9 Days Left

Ragnar watched as streaks of light, rolling waves of crumbling obsidian and ice, trails of smoke and single flash of rainbow warp burst across the ground. He tightened his grip on his cane, his knuckles creaking under the pressure. Seeing so many tethered traveling together was a rare sight. Especially ones as strong as these.

It left him with a wistful dysphoria watching so many of his kin moving out, only emphasized by what would be happening soon enough. Though they numbered less than thirty, they were an army onto themselves rolling across Elusria. A more fitting description than perhaps they realized.

The battle lines were being drawn and the fight for his country was beginning.

“Ragnar,” Zubair’s tone of voice suggested wariness as he slipped through the trap door at the top of the Masters’ Tower. “Perhaps you would like to explain why all the people responsible for running the academy and school are leaving?”

Cocking an eyebrow, Ragnar glanced over his shoulder to see the taller and well-muscled ankirian approaching him. “‘All the people’? I don’t count?”

Zubair gave him a long suffering look, “I believe your head administrator is part of the group that just left.”

“She is,” Ragnar confirmed. In the fifteen or so years Ragnar had known Zubair the man hadn’t changed one bit, though, Ragnar had been only just become a general. “Then again, I still have my entire administration staff, sure she makes it easier, but I offered her to my Queen as she needed her more.”

“And what is happening that ‘she needs her more’ for?” Zubair asked quoting Ragnar’s words back to him.

“The re-assembly of the Councils. They have a storied and important role in Elusria. It’s part of our history as a nation, even from before Ankiria’s first siege of our country,” Ragnar said proudly.

“I think,” Zubair said as Ragnar walked past him to the trapdoor and made his way down, cane floating at his side. “I liked you better as a general.”

Stopping at the end of the stairs, Ragnar looked up as Zubair dropped down with a splash of water that froze to snow cushioning his fall before re-entering the gourd on his hip and melting back to water.

“I never liked you,” Ragnar replied turning his back and walking down the stairs meticulously, maintaining his balance with his cane.

Zubair snorted, “So she’s re-instating the Councils?”

“I’m not entirely sure what she’s going to do,” Ragnar answered honestly, “But there will, no doubt, be hefty restrictions on the Councils if she does re-instate them.”

“And why weren’t we told of this?”

“Why should you be?” Ragnar asked, infusing a little bit of obsidian’s nature into his arms and legs making the trip down the harsh stairs easier on his damaged body. His muscles tightened and feeling stiff, even as his limbs moved more easily than before.

“I was sent to monitor and measure Elusria’s capability to train their tethered,” Zubair replied.

“Why does that require you to sit in on Council meetings?”

Zubair drew in a deep breath, “The Councils, in particular the Masters’ Council, would be the ones making decisions regarding tethered affairs in the Elusria.”

“Not student affairs, though,” Ragnar smirked twisting his head slightly to let Zubair catch a hint of it. “After Leif’s promotion to Master of Education and my being installed as principal of the academy, they no longer have any authority over my students.”

Zubair grunted, “We both know that’s not true.”

“I answer only to the Queen,”

“You answer to Leif Serpent-Vein, who has long sat on the Lords’ Council.”

Ragnar shrugged, internally sighing at interminable length of the stairs. The tower was far too tall for its own good, he was liable to tear it apart and remove a story or six. “Forget it Zubes,” Ragnar called knowing the triplet master didn’t the nickname, “You’re not getting in on internal Elusrian policy. You’re here as an agent of the United Alliance. If you force your way into those meetings it would be a breach of trust from the highest order,” he stopped on the stairs spreading his arms wide, “’The United Alliance threatens Elusria with triplet master, forcing them to obey.’ Those news would travel fast, don’t you think?”

He could practically hear the old ice tethered grit his teeth.

“How long until Sadukar rebels fearing similar intrusion into their own sovereign autonomy? Soon, you’d be looking at a full scale rebellion, wouldn’t that be fun?”

Zubair didn’t reply as they arrived at the ground floor, they walked in silence emerging from the tower to see the field in front of them was filled with students, spilling onto the drive way that ran around the structure. Two-thousand fifth-years. Two-thousand second-stage tethered.

“What’s going on?” Zubair mumbled, keeping his voice quiet in front of the gathered students.

“We’re doing our jobs,” Ragnar replied not bothering keeping quiet. “I’m running the academy to the best of my ability and you’re watching me. You see when the Masters’ Council left they brought along a lot of their closest friends and advisor, now funnily enough, quite a few of those were teachers here at this academy,” Ragnar couldn’t stop a hint of his disgust with both teacher and councilor from slipping into his voice, “Unfortunately, that is well within their rights as councilors. That leaves me with too few teachers for too many students. Luckily, we have a fine crowd of fifth-years, clever, well-trained, yet still somewhat lacking in leadership experience,” he turned to the students, “Which is why you will be assigned four students that you will personally be responsible for teaching for the rest of this trimester!”

A mumbled echo of his words rushed through the crowd before him, “You are fifth-years at the end of your last trimester. Two months from now you’ll be traveling towards the front lines, into the real world. No more fun and games. This will be your first foray into leading a group of too young men with too little preparation and too little respect.”

Ragnar looked around, determining if he had to force a continuance in his speech, but saw one of Pashar’s administrators were already approaching, “Everything ready?” he asked quietly, at her nodded ascent he raised his voice again. “Please follow the administrator in an orderly line and she will get you and your students sorted.”

The woman waved, yelling once and the group of twenty-two year-olds slowly started stumbling after her. Of course, he wasn’t going to abandon his entire student body into the hands of twenty-somethings, his remaining teachers while not enough to look after ten-thousands students and run all their classes, were enough to regularly check in on two-thousand and their squad’s progress.

“Clever,” Zubair said, “You’ve turned the academy into a little army.”

“Did you forget what I used to do?” Ragnar asked, unable to hide his grin. “Did you forget what we’re training them to do. As much as some of our students have been having personal breakthroughs working with scholars, we’re training soldiers, warriors, and killers.”

Zubair glanced at him for a long moment, then sighed, “You didn’t just come up with this, did you?”

Ragnar’s mouth split into a muscle cramping grin.

“Out with it, I should know anyway.”

“This is, of course, a longer term plan, at least five years but probably ten to really see benefit,” he hedged for continuing, “With the fifth-years working as squad-leaders for the rest of the student body I can introduce some much needed military protocol into the academy. The fifth-years would, under the guidance of teachers, be in charge of weapon, physical, and a new class we’re temporarily calling army—basic troop and command structure in practice.

“Making the squad leaders fifth-years allows me to introduce the students to many different types of leaders over their years at the academy, before they themselves are thrust into the role. I believe as they see the good and bad aspects it will help make them more informed and capable leaders themselves.

“However, the teachers will stand outside the military dynamic. They will continue to function in their current more informal teacher-student structure. The teachers who come here are ones that didn’t want to remain in the military, so forcing them into such roles could cause struggles and huge departures. While such an informal relationship also helps breed trust and comfort between our staff and their students.

“Of course, there will be some issues that we will continue to work on, but I think it utilizes the positives of the academy while offsetting some of the more negative aspects.”

Zubair’s thoughtful frown sat heavily between them as he considered, “It’s promising, I’d like a full ten-year plan to take to the alliance.”

Ragnar unbuttoned his uniform coat and retrieved the folder he’d stashed there this morning. “Here you go.”

Ranvir had to be careful in his preparations for the ritual. First and foremost, he had to figure out what to do with his chest. It was just slightly too tall to fit under the bench and he wouldn’t be able to maintain the pocket when so fully within tether-space.

Dismantling the extra space gently, he managed to slip the chest onto the ground without making too much noise. Pushing it up against the bench, he could see that it was just a tad too large. Sucking a breath in through his teeth, he pulled it around to look at the back.

The nails attaching the lid were simple, he should be able to break them relatively quickly. Hopefully, before the washing water came through. Opening the chest was a little awkward as the cell was already small, but he quickly found the as of yet handle-less hammer head. The pick at the back should be able to lever out the nails though.