doing now was downright grueling.

"Traig, block an arrow not meant for you again, and you're thrown out of the program! You owe me two more laps!" I shouted while keeping track of everyone else on the course, thanks to my helpers being in a union with me. It was also why I knew the man's name, as the large number on his back and chest corresponded to a roll sheet I made.

There were plenty of other mistakes happening that I could call out. Anooha's shield blocked a net thrown at her and threw it into Kathren's path. Joxin's shield was definitely shrinking, but I was sure it was from mental exhaustion rather than him slacking. And Prick was not running nearly as fast as he could, as his supposedly probably-pretend twisted ankle was holding him back.

So long as there were no more significant mistakes that would force me to call them out, I was content with the condition they were all currently in. That condition was specifically being utterly exhausted, both mentally and physically. It was a good first step in getting them to understand the privileges and expectations of becoming a scout.

Earning the privilege to be within a Scout Century of any legion was unique to almost all other legion positions for several reasons, one of the main ones being that it allowed men and women to serve together on the same squads. Thanks to our mental abilities, the physical differences between the genders mattered very little.

Sure, men, in general, were bigger, stronger, faster physically, and more predisposed to fighting. But what did a little more arm strength mean when a woman could reinforce her shield and sword with tendrils to the point they were moving with the weight of a five-hundred-pound boulder? The answer is very little besides the time and dedication they put into their mental development.

If a man cannot match a woman's mental abilities, his slight physical advantage means nothing. The problem was that men and women could not serve effectively together in unions due to the difference in the fundamental natures of the genders.

When legionaries are joined in a union, they are still individuals and can pull out at any time, but the overall instincts of the collective form a kind of will of its own that affects everyone. Most of the time, suffering through the influence of a legion gestalt is worth it because it can elevate individuals beyond their normal abilities.

The problem is it can also cause people to act in situations and ways they otherwise wouldn't. In circumstances like a shield wall — where survival comes down to instinct and split-second reactions — extra impulses beyond combat instincts are unnecessary and will get you killed.

While it doesn't always happen, there are plenty of stories of women joining a century composed of men and being placed within the front lines of a shield wall. Then, in the heat of battle, the men around the woman will throw themselves to their deaths as they act to save her.

The result was that entire battle formations were broken because a single person was about to be killed, and the desire of men to protect women caused them to act without thought. In my opinion, there was nothing wrong with the sentiment, but the reality was if a legion of men lost to a hoard of beastkin, the women behind them would be an easy meal if they didn't have the ability and knowledge of how to fight.

So, having more swords next to you during the initial conflict was far better than them fighting later. That didn't negate the fact that having intermixed centuries was an unnecessary factor in the already chaotic world of battle. A potential problem that could easily be solved by simply splitting the genders into separate cohorts and centuries.

The scouts had no such separation, however. Mainly because entering a union and fighting was counter to everything we did. The scouts were a loose collection of individuals that, if one of us was caught, the others needed to live and report back to the legion.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

While we could and did work together at times, scouts were hardly ever physically close enough that a union was feasible. It was not uncommon for a squad of scouts to leave together and come back alone days or weeks later.

Another significant difference between the scouts and ordinary legionaries was endurance. Scouts had to perform a mental casting for hours on end without the crutch of leaning on the collective will of a union.

While I'm sure that many of these recruits had personal trainers in their youth to train their powers, years as legion grunts probably dulled their mental blades. I needed to resharpen their minds and maybe hone them a bit further if they were going to make it as scouts. And this exercise should be the start of doing just that.

Requiring them to keep up a basic mental energy shield and occasionally block arrows will force them to develop their efficiency of willpower and energy. Either they could consciously do it, or I would harass them until they dropped unconscious and then make them get up and do it again, making them go a step longer the second time.

But this was a marathon, not a sprint, as I needed the changes to be beaten into their bones, not seared into their flesh. So, I had to be careful about what I called out. I could not call out too much so that there was no possible way they could complete the workout, but I had to work them hard enough to push them to a point they couldn't imagine reaching before.

"Keep up the pace!" I shouted, voice ringing over the course, "Whoever finishes the base hundred laps first doesn't have to do their penalty laps! Whoever's last takes on those extra laps!"

I smiled as Prick picked up his pace to nearly what he was running at when we first started. Look at that. He didn't hurt himself at all.

"Pick up the pace of your firing for the next circuit," I said to the archers. "Aim for the leader."

Someone grunted in acknowledgment, and I stood at the railing watching my recruits and occasionally calling out their mistakes but, more often, threatening them about keeping up their pace. About twenty minutes later, I climbed down from the tower and started making my way over to the recruits, who collapsed on the ground at the side of the course. As I leisurely walked, I waved at the archers and the few other attendants gathering by the tower, signaling they could leave.

When I arrived minutes later, I stood at the edge of the group, looking down at the sweaty mud-covered scout trainees. It took a few moments, but they all turned their heads toward me. Most of the eyes I looked at were glazed over with exhaustion and more than a hint of anger. But I ignored the emotions and gave them a few more minutes to gather themselves to properly listen to me before I said anything.

"What you just experienced will be your life as a scout. You will always be maintaining one or more castings. You will have to move through the forests without rest, sometimes pursued but always wary of what's around the next bend. Because that is the job." My voice was casual, but I was trying to make it carry as I filled it with conviction.

As I talked, I walked among the trainees, stepping between their splayed-out arms and legs. "You will walk into where we think the enemy is located, and we will expect you to walk out with the information to deny or confirm that belief. Whether you can make it back with your squad or alone, you will make it back because the legion's future may depend on what you know. You might save a century, a cohort, or even the whole legion with a single—

My head snapped up from eyeing the trainees, tilting to the side as my ears twitched while I focused on a distant sound. I did not care about my interrupted speech. The back of my mind was screaming danger at some faint beating noise I noticed, and I was only alive today because I listened to my instincts.

Focused entirely on my hearing, I started squinting my eyes at the horizon as everything began to blur, only for my eyes to snap open in alarm. I saw movement from the corner of my eye. A lot of movement… in the sky.

As I searched the growing dusk, there was nothing. The sky was clear except for clouds. Slightly turning my head, I looked to the west and directly into the sun and saw the motion I had noticed before. For brief moments, I could make out outlines against the setting sun before my eyes stung, and everything went white. It looked like a massive flock of birds was rapidly approaching close to the ground, using the sun as cover.

…But why would so many birds do such a thing? They wouldn't. It only took a second of indecision before I acted. I gathered a fourth of my mental power, then released the large pulses towards the Fish Camp and Triad in a pulse message.

"Get up!" I shouted at the same time I released the pulses. Those in the path of my arc of mental energy sat up immediately in alarm and started looking around as they struggled to get to their feet.

The rest of the trainees were slower, but they rolled their bodies around to get their legs under themselves, even if reluctantly. If for no other reason, they felt compelled to do so because of my serious tone and obeying my commands for the last hours.

It was only once the trainees in the path of my message started echoing it as they had long been trained to do that some energy entered the movements of the others. Which was to be expected, as the message I sent was, "Beastkin, ambush, air, west."

Some of the others were struggling to look for the threat in the sun, but I was already turning and starting to run. "Follow me!" I shouted over my shoulder, "They'll be on us in moments!" The command in my tone must have been enough because I heard a chorus of footsteps following me.

We ran across the course, and I stopped at the edge of the pitfall traps as I bent over, grabbed one of the nets, and turned around to face those behind me. "Those who still have mental energy reserves gather together and dig a bunker! Everyone else, grab a net and check your blades!" Half the trainees were clumped behind me, with another quarter trickling in. But a few trainees were still on the ground where they had fallen after the workout, with a handful or two hesitantly gathered around them.

"What training is this, you fucking Twig!" Prick called out over the field from where he sat. "Didn't get enough pleasure from making us run around at your command like animals?! You just had to go send out a false alarm to make us run one more time!? Haha, I'm gonna enjoy watching you hang, Leaf!"

I ignored the petty man and looked into the distance again, judging the seconds we had left. Prick was right… not about me hanging, but that anyone would hang if they intentionally sent out a false pulse message. The punishments were harsh for those who deliberately did such a thing.

But I wasn't wrong. The sun had fallen low over the horizon, and I could now clearly see the black outlines of the flock of beastkins skimming over the ground.

"Ancestor, protect us…" I whispered to myself, my hand loosening on the net as I looked at the thousands of bird beastkins. I could see the wide, fear-filled eyes of the trainees around me as they spotted what I had already seen and came to the same conclusion. We could not hope to fight and win against that. And there was nowhere we could run to.

Nowhere but down.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.