A Hard Reckoning: The System Integration Chronicles Book 3, page 53
I couldn't get the angle.
Then Beverly roared something wordless and slammed into the orc again, knocking it half a step off balance. The shaman panicked, scrambling up from its crouch to reposition, bone totems rattling loud enough for me to track the sound instead of the sight.
There. For half a heartbeat, the gap opened.
I exhaled—shaky, not steady—brought the Sharps to my shoulder, and prayed I wouldn't hit one of ours.
I had the shot.
I squeezed the trigger.
CRACK.
The Sharps kicked harder than I expected—maybe because my stance was garbage, maybe because my hands were shaking so badly my whole body felt off-center. A ripple of discharged mana shimmered past my cheek in a hot wave.
For a half-second, I thought I'd missed.
Then the shaman jerked. The glow sputtered in its hands as the round punched through its collarbone and tore it backward. Bone totems scattered across the floorboards with a clatter that somehow cut through all the other noise.
The chant cut off.
The shield-captain staggered mid-swing—just a hitch, a stutter in that awful momentum—but it was enough. Jayden saw it first. He didn't shout, didn't warn. He just moved, blade carving a brutal arc across the orc's exposed flank.
The shield-captain roared, swinging wild for the first time. Emily darted in beneath the blow, her rapier flashing once—twice—seeking joints in the armor. Dawson hammered his shield into the orc's ribs, driving it backward over the shaman's collapsing form.
For the first time since the fight started, the orc looked mortal.
Beverly finished it.
He didn't scream, didn't grandstand. He just stepped in with this grim, hollow precision and drove his longsword deep under the shield-captain's arm, right where the armor plates gapped. The orc shuddered, staggered, and crashed sideways into a shattered bunk.
Silence hit like a physical thing.
The fire still crackled. People gasped for breath. Someone coughed behind me. But nobody moved, everybody waiting to see if the worst part was finally over.
My arms felt numb. I lowered the Sharps slowly, because if I did it fast I was pretty sure I'd drop it.
Matt let out a shaky breath and released the heal on Jamal, who sagged but stayed upright. Beverly just stood there, sword buried to the hilt in the orc, shoulders rising and falling like he'd forgotten how to breathe.
Morris scanned the dim corners, voice low: "Clear?"
Silva answered first. "Clear." Hanna echoed it a moment later.
Only then did Beverly pull his blade free. He didn't look at any of us. Didn't say a word. He just wiped the edge on the orc's tunic and stepped back into the formation like nothing had happened.
I swallowed hard, hands still trembling.
We'd killed them.
But that shaman's chant still echoed in my skull.
And all I could think was: If this was the barracks... what the hell was waiting deeper in the village?
* * *
Stepping out of the barracks felt like stepping off a ledge.
Inside, the walls told you where death might come from.
Out here?
Out here, death could come from literally anywhere, and most of those places were on fire.
Smoke dragged along the main street in thick, rolling sheets. Everything glowed orange—wrong orange, the kind that turned shadows into guesses. You couldn't tell which ones were cover and which were about to collapse on your head.
My HUD showed Emily's marker—blue dot, twenty feet left, no threat indicators. That should've been enough.
It wasn't.
I turned and found her anyway, just to make sure the System wasn't lying to me. Or that blue dots still meant alive. Or—hell, I don't know. My brain just needed to see her actual face instead of a blue pixelated dot.
She caught me looking. Didn't smile, didn't say anything, just gave me this tiny nod before her eyes went back to the rooftops.
My heart rate dropped maybe two beats. Not calm. Just… manageable panic instead of the climbing kind.
"Eyes up," Morris said quietly.
We were maybe ten steps out of the barracks door when the first arrow hissed down.
It slammed into Derek's shield with a sharp thunk and stuck there, quivering. Another buried itself in the dirt next to Matt's boot. He flinched sideways and almost stepped into it.
Then a firepot came in from somewhere above us with this ugly whistling sound.
It shattered on the cobblestone to our right, spraying burning pitch across the street. The flames caught an overturned wagon wheel and just... ran around it, circling the rim like they were chasing themselves before spreading to the wagon bed.
I caught movement on the left roofline—dark blur ducking behind a slanted peak. "Roof—left!" I called, bringing the Sharps up.
"On it," Wade replied, his crossbow already tracking.
The angle sucked, and smoke kept dragging across my sightline like it had a personal vendetta. I held position anyway, waiting for the archer to show himself again.
Another arrow dropped in, clipping Davis across the upper arm. He yelled something that was probably not church-safe, staggering back into the person behind him. One of Leander's Guardians—the guy had been solid on the shield wall all night, and now he was bleeding from a lucky shot.
Matt's hand was already up.
A lance of warm-gold light shot from his palm and hit Davis square in the shoulder. The bleeding slowed, then stopped. Davis flexed his fingers once and nodded, already trying to pretend it hadn't scared the hell out of him.
It scared the hell out of me.
Not because of the blood. Because of how tight Matt's jaw was, and the careful breath he blew out after. Each heal took more than mana—something that didn't regenerate nearly as fast.
"Rear clear," Silva called from behind us.
"Forward," Morris said.
We moved.
Not a charge. Just this steady, armored walk down a street that suddenly felt way too long.
A line of orcs maybe twenty yards ahead, half-hidden by smoke and debris. Five? Six? Hard to tell. Shields up, spears angled. Not the big boy from the barracks, but these weren't random patrol idiots either. Their shields overlapped just enough that you couldn't easily slip a shot between them.
"Another shield line?" I muttered under my breath. "Seriously?"
Emily heard me. Of course she did. "At least they're not hiding," she said.
I wasn't convinced that was an upgrade.
Morris flicked a hand signal, angling us left toward a section of collapsed fencing that would give the front line some cover. The second we shifted, the orcs adjusted their stance—tiny corrections, shields tilting, spearpoints tracking.
Like they'd practiced this.
A horn blast split the air.
Not the deep, miserable one we'd heard earlier. Higher, sharper—three staccato notes that bounced off the burning houses.
My stomach did that free-fall thing.
Because horns meant coordination, and coordination meant someone smart was paying attention.
"Shaman," I said. "Has to be."
"Top right," Wade pointed.
I followed his gesture and found it—a smaller orc crouched near a crooked chimney, one hand gripping a short horn, the other wrapped around a bundle of bone trinkets. Its chant crawled down the street like sandpaper on nerves.
Great. Another shaman.
My HUD finally decided to be helpful and put a faint red outline around it.
"Think we can drop him?" I asked.
"Yeah," Wade said. "If he stands still and the smoke cooperates and the System decides to like us for once."
So… no.
We advanced another few yards, the ground under our boots crunching with broken glass and God-knew-what-else.
"Movement—right alley!" Silva snapped.
I didn't even get the chance to swear before three orcs came barreling out of the gap between two houses, low and fast and way too close.
"Shift!" Morris barked.
Derek and Jamal pivoted like someone had rewound them and hit play in a different direction. Shields swung as one, catching the first two orcs mid-charge. The third slipped wide, angling toward Matt and the other healers.
I turned with it, Sharps already coming up.
My first shot went high, smacking sparks off the stone wall behind it. Too fast, too jumpy.
Panic twitched in my chest—that you're going to screw this up and get someone killed voice—but I shoved it down long enough to chamber the next round.
Second shot took the orc in the shoulder. It staggered, momentum broken, and Leander was there a heartbeat later, bringing his sword down in a two-handed chop that folded the thing in half.
The other two orcs on the flank weren't having a great time either. Jamal held one off with his shield while Emily slid in low, her blade taking its leg out from under it. The last one tried to push past Derek and met the full weight of a Guardian whose patience was completely gone.
The alley went quiet.
The street didn't.
"Front!" Derek called.
The shield-line down the way had started to move, shields locked, boots pounding in slow, measured steps. Spears jutted toward us like a row of nasty teeth.
Morris swore under his breath—short and sharp. "Fence line, now! Move before they close!"
We slid left. I stayed on the edge of the formation, eyes jumping between rooftops, windows, alley mouths. My brain kept trying to work out every angle at once and doing a terrible job of it.
Emily materialized at my shoulder as the formation compressed. She must have peeled back from the front when we shifted—melee didn't need her until the lines actually met.
Three more sharp notes from the horn. The orcs adjusted again, matching our movement like they were glued to us by invisible strings.
I hated that. Hated how on purpose it all felt.
"You're breathing too fast again," she said quietly.
"Yeah," I said. "Working on it."
That was it. No lecture. No soothing words. Just the reminder and the fact that she was still there.
The front lines hit.
Jayden drove into the shield-wall first, sword arcing in a wide horizontal cut that forced the front orcs to brace. Derek crashed in beside him a half-second later, his impact audible even over everything else.
The formation buckled.
Beverly flowed into the gap, his blade flashing out to stab at the closest exposed knee. He pulled back almost as fast as he struck, staying behind Dawson's shield this time instead of charging ahead like he wanted to die impressive.
Progress.
I edged sideways, searching for a seam between shields. Someone's shoulder, someone's jawline. Anything.
Found it.
I squeezed the trigger. The Sharps kicked against my shoulder, a hot pulse of mana rolling up my cheek. One of the orcs' heads snapped back. It dropped like a puppet with the strings cut.
The shield-line wobbled again.
Not enough.
The rooftop shaman blew another burst on the horn, then went back to chanting. The sound made the hair on my arms stand up. Orcs shifted their weight in unison, correcting their stance like the chant was running inside their skulls.
"We need that thing gone," I said.
"No kidding," Wade muttered.
Matt's breathing was loud now, even over the noise. He'd thrown at least two heals since we'd left the barracks, and fat drops of sweat were tracing clean lines through the soot on his face. He caught me looking and tried to muster a reassuring nod. It didn't work.
"Short engagements," he said. "Would be nice."
"Pass that to the dungeon designer," I told him.
The fighting at the front turned ugly, fast. Spears poked for ankles and knees. Jayden knocked one aside, only to almost eat a shield bash to the face. Derek took a spear on his shield that would've gutted someone else.
The rest of us kept up a constant rhythm—step, aim, fire, adjust. Fear didn't go away. It just got quieter, drowned out by the mechanics of staying alive.
Then the shaman overplayed his hand.
He leaned out a little too far to get line of sight on the street, raising the horn for another signal. For two heartbeats, the smoke thinned just enough that I could see his chest, not just his outline.
"There," I whispered, mostly to myself.
I pulled in a breath that didn't do much good, settled the sights as best I could with my hands shaking, and squeezed.
The round hit center mass and lifted him—just an inch, but enough to make my stomach twist. The horn flew from his hand. A spray of dark droplets flashed in the firelight before the smoke swallowed them. Then he toppled off the roof and hit the street with a wet, final sound I felt all the way up my spine.
The change was instant.
The orcs at the front didn't collapse dramatically. They just… lost that edge. That timing. Their next push came in ragged. One overcommitted, and Jayden took its leg. Another hesitated, and Derek slammed it backward into the orc behind it.
Beverly put his sword through one's chest and didn't bother pulling it out gently.
Thirty seconds later, the last orc broke and ran.
No one chased him.
The fires still crackled. Something deeper in the village groaned like a building giving up. I could hear my own breathing again—too loud, too fast.
Still breathing.
"Regroup," Morris called. "Everybody breathing?"
I did a fast sweep of my section—Wade, Isaiah, Aaron, Vincent. All upright. All grimy. All breathing. Wade caught my eye and thumped his chest once, a quick I'm good, without saying it out loud.
"Ranged clear," I called.
Emily wiped her blade on a dead orc's tunic, then crouched and touched its chest. I saw her eyes go distant for a second—the loot window—before the corpse started dissolving, edges breaking into motes of light that drifted up and faded. She straightened, pocketing whatever she'd claimed.
Matt scrubbed a soot line across his face that made him look like he'd lost a fistfight with a chimney. "I've got mana left," he said. Then, quieter, "Just don't make me do hero numbers."
Beverly didn't say anything. He just cleaned his sword on a dead orc's tunic and stared down the street toward the Commons like the village owed him an apology.
I followed his gaze.
The center of Millageville—I still refused to think of it with that stupid System name, even though I'd just used it—glowed brighter than the fires around us. Not just reflection. Something in there was feeding the light.
My hands were still shaking.
Fear hadn't gone anywhere. I was pretty sure it wasn't planning to.
But we were alive. We were still moving.
And the Commons were waiting.
Chapter 39: UDS Day 229
Smoke hung over the Commons like a ceiling that didn't want to stay up. Hot, dirty, full of that burnt-metal System taste that always crawled to the back of my tongue. The square was maybe eighty by eighty feet, but stepping into it felt like taking one step too far off a cliff.
The broken fountain in the center burbled like it was having a bad day on top of a bad month. Fire from the cottages painted everything angry orange, and the air shimmered with heat that made the buildings look like they were breathing.
We took positions—not bunched up, but not scattered either. The kind of spacing where you can support each other without one fireball getting everybody. Tanks up front. Emily and Leander tight behind them. Matt and the other healers in the middle. Beverly's Rockwall fighters anchoring the left. My section covering the right, where I could watch the rooftops.
Then the orcs stepped out like they owned the place.
My Junior Commander interface lit up—eight shield-bearers holding a shallow arc in front of the Village Hall, four archers on the rooftops, and one ugly cluster of red behind the shattered fountain where bone totems rattled loud enough to make every hair on my arms stand up.
A shaman. Perfect.
"Contact," Morris said.
Not shouted. Just said. And everything in the Commons tried to kill us at once.
The first arrow scraped across my cheek before I heard it—hot, fast, not quite breaking skin. I jerked the Sharps up and found movement on the eastern roof without really processing that I was already pulling the trigger.
The rifle kicked into my shoulder, mana flaring bright. The archer dropped instantly—no scream, just gone. Rolled down the roof in a way I'd probably remember at the worst possible time.
One.
Two more shapes popped up immediately.
"Right roof!" I yelled.
Wade fired beside me. Missed, but close enough to make the archer flinch.
I fired again. Second body dropped.
"Left roof!" Isaiah shouted.
I pivoted. Another archer had Jayden lined up.
Isaiah's mana arrow got there first, punching through the orc's skull. The body tumbled off the roof and hit the cobblestones with a wet crack.
Three down.
"Front!" Derek's voice cut through everything.
The shield-line advanced—shields locked, spears jabbing, boots pounding in sync with the shaman's chant behind the fountain. That chant didn't sound like language. It sounded like something trying to crawl under my skin.
Morris shifted us right. "Don't get pinned! Range, keep pressure!"
I tried to find an opening—anything without a shield in front of it. Everything moved too fast.
Then the shaman changed rhythm.
The chant deepened. A dull pulse rolled across the square.
Every orc surged like something had grabbed their spines and yanked. The shield-line slammed into our front rank hard enough that I felt the impact through the cobblestones. Jamal staggered, shield skidding sideways, and Jayden stepped in to brace him—
—and an orc hooked his shield under Jayden's arm and yanked him off balance.
"Jayden!" Hanna's voice cracked sharper than I'd ever heard from her.
