Rise of the Horde-Chapter 643 - 642

Dawn broke over the Threian frontier with the pale, uncertain light that characterized the border country's mornings, the sun climbing through a haze of ground mist that softened the hard edges of the landscape and turned Valdenmarch's stone walls into a gray silhouette against the brightening sky.

The First Horde was already moving.

Sakh'arran's operational plan unfolded with the methodical precision that the commander brought to every tactical problem. The 3rd through 6th Warbands, two thousand warriors under War Chief Trot'thar, advanced to screening positions south and east of Valdenmarch, establishing a cordon that was too dispersed to assault the fortress but dense enough to deter any sortie that Gresham might attempt. Their shield walls faced the fortress, Roarer crews positioned behind the formations, the defensive posture communicating a clear message: we are not attacking you, but if you come out, we are ready.

The Warg Cavalry, four hundred and sixty riders under Haguk, deployed in a wide arc that extended the screening cordon to the north and west, their mobility allowing them to cover the ground that the infantry formations could not. The riders moved at the loping pace that wargs maintained effortlessly for hours, their presence a constant reminder to Gresham's cavalry that any attempt to break through the cordon would be met with mounted opposition that was faster, more maneuverable, and more numerous than anything the garrison could field.

The main body began its passage at midmorning.

Six thousand warriors, the Horde's striking force, moved south of Valdenmarch in a column that stretched across the Threian farmland with the deliberate, unhurried pace of an army that was not rushing but was also not lingering. The 1st Warband under Arka'garr led the vanguard, the elite formation's veterans scanning the terrain with the alert professionalism that their years of training and combat experience had produced. Behind them came the 2nd Warband, then the 7th through 12th, each formation maintaining the intervals that Sakh'arran's movement plan specified.

The Rhakaddons marched with the main body, their armored bulk impossible to conceal and unnecessary to try. Sixty beasts, each one a statement of military capability that no Threian frontier garrison had ever confronted, moved through the farmland with the ground-shaking deliberateness that their massive frames demanded. The anti-air crossbow platforms rolled alongside them, their wheeled frames pulled by teams of four orcs each, their bolts loaded and their crews scanning the sky for the griffon riders that intelligence suggested were stationed at the Baron of Frost's garrison further north.

* * * * *

From Valdenmarch's walls, Colonel Gresham watched the passage with the focused attention of a commander whose tactical options had been reduced to observation and patience.

He had considered a sortie. The screening force that the orcs had positioned around his fortress was formidable but not overwhelming, and his cavalry, two hundred riders trained for exactly this kind of rapid engagement, could potentially break through the cordon and strike at the main column's flanks during its passage. The damage such a strike could inflict, disrupting the supply train, scattering the rear formations, forcing the orcish commander to halt and respond, might be worth the casualties it would cost.

But Gresham was a methodical man, and methodical men calculated before they acted. Two hundred cavalry against a screening force of two thousand infantry supported by Warg Cavalry that outnumbered his own riders two to one. The orcish formations were disciplined, their positions chosen to cover the approaches that a sortie would use, their ranged weapons, the crude but effective firearms that intelligence reports had described, positioned to deliver concentrated fire on any force that attempted to close with the infantry. A sortie would cost him a significant portion of his cavalry without guarantee of meaningful impact on the orcish main body.

And he had been ordered to hold Valdenmarch. General Snowe's standing instructions were explicit: the Frontier Force's primary mission was to observe, report, and delay. Not to engage in pitched battles against forces that outnumbered it five to one. Not to sacrifice the garrison in heroic but strategically meaningless gestures. The fortress was more valuable intact, with its garrison preserved and its communication lines to the north functioning, than it would be as a monument to courage that had accomplished nothing.

"Send messages north," Gresham ordered. "Priority dispatch to General Snowe. Report: orcish main force, estimated eight thousand, has bypassed Valdenmarch and is moving northwest toward the settled provinces. Force composition includes heavy infantry, cavalry, siege equipment, and ranged weapons consistent with intelligence assessments. The orcish commander has demonstrated operational sophistication. Request immediate reinforcement."

The riders departed within the hour, two pairs taking different routes to ensure that at least one dispatch reached Snowe's headquarters. The fortress's mage communications, limited by the practitioners' capabilities to short-range crystal links, relayed a compressed version of the report to the nearest relay station, beginning the chain that would carry the message north faster than any rider could travel.

* * * * *

By afternoon, the First Horde's main body had completed its passage south of Valdenmarch and was moving northwest across the Threian farmland toward the settled provinces that lay beyond the frontier zone. The screening force under Trot'thar maintained its positions until the main body was clear, then withdrew in good order, the warbands peeling away from the cordon in sequence and rejoining the column at the rear.

The Warg Cavalry was the last element to disengage, Haguk's riders maintaining their arc around the fortress until the infantry was clear, then wheeling south and racing to rejoin the column with the ground-covering speed that their mounts provided.

By sunset, the First Horde was six miles northwest of Valdenmarch, encamped in open farmland, its fires burning in the Threian countryside for the first time since the Lag'ranna campaign. The fortress was behind them, its garrison intact but neutralized, its commander watching the fires multiply on his northwestern horizon with the grim understanding that the war had moved past his walls.

Khao'khen stood at the edge of the encampment and looked northwest, toward the heartland of the kingdom that had invaded his people's lands, burned their settlements, and slaughtered their warriors. The terrain ahead was open, fertile, and defended by a military that was still concentrating its forces to meet a threat that was already inside its borders.

The Threian frontier had been crossed. The first obstacle had been bypassed without a single casualty. And the Yohan First Horde, the most disciplined and capable orcish army in history, was marching into the heart of enemy territory with the momentum that eight months of preparation and six weeks of post-Season replenishment had built.

Somewhere behind him, in the fortress that his army had bypassed without a drop of blood spilled, Colonel Gresham was composing dispatches to General Snowe that would describe the orcish army's movement with the professional precision that the Lord Marshal demanded. Those dispatches would set in motion the kingdom's military response, the concentration of forces, the deployment of reserves, the strategic calculations that would determine where and how the Threian army chose to meet the orcish invasion.

Khao'khen did not know the details of that response. But he knew it was coming, and he had planned for it. The Verakh network that extended two hundred miles into the Threian interior would provide warning of troop movements. The Warg Cavalry would screen the Horde's advance against surprise. And the discipline that had been forged through years of training, tested against Threian mages and Lower Order demons alike, would hold against whatever the kingdom chose to throw at them.

The real war had begun.