Rise of the Horde - Chapter 781 - 780

Day nine of fourteen.

The Verakh who returned from the mountain road’s surveillance at the seventh hour carried the intelligence that changed the fourteen-day period’s calculus.

“Supply column on the mountain road,” the Verakh reported to Sakh’arran at the camp’s intelligence position. “Dwarven wagons. Thirty-seven wagons in the lead section. More behind, extending beyond the surveillance position’s line of sight. Estimated total column length: two miles. Estimated wagon count: ninety to one hundred and ten. The wagons’ cargo includes covered shapes consistent with thundermaker barrels. Infantry escort alongside the wagons: barbarian warriors, estimated strength twelve to fifteen thousand.”

Sakh’arran brought the report to Khao’khen.

“The dwarven resupply is early,” Sakh’arran said. “The Verakhs estimate the column will reach the barbarian camp in five days. The column contains approximately one hundred thundermakers and fifteen thousand barbarian reinforcements.”

Khao’khen looked at the map. The supply column on the mountain road. The barbarian camp with fourteen operational thundermakers and fourteen thousand warriors. The Threian army with twenty-eight thousand soldiers and functionally zero thundermaker ammunition. The Horde at Ashwell with seven thousand warriors and full supply.

“One hundred thundermakers,” Khao’khen said.

“One hundred additional. Added to the fourteen operational, one hundred and fourteen total. The number exceeds the original fifty by a factor of more than two. The barbarian army’s firepower after the resupply will be the firepower that no force in the region can counter. Not the pinkskins. Not us. The thundermaker count at one hundred and fourteen makes the barbarian army the most powerful military force on the continent.”

“And the fifteen thousand reinforcements.”

“Twenty-nine thousand barbarian warriors total. With one hundred and fourteen thundermakers and unlimited ammunition. Against the pinkskins’ twenty-eight thousand with zero thundermakers and zero boomstick ammunition. Against our seven thousand with Roarers and fire spheres and the tactical capability that the campaign has demonstrated.”

Khao’khen stood at the command table for a long moment. The specific silence that the chieftains recognized.

“The calculation has changed,” he said.

“The calculation has changed fundamentally. The barbarian resupply converts the barbarian army from a force that was being attrited toward the threshold where numerical disadvantage determined outcomes into a force that exceeds every other force in the region by the margin that one hundred and fourteen thundermakers provides.”

“The pinkskins’ acceptance.”

“The pinkskins’ acceptance arrived yesterday. The council accepted all terms. The word invasion is in the preamble. The Tekarr provision is removed. The agreement is complete. The agreement requires a kingdom to honor it.”

“And if the barbarians destroy the kingdom?”

“The agreement is meaningless. The agreement requires a kingdom. A kingdom destroyed by one hundred and fourteen thundermakers is not a kingdom that honors agreements.”

* * * * *

Khao’khen assembled the war council.

The chieftains gathered at the command table with the speed that the chief’s summons produced when the summons carried the tone that preceded the decisions that changed the campaign’s direction.

“The dwarven supply column is on the mountain road,” Khao’khen said. “One hundred thundermakers. Fifteen thousand barbarian reinforcements. Five days until arrival at the barbarian camp. When the column arrives, the barbarian army becomes twenty-nine thousand warriors with one hundred and fourteen thundermakers. At that strength, the barbarians destroy the pinkskin kingdom. If the barbarians destroy the kingdom, the agreement we bled for is worthless.”

The council processed the information.

“The agreement is signed,” Sakh’arran said. “The pinkskins accepted all terms. The Tekarr provision is removed. The agreement is law.”

“The agreement is law in a kingdom that exists,” Khao’khen said. “The agreement is nothing in a kingdom that does not exist. The barbarian resupply threatens the kingdom’s existence. The kingdom’s existence is the agreement’s existence. The agreement’s existence is Yohan’s security.”

He looked at each chieftain.

“We have been waiting. The waiting served its purpose. The waiting produced the agreement. The agreement is signed. The waiting’s purpose is fulfilled. The waiting is over.”

“Chief,” Dhug’mhar said. “Perfection requests clarification. When the chief says the waiting is over, does the chief mean that Perfection is about to do something other than wait? Because Perfection has been waiting for a very long time and Perfection’s patience, which is legendary by Perfection’s standards but finite by any objective measure, has been approaching its terminal boundary.”

“The waiting is over,” Khao’khen said. “The Horde marches. Not south. Not east. North. Toward the mountain road. Toward the dwarven supply column.”

The council was quiet.

“The supply column,” Sakh’arran said.

“One hundred thundermakers on a mountain road with a fifteen-thousand-warrior escort. The column arrives at the barbarian camp in five days. The column does not arrive at the barbarian camp. The column is intercepted. The thundermakers are destroyed. The reinforcements are stopped. The barbarian army remains at fourteen thundermakers and fourteen thousand warriors, the strength that the Threian army’s numbers can contest.”

“Seven thousand warriors against a fifteen-thousand-warrior escort on a mountain road.”

“Seven thousand warriors who have defeated every force they have faced for four months. Seven thousand warriors with Roarers and Rhakaddons and warg cavalry and the tactical doctrine that no force in this campaign has been able to counter. Against fifteen thousand barbarian warriors on a mountain road whose terrain favors the force that arrives first and prepares the ground.”

“Grak’thar,” Dhug’mhar said. The word erupted from the Rumbling Clan’s chieftain with the volume that the word deserved, the volume that Dhug’mhar applied to the moments whose significance matched the chieftain’s assessment of his own, which was every moment but especially this one. “GRAK’THAR! Perfection’s patience has terminated! Perfection’s operational deployment has commenced! Perfection’s mount is in transcendent readiness! The Rumbling Clan is ready to rumble! MORG!”

“Grak’thar,” Arka’garr said. The 1st Warband master’s voice carried the flat certainty that characterized everything the master said. The 1st Warband would march where the chief pointed. The 1st Warband had always marched where the chief pointed.

“Grak’thar!” The council answered.

The wolf’s direction changed. North. Toward the mountain road. Toward the dwarven supply column. Toward the interception that the agreement’s survival required.

The Horde marched at dawn.

Seven thousand warriors. Moving north. Toward a mountain road. Toward one hundred thundermakers. Toward the engagement that the campaign’s patience had been preserving the Horde’s strength for.

The wolf was done waiting. The wolf was moving.

“Grak’ul mok, thrak vol duum,” Khao’khen said. Strength of blood, honor to the fallen, no surrender.

“GRAK’UL MOK! THRAK VOL DUUM!”

Seven thousand voices. The sound rolled north from Ashwell across the landscape that separated the Horde from the mountain road that carried the thundermakers that would destroy the kingdom that had signed the agreement that the Horde had bled for.

The wolf moved. Forward. Always forward. Toward the thing that needed to be done.

The march began at the ninth hour. The column formed on the camp’s northern perimeter in the march order that four months of continuous operations had refined into the specific arrangement that the Horde’s combined-arms doctrine required. The 1st Warband at the head. The Rumbling Clan behind. The Yurakk warbands in sequence. The supply train at center. The 1st Kani’karr Corps and the ogre guard at the rear. The warg cavalry screening the flanks.

The Snarling Wolf at the column’s head caught the northern wind. The banner’s direction was north, toward the mountain road, toward the interception. The wolf’s snarl was the snarl that faced whatever the wolf needed to face, and the wolf needed to face one hundred thundermakers on a mountain road because the thundermakers’ arrival at the barbarian camp would destroy the agreement that the wolf had spent four months bleeding for.

The column moved north. Seven thousand warriors marching toward the thing that needed to be done. The thing that the campaign’s patience had been preserving the Horde’s strength for. The thing that the agreement’s survival required and that the wolf’s nature demanded.

The wolf moved. The waiting was over.