At Ashwell, Khao’khen received the Battle of Thornwall’s report and the report changed nothing and changed everything.
The nothing: the Horde’s position was unchanged. The camp’s fortifications were unchanged. The warriors’ readiness was unchanged. The more than seven thousand fighters who had been resting and training and maintaining their equipnt for weeks continued resting and training and maintaining.
The everything: the Threian army had advanced for the first ti since the campaign began. The thundermaker count had reached the threshold. The exchange rate had shifted. The barbarian montum had stalled. The convergence that Sakh’arran had predicted weeks ago was arriving at the specific configuration that the prediction had described: both forces weakening, neither decisive, the Horde intact.
"The pinkskins pushed the barbarians back at Thornwall," Sakh’arran said, at the morning assessnt. "The thundermaker count is fifteen. The Baron of Frost’s campaign has achieved its threshold objective. The barbarian advance has halted."
"Halted, not reversed," Khao’khen said.
"Halted. The barbarians are forty-three miles from the capital. The Threians are at the Thornwall position. Neither force can advance against the other without the specific advantage that makes advance possible: the thundermakers for the barbarians, the boomstick ammunition for the Threians. The barbarians have fifteen thundermakers, below the decisive threshold. The Threians have approximately one percent boomstick ammunition, functionally zero."
"Both forces are at their limits."
"Both forces are at their limits. The barbarians’ limit is the thundermaker count. The Threians’ limit is the ammunition count. Both limits are the consequence of the sa cause: the dwarven trade that arms one side and denies the other."
Khao’khen looked at the map. The specific configuration that the map displayed was the configuration that his patience had been designed to produce. The barbarians stalled at forty-three miles from the capital. The Threians stalled at the Thornwall position. The Horde at Ashwell, sixty miles from both forces, fully supplied, fully rested, more than seven thousand warriors whose weapons were manufactured in Yohan’s own forges and whose ammunition was produced by Yohan’s own engineers and whose supply depended on no foreign power’s grudge or alliance.
"The ssages," Khao’khen said.
"Prepared. Both sets. One for the pinkskin council. One for the barbarian chieftains."
"Send them."
* * * * *
The ssages departed Ashwell under separate Verakh riders, the white flags carried by riders whose specific assignnt was the delivery of the communications that the campaign’s final phase required.
The ssage to the Threian council was the ssage that the campaign’s every phase had been building toward: the Horde’s terms, unchanged since the campaign’s first diplomatic contact, presented in the context of the strategic situation that the terms’ presentation was designed to exploit.
"The Yohan First Horde presents its terms for the permanent resolution of the conflict between the Horde and the Threian kingdom. The terms are: recognition of orcish sovereignty in the southern territories, acknowledgnt of the invasion that preceded the current conflict using the word invasion in any agreent’s preamble, withdrawal of all Threian personnel from the Tekarr Mountains, and the establishnt of the frontier line as defined in the previous negotiations. These terms have not changed. The council’s position has. The Horde is prepared to enforce these terms through military action if the terms are not accepted within fourteen days. The Horde’s military capability, which the council has observed for months, is undiminished. The kingdom’s military capability, which the barbarian campaign has consud, is at its lowest point. The Horde recomnds acceptance."
The ssage to the barbarian chieftains was a different ssage in a different language for a different purpose.
"The Yohan First Horde acknowledges the barbarian clans’ military capability and the campaign’s demonstration of that capability. The Horde has no quarrel with the highland clans. The Horde’s quarrel is with the Threian kingdom’s treatnt of the orcish people. The Horde proposes a eting between the Horde’s commander and the barbarian chieftains to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the kingdom’s treatnt of peoples whose territories the kingdom has historically exploited. The eting’s location and terms are at the chieftains’ discretion."
Two ssages. Two recipients. Two paths to the sa destination: Yohan’s security, obtained through the negotiation that the campaign’s patience had made possible or through the conquest that the campaign’s military capability sustained.
"And if both refuse?" Sakh’arran asked.
"Both will not refuse. The pinkskin council is sitting behind walls with a garrison of five thousand and an army that has one percent boomstick ammunition and the barbarians forty-three miles away. The council’s refusal is the council’s extinction. The barbarian chieftains are sitting on a ridgeline with fifteen thundermakers and approximately fourteen thousand warriors and the dwarven resupply fourteen days away and the Threian army in front of them and the Horde to their southeast. The chieftains’ refusal is the chieftains’ encirclent."
"And if one accepts and the other refuses?"
"Then we negotiate with the one that accepts and we deal with the one that refuses. The dealing is the dealing that our thousands of rested warriors with full supply conduct against an exhausted force whose options have been reduced to acceptance or destruction."
Khao’khen looked at the Snarling Wolf banner. The banner that had traveled from Yohan through the corridor and across the frontier and through every engagent and every negotiation and every night in every camp and every march to the capital and every day of waiting at Ashwell to this mont.
"The wolf has been patient," he said. "The patience has produced the position the patience was designed to produce. The ssages are sent. The terms are clear. The deadline is fourteen days."
"And on the fifteenth day?"
"On the fifteenth day, the wolf moves. In whichever direction the fifteenth day requires."
"For the Horde," Sakh’arran said.
"For the Horde," Khao’khen answered.
The words were not a war cry. They were the campaign’s statent. The patience was ending. The terms were sent. The deadline was set. And the wolf, patient for months, prepared for the fifteenth day with the readiness that every previous day had been building.
The wolf waited. Fourteen days. Not much longer now.
The Horde’s camp at Ashwell responded to the ssages’ departure with the specific heightening of readiness that the ssages’ content demanded. The ssages gave both recipients fourteen days. Fourteen days during which the recipients’ responses would determine the Horde’s next action and the next action’s direction and the next action’s intensity.
Arka’garr doubled the 1st Warband’s drill schedule. The Rakshas’ spear wall exercises, which had been maintained at the daily rate throughout the camp’s occupation, increased to twice daily, the additional session conducted in the evening hours that the single-session schedule had previously allocated to rest. The 1st Warband’s master did not explain the increase. The 1st Warband’s warriors did not ask for an explanation because the warriors’ experience with the chief’s operational rhythms had taught them that increased drill frequency preceded the engagents that the drill prepared them for.
Dhug’mhar’s Rumbling Clan brought its Rhakaddons to the exercise field at the frequency that peak combat readiness required. "Perfection’s mount has been in peak condition for weeks," Dhug’mhar announced. "Perfection now brings Perfection’s mount to the condition beyond peak, the condition that Perfection calls transcendent readiness, which is the readiness that exceeds the scale’s upper boundary because the scale was not designed to asure what Perfection produces."
"Transcendent readiness is not a real category," Graka said.
"Transcendent readiness is the category that Perfection creates by exceeding the existing categories. Perfection does not conform to scales. Perfection defines new scales."
The ogres received the ssage about the fourteen-day tiline through the briefing channel that the ogre contingent’s leader, Grukk, maintained with the Horde’s command structure. Grukk’s response was the response that ogres produced when the tiline for potential smashing was communicated.
"FOURTEEN DAYS?" Grukk’s voice shook the command post’s timber fra. "FOURTEEN DAYS IS TOO MANY DAYS. GRUKK HAS BEEN WAITING FOR SMASHING. FOURTEEN MORE DAYS OF WAITING IS FOURTEEN MORE DAYS OF NOT SMASHING. GRUKK OBJECTS."
"Grukk’s objection is noted," Sakh’arran said. "The tiline is the chief’s tiline."
"GRUKK RESPECTS THE CHIEF’S TILINE. GRUKK OBJECTS TO THE TILINE’S LENGTH, NOT THE TILINE’S AUTHORITY. GRUKK WILL WAIT. GRUKK WILL NOT BE HAPPY ABOUT WAITING. BUT GRUKK WILL WAIT."
The camp prepared. The tiline counted. The wolf waited for the responses that the ssages would produce.
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