Rise of the Horde - Chapter 740 - 739

The Horde learned of the barbarian invasion from the Verakh network’s long-range surveillance, the intelligence arriving at the camp outside the capital on the same day that the council received the Fort Harken dispatches through the formal military communication channels.

Sakh’arran brought the report to Khao’khen at the command position in the town of Ashwell, the small settlement half a march from the capital where the Horde had established its fortified camp. The camp’s earthworks were the earthworks that four months of campaign experience had refined, the berms and trenches and Roarer positions and fire sphere caches that transformed a farming village into a defensive position whose engineering the capital’s garrison could not assault without paying the cost that every assault against the Horde’s prepared positions had extracted throughout the campaign.

“The pinkskins’ northeastern border has been breached,” Sakh’arran said. “Mountain barbarians. Twenty thousand. Armed with dwarven-forged boomsticks, thundermakers, and standard dwarven iron armor. The same equipment the pinkskin military used to wield as their exclusive advantage.”

“Used to wield,” Khao’khen said.

“The dwarves cut the pinkskin trade agreement more than six months ago. The pinkskins allied with the elves. The dwarves do not trade with friends of elves. The pinkskin military’s boomstick and thundermaker ammunition is now finite. The stockpiles that existed when the trade was cut are the stockpiles they have, and there will be no more. The barbarians, who have no elven alliance, receive continuous dwarven supply through the mountain trade routes.”

Khao’khen looked at the map. The barbarian incursion was to the northeast, twenty thousand strong with unlimited dwarven ammunition. The Horde was to the east. The capital sat between both threats.

“The reinforcement army,” Khao’khen said.

“Thirty thousand soldiers. Led by the pinkskin king himself. Marching northeast to address the barbarian threat. Every soldier marching northeast is a soldier not available for the eastern front. The army that was supposed to reinforce against us is now fighting barbarians who have better supply than the army fighting them.”

“The kingdom is fighting on two fronts with the resources for one. And the resources are finite on both fronts while the barbarians’ resources are not.”

Khao’khen studied the map for a long moment. The thirty thousand soldiers marching away from the capital. The combined force under Aldrath, reduced to thirty-four thousand. The capital’s garrison of five thousand.

“We wait,” Khao’khen said.

Sakh’arran waited for the elaboration.

“We do not care which side wins,” Khao’khen said. “If the barbarians destroy the kingdom, the kingdom ceases to be a threat to Yohan. We negotiate with the barbarians. If the kingdom survives, we negotiate with the kingdom. If whoever wins refuses to negotiate, we make them regret the refusal. We have seven thousand warriors who have defeated every force this kingdom sent against them. If the barbarians come south after finishing the kingdom, they meet us. If the kingdom survives and refuses peace, they have already learned what refusing us costs.”

He looked at the Snarling Wolf banner above the camp’s command position.

“The Horde does not fight the pinkskins’ war for them. The Horde watches. The Horde waits. The Horde prepares for whoever emerges from the northeast, and the Horde negotiates with the winner from a position of strength that neither side can challenge.”

“And if the winning side refuses negotiation?”

“Then the Horde conquers. We did not come this far and bleed this much to go home empty-handed because the pinkskins found a new enemy. If negotiation fails, the Horde takes what negotiation should have provided. We have the warriors. We have the capability. We have demonstrated, over four months, that no force this kingdom possesses can stop us. If the barbarians prove equally incapable of stopping us, then the Horde holds what the Horde takes.”

The Horde’s independence from dwarven supply was the strategic advantage that neither the kingdom nor the barbarians possessed. The Roarers were manufactured in Yohan’s forges by Zul’jinn’s engineers. The fire spheres were produced from Bufas fruit extract that the southern territories’ groves provided. The spears and swords and shields were forged from ore that the Horde’s own mines produced. The ammunition was manufactured by the troll specialist corps using powder that the Horde’s alchemists compounded from ingredients that the southern territories’ landscape contained.

The Horde’s supply chain began and ended within the Horde’s territory. No trade agreement could be severed to cut it. No dwarven Thane could decide that the Horde’s diplomatic choices made the Horde an unacceptable customer. The Horde’s weapons were the Horde’s weapons, produced by the Horde’s people, maintained by the Horde’s engineers, and available in quantities that the Horde’s industrial capacity determined rather than a foreign supplier’s commercial preferences.

This independence was not accidental. Khao’khen had built the Horde’s industrial capability with the specific understanding that a military force whose weapons depended on a foreign supplier was a military force whose capability could be eliminated by a commercial decision rather than a military one. The kingdom was learning this lesson now, at the cost of soldiers’ lives and irreplaceable ammunition.

* * * * *

The camp at Ashwell settled into the operational rhythm that waiting required. The fortifications were improved daily, the earthworks deepened, the Roarer positions reinforced. The ogres guarded the siege equipment with the patience that recent smashing had temporarily provided. The warriors trained.

Dhug’mhar’s Rumbling Clan maintained its Rhakaddons with the attention that the chieftain’s standards demanded. “Perfection does not idle during strategic pauses,” Dhug’mhar announced to the riders cleaning their mounts’ armor. “Perfection uses strategic pauses to achieve maintenance that operational tempo denied. Perfection’s mount will be in peak condition for whoever Perfection is pointed at next, whether that is pinkskins or barbarians or the dwarves themselves.”

“Perfection’s mount is eating the farmer’s grain stores,” Graka observed.

“The farmer has been compensated. Perfection is generous when generosity aligns with operational requirements.”

The decision to wait was the decision that Khao’khen’s strategic analysis demanded. The Horde had no stake in the barbarian invasion’s outcome beyond the outcome’s effect on the Horde’s position. If the kingdom fell, the threat to Yohan fell with it. If the kingdom survived, it survived weakened and in the condition that made negotiation favorable.

If whoever won refused to negotiate, the Horde would conquer because four months of demonstrated capability did not expire when the opponent changed. The Horde was one of the forces on the continent that did not depend on dwarven supply, that had never depended on dwarven supply, whose weapons were forged in Yohan’s own workshops by Zul’jinn’s engineers, whose ammunition was manufactured by the Horde’s own troll specialists. The Horde’s supply was the Horde’s supply, independent of trade agreements and diplomatic alliances and the specific vulnerability that external supply dependencies created.

The camp waited. The barbarians advanced. The kingdom bled. And the wolf, camped half a march from the capital’s walls, watched the bleeding with the patience of a predator whose prey’s situation was deteriorating without the predator’s intervention, the patience of an army that had positioned itself to negotiate with whoever survived the thing happening to the northeast, and to conquer if negotiation was refused.

The camp’s defensive preparations included the specific contingency planning that Khao’khen’s approach to every position required. If the barbarians won the northeastern campaign and turned south, the Horde’s position at Ashwell was prepared to receive them. If the kingdom won and turned its surviving forces against the Horde, the position was prepared for that too.

If both sides exhausted each other and collapsed, the position was the base from which the Horde would negotiate with whatever authority emerged from the collapse. Every contingency was planned for. Every outcome was acceptable. The Horde’s position was the position that accepted all outcomes because all outcomes served the Horde’s fundamental requirement, which was Yohan’s security, and Yohan’s security was served by any outcome that left the Horde as the strongest military force in the region.