A Hard Reckoning: The System Integration Chronicles Book 3, page 47
"First we get through tomorrow," I said.
"Yeah." Wade's knife kept moving. "First that."
Around midnight, I gave up on sleep. Found a spot where I could watch the fort—faint glow from fires inside, occasional silhouettes of guards on the ramparts.
My interface was still open, running through everything. The route around the fort. The approach the army would use. Estimates that might be wrong. All the data Thompson was counting on.
What if I'd missed something? What if there were eight hundred orcs instead of six? What if reinforcements were already on their way from somewhere we hadn't scouted?
Seven hundred people betting their lives on my reconnaissance being right.
I touched the Sharps, ran my finger along the breechblock. That nervous habit I'd picked up somewhere along the way.
The fort's fires kept burning. In a few hours, Mike Nelson's cannon would start the assault. Heavy infantry would form up. My team would execute our flanking maneuver.
And we'd find out if Thompson's plan was brilliant or if I'd helped seven hundred people walk into a massacre.
I sat there watching the walls, waiting for dawn.
Chapter 35: UDS Day 227
You know that feeling right before something terrible starts? Where your body knows it's coming but your brain keeps pretending maybe it won't? That's where I was at four-thirty in the morning, half a mile from a fort full of orcs, watching Mike Nelson load a cannonball the size of my head.
My team was spread out near the artillery position—Emily, Kyle, Hanna, Wade, Cornell, Isaiah, Lira, Caleb, Matt. Ten of us total, nobody talking much. That pre-battle quiet where everyone's already checked their gear twice but keeps fidgeting anyway because sitting still means thinking, and thinking means calculating odds you'd rather not know.
I was doing my own version—checking the Sharps, then the Remington, then the Sharps again like either one might've magically broken in the last thirty seconds. Running ranges in my head for terrain I couldn't even see yet.
Emily checked her rapier again. Third time in five minutes.
"You know it's still sharp, right? It was sharp yesterday. Probably sharp tomorrow too."
She shot me a look—half annoyed, half something else. "Shut up."
"I'm just saying, if the blade's gone dull overnight, we've got bigger problems than orcs."
Her grip on the hilt loosened slightly. Not fixed, but... acknowledged.
Mike's assistant helped him position the cannon—small adjustments, checking angles I didn't understand. Mike himself knelt beside it, hands moving through what looked like ritual but was probably just the careful routine of someone who knew exactly how dangerous his weapon was.
Three hundred yards ahead, the fort sat against the pre-dawn darkness. Torches on the ramparts, winking in and out as guards crossed in front of the flames. Eight feet of stone. Gates they'd reinforced with iron bands since we'd last been here. And however many hundred orcs were waiting inside—six, seven, nobody knew exactly.
Thompson's plan was simple. Artillery breaks the gate. Heavy infantry pushes through. We flow west toward the dungeon while pushing the orcs east toward their settlement.
Simple didn't mean easy. Simple just meant everyone knew which way to die if it went wrong.
I heard Thompson's voice behind me. Turned and found Baronet Beverly walking beside him, that scar across his jaw catching torchlight. Behind Beverly, twenty mounted fighters—six Croft heavy cavalry in full armor with lances, fourteen Lakes scouts I recognized as Silva's people.
My stomach dropped.
Cavalry here meant something had changed. Beverly was supposed to be screening the main assault, keeping orcs from flanking around the breach. Why was he—
"Change of plans," Thompson said, and through the command network I felt his tactical assessment shifting pieces. "Baronet Beverly, your cavalry screens the southwest flank. Junior Commander Taylor's team is attached to your command for this operation."
My brain processed that in stages.
One: Beverly's in charge. I report to him.
Two: I just went from semi-independent to taking orders from one of the Rockwall nobles I barely know.
Three: Thompson wouldn't do this without good reason.
Through the network, Thompson's reasoning came clear: Cavalry's useless at a breach. Tight quarters, no room to maneuver. The flank's where they matter.
Made sense. Tactically, it was smart. Heavy cavalry couldn't charge through a narrow breach—they'd just get jammed up and killed. But stopping orcs from breaking out toward the dungeon? That's what mounted troops were for.
Didn't mean I had to like reporting to someone I'd barely worked with.
Beverly's eyes went to the Sharps, the Remington, back to my face. That calculating look people got when they were figuring out how to work with someone outside the usual hierarchy. He'd seen me coordinate the retreat two weeks ago—knew I could do the job. But working with a teenager when you're used to Rockwall's chain of command? That was the question.
"Your people know this ground," he said. Not quite a question, not quite an order. "Recommendations?"
Smart. Using local knowledge even when it came from a fifteen-year-old. I could work with smart.
I pointed southwest, where the ground opened up past the fort. "My team takes forward position along that drainage ditch, southwest corner. Maybe a hundred yards from their walls. We're your eyes—anything breaks out heading for the dungeon, we see it first and engage."
"And my cavalry?"
"Hundred-fifty yards behind us. Close enough to reinforce if we get hit hard, far enough you've got room to maneuver. Small groups break through, we handle it. Fifty orcs come at us, you hit them fast or we all fall back to the main force."
Beverly nodded slowly. "Flexible. That works." He glanced back at his twenty riders. "Get your people ready. We move when the bombardment starts."
Not a request. An order from my commanding officer for this operation.
"Yes sir," I said, because that's what you say when someone outranks you, even if Thompson just made this arrangement five minutes ago.
Beverly rode back to his cavalry. Thompson was already moving toward the artillery position, orders flowing through the command network to the other commanders.
"What was that about?" Emily asked, appearing at my elbow.
"Thompson reassigned Beverly's cavalry to our flank. We're screening southwest. Beverly's in command."
"You're taking orders from Croft nobility now?"
My face must've done something, because Emily's eyebrow went up.
"Better Beverly than the other nobles," I said. More sour than I intended, but true. After the disaster two weeks ago, Beverly was the one Baron Croft sent back—the one who'd actually learned something from watching Ashford die.
"Yeah." My hand found the Sharps again. "Thompson wouldn't pull cavalry off the main assault unless he thought the flank mattered more."
"Or unless he realized cavalry's useless at a breach and better used stopping breakouts."
Right. That too.
My team gathered around. "Beverly's commanding the southwest screen," I said, gesturing toward where we'd be positioned. "We're the forward element—hundred yards from their walls. First contact with anything trying to break southwest toward the dungeon."
Kyle raised an eyebrow. That close meant we'd be in bow range if the orcs got organized.
"Beverly's cavalry sits back at one-fifty," I continued. "Close enough to respond, far enough to maneuver. Small groups breaking out? We handle it. Bigger force?" I looked around at my team. "We hold while Beverly brings the cavalry, or we fall back to Thompson if it's really bad."
"How many orcs we expecting?" Caleb asked.
"However many try to run." I looked at the fort, silhouetted against the slowly brightening sky. "Intel says six to seven hundred in there. When Thompson's infantry hits that breach, some of them are going to realize they're losing and try to run. Our job is making sure they run east, not southwest."
"And if they come at us in force?" Cornell's voice was level.
"Then Beverly brings the cavalry and we either stop them or fall back." I met everyone's eyes. "This isn't heroic last stands. We delay, we hurt them, but we don't die stupidly. Clear?"
Nods all around. These weren't rookies anymore.
Dawn broke slowly—sky going from black to gray to that weird purple-blue that means the sun's coming whether you want it to or not.
At the artillery position, Mike Nelson knelt beside his cannon. He placed his hand on the touch hole, and blue glow built under his palm—same color as mana potions, same color my infused rounds glowed. The light spread along the reinforcement bands.
The boom hit my chest before my ears registered it. Deep and violent, the kind of sound that made your whole body understand something dangerous had just happened.
I brought the Sharps scope up, tracking toward the fort. Three hundred yards away, the wooden gates exploded. Not cracked—exploded. Wood splinters flying, stone dust where the shot clipped the gatehouse frame, chunks of oak the size of my fist tumbling through the air.
Everyone in my team flinched. You can't not flinch when something that loud happens that close.
Through the scope, I watched the orcs on the walls react. Not panic—that would've been easier. Organization. Horn calls starting almost immediately, that coordinated signaling they did. Movement behind the fort, orcs repositioning to reinforce the gate.
Someone was commanding them. Coordinating the response. Making decisions.
We'd known that intellectually. Seeing it was different.
"They're not running," Emily said quietly.
"No." I kept the scope on the walls, tracking movement. "They're getting ready to fight."
Mike's cannon fired again five minutes later. Then five minutes after that. Methodical—waiting for his mana to regenerate between shots, then channeling another three hundred points into the gates.
Each shot hit. Wood splintering, hinges twisting, the oak slowly coming apart under repeated impacts. Some shots dead center—those did the real damage. Others clipped the stone frame, sending rock dust flying.
Twenty minutes in—four shots total—the gates were visibly buckling. Still standing, but you could see daylight through gaps in the wood.
Beverly appeared beside me on horseback. "Time to move. Mount up."
I swung into my saddle, Sharps already out, checking the action one more time. Emily mounted beside me, close enough I could hear her breathing.
Beverly's twenty riders fell in around us. "Move out," he said quietly. "Stay quiet. Use the tree cover."
We started moving southwest in the early morning light, sticking to the trees—that long arc around the fort's western side where the woods gave us concealment. My Junior Commander interface fed me information—distance to the drainage ditch, terrain features, approach vectors.
Twenty minutes of careful movement through wooded terrain. Nobody talked. Just horses moving through brush, leather creaking, the occasional clink of metal quickly muffled.
We emerged from the tree line at our position. The drainage ditch sat maybe a hundred yards from the fort's southwest corner. Close. Real close. Close enough I could see individual stones in the walls through my scope.
Beverly held up a hand. The column stopped.
"Dismount," he said quietly to four of his Lakes scouts. "Support Taylor's line."
Four rangers dismounted, checking bows as they moved up with us. I recognized a couple—had fought alongside them at the earthwork yesterday. Good fighters.
Beverly positioned his remaining sixteen cavalry two hundred yards back—close enough to see us, far enough to respond without being in our immediate fight.
My team spread out along the ditch with the four Lakes scouts. Kyle and Isaiah on the left with two scouts. Emily, Cornell, and me in the center. Hanna and Wade on the right with the other two scouts. Lira slightly back where she could throw lightning without hitting us. Caleb watching our rear. Matt in the middle where he could reach anyone who got hit.
Through my scope, I saw movement behind the fort.
Not on the walls. Behind them. Orcs moving away from the fighting, heading southwest.
Toward us.
Six, maybe eight of them. Not organized—moving fast, scattered, like they were running from something rather than following orders. The bombardment must've been getting to them. Gate coming apart one shot at a time, nowhere to go but wait for humans to pour through the breach.
Some of them had decided not to wait.
My hand went to the Sharps, but I caught myself. This wasn't a Sharps problem. This was an arrow problem.
"Six orcs," I said, keeping my voice low. "Maybe eight. Running southwest—looks like the bombardment spooked them."
Beverly rode up beside my position. "You seeing this?"
"Yeah. Small group. Running scared." I kept tracking them through the scope. "We can handle it."
Kyle and Isaiah already had bows up. The Lakes scouts doing the same. Six arrows ready.
The orcs kept coming. A hundred yards. Eighty. Not checking flanks, not covering each other. Just running.
"Archers," I said quietly. "Drop them."
Six arrows flew. Three orcs dropped immediately, two more stumbled, the last ones going down before they made it another ten yards.
Maybe fifteen seconds total. Eight orcs to zero.
"Kyle, Isaiah—loot fast," I said, watching the bodies starting to shimmer.
The two archers sprinted out, dropped to quick crouches beside the bodies. Thirty seconds of fast looting—crude iron weapons, coin pouches, nothing special—then sprinting back to the drainage ditch.
Behind them, the orc bodies dissolved into nothing. Empty ground where eight orcs had been running a minute ago.
"That was easy," Emily said beside me.
"Too easy." I kept the scope up, scanning. "That was panic. Low-level orcs who broke and ran. But someone's going to notice we're blocking the route to their dungeon."
Through my scope, I could see the fort. More movement behind the walls now. More horn calls. They'd heard something—maybe the dying orcs, maybe just noticed the gap in their numbers.
Beverly repositioned his cavalry slightly. "Stay ready. That won't be the last."
He was right. The bombardment was continuing—Mike's cannon firing every five minutes, the gates buckling more with each hit. The orcs inside had maybe an hour before that gate came down completely and Thompson's infantry poured through.
And when that happened, the ones smart enough to run would be heading our way.
* * *
Fifteen minutes since we'd dropped those first eight, and nobody had relaxed. Everyone pretending their hands weren't still shaking. The fort sitting there in front of us, smoke curling up from behind the walls where Thompson's assault was happening—where the real fighting was—while we sat out here playing backup.
Then Kyle said "Movement" and everything got worse.
Twenty orcs. Coming at us in actual formation.
You know that feeling when your body realizes you're about to get hit before your brain catches up? Stomach dropping, hands doing things on their own while you're still trying to process? That's where I was, watching them come, brain stuck on how they weren't supposed to know tactics like that.
Through the scope, I watched them moving. Shields up. Spears behind the front line. Someone barking orders in the middle—couldn't tell which one, but there was definitely a leader. They knew we were here. Knew exactly where, actually, because we'd just killed their scouts.
"Contact," I said, trying to sound like I had this. "Twenty, organized."
Through the command network, I told Beverly what we were seeing. His response was basically handle it unless you can't—smart, but it meant we were on our own until things went really sideways.
Fourteen of us. Twenty of them. And these weren't running scared.
"Let them get into the open," I said. "Archers, wait for my call."
The leader was in the center, head and shoulders above the rest—crude sword raised, shouting orders. Level 7 at least, from the way he carried himself, the way the others responded to him.
They kept coming. Steady. Like they knew they had us outnumbered and weren't worried about it.
My hands found the Sharps. Check the load—mana-infused round ready. Breathe.
"Fire!"
Six arrows snapped out. Kyle's caught one in the chest—perfect shot, down instantly. Isaiah got one in the throat. The Lakes scouts dropped two more between them. Wade's crossbow bolt took another through the shield—punched right through the wood and into the orc behind it.
Five down. The rest sped up, shields coming up harder. The leader dropped back into the formation, covered now.
I tracked him through the scope. Waiting.
The formation shifted as they moved around a dip in the ground. Gap opened on the left side—just for a second.
Deep breath. Halfway out.
The Sharps kicked. Through the scope, I watched the mana-infused round hit the orc's shield dead center. The wood exploded—not splintered, exploded into fragments—the round barely slowing before it punched through his chest. He dropped without staggering. Vertical to horizontal in less than a second.
Half a second of hesitation from the orcs. Then they charged.
"Lira! Left side—where they're bunched!"
I didn't see her cast from her position behind us, but I felt it. That electric tension right before—
The world went white. The crack left my ears ringing. Through the afterimages, I watched the lightning hit—first orc seized up mid-stride, muscles locked. The bolt jumped, catching two more before grounding out on a fourth one's shield.
The smell hit a second later. Burnt meat.
Maybe eleven left. Getting close now.
"Continuous fire!"
Kyle and Isaiah dropped two more fast—that coordinated shooting where they didn't need to talk. The Lakes scouts got another. Wade reloaded and put a bolt through an orc's thigh, dropping him screaming. But some of these knew how to use shields—arrows glancing off instead of finding center mass.
