Rise of the Horde

Chapter 817 - 816

Rakh’ash’tha examined Vor’gath on the second day.

The eldest shaman occupied the palace’s eastern wing’s innermost chamber, the chamber that the barbarian healers had converted from the guest quarters that the chamber’s original purpose had been to the medical facility that the chamber’s current purpose required. The conversion’s visible evidence was the evidence that medical treatment produced in spaces designed for other purposes: bedding stripped from the palace’s stores and arranged on the chamber’s floor in the configuration that a patient’s elevation and comfort demanded, bowls of water and the herbal preparations that the highland healers’ tradition produced arranged on the chamber’s furniture, and the specific smell that the intersection of medicinal herbs and bodily illness produced in enclosed spaces whose ventilation was the ventilation that stone walls and narrow windows provided.

Vor’gath lay on the elevated bedding. The eldest shaman’s body was the body that sixty years of shamanic practice had produced: lean, weathered, the muscles’ density beneath the skin’s weathered surface communicating the physical vitality that sixty years of the Circle system’s progressive enhancement had built and that the toxin’s three-day assault had been degrading.

The shaman’s breathing was the breathing that the toxin’s systemic effects produced: shallow, labored, each breath’s depth limited by the diaphragm’s impaired function and each breath’s rhythm irregular with the irregularity that the autonomic nervous system’s disruption created. The shaman’s eyes were closed. The eyelids’ surface was the color that the toxin’s hepatic effects produced in the skin when the liver’s processing of the toxin’s compounds exceeded the liver’s capacity and the overflow deposited the toxin’s metabolic byproducts in the tissues that the byproducts’ circulation reached.

"How long?" Rakh’ash’tha asked the barbarian healer who attended the shaman.

The barbarian healer was a woman whose age was the age that forty years of highland medicine produced: hands roughened by the preparation of the mountain herbs that the highland tradition employed, eyes sharp with the diagnostic assessment that decades of treating warriors’ injuries and shamans’ overextensions had refined. Her name was Thessa. Her presence at Vor’gath’s bedside was the presence that the eldest shaman’s importance to the highland clans warranted: the best healer the highlands produced, assigned to the highland’s most important patient.

"Three days since the poisoning," Thessa said. "The toxin was administered in the wine at the celebration. The celebration’s wine was served by the palace’s staff who remained after the Threian court evacuated. The staff member who served the eldest shaman’s wine has not been found."

"The toxin’s characteristics," Rakh’ash’tha said.

"Progressive organ degradation. The liver first. Then the kidneys. The degradation’s pace is slow enough to prevent immediate death and fast enough to prevent recovery without intervention. The toxin is not a highland compound. The highlands’ pharmacopeia does not contain a toxin with these characteristics."

Rakh’ash’tha knelt beside the elevated bedding. The healer’s scarred hands, the hands that the forges’ heat and the alchemical preparations’ caustic compounds had marked across years of work alongside Zul’jinn, produced the examination tools from the healer’s kit that the tools’ diagnostic purpose required. A small crystal vial. A thin bone probe. A cloth soaked in the reagent that Rakh’ash’tha’s alchemical training had developed for the identification of organic toxins whose composition the reagent’s chemical interaction revealed.

The examination proceeded at the pace that the examination’s thoroughness demanded. The cloth touched the shaman’s skin at the pulse points where the toxin’s circulatory concentration produced the discoloration that the concentration’s levels communicated. The bone probe measured the reflexes that the autonomic nervous system’s impairment reduced. The crystal vial collected the sample that the alchemical analysis required.

Rakh’ash’tha worked in silence. The silence was the silence that diagnostic concentration produced when the concentration’s subject was the subject that the concentration’s full allocation demanded. Thessa watched the orcish healer’s technique with the specific attention that professional interest produced in a practitioner observing another practitioner’s unfamiliar methods.

"The toxin is a compound," Rakh’ash’tha said, after the examination’s completion. "Two compounds combined. The first is a hepatic suppressant. The first compound alone would produce liver failure over seven to ten days. The second compound is a neural inhibitor that targets the autonomic nervous system’s regulatory functions. The second compound alone would produce respiratory failure over fourteen to twenty-one days. Combined, the two compounds produce the simultaneous degradation that neither compound alone would produce at the combined degradation’s pace. The combination is designed. The combination is the combination that a trained alchemist produces when the alchemist’s purpose is the slow death that appears to be illness rather than poison."

"Designed," Thessa said. The word carried the weight that the word’s implications produced in a healer whose patient’s treatment had been proceeding under the assumption that the toxin was a single compound whose single-compound treatment the healer had been administering.

"Designed. The combination’s sophistication exceeds the sophistication that casual poisoning produces. The combination is the combination that training produces. The training’s tradition is not a highland tradition. The training’s tradition is not an orcish tradition. The training’s tradition is the specific alchemical training that the Threian kingdom’s academy system produces in the practitioners who study there."

"Threian poison," Kael said.

The barbarian chieftain stood in the chamber’s doorway. The chieftain’s arrival had occurred during the examination’s middle portion, the arrival’s silence the silence that the examination’s importance required the arrival to observe. Kael had stood in the doorway and watched the orcish healer examine the barbarian shaman with the specific attention that the examination’s implications produced in the chieftain whose calculation was processing the implications as the examination produced them.

"Threian-trained alchemy," Rakh’ash’tha clarified. "The poison’s composition is consistent with the alchemical tradition that the Threian academy teaches. The poison’s application, through wine served by a palace staff member, is consistent with the method that the tradition’s practitioners employ. The practitioner may be Threian. The practitioner may be trained by Threians. The distinction requires more information than the poison’s composition provides."

"The palace’s staff remained after the court evacuated," Kael said. "The staff served us. The staff served wine at the celebration. The wine was poisoned. The staff member who served the eldest shaman has disappeared."

"A Threian operative," Sakh’arran said. The strategist had arrived behind Kael, the strategist’s presence at the examination the presence that the examination’s intelligence implications required. "The Threian kingdom’s court maintained intelligence operatives within the palace staff. The operatives’ function during peacetime was the function that palace intelligence served: monitoring, reporting, the observation that the court’s security demanded. The operative’s function during the barbarian occupation was the function that the occupation’s crisis produced: disruption of the barbarian command structure through the elimination of the barbarian command’s most strategically valuable member."

"They poisoned Vor’gath to weaken us," Kael said.

"They poisoned the shaman who proposed the alliance with the Horde. The shaman whose proposal, if accepted, would have produced the specific outcome that the Threian kingdom’s strategic interests least desired: the combined military capability of the Horde and the barbarian clans, directed by the shaman’s wisdom and the orcish chieftain’s tactical skill. The poisoning was not random. The poisoning’s target was the target that the target’s strategic elimination would most benefit the poisoner’s principals."

Kael’s three-fingered hand closed. The closing was the closing that the strategic assessment’s implications produced in the hand whose owner was processing the implications’ meaning. Vor’gath had proposed the alliance. Vor’gath had been poisoned. The poisoning had occurred at the celebration where the chieftains had rejected Vor’gath’s proposal. The chieftains’ rejection and the poisoning had occurred on the same night.

"Can you treat the poison?" Kael asked Rakh’ash’tha.

"The treatment requires the antidote that the compound treatment demands. The hepatic suppressant’s reversal requires the compound that the suppressant’s specific chemistry responds to. The neural inhibitor’s reversal requires the separate compound that the inhibitor’s chemistry responds to. Both compounds exist in the Horde’s pharmacopeia. The Horde’s pharmacopeia includes the compounds that Rakh’ash’tha has developed and that the Horde’s supply train carries."

"The supply train is at Ashwell," Sakh’arran said.

"The compounds’ delivery from Ashwell requires two days by Verakh rider. The eldest shaman’s condition deteriorates at the rate that three days of untreated poisoning produces. The treatment’s window is the window that the deterioration’s pace and the delivery’s timeline combine to determine. The window exists. The window is narrow."

"Send the rider," Khao’khen said. The chieftain’s order was the order that the order’s urgency required: immediate, unambiguous, the specific command that produced the immediate execution that the narrow window demanded.

A Verakh rider departed within the hour. The rider’s warg carried the rider south at the pace that the warg relay system’s staged mounts sustained across the distance that Ashwell’s location required. Two days. The rider would reach Ashwell in one day and the compounds would return in one day and the treatment would begin at the third day’s end.

Vor’gath had the time that three days provided. Three days during which the toxin’s degradation continued and the eldest shaman’s body fought the degradation with the diminished resources that the toxin’s three-day assault had left and the shamanic healing that the near-Seventh Circle’s residual power provided to the body that the power inhabited.

Three days. The window that the wolf’s speed and the shaman’s resilience combined to produce.

"The mountains owe the Horde a debt," Kael said.

"The mountains owe the Horde nothing," Khao’khen said. "The Horde’s treatment of the eldest shaman is the treatment that the shaman’s wisdom deserves and that the Horde’s interests require. Debts create obligations. Obligations create resentment when the obligations’ terms exceed the debtor’s willingness. The Horde does not collect debts from neighbors. The Horde builds arrangements whose terms serve both parties’ interests and whose service makes the debts that the obligations’ collection demands unnecessary."

"An arrangement," Kael said.

"The arrangement that the eldest shaman proposed. The arrangement whose wisdom produced the proposal whose rejection produced the fighting whose result produced the negotiation whose terms are the terms that the arrangement’s original proposal contained. The arrangement is the arrangement. The debt is unnecessary because the arrangement’s mutual benefit eliminates the asymmetry that the debt’s concept requires."

Kael’s calculation completed. The calculation’s result was the result that the calculation’s subject, the orcish chieftain’s strategic thinking, produced when the calculation applied the analytical framework that Kael’s own strategic thinking employed. The orcish chieftain was building something. Not an empire. Not a kingdom. Not the territorial dominion that conquerors built over conquered peoples. The orcish chieftain was building a system. The system’s components were treaties and arrangements and mutual interests and the specific absence of debts whose asymmetry would undermine the system’s stability.

The system was the system that lasted. The system was the system that the Threian kingdom had failed to build because the kingdom’s system was the system of dominion and tribute and the compulsion that dominion’s enforcement required. The kingdom’s system had produced the invasion of the orcish south. The invasion had produced the Horde. The Horde had dismantled the kingdom’s system and was replacing it with the system that the Horde’s chieftain’s understanding of history’s patterns told him would endure.

"The mountains will remember," Kael said. The words were the same words that Kael had spoken in the central hall after the negotiation’s completion. The words’ repetition was the repetition that the words’ meaning’s deepening produced when the meaning accumulated the additional evidence that the Threian poison’s discovery and the treatment’s provision and the debt’s refusal had contributed.

"The mountains’ memory is sufficient," Khao’khen said.

The examination concluded. The Verakh rider rode south. The treatment’s window narrowed.

And in the palace’s eastern wing, the eldest shaman breathed the shallow breaths that the toxin’s assault permitted and the near-Seventh Circle’s residual power sustained, the breaths that three days’ time would either deepen into recovery’s fuller respiration or cease entirely, the outcome balanced on the edge that the rider’s speed and the compounds’ efficacy and the shaman’s body’s remaining reserves combined to determine.

The wolf waited. The wolf was patient. But the wolf’s patience, for the first time in the campaign, was the patience that hoped rather than the patience that calculated, because the shaman’s survival was the outcome that both the calculation and the hope required and the distinction between the two was the distinction that the outcome’s uncertainty produced in the chieftain whose certainty was the certainty that the campaign’s every other decision had been made with.

The uncertainty was unfamiliar. The uncertainty was the uncertainty that the variables’ reduction to the single variable of an old shaman’s heartbeat produced when the other variables had been resolved and the single variable remained.

Three days. The window held.