Sixth Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  “Hey Yao you hear me?” Erik yelled, inspecting Yao.

  “Nothing broken, but shrapnel and head trauma.” Erik opened the command channel.

  “I’m moving him back to the aid station!”

  “Alright, everyone lay down covering fire on my mark!” Storbon ordered.

  The trenches seemed to quiet as people rapidly reloaded.

  “Covering fire!”

  Everyone stood out of their positions.

  A wall of fire greeted the orcs. Erik stood up with Yao Meng, he barely felt his weight as he ran through the trenches.

  “I’m out of the trenches,” Erik moved among the broken buildings.

  They had set up an aid station now Erik’s efforts would be focused there.

  “Tian Cui, move up to support Lucinda, I’ll assist,” Storbon said.

  They moved up to the front lines. Rugrat and Gilly were the mid-ground support with Yuli and George was their rear support.

  Rugrat dropped another empty magazine. He turned and ran from his position as he slapped in a fresh mag and hit the bolt catch once again and tossed it into his storage ring, pulling out two grenade launchers.

  He fired the grenade launchers firing the one in his right until it was empty, he fired in front of the shamans, blocking their vision and picked out the biggest groupings of orcs.

  Explosions bloomed among the orc groups, sending them flying.

  He dropped down, tossing one grenade launcher into his storage ring. He unloaded the other. He took out the entire cylinder, throwing it in his storage ring and pulling out a loaded one.

  He dropped it into place and smacked it shut.

  Rugrat stood taking in the scene around him and fired again.

  Explosions blossomed among the orcs, they were in disarray, at any moment grenades could fall on them and tear them apart.

  Rugrat was reloading and firing with his single grenade launcher as fast as possible now.

  With their vision covered in explosions the shaman’s spells shouldn’t be as accurate.

  Traps were still going off, Gilly and Yuli altered the terrain at will, turning it into a hellish obstacle.

  Lucinda and Storbon took out kneecaps and legs while George sent out fireballs that exploded upon impact.

  The weight on the battlefield changed, the orcs had reached a wall.

  There were forty or so remaining, the tide turned and they started to run away.

  Rugrat stopped firing as they got too far away, the grenade launcher’s parabolic arc was too high and the tunnel’s ceiling was too low for him to hit the orcs anymore. Yuli and Gilly slowed their attacks, then finally the front-liners slowed down.

  “How is everyone?” Strobon asked.

  A series of “goods” came back from the others.

  “Reset, I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of them,” Storbon said, he fired his rifle, killing an orc that had been stabbed into a wall by a steam-spike.

  Dead and dying Orcs lay across the battlefield what was once orderly was now a mess.

  The floors started to regrow and stone covered the different pits, spikes were reformed and water collected at their bases.

  The charges and trap formations couldn’t be added to unless someone ran out into the battlefield and none of them would even think of that when the enemy could show up at any minute.

  “Erik, how’s Yao Meng?” Storbon asked.

  “He’s a tough bastard, he was hit with three shaman attacks, blood magic it looks like. He passed out, feeding him healing potions and the like. The damn guy is a bullet magnet, he should be fine, just needs time. Should be good in a few hours,” Erik said. “I’ll stay with him, once he wakes up then I’d feel better about leaving him.”

  “Got it,” Storbon said.

  “More coming,” Rugrat said, George informed him through their connection.

  He kicked some shells out of his way and moved to a new position, putting his grenade launchers away and grabbing his rifle.

  “Get set! Yuli, have that barrier up the entire time, I don’t care about the mana stones,” Storbon said.

  “I need a bigger gun,” Rugrat said as he was looking at the rifle in his hands. “Be cool if I had a railgun. Something that could just punch through these bastards.”

  Rugrat paused in preparing his next position. In his mind, images, half-baked thoughts, in his smithy, back on earth working on firearms, sitting at the top of Vuzgal with Matt, seeing the flow of power in everything, an image started to appear in his head.

  “It would be science fiction on Earth, but I’ve been thinking too small. I’m still thinking of firearms as an external tool and device. They are, but if complimenting their user, a weapon that can be altered to the situation, sniper, rifle, grenade launcher. Flowing with the power of the Ten Realms built with the knowledge of Earth.” Rugrat was spewing out words, his mind working faster than he could speak.

  His mind focused on seeing Vuzgal, taking the raw unaltered landscape and then bringing it to order, watching the flow of people, and the flow of power he saw the flow of power through his body, through people, through the Ten Realms.

  It all slammed into the back of his head as his body shook.

  Rugrat closed his eyes for a second, reviewing the information.

  He opened his eyes after a few moments.

  “Once I get out of this shit show then I’ll have to find myself a forge.”

  He focused on preparing his position.

  ***

  Erik’s attention was on Yao Meng. His armor had taken the impact but the Orcs were used to fighting one another with bodies that were at least as strong as Body like Stone. Yao Meng had a crushed rib cage and his organs had shifted. His shoulder was broken and he’d had a nasty wound on his neck. Erik had patched him up. With his stronger body, Erik was able to heal faster and Yao Meng’s own body was leading the fight to recover.

  The orcs’ attacks hadn’t slowed, they’d just kept coming, wave after wave, fifty orcs, every few minutes, they barely had time to reset their defenses before the orcs arrived.

  Three more orc groups had been turned back, but the fourth, with a group of a hundred orcs, and thirty shamans had gotten the furthest, they’d taken losses from the traps and lost a third of their people as their mana barrier reached the mana barrier of the front-line.

  Barbed wire made it hell to cross into the trenches.

  The air was filled with orc plague and the orcs started to drop from it as they pushed on, even one open wound accelerated the speed of the infection.

  The orcs were able to cross the distance to the trenches without one of their people being shot or blown up by the grenade launchers.

  Storbon pulled back everyone to the second line and fired on the orcs that had been weakened with the orc plague and forced their way forward through traps and explosives.

  The orcs were lambs to the slaughter as they were cut down by the Special team. Though everyone was starting to feel the pressure, some orcs fled and made it back to the others that were coming behind, the later waves learned from the first’s mistakes.

  There was a leader behind the scenes pushing them forward and adapting to the fighting.

  What the orcs didn’t realize was as they were reporting what was happening, they were passing on Erik’s present, his concentrated orc plague that now covered the battlefield in a green and red haze.

  The commanders were stronger and it took more to slow them down, with time and the right kind of medicine they might’ve recovered from it, but they charged into battle instead, right into the middle of other orc bodies that were filled with the plague.

  It weakened and slowed their reactions, but the previous waves of orcs had triggered many of the trap formations and the explosives, the barbed wire was torn up and distorted in places.

  They attacked again and again, opening up more paths, the front-line was left alone and the fighting happened in the trenches, the trenches were blown up, turning into craters and
reducing the orcs’ cover.

  The plague got worse in density and strength, but the orcs were arriving before it killed them.

  “Shit, they’re making it into the second line!” Lucinda said.

  “Pull back to the buildings!” Storbon ordered.

  “Dammit, they’re bringing up shamans and their totems!” Rugrat yelled.

  Erik kept watching and checking Yao Meng’s vitals.

  “Watch out, they’re casting a ritual!” Yuli said.

  “Shit, it is one of those green whirlwinds, Tian Cui, you are in its path!” Rugrat yelled.

  Erik could hear the howling winds of the spell overtaking the explosions and rumblings of the weapons fire and spells mixed in with the orc war cries.

  “Fuck!” Tian Cui yelled.

  There was a muffled explosion.

  “Shit, Tian Cui was hit by one of those damn storms!” Lucinda yelled.

  “Doc!” Rugrat yelled.

  Erik looked at Yao Meng’s vitals once again, sending a surge of healing into the man’s body as he grabbed his slung rifle.

  He turned from Yao Meng and grabbed his rifle in both hands.

  “I’ll get her,” he said.

  “She was cut up bad and hit a green building, eight o’clock from the front-line,” Storbon said.

  “Got it.”

  Erik altered where he was going, his speed lifting dust behind him as his feet slammed into the ground.

  He swung around a building and stretched out his domain.

  He turned down a street, seeing the battle that was unfolding, flashes of tracers covered the trenches that were boiling over with orcs, shamans were grouped together at the edge of the barrier casting their spells. Grenades hit the shamans, killing some and wounding others, three other grenades dropped on them, leaving nothing as grenades appeared among the orcs that were jumping into the shelled front-line trenches.

  Beams of fire and water struck orcs.

  Erik didn’t waste time to stop and shoot. He cast Unhallowed Ground on the frontlines and bolstered its effects. Orcs cried out in pain as they collapsed, their vitality being sapped from them.

  Erik’s domain picked up something. He ran through a doorway. Scanning the room, he saw the collapsed wall that Tian Cui had smashed through.

  At some point her helmet had been ripped off, her face and head a mess of deep lacerations.

  Erik used his domain to monitor the area and assess Tian Cui as he moved to her, putting his rifle to the side as he pulled out his medical kit.

  She was making noises and sobbing, though Erik didn’t know if it was from her tears or the blood in her airways.

  “Tian Cui, it’s Erik. I have you, alright? You’re fine, just a few scrapes. I’ll have you fine in no time,” Erik put a hand to her chest and applied pressure on the breastplate to reassure her, his other hand moving through his medical gear. Tian Cui’s armor was torn up, the armored plates showing deep scars and grooves, blood covered her, any exposed skin had been torn apart.

  He got to work. Finding a vein on her neck he got an IV in, the attached bag he put behind his knee as he was crouched down. The pressure forcing it into her body faster.

  She had cuts right down to the bone in places, it was as if she had been through a blender.

  Erik used an adhesive wrap filled with pain killer, he didn’t want to put her out.

  She started coughing and convulsing.

  Erik shifted her, she writhed in pain as the dirt on the ground.

  She started coughing, spitting out blood.

  Erik used his clean spell and the blood and liquid in her lungs was forced out, making her gag and shiver.

  Erik watched with one corner of his eye as he took out a needle filled with stamina potion, he added it into the IV feed and squeezed harder.

  She has broken bones, blood loss and is just cut up to hell, but the plates saved her. She lost her eyes, hearing might be fucked, but she tucked her neck in and nothing wrong there, internally not many issues.

  “Tian Cui, you’re fine, you’ll be on your feet in no time, alright!” Erik yelled, as he pulled out scissors, dressings and gauze.

  He used his clean spell on her again, this time on her entire body. He released her breastplate and Tian Cui started to panic.

  He tapped her breastplate again to reassure her using his domain he sent a healing spell focused on her ears.

  “I’m here alright, don’t worry I’m not leaving you,” he yelled as he was preparing his gear with one hand.

  She seemed to half nod, trying to talk.

  “Don’t worry about it. I have you,” Erik said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.

  “They’re just, ah shit! There’s another group coming right behind them!” Rugrat yelled.

  “If they make it past the second line then we blow the tunnel ceiling,” Storbon said.

  “Agreed.” Rugrat said.

  Erik used his scissors to cut Tian Cui’s clothes to get access to the wounds.

  He held the boot of one leg, shifting it under his armpit as he started to cover her wounds, the dressings and gauze had been treated by the alchemy department to assist with healing, they would actually fuse with the patient, turning into new skin and assisting in healing areas directly touching them. They had their own organic compounds, so it didn’t require as much stamina from the patient, becoming a low energy cost healing item.

  He worked diligently as the sounds of battle continued outside. Once he was done with the legs, he moved to Tian Cui’s face. He wanted to do her legs first to comfort her and that was where most of her skin had been opened.

  “Shit, I hate shamans!” Rugrat said.

  “You hit?” Storbon asked.

  “Just a scratch, I’ll be fine,” Rugrat said.

  Erik worked quickly, turning Tian Cui into a mummy, her strong body was starting to recover already. Erik was largely supporting those changes and had dumped copious stamina potion into her body to give her the energy reserves she’d need to recover.

  Yuli let out a yell and there was a change in the air.

  “Shit, they created a spell above Yuli and dropped it on her, hit her and the formation, mana barrier is down and our buffs are gone,” Storbon said.

  Erik took out another large syringe and put it into the IV feed, the red healing potion was like blood as it entered Tian Cui’s body, making her gasp as her skin started to shift, as her body started to reverse the damage, her blood-stained bandages becoming tight, as they created the framework for her body to grow within, like a butterfly in a cocoon.

  “I’m the closest I can go,” Rugrat said.

  “Drop a second formation, we need those buffs and support, throw down one for George and Gilly, have them use them to amplify their attacks,” Storbon yelled.

  “On it!”

  “I’ll be at the aid station,” Erik said as he sent a command to Gilly through their bond he hooked the IV bag to his vest and picked up Tian Cui, she let out a hiss as her clothing and armor pressed against her wounds.

  Erik didn’t have time to care about her discomfort as he held her like a pizza box in one arm and grabbed his rifle in the other, easily supporting the weight.

  He went back out the door he entered through and took off at a jog toward the aid station.

  He barged in and put his rifle to the side, putting Tian Cui into a prepared stretcher, he checked on Yao Meng with his domain, using healing spells on him.

  Yao Meng let out a breath, reaching around as he got up off the stretcher.

  “You’re all good there Corporal! How you feeling?” Erik said as he put Tian Cui down.

  “Shit, uhh I’m okay,” Yao Meng said, it was distorting going from fighting and in pain to not in pain and somewhere unfamiliar.

  Erik hung up Tian Cui’s IV bag to a line he had running across the ceiling at head height.

  “They need help out on the front, you’re pretty much good to go, bruising and cuts now, just some reminders,” Erik turn
ed and looked at him.

  Yao was shaken up that was clear, but he got off of the stretcher.

  “Where’s my rifle?”

  Erik nodded and grabbed Yao Meng’s rifle and tossed it to him before he pulled out his grenade launcher.

  “Your launcher was fucked, use this one,” Erik handed it over and Yao Meng put it into his storage ring as he slung his rifle and shifted his armor around, grabbing his helmet that was beside him.

  The door burst open, as Yao raised his rifle to see Rugrat burst in with Yuli on his shoulder.

  “Here!” Erik waved to a stretcher and Rugrat laid her down. “I have her.”

  Erik started checking her as Rugrat slapped Yao Meng on the shoulder.

  “Good to go?”

  “Yeah,” Yao nodded.

  “Alright, you’re with me,” Rugrat said. He was covered in dust and blood but he paid it no attention as he grabbed his slung rifle and headed out the door with Yao behind him.

  Erik could hear the fighting, it was like a raging storm just beyond the door, it grew in intensity

  “If you have wind magic, use it to hurl as much of the plague into the tunnel!” Stobon yelled.

  “Fire in the hole! Get your heads down!”

  Erik threw himself forward to protect as much of Yuli and Tian Cui as he could. A rolling explosion that seemed deep only because it was so loud, and resounded through the tunnel and area that the castle covered sounded out.

  Dust rained down and the building he was in shook but nothing fell.

  He felt the shuddering of the tunnel collapsing.

  There were broken sounds of weapons fire and fighting.

  Erik used his clean spells on his patients. Yuli was twitching and hissing, waking up. Her side looked like she had been struck with lightning.

  She looked up and saw Erik.

  “Your in the aid station, what happened?” he asked as he continued to cover her in gauze.

  “Formation got hit, overloaded, I jumped out of the way, got hit by the rampaging power,” she said as she hissed, glaring at Erik as he worked.

  “Suck it up buttercup,” he said, working efficiently, not caring about her pain.

  “Your bedside manner sucks,” she said through gritted teeth.