Sathera broke into a sprint along with those linked to her, leaping out of the rent in the cage. Landing free on the stone ground, she continued forward, her feet dancing between the fallen cage bars in case they still had a dampening effect on psy. Turning to her left, she rushed down the line of cages, using her barrel-sized tendril to batter the metal bars apart from the two closest cages, filling the courtyard with the sound of wrenching metal.

Every bar she tore from the prisons ate away at the psy and willpower she had control over, but it wasn't an insurmountable problem. Any energy she lost was quickly replenished as the legionaries released joined the union, which was turning into more of an issue than the cage bars.

Sathera felt those with more significant reserves and willpower than her joined the network, destabilizing it as she struggled to properly guide the greater amount of psy available. The scout trainee had never controlled such amounts before, and she did not have the level of control needed to adapt quickly.

Everyone could feel and knew the union was going to collapse soon. That was a fact, but it also didn't matter. Even as Sathera was losing control of the collective psy, others were preparing to form new groups and attack the beastkin.

She could feel those plans were being made in the back of her mind, but she paid little attention. Her task, her focus, was on freeing the prisoners from the last four cages. As such, she gave it her all.

Feet beating against the ground, Sathera slid to a stop in the intersection between the last four cages. Gathering her will, she reinforced the fraying edges of the two mental strands she could manage with this amount of energy.

Being as careful as she could while not wasting time, she drove her two strands between a couple bars on one of the cages, then violently spread them in opposite directions like a pair of shears opening. With a shriek of complaining metal, the bars bent before ripping free from the cage and leaving an opening large enough for a person to climb through.

Every time the strands touched one of the still solid bars, a portion of the condensed psy vanished. The effect only lasted a moment as the strands smashed into the steel, forcing them from their housings, but each impact took a toll on the casting. With every drop of psy that was ripped from the tendril, it grew harder for Sathera to reform the bleeding strands quickly and save what escaping psy she could.

It wasn't that she lacked access to energy to get the job done because she had more psy than she could properly use, but with every chunk taken out of the strand, a piece of her willpower was taken along with it. A resource that was in far shorter supply, as the consequences of her efforts, both good and bad, were quickly adding up.

Sathera could just smash the cages open like she did with the first four, but that was a last resort for her. While smashing was fast, and she lost less willpower, it took considerably more psy. For whatever reason, a moment or two after she caused devastating damage to a cage, it was like the end of the tendril had been shoved into a meat grinder for a second or two.

It wouldn't be as much of a problem if they were at the Triad or a part of some contingent assaulting an enemy camp, but they weren't either of those. They were escaping prisoners and would need to fight for every step they took out of this mess. Meaning that every drop of psy would be needed soon enough, so efficiency over brute force was the name of the game.

Taking a few seconds to focus, she reformed the strand's ragged edges before repeating the process on the cage to her left. As the shriek of the metal tore through the day once more, she could feel the casting slipping from her fingers. And now, due to her weakness, more time and psy would have to be wasted on completing the job she couldn't.

Pulling what psy was left from the twisted bars, she compacted it as much as she could before throwing it at one of the last two cages. The psy she released was more of a loose comet than a proper force wall or spear, but it should do the job. Silently, Sathera hopefully watched a trench lined with stone fragments form in the casting's wake as it dug into the courtyard's cobbled stone floor.

Like a battering ram, the psy casting struck the cage, throwing it to the side as the casting plowed through it without any sign of stopping. The cage was left at a forty-five-degree angle from the rest of the line, and the occupants looked shaken up, but the cage was broken open, and everyone inside was relatively unharmed.

Yanking on what was left of the comet with the connecting strand as if she were pulling on a string attached to a kite, she arched the dispersing casting back into the remaining cage's far inside corner. Determined as she might have been, her will was like an old warn blanket at this point. By the time she turned the blast, the comet had unraveled into nothing but a gust of wind as it hit the first couple of bars, doing little more than slightly rocking the cage.

Collapsing to her knees, Sathera's arms hung loosely at her sides as it took all of her focus just to stop herself from falling to the ground. She could see those in the last cage gather up on the side closest to her. They looked at her, pleading for help with their eyes, but all she could do was give the tiniest shake of her head. She was spent, and the union with her at its core had already collapsed, adding another layer to her mental anguish as she struggled to stay conscious.

Their shoulders slumped for a moment, then they jerked slightly and turned as a man sitting with his crossed legs stepped forward while the others moved back and to the side. Like he was waving off a fly, he swung his arm to the side, and the cage bars exploded outward as the top curled back on itself.

The man's face had a large bruise on the right side, and the left side of his clothes was singed like he fell into a fire and rolled around. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, and as such, he was in his peak physical condition because he was at the tail end of the first third of the average Olimpian human lifespan. His face was blocky and weathered like he had spent most of his life outdoors, probably because he did.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

With confident strides, he walked out of the cage and stopped next to Sathera. His gaze raked over Sathera as he studied her, then gave her a nod of approval before his eyes swept around the courtyard. As he looked around, she felt a probe at her mind. Sathera was far from recovered, but she had centered herself enough to exert the modicum of will to join another person's union.

"I'm Centurion Markus Veriskol of the Scout Century of the 15th Legion. Who are you?" Asked the man mentally in a brusk tone.

"Scout Trainee Sathera, I was captured with Instructor Green as we were scouting the western side of the Rush and edge of the Northern Forest," Sathera replied. Mental communication was not limited by the body and could happen as fast as thought if one was willing to spend the psy. Markus apparently was since he wanted to catch up on the situation as soon as possible.

"Report," was all her potential new centurion said to her.

Deciding to start from the beginning, she briefly covered their traveling from the Triad to search for beastkin activity. How Instructor Green found an outpost and destroyed it before coming into contact with a female beastkin, who Sathera believed was the leader of the small group on the far side of the courtyard. How the beastkin took him to infiltrate the area around this fort, which was covered in illusions and discovered the barges with towers in the process. Sathera finished with how Instructor Green returned to them to tell them all he discovered before splitting the trainees into two groups, one being the distraction and the other hiding to make a run for the Triad later.

Markus took in the information for a solid two seconds before asking, "Can the illusions cover the barges as they move?"

"…We don't know. But, umm, Instructor Green feared they could."

Centurion Veriskol sent her a feeling of agreement, "It would be a mistake to think they can't… But, hmm. If she helped him, why did she throw him into that… abomination…"

They all could feel it, and they knew the others could as well through the mental links. What was happening to Instructor Green was going against the laws of the world. It was fundamentally wrong.

"Umm… The beastkin sent me a message saying she thought Instructor was the only one who could pull them all into the spell — that's what they call their castings. They can't stop once they start, and if we interrupt them early, he might live." Sathera wasn't wholly comfortable relaying the information, as an enemy sent it to her, but the centurion needed to know everything.

"Might?"

"She said that even if they stopped halfway through, he might never regain his mind…"

"…Understood." Centurion Veriskol sent to her, a feeling of regret coming through for a moment. The whole time they talked, she felt the other groups from the cages falling into place under Markus's network.

At the end of their mental conversation, brief as it was, Sathera would have sworn everyone in the cages was in the union. "Squads two through five secure the far side of the bridge, squads six through nine clear the square of the warrior beastkin. Squad one on me." Markus scents through the mental network along with images.

While everyone was gathering together and facing off with the beastkin guards shouting and rushing toward us, there was no overall organization. Each group was doing its own thing, like a mob rather than a proper legion. Markus's commands caused everyone to jump into action with a purpose.

Sathera took a moment after his order to gather her strength and breath as everyone ran off. Not willing to be left behind, she heaved herself up and started shuffling down the line of cages with a few grunts of effort.

She was halfway through the cages when Bellous, her fellow trainee, appeared beside her and slid under her arm, supporting her weight. She gave him a look of surprise, as she thought she was the only one left alive from the trainees. Bellous glanced at her and gave Sathera a silent nod of support when he met her eyes before looking ahead, not saying a word.

As they shuffled along, Sathera saw the teams pick up or rip off the bars from the cages that no longer sucked away psy and use them as spears and clubs to kill the beastkin guards who were rushing at them. With numbers on their side, the scouts rushed forward and slaughtered the couple dozen warrior beastkins in the fort.

There were some casualties on the scouts' side, but none of the fighters cared. This was their chance to take out their fury at being captured and the visceral disgust at what was happening to Instructor Green out on the beastkins.

Only giving the fighting a moment of her attention before moving on, Sathera searched for the beastkin woman who orchestrated their escape. However, like a breath of wind, there wasn't any indication that she or her people had ever been there. But she did see Centurion Veriskol and four others standing at the edge of the circle, the robed beastkin inside giving them looks of fear as their movements and murmurs became frantic.

The centurion stood in place a moment before thrusting his arm out, pointing the bar at one of the beastkin. Without warning, the steel flew from his grip and drove through the back of the beastkin's head.

The blue glow of the formation flickered for an instant at the beastkin's death before stabilizing, though it was at a lesser brightness than before. The spell was still going, but Markus wasn't discouraged as he and those around him quickly set about killing the rest of the beastkins after the first effortless success.

As the bastards began to die one after another, the robed figures could so much as lift a finger to stop him. With every kill, the old arrogant beastkin's face twisted in rage and turned such a deep shade of purple that Sathera thought something would pop before the bearer of his impending death could reach him.

When the last beastkin fell to the ground, the blue glow at the edges of the spell was the first to fade as it slowly shrank inwards, like trickling water. Once the shrinking glow reached the innermost ring, the blue ground lasted for a few seconds longer before fading to nothing.

Though the blue glow was no longer visible, a crimson layer of energy was still coating the elf's body and stretched up to the golden mass hanging over Instructor Green's head. Between the rapid pattering of Sathera's heart, the golden misshapen sphere bobbed like a leaf floating on the surface of a storm-swept lake.

The golden essence that was at least Instructor Green's psy — but probably far more important — suddenly visibly jerked down before bobbing up slightly. It happened multiple times over the span of a minute where the crimson glow surrounding both steadily lessened, each time inching closer before the bottom portion of it touched his head, and the golden energy was sucked back into his body.

It was not all of the golden power, hardly even half, but when the rest of the energy was dispersed into the air, it no longer felt like a travesty to Sathera. Somehow, she even felt… jealous. Shaking off the absurd emotion, the young woman watched Green's body arch upwards, balancing on his head and toes as he finally stopped screaming before collapsing to the stone a moment later.

"Remember," Hissed an ambient voice filling the square, "The Redtail Faction had nothing to do with this. And do not get captured again."

No one said anything for a moment before Centrion Veriskol barked, "Grab Green and destroy this damned stone plate!" When everyone didn't immediately react, he roared, "Let's go, people!"

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