Most of my attention was focused on my grip as I tried to ignore the water splashing my face and slipping into my handholds, making them annoyingly slick. The increasingly intense burn in my forearms as I squeezed the roughly hacked-out wood was not helping anything.

It wasn't like I was riding the log while desperately trying to stay on through a section of rapids, but quite the opposite. I was slowly bobbing on the river, with most of the other logs that made up the raft floating around me, some of which had multiple passengers clinging to them, like mine.

We weren't even moving yet, as we were waiting for the beastkins' attack on the Triad to start. Which was super annoying, as the flowing water seemed to want to constantly splash me! And I couldn't even complain about it. I mentally grumbled to myself.

The others on the logs were far more exhausted than I was, and none of them were saying or sending a word of complaint into the mental network. A reasonable fear that they would be left on the shore for the beastkins to find may have been keeping everyone quiet. On the bright side, thanks to a minor casting of a knight, the water wasn't cold, though it wasn't hot either, so nobody was close to hypothermia.

The beat of the beastkin drums suddenly changed, and my heart started racing in expectation. My head snapped up as I forgot my little game of trying to keep my head an inch above the shifting surface of the water without it going up my nose. And if anyone asked, I was winning.

Looking at the distant walls of the Triad and its bridges, I saw… the couple dozen siege towers finally starting to slowly move forward. My eyes swept across the sunstone-lit battlements of the closest forts before falling upon the beastkin armies arrayed outside the walls, occasionally illuminated by the distant bursts of lightning. I searched for activity. But as seconds passed with nothing happening, I felt my body shake and a hollow feeling in my gut as my adrenaline puttered out.

"Calm," Said a voice speaking into my head, sending out waves of relaxation and patience. "We still have a while to wait. Go over every piece of your equipment. If you already have, focus on your part in the plan, and stay relaxed."

The words helped, but my hands tightened and loosened on the log as I tried to stop my body from shaking as I came down from the adrenalin rush. Try as I might, I could not return to my previous forced indifference. The beat of the beastkin war drums was too loud in my ears, mirroring my heart, and the coming battle made my situation continually flash through my mind.

I was unarmored, barely armed, and exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually. The first exhaustion was heavily influenced by the third and the spell cast on me, but the point was that I felt weak in every way. The only thing in my favor was the knights fed us.

But that does not change the fact I am… broken. I haven't looked into myself as I have actively avoided doing so, but I can feel the truth. Something was off. Different. And I didn't even want to use my mental energy right now. The pulse I released nearly knocked me unconscious with information overload. It was like, for a moment, I could see every piece of the world. Like I had a perception sphere covering the entire river…

More than that, my tendril to move the rock was… too strong. I was trying to knock the stone into the river, not smash it into dust. The end result was that I couldn't trust my own powers. And that was nothing compared to my mental aversion to using them. At the moment, pulling mental energy from my core was like snorting chili powder, burning magma tearing its way through my body.

With all that said, I was still better off than the others.

The time of our probable death was steadily approaching. We had better odds than running through the forest and the beastkin-infested fields surrounding the Triad, but that did not change the grim reality of the mission we had signed onto.

My eyes stung as I held them open, watching the steady progress of the towers before sliding them to the empty river running between the Triad. Only to grate back the other way a moment later. I knew the river barges existed. I saw them, and the knights sensed something, so it wasn't a delusion.

We would have been killed if the raft had passed the boats at any time during the day or night, so the ships still had to be in front of us. And yet, there was nothing to see on the not-so-long section of river between me and the Triad. I could see figures on the walls of the Middle Fort, and while they looked a little shifty to me, they weren't overly concerned.

If they saw a bowl-shaped hollow in the water, I had to think they would do something about it. And there was also the wake of the boats in the water and the sounds those on board would make, but no one did a thing. Like there was nothing to notice. Because, to every sense, the boats apparently didn't exist, which just didn't make sense, but whatever.

Watching the steady advance of the beastkin, I could not help my body from tensing. Then the siege towers stopped, and I hoped they would turn around and leave. There was no reason behind my daydream, but it still burned in my heart all the same. The next second, my hopes were dashed as the ground before the walls of the Western and Northern Forts rose halfway up their length in a matter of seconds. In response, the hoards of beastkins charged forward as the drums rapidly pounded a new rhythm that tried to beat itself into my ears.

"Hold on tight," Ordered a calm voice filled with resolve entering my mind.

It took a moment or two before I processed the words and looked away from the charging beastkins, which was my mistake, as before I was ready, the log lurched into motion. My hands clamped down on instinct, keeping me attached to the log, but there was a second when the water dragged on my lower body, and my heart skipped a beat as I felt my hands slipping. It was hardly a second before I dug my fingernails into the wood.

My mind emptied as I focused on staying attached to my ride, and my head snapped up as I squinted into the wind to anticipate what was to come. From the corners of my vision, I could faintly see the riverbanks flashing by faster than I would see while riding a galloping horse. And yet, I couldn't enjoy the ride, as my attention was focused on my right leg skimming over the water's surface.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

In the first seconds of my acceleration, the drag was little more than a strong wind, but now the water was ripping at my right leg like it was trying to tear off my trousers. Trying to prevent myself from being pulled off the log, I lifted my body up with my left leg hooked over the tree trunk, but I quickly figured out a fact.

If I pulled my right leg out of the water, my left leg entered the river, as the log wasn't sitting high enough to do both. Leaving me to hold on with my muscles increasingly burning as needles that some called drops of water bit into my face and arms… It really wasn't that bad. It was just mild discomfort. And discomfort was nothing to a legionary.

Not to mention, there was the massive distraction of the battle starting, a battle that the Triad had never seen the likes of before and nobody had ever thought possible. However, after all of their surprises and plans, the beastkins now resembled the swarms of flesh that were expected of their kind.

But that thought could only persist momentarily before it was snuffed out. There was a big difference between streams of bodies running at the walls and them following a path that ignored the legion's long-established defenses.

With the beastkin armies moving to assault the walls of the Northern and Western Forts, two sections were breaking off the main groups. A couple hundred yards beyond the legion's walls, the two lines of beastkins, one on each side of the river, seemed intent on running right off the banks and into the water.

When the leading beastkins feet landed on thin air, my view of the grassland rippled as flat-top barges appeared on both sides of the river before fading in and out of my vision. They were basically large tubs wide enough to remain stable as hundreds ran over their decks.

Which I guess meant that they were designed perfectly, as that was precisely what was happening. How they built the number of barges needed to span the distance of over a thousand feet outside the walls and paralleling the fort's walls on shore until they reached the heart of the Triad was beyond me. And that was ignoring the staggering levels of coordination and skill required to move them all into position without being noticed.

I thought the attack would consist of the few ships I saw under construction packed to bursting. I would have expected a few hundred up to a couple thousand beastkins to assault the walls of the Middle Fort and attempt to hold it for as long as they could. In that case, even if the beastkins took the fort with the help of their magic, the 15th legion would come swooping back in to reclaim it before anything serious happened with a bit of preparation and planning.

But the last of my hopes that a simple counterattack would end everything vanished along with most of the illusion concealing the boat bridges. Thousands charged forward along the ships, ready to capitalize on any opening those ahead of them might make. An opening that should be massive, as at the far end of the barges, two pillars of water were rising hundreds of feet into the air, looming above the Middle Fort's walls before plunging down and inward to smash them.

I could hear the echoes of the cracking of stone over the increasing roar of battle and wind in my ears. And though the air slashed at my eyes, I would not look away. I watched every second as the ladders rose from the towers on the bridges, already packed with hundreds of beastkins along their lengths.

All I could do was believe the legionaries would hold. Hope the defenders will not be overrun until we cut off the beastkin's advance, but that would be a long time coming. From the corners of my eyes, the land was flashing by the fastest I had ever seen. And yet, minutes were steadily ticking by.

The beastkin were rushing up the length of the ladder, arrows were flying and claiming lives, and we were still traveling. Move faster! I raged within my mind, holding onto the log as I willed the knights to speed up.

Finally, the drop-off, demarking the change in elevation from the grasslands to the river, vanished. In its place were the barges' slightly fading in and out of sight as we entered the gap between them.

Olimpians might not have the magic to stand an arm's reach from the beastkins and remain invisible, but good old darkness and misdirection worked just as well. No one looked for what they assumed didn't exist, and with the lights, flashes of fire, and lighting bursting to life in the sky, plenty of dark shadows were around as everyone's night vision took a hit. Putting it all that way, it wasn't a surprise that no one had seen them.

A hundred yards into the double line of boats, I heard the boom of impacting objects followed by the cracking of breaking wood. It was almost like one bolt of lightning after another struck the water behind me, but there was nothing lighting up the sky or river. After the tenth such cracking boom filled the air, my lips parted in a cold smile.

I didn't need to look back. I could easily imagine the beastkins running across the barges as five-foot sections of two feet in diameter logs smashed into the boats at the water line. Logs that were going even faster than I currently was.

The barges would buck to the side from the impact, throwing beastkins into the river before settling back into equilibrium, where the mortal wound in the hull would let the water rush in. Those on the doomed boat might make it to the next, and even if they go down with the ship, won't drown as they could swim to shore, but the flood of beastkins to the ladders would be decreased to a trickle if not stop entirely.

Continuing down the line of ships, more sounds of braking wood followed up for a few more seconds, and then it all stopped. I still heard the thumps and booms of cracking of logs, but the smaller but still noticeable cracks of the planks of the boats were gone. I would guess the beastkins erected some kind of barrier to protect the boats because the slightly fuzzy air around the ships, partially concealing them, vanished. Not that it mattered, as whatever the beastkins did, it was too late.

I could not say how many of the boats sank, but I would bet my life some had, and along with the ships, went their road to the middle fort. The beastkins might know someone had spotted and attacked them, but they were not yet looking at the water. Even if someone looked over the railing right now, they would be too late to draw the attention needed.

"Brace yourself." Said a feminine voice in my head. My body tensed on impulse, but in the moment before the knight acted, I let my body go limp. The crossed belts over my chest were yanked backward and up, flinging my body into the air like I was a child thrown into the air by an adult.

Extending my hands to the sides, I kept my body level as I suddenly found the water ten feet below my feet. Before I could process the change, the river below me changed to that of the deck railing on the barge. As abruptly as I was pulled up, I felt a yank down and back on my harness.

Absorbing the landing against the wooden boards of the deck by entering a crouch, a light thump was the only thing signaling my appearance. To my sides were a dozen others, most of whom were on the raft with me, and the rest being knights.

Even as I processed my new surroundings, I was already grabbing the spear strapped to my back, "Duck."

Not questioning the command, I dropped to my stomach, and a moment later, the log I was riding sailed over my head, smashing into the beastkins that had started to turn towards us, teeth bared. The log did not completely clear the deck, but only a few dozen beastkins remained of the hundred on the barge a second before.

After sweeping the deck clean, the log didn't stop as the caster controlled the tendril to swing it up and around until it passed back over my head. A moment later, I heard it crash down onto the flat-top river barge behind ours, slamming through the deck and out the bottom.

The beastkins on the barge with us looked shocked at the sudden turn of events, and I could see them hesitating to act. Bearing my teeth as I hopped up, I pulled out my spear and charged them, releasing a scream of challenge.

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.