Rise of the Horde - Chapter 647 - 646

The first day passed without engagement.

The Threian advance guard deployed across the hills north of Thornfield in the standard defensive disposition that the kingdom’s military doctrine prescribed for a force establishing contact with an entrenched enemy. Infantry companies occupied the hilltops, their positions chosen for observation rather than assault. Cavalry patrols probed the flanks, testing the orcish screening positions with the cautious aggression of riders who were looking for gaps rather than fights. The mages, six practitioners of various capability levels, established their observation posts on elevated terrain where their enhanced senses could survey the orcish defenses with the analytical precision that magical perception provided.

From the ridgeline, Arka’garr watched the Threian deployment with the professional attention of a warband master assessing an enemy’s capabilities. His observations were specific and detailed, delivered to Sakh’arran in the terse, factual language that the Horde’s command structure used for tactical reporting.

“Infantry well-disciplined. Formations tight. Equipment standardized and maintained. Cavalry operates in paired squadrons with overlapping coverage. The mages stay behind the infantry line, protected but positioned for rapid forward deployment.”

Sakh’arran absorbed the report and added it to the operational picture. The Threian force was behaving exactly as he had predicted: establishing a position from which to launch an assault while gathering intelligence about the defenses they would need to breach. The advance guard’s probing actions were designed to identify weak points, test reaction times, and map the defensive positions that the Horde had built.

The Roarers remained silent. The fire spheres remained in their prepared positions. The anti-air platforms tracked the griffons that circled at high altitude but did not fire. Khao’khen had given explicit orders: no first shots. The Horde’s defensive doctrine was built on the principle that the defender chose the moment of engagement, and the moment had not yet arrived.

* * * * *

On the second morning, Haguk’s report changed everything.

The Warghen commander arrived at the command post on the ridge at the fourth hour, his warg still breathing hard from the speed of the ride. Haguk was not a warrior who showed urgency without cause. The fact that he had ridden at full speed to deliver a report in person rather than sending a runner told Khao’khen everything about the report’s significance before a word was spoken.

“Cavalry,” Haguk said. “Pinkskin cavalry. Approximately eight hundred riders. Moving south along the eastern road. They departed the main force during the night. By dawn, they were five miles south of our position and accelerating.”

Khao’khen looked at Sakh’arran. The commander’s expression confirmed what both of them had calculated.

“The supply line,” Sakh’arran said. “They are trying to cut the road to the southeastern corridor.”

The strategic picture realigned itself in Khao’khen’s mind with the speed that years of command had developed. Snowe was not going to assault the fortified position at Thornfield. He was going to starve it. The infantry and the mages and the griffons were a fixing force, designed to hold the Horde’s attention while the cavalry swung around the southern flank and severed the connection between the Horde and its supply base.

It was a good plan. It was the plan of a general who understood that the orcish army’s discipline, its willingness to hold a position and fight from prepared defenses, became a vulnerability when the position could be isolated. An army without supplies did not need to be defeated. It needed only to be waited out.

“How long before they reach the corridor?” Khao’khen asked.

“At their current pace, the main corridor junction by tomorrow morning. If they establish blocking positions there, our supply wagons cannot reach us. We have approximately four days of supplies in the forward dumps.”

Four days. After four days, the Roarer ammunition would be exhausted. The fire sphere inventory would be gone. Food would run out. And eight thousand four hundred warriors in a fortified position would face the choice between attacking without supply or withdrawing under pressure from an enemy that held the ground between them and their base.

Khao’khen studied the map. The situation was not what he had planned for, but it was not beyond what he had prepared for. Sakh’arran’s contingency planning, the same methodical preparation that had anticipated every other variable in the campaign, had included provisions for exactly this scenario.

“Haguk,” Khao’khen said. “Take every rider you have. Four hundred and sixty wargs. Intercept the pinkskin cavalry before they reach the corridor. You do not need to defeat them. You need to delay them. Every hour you hold them is an hour we use.”

Haguk nodded, the gesture carrying the economy of a commander who understood his orders and needed no elaboration. He turned, mounted his warg, and was gone before the dust of his arrival had settled.

* * * * *

Khao’khen turned to Sakh’arran. “The position here is no longer tenable as a long-term base. If Snowe is willing to maneuver rather than assault, we cannot afford to sit behind berms and wait for him to cut us off.”

“Agreed. We have two options. Withdraw to the southeastern corridor before the cavalry closes the road, preserving our supply line but conceding the territory we have gained. Or advance, strike the Threian main body before it is fully deployed, and force a pitched battle on terms that their cavalry detachment has not returned to influence.”

The two options sat between them on the map like the two sides of a blade. Withdrawal was safe but surrendered the initiative. Advance was aggressive but risked engagement against a numerically superior force without the defensive advantages that the Thornfield position provided.

Khao’khen looked at the Threian positions on the northern hills. The advance guard was deployed for observation, not for defense. The main body was still arriving, its units strung out along the road in the column formation that moving armies maintained until they reached their deployment positions. If the Horde struck now, while the Threian force was still assembling, it would hit an enemy that was partially deployed and partially on the march.

The window was narrow. Hours, not days.

“We attack,” Khao’khen said.

The word carried through the command post with the particular resonance that battle orders carried when they came from a commander who understood their weight.

“The 1st and 2nd Warbands lead. Arka’garr takes the center. The 3rd through 8th Warbands form the flanks. Rhakaddons in reserve for the breakthrough. Roarers fire at maximum rate during the approach. Fire spheres on the mage positions.”

He looked at his officers, the chieftains and warband masters who had built this army through years of training and months of preparation, who had fought demons and survived, who had marched into enemy territory and established a position that a kingdom had sent its best general to break.

“The pinkskins expect us to sit behind our walls and wait. We do not give them what they expect. We give them the Yohan First Horde in the open field, moving fast, hitting hard, doing the one thing that no orcish army has ever done against the Threian military.”

He drew his sword.

“We attack on our terms. And we show them what eight months of preparation looks like when it arrives at their door.”

The war horns sounded across the ridge, their deep, resonant notes carrying the order that would set eight thousand warriors in motion. The defensive positions that had been built with such care were abandoned with the disciplined efficiency that Sakh’arran’s doctrine demanded. Formations assembled. Shields locked. The Roarers came forward to their assault positions.

On the northern hills, the Threian advance guard heard the horns and saw the movement on the ridge. Riders wheeled, dispatches flew, and the careful plan that General Snowe had constructed around the assumption that the orcish army would remain in its fortified position began to unravel with the speed that plans always unraveled when the enemy did something unexpected.

The Yohan First Horde was attacking.