The river crossing at Thornfield was everything Sakh'arran's maps had promised and nothing the Threian military had prepared for.
The settlent sat where the River Ashwell bent sharply westward, creating a natural ford where the water ran shallow across a bed of smooth stone. A stone bridge, old and solid, spanned the deeper channel north of the ford, connecting the settlent's eastern and western halves. The terrain on the eastern bank rose gently to a ridge that provided clear sight lines across the river and the farmland beyond. The western bank was lower, flatter, bordered by orchards whose ordered rows offered concealnt but also channeled movent.
The settlent itself was small. Perhaps two hundred inhabitants in normal tis, most of them farrs whose lives revolved around the rich alluvial soil that the river's flooding had deposited over centuries. The inhabitants had fled. The houses stood empty, their doors left open in the haste of departure, their contents undisturbed because the people who lived there had expected to return and had taken only what they could carry.
Sakh'arran deployed the Horde with the thodical efficiency that characterized every operation he designed. The 1st Warband under Arka'garr occupied the ridge on the eastern bank, their position commanding the bridge and the ford with overlapping fields of fire for the Roarer crews. The 2nd Warband took the western bank, establishing defensive positions among the orchards that used the trees as natural obstacles against cavalry charges. The 3rd through 6th Warbands ford the periter, their shield walls facing outward in the directions from which a Threian response might co.
The Rhakaddons were positioned behind the ridge, their massive forms concealed from observation but ready to advance through prepared corridors when the tactical situation demanded their weight. The anti-air crossbow platforms, all eight of them, were distributed along the ridgeline at intervals calculated to provide overlapping coverage against aerial attack from any direction.
The Warg Cavalry established a screen that extended ten miles in every direction, Haguk's riders patrolling the roads and trails that connected Thornfield to the surrounding settlents. Their mission was detection: identify any approaching Threian force early enough to allow the Horde to complete its preparations before contact.
Within two days, Thornfield had been transford from a quiet farming settlent into a fortified position that combined the natural advantages of the terrain with the engineered defenses that the Horde's training had prepared them to construct. Earthen berms reinforced the ridge positions. The bridge was rigged for destruction if retreat beca necessary. Fields of fire were cleared. Supply dumps were established in the cellars of the abandoned buildings, their stone walls providing protection against the incendiary attacks that the Threians might employ.
* * * * *
The goblin tunneling corps began their work on the first night.
Forty experienced miners, their tools optimized for the kind of rapid excavation that military sappers required, dug into the eastern bank's clay soil with the quiet efficiency that their craft demanded. The tunnels were not assault tunnels. They were escape routes and communication corridors, underground passages that connected the ridge positions to the supply dumps and to the rally points behind the main defensive line. If the Threians breached the surface defenses, the Horde's warriors could withdraw through the tunnels, regroup underground, and counterattack from positions the enemy had not anticipated.
The trolls of the 1st Kani'karr Corps assembled their catapults on the ridge's reverse slope, where the weapons could arc stones over the crest without exposing the crews to direct fire. The catapults were the Horde's heaviest weapons, capable of hurling stones that could shatter wooden fortifications and scatter infantry formations. Against a field army, their value was primarily psychological, the sound of stones crashing into earth was a disorienting experience for soldiers who had not encountered it before, but against fortified positions or massed formations, they could be devastating.
Zul'jinn's fire sphere teams prepared their positions with the ticulous care that the weapons' volatile nature demanded. The Bufas fruit extract, concentrated and stabilized in its clay casings, was effective against cavalry charges, massed infantry, and the wooden siege equipnt that the Threians might bring to bear. The teams practiced their deploynt drills, rehearsing the sequence of light, throw, and withdraw that would allow them to deliver their weapons without being caught in the effects.
Khao'khen walked the positions each evening, inspecting the preparations with the hands-on attention that his warriors had co to expect. He tested the berms by pressing against them with his own weight. He walked the tunnel entrances, noting their concealnt and their alignnt with the surface positions they connected to. He stood at the ridgeline and studied the terrain through the captured spyglass, tracing the roads along which the Threian army would approach.
The position was sound. The preparations were thorough. The warriors were rested, fed, and in the particular state of focused readiness that disciplined soldiers achieved when they knew that combat was approaching but not yet upon them.
* * * * *
On the third day, the Verakhs reported movent.
The report ca from a scout positioned fifteen miles to the north, where the main road from the provincial capital descended through a series of low hills toward the river valley. Dust. Banners. The asured movent of a large force advancing in column formation.
Sakh'arran received the report and brought it to Khao'khen without delay.
"Snowe's advance guard. Cavalry and light infantry. Approximately two thousand riders and a thousand foot soldiers. The main body is behind them, estimated at six to eight thousand, moving at standard march pace. They will reach Thornfield in two days."
Khao'khen studied the map. The advance guard's composition told him sothing about Snowe's intentions. Cavalry and light infantry were screening forces, designed to locate the enemy and pin them in position while the main body closed the distance. Snowe was not rushing blindly toward the orcish position. He was approaching with the thodical caution of a general who had fought the Horde before and who understood that the force waiting at Thornfield was not the sa disorganized host that previous Threian commanders had faced.
"He knows we are here," Khao'khen said.
"Gresham's dispatches gave him our approximate strength and direction. The escaped riders from the cavalry patrol confird our location. Snowe knows where we are, how many we are, and approximately what we are capable of."
"Good. An enemy who knows your strength approaches carefully. Careful approaches take ti. And ti is what we need."
He looked at the positions his warriors had built, the earthen berms and the Roarer emplacents and the anti-air platforms and the tunnel entrances hidden beneath carefully placed turf. The Threians were coming with eight to ten thousand soldiers, cavalry, infantry, and mages. The Horde held eight thousand four hundred warriors in a fortified position with clear fields of fire and prepared defenses.
The arithtic was close to even. The terrain favored the defense. And the Horde had spent eight months preparing for exactly this kind of engagent.
"Let them co," Khao'khen said. "We are ready."
The Warg Cavalry pulled back to tighter screening positions as the Threian advance guard's dust cloud grew larger on the northern horizon. The warriors on the ridgeline checked their weapons, adjusted their positions, and settled into the focused stillness that preceded combat.
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