Rise of the Horde - Chapter 779 - 778

In the barbarian camp, the eldest shaman spoke.

His name was Vor’gath. He was not Seventh Circle. He was beyond the Seventh Circle in the way that age and experience and the accumulated wisdom of sixty years of shamanic practice placed a practitioner beyond the numerical classifications that younger practitioners used to measure themselves against each other. Vor’gath did not measure himself against anyone. Vor’gath measured the world against itself and found the measurements instructive.

He sat at the council fire that the chieftains’ evening meeting required, his body wrapped in the furs that the mountain’s altitude demanded even in the lowland warmth that the campaign’s southward advance had brought the army to. The furs were ritual. The furs were the specific garment that the eldest shaman wore when the eldest shaman spoke at council, the garment that communicated to the chieftains that the words being spoken were the words that the shamanic tradition’s accumulated authority endorsed.

“The tusked brutes concern you,” Vor’gath said. His voice was the voice that sixty years of shamanic chanting had produced: deep, resonant, carrying the harmonic undertones that shamanic practice embedded in the practitioner’s vocal apparatus over decades of sustained use. “You look southeast toward their camp and you see thousands of warriors and you count the warriors and the counting produces concern.”

“Thousands of warriors who defeated forty-seven thousand pinkskins,” Kael said. The chieftain whose missing fingers were the campaign’s specific contribution to his body’s inventory sat at the fire’s edge with his weapon across his knees. “The counting produces concern because the counting includes the result.”

“The result was produced against pinkskins,” Vor’gath said. “The pinkskins fight with formations and discipline and the magical academy’s structured incantations. The tusked brutes defeated the pinkskins’ formations with tactics that the formations could not address. The tusked brutes’ victory was the victory of adaptability against rigidity. We are not rigid. We are the mountains. The mountains adapt to everything.”

“The tusked brutes have weapons that do not depend on the dwarves,” Garrok said. “Their boomsticks are their own. They do not run out of ammunition because they make their ammunition. We depend on the dwarves. The dwarves are reliable but the dwarves are not us. The tusked brutes depend on no one.”

“The tusked brutes’ weapons are inferior to the dwarves’ weapons,” Vor’gath said. “Their boomsticks fire at shorter range. The tusked brutes compensate with tactics. We compensate with supply. The compensation’s effectiveness depends on the context of the engagement.”

He paused. The pause was the pause that the eldest shaman used when the next statement was the statement that the council’s decision would be based on.

“The dwarven supply wagons arrive in eleven days. The wagons carry one hundred and seven thundermakers. The wagons carry sufficient ammunition for six months of sustained operations. The wagons carry fifteen thousand warriors from the highland tribes who have heard of our success and who march to join the army that is winning.”

The council was quiet. One hundred and seven thundermakers. Fifteen thousand warriors. The numbers settled into the fire’s crackling silence with the weight that numbers carried when the numbers changed the calculation that the previous numbers had defined.

“One hundred and seven thundermakers,” Garrok said.

“One hundred and seven. Added to the fifteen we hold, minus the one under maintenance, one hundred and twenty-one total thundermakers. One hundred and twenty-one weapons against the pinkskins’ zero. One hundred and twenty-one weapons against the tusked brutes’ smaller, inferior weapons.”

“And the warriors?”

“Fifteen thousand additional. Added to the fourteen thousand we hold, twenty-nine thousand total. Twenty-nine thousand warriors with one hundred and twenty-one thundermakers against the pinkskins’ twenty-eight thousand with zero thundermakers and the tusked brutes’ approximately seven thousand with inferior weapons.”

* * * * *

Vor’gath leaned forward. The firelight caught the ritual scars on his face, the scars that the shamanic tradition’s initiation rites had carved into his features sixty years ago and that the decades had weathered into the deep grooves that made the eldest shaman’s face the specific face that the chieftains associated with the authority that the shamanic tradition provided.

“The tusked brutes sent a message proposing a meeting,” Vor’gath said. “The meeting is the tusked brutes’ tool. The tusked brutes use meetings the way we use thundermakers: as the instrument that produces the outcome the instrument is designed to produce. The tusked brutes’ meeting is designed to produce the information that the tusked brutes need to make their decision. The decision is: which side does the tusked brutes’ camp support.”

“The tusked brutes support themselves,” Kael said.

“The tusked brutes support their city. Their city is south, in the territories that the pinkskins invaded before. The tusked brutes’ entire campaign is the campaign to protect their lands. Everything the tusked brutes do serves the city. The question is: does our victory serve the city or threaten the city?”

“Our victory threatens no one south,” Garrok said. “The mountains want the valley. The valley is north. The tusked brutes’ city is south. There is no conflict.”

“There is no conflict until there is conflict,” Vor’gath said. “The tusked brutes will assess whether our victory produces a neighbor that threatens their city. If our victory produces a neighbor that the tusked brutes consider hostile, the tusked brutes will oppose our victory regardless of the geographical distance between our territory and theirs. The tusked brutes think differently. Their thinking includes the future, not only the present.”

“Then we must convince the tusked brutes that our victory does not threaten their city.”

“We must convince the tusked brutes that our victory serves their city. Not merely does not threaten. Serves. The tusked brutes’ calculation is not: is this neighbor dangerous? The calculation is: is this neighbor useful? The answer to useful is the answer that produces the tusked brutes’ support. The answer to not dangerous is the answer that produces the tusked brutes’ neutrality. We want support, not neutrality.”

Garrok considered. The eldest shaman’s analysis was the analysis that sixty years of observing the world’s patterns had produced, the analysis that the shamanic tradition’s wisdom provided to chieftains whose tactical brilliance was the brilliance of warriors and whose strategic depth was the depth that warriors needed advisors to provide.

“What serves the tusked brutes’ city?” Garrok asked.

“The pinkskins’ weakness. The tusked brutes’ campaign was fought to make the pinkskins acknowledge what the pinkskins did to the tusked brutes’ people. The pinkskins’ weakness is the condition that makes the acknowledgment possible. Our campaign produces the pinkskins’ weakness. Our campaign, therefore, serves the tusked brutes’ purpose. We tell the tusked brutes this. We tell them that the mountains and the tusked brutes share a common interest in the pinkskins’ reduced capacity. We tell them that the mountains have no interest in the tusked brutes’ territories. We tell them that the mountains want the valley and the tusked brutes want the south and neither party’s wants conflict with the other’s.”

“And the thundermakers?”

“The thundermakers are our instrument. The tusked brutes do not have thundermakers. The tusked brutes’ weapons are their own. There is no competition for the dwarves’ supply between us and the tusked brutes because the tusked brutes do not buy from the dwarves. The supply relationship is clean. The alliance potential is real.”

The eldest shaman’s assessment settled into the council with the authority that the assessment’s source provided. Vor’gath had been advising chieftains since before Garrok’s father was born. The advice had been correct more often than incorrect, and the ratio’s consistency was the consistency that produced the trust that the chieftains extended to the eldest shaman’s counsel.

“We meet the tusked brutes,” Garrok said. “We tell them what Vor’gath has said. We see whether the tusked brutes’ calculation produces the answer that our interests require.”

“And if the calculation produces a different answer?”

“Then we have one hundred and twenty-one thundermakers and twenty-nine thousand warriors and we do not need the tusked brutes’ answer to take the valley.”

The fire crackled. The council dispersed. The eldest shaman remained at the fire’s edge, his eyes on the flames, his mind on the patterns that the flames’ movement traced in the air above the coals. The patterns were the patterns that shamanic perception read in natural phenomena, the patterns that Vor’gath had been reading for sixty years and that the reading’s accumulated wisdom allowed him to interpret with the specific accuracy that experience provided.

The patterns said: the tusked brutes would not ally with the barbarians. The patterns said: the tusked brutes would negotiate with the pinkskins. The patterns said: the dwarven supply would arrive and the thundermakers would make the barbarian army the most powerful force in the region. The patterns said: the mountains would take the valley.

Vor’gath was not certain the patterns were correct. Vor’gath was never certain. But the patterns had been correct more often than they had been wrong, and the ratio was sufficient for the confidence that the council’s decisions required.

The fire burned. The night continued. Eleven days until the dwarven supply arrived. Eleven days until the calculation changed again.