Rise of the Horde

Chapter 814 - 813

Kael entered the central hall without weapons and without the expression that weapons’ absence should have produced in a chieftain walking into the space where his warchief’s body lay beneath the banner that his warchief’s killer’s subordinate had placed over it.

The expression that Kael wore was the expression that analysis produced when the analysis was the analysis that survival demanded and the survival’s requirements were the requirements that the analysis had been processing since the moment Garrok’s aura extinguished and the central hall’s marble floor absorbed the final vibration of the warchief’s fall. The expression was calm. The calm was not the calm of acceptance. The calm was the calm of calculation, the specific composure that a mind engaged in the arithmetic of four thousand four hundred lives produced when the arithmetic’s variables were the variables that the central hall’s current occupants controlled.

Tharn walked beside Kael. The youngest chieftain’s crooked elbow was held at the angle that the old break’s imperfect healing permitted, the arm functional but never straight, the deformity that the highlands’ medical limitations had produced in a warrior whose Sixth Realm healing had arrived too late to correct the bone’s misalignment. The thigh wound from the corridor fighting seeped through the bandage that a barbarian healer had applied during the twenty minutes between Garrok’s death and the decision to walk unarmed into the space where the death had occurred.

The central hall was the space that the battle had remade.

The marble floor’s surface was the surface that two Sixth Realm warriors’ duel had converted from the polished stone that the Threian kingdom’s craftsmen had spent decades maintaining into the cratered, cracked terrain that the duel’s forces had produced. The crater where Garrok’s final overhead strike had driven the axe into the floor was three feet wide and eight inches deep, the marble’s molecular structure shattered by the Sixth Realm’s output delivered through dwarven steel into geological material that had never been designed to absorb the impact that the Sixth Realm’s desperation produced.

Khao’khen stood at the hall’s center.

The chieftain of the Yohan First Horde stood with his sword sheathed and his stabbing sword sheathed and his posture the posture that the moment’s specific requirements produced: the upright stance that communicated readiness without aggression, the shoulders squared but not braced, the weight balanced but not set for combat. The posture was the posture of a warrior who had sheathed his weapons because the weapons’ purpose had been accomplished and the next purpose required different instruments.

Sakh’arran stood at Khao’khen’s left. The strategist’s hands held no weapons and no documents and no maps, the hands empty because the negotiation’s opening required the emptiness that demonstrated the negotiation’s sincerity. The documents would come later. The terms would come later. The specifics that Sakh’arran’s analytical mind had already constructed during the twenty minutes between Garrok’s death and the barbarian chieftains’ arrival would come when the opening’s formalities had established the framework that the specifics required.

Dhug’mhar leaned against the hall’s eastern column with the studied casualness that the Rumbling Clan’s chieftain applied to every situation whose gravity exceeded the gravity that ordinary composure could sustain. The casualness was the casualness of a warrior who had charged through the western corridor with forty Rhakaddon riders and broken the barbarian formation’s rear and who was now watching the formation’s surviving commanders walk unarmed into the space where the breaking had occurred. The crystalline scarring across his chest, the frost-burn legacy of the Blue Countess Aliyah Winters, caught the torchlight and refracted it in the patterns that crystallized flesh produced when the flesh was illuminated from the angle that the column’s position provided.

"The diplomatic phase has resumed," Dhug’mhar observed, at the volume that observation required, which was the volume that filled the central hall without effort because the central hall’s acoustics were the acoustics that Dhug’mhar’s volume was designed for.

"It never stopped," Khao’khen said. "The fighting was the negotiation. This is the part where both sides decide what the negotiation produced."

Kael stopped at the distance that the negotiation’s formality required. The distance was ten paces. Ten paces between the barbarian chieftains and the orcish chieftain. Ten paces that contained Garrok’s covered body and the mountain cat standard that Arka’garr had placed over the warchief’s form with the specific care that the gesture of warrior respect demanded.

Kael looked at the covered body. The three-fingered hand, the hand whose missing fingers were the fingers that a mountain cat’s jaws had claimed when Kael was nineteen and the mountains were the mountains that produced the warriors who fought mountain cats at nineteen, tightened at his side. The tightening was not the tightening that grief produced. The tightening was the tightening that the specific combination of grief and calculation produced when the grief was real and the calculation was necessary and the two occupied the same hand and the same mind and the same moment.

"Garrok fought well," Kael said. The words were the words that the highland tradition required when a chieftain acknowledged the death of a chieftain killed in single combat by an opponent whose combat’s conduct deserved the acknowledgment. "The mountains will remember."

"Garrok fought as a Sixth Realm warrior fights when the warrior’s purpose is the purpose that the warrior’s life has been dedicated to," Khao’khen said. "The acknowledgment is the acknowledgment that warriors give to warriors. The body will be returned to your people for the rites that your tradition requires."

Kael’s jaw shifted. The shift was subtle, the movement that the jaw’s musculature produced when the mind behind the jaw processed information that the mind had not expected. The body’s return was not the body’s return that defeated armies typically received from the armies that had defeated them. The body’s return was the gesture that warriors’ mutual respect produced when the respect was genuine rather than strategic.

The respect was genuine. Kael’s calculation confirmed the genuineness. The orcish chieftain’s posture, the covered body, the Arka’garr warrior’s placement of Garrok’s own standard over the form, these were the specific indicators that the calculation processed as evidence of the genuineness that the indicators communicated.

"Terms," Kael said. The word was the word that opened the negotiation whose opening the word represented. One word. The word that dispensed with the preamble that the preamble’s absence eliminated and that the preamble’s elimination’s efficiency communicated: Kael was not here for speeches. Kael was here for the arithmetic that determined whether four thousand four hundred warriors walked out of the capital or died in it.

Tharn’s weight shifted onto his unwounded leg. The shift was the shift that pain’s management required when the wounded leg’s weight-bearing exceeded the wound’s tolerance. The youngest chieftain said nothing. The silence was the silence that the youngest chieftain’s position in the negotiation required: Kael spoke, Tharn supported, the dual presentation communicating the united front that the dual presentation’s unity represented.

"The terms are the terms that the eldest shaman proposed before the eldest shaman was poisoned," Khao’khen said. "The barbarians want the valley. The Horde wants the south. The valley and the south are different territories. There is no conflict between different territories."

"Vor’gath’s proposal," Kael said.

"Vor’gath’s proposal. The proposal that the chieftains rejected. The proposal whose rejection produced the fighting. The fighting has produced the result that the fighting’s production was designed to produce: the demonstration that the rejection’s consequences exceed the acceptance’s costs."

"The demonstration has been received."

"Then the terms are simple."

Khao’khen looked at Sakh’arran. The look was the look that communicated the transition from the opening’s formalities to the specifics that the opening had established the framework for. Sakh’arran stepped forward with the specific movement that the transition required: one step, measured, the step that placed the strategist at the position where the specifics’ delivery occurred.

"The barbarian forces withdraw from the capital within two days," Sakh’arran said. "The withdrawal proceeds through the northern gate and along the mountain road to the Gorath Highlands. The barbarian forces retain their personal weapons. The thundermakers remain. The thundermakers are not the barbarians’ property. The thundermakers are the dwarves’ manufacture and the thundermakers’ disposition is the disposition that the thundermakers’ current possessor determines."

Kael’s three-fingered hand opened and closed. The movement was the movement that calculation produced when the calculation encountered a variable whose value the calculation needed to assess.

"The thundermakers are our weapons," Kael said. "Purchased from the dwarves. Paid for with highland silver and highland iron."

"The thundermakers are empty," Sakh’arran said. "The ammunition is destroyed. The thundermakers without ammunition are the iron tubes that the thundermakers become when the ammunition’s absence converts the weapons into the objects that the weapons’ components produce without the components’ operational combination. The iron tubes’ value is the value that iron tubes possess. The iron tubes are not worth the warriors’ lives that the iron tubes’ retention would cost."

The arithmetic was the arithmetic that Kael’s calculation confirmed. The thundermakers were empty. The next dwarven resupply was fourteen days away. The Horde controlled the capital. The barbarian force was four thousand four hundred warriors in the throne room and scattered remnants, trapped in a palace compound whose walls the Horde had already breached and whose corridors the Horde’s Yurakk warbands had been clearing at the pace that the corridors’ dimensions and the warbands’ technique produced.

Fourteen days of empty thundermakers against seven thousand warriors whose urban combat capability had just dismantled twenty thousand warriors in a single night’s fighting.

"The thundermakers remain," Kael said. The concession was the concession that the arithmetic demanded. "What else?"

"Mutual non-aggression between the Horde and the highland clans. The Horde’s territory is the south. The highland clans’ territory is the highlands and whatever portion of the valley the highland clans negotiate from the Threian kingdom through whatever means the highland clans employ. The Horde does not interfere with the highland clans’ valley ambitions. The highland clans do not interfere with the Horde’s southern sovereignty."

"The valley is why we descended," Tharn said. The youngest chieftain’s first words in the negotiation were the words that the youngest chieftain’s purpose in the negotiation required: the reminder of the purpose that had brought thirty thousand warriors down from the mountains. "The valley is what our warriors died for. The valley is what Garrok died for."

"The valley is the territory that the Threian kingdom claims," Khao’khen said. "The valley is not the territory that the Horde claims. The Horde’s treaty with the Threian kingdom addresses the south. The valley is the Threian kingdom’s concern. If the highland clans contest the valley with the Threian kingdom, the contest is the contest that the highland clans and the Threian kingdom resolve between themselves."

"You will not aid the kingdom against us?"

"The Horde’s treaty with the kingdom is the treaty that addresses the south. The treaty does not require the Horde to defend the kingdom’s northern territories. The treaty does not require the Horde to fight the kingdom’s wars. The Horde fights the Horde’s wars. The highland clans’ war with the kingdom is not the Horde’s war."

Kael processed the terms. The three-fingered hand was still. The stillness was the stillness that completed calculation produced when the calculation’s result was the result that the calculation’s inputs had predicted and the prediction’s confirmation eliminated the uncertainty that the calculation had been designed to resolve.

The terms were acceptable. The terms were the terms that Vor’gath had proposed. The terms were the terms whose acceptance Garrok’s pride had rejected and whose rejection had produced the battle that had produced Garrok’s death and the battle’s result that had produced the negotiation whose terms were the terms that the negotiation was now producing.

The circle was complete. The terms that the eldest shaman’s wisdom had offered freely were now the terms that the fighting’s cost had forced.

"I need to speak with the warriors in the throne room," Kael said. "The terms require the warriors’ agreement. The highland tradition’s decision requires the chieftains’ council’s consent."

"The chieftains’ council is two chieftains," Sakh’arran said.

"The chieftains’ council is two chieftains and the chieftains’ council is sufficient. Brokk is dead. Morag is missing. Garrok is dead. Two chieftains and four thousand four hundred warriors are the chieftains’ council that the highland clans’ current condition provides."

"You have one hour," Khao’khen said.

Kael turned. Tharn turned beside him. The two chieftains walked back through the central hall, past the covered body of the warchief whose death had produced the negotiation whose terms the chieftains were carrying to the warriors whose agreement the terms required.

Dhug’mhar watched them walk. The Rumbling Clan’s chieftain’s observation was the observation that the observation’s subject deserved.

"They walk well," Dhug’mhar said. "For chieftains who lost."

"They walk like chieftains who chose survival over pride," Khao’khen said. "The choice is the harder choice. Pride is easy. Survival requires the specific courage that pride’s abandonment demands."

"Perfection notes the distinction," Dhug’mhar said. "Perfection has never abandoned pride. Perfection has never needed to abandon pride because Perfection has never lost."

"Perfection has never fought a Seventh Circle earth eruption with his face," Arka’garr said.

"Perfection’s face survived the eruption. Perfection’s face survives everything. The face is the face that transcendent resilience produces when the resilience’s container is Perfection’s specific facial architecture."

Sakh’arran allowed the corner of his mouth to shift by the fraction that amusement produced in the strategist’s otherwise composed features. The fraction was the fraction that weeks of sustained strategic analysis permitted the face to allocate to the moment’s humor before the face returned to the expression that the negotiation’s remaining requirements demanded.

"They will accept," Sakh’arran said. "The terms are the terms that the arithmetic demands. Kael’s calculation has already produced the acceptance. The hour is the hour that the formality requires, not the hour that the deliberation requires."

"Then we prepare for the withdrawal," Khao’khen said. "Two days. The barbarians leave through the northern gate. The Horde holds the capital until the withdrawal is complete. Then the Horde addresses the capital’s disposition."

"The capital’s disposition," Sakh’arran said. The strategist’s voice carried the specific weight that the capital’s disposition’s complexity demanded. "The capital is the Threian kingdom’s seat of government. The Horde holds the capital. The Horde’s treaty with the kingdom requires the kingdom’s sovereignty over its own territories. The capital is the kingdom’s territory. The Horde holding the kingdom’s capital while the treaty requires the kingdom’s sovereignty produces the specific contradiction that the holding and the treaty’s requirements create."

"The contradiction is the contradiction that the next phase resolves," Khao’khen said. "First the barbarians leave. Then the contradiction."

First things first. The wolf’s method. The method that had carried the Horde from Yohan’s forges to the Threian frontier to the capital’s central hall where the warchief of the highland clans lay covered beneath his own banner and the warchief’s surviving chieftains walked to the throne room to deliver the terms that the wolf’s method had produced.

Forward. Always forward. One thing at a time. Each thing in its order. The order that the wolf’s patience determined and the wolf’s discipline maintained.

The central hall waited. The hour began.