Rise of the Horde

The combined Threian force moved on the Meren valley from the north on the ninth day after finding the depression empty, and it moved differently from every previous approach because Aldrath had spent the nine days building rather than rushing, which was the lesson that every previous rushed operation of the campaign had taught.

He divided the twenty-three thousand eight hundred soldiers into four columns, each one assigned a different approach route to the valley’s four possible entrance points, each one timed to arrive simultaneously and deny the Horde the ability to concentrate against any single axis before the other three had closed the valley’s exits.

The mage replacements were distributed among the columns rather than held in a central reserve, giving each column magical capability rather than concentrating it where a single action could eliminate it.

The cavalry was split between the columns and a central reserve that could respond to developments in any sector if the simultaneous arrival of four columns produced unexpected contact.

It was a sound plan, professionally designed by a general who had learned from every engagement of the campaign and who had applied all of that learning to the construction of an approach that addressed the specific weaknesses of every previous approach.

It was not a plan designed for a force that received its approach pattern from the Verakh surveillance network fourteen hours before the columns began to move.

The Verakh who identified the column organization did so through the movement of supply wagons in the hours before the operational orders went to the column commanders, because supply wagons were organized according to the operational plan before the plan was formally communicated, and the wagon organization told the story of the plan to an observer who understood logistics.

The Verakh communicated the pattern through the signal fire network and the pattern reached Khao’khen before the column commanders received their written orders.

Khao’khen sat with the map for four minutes. Four columns. Four simultaneous approaches. Arrival designed to converge on a force that was expected to be in the valley when the columns arrived.

"They have planned for us to be here," he said.

"Yes," Sakh’arran said.

"Then we are not entirely here when they arrive. But we are also not absent."

Sakh’arran waited.

"Two thousand warriors hold the valley visibly. Fires maintained, movement patterns sustained, the Snarling Wolf above the market hall. Two thousand warriors executing the appearance of eight thousand is something the Horde has done before and the Verakh network confirms can be sustained for the twelve hours that four columns need to reach the valley from their current positions."

"And the remaining six thousand?"

"The remaining six thousand are positioned on the four approach routes that the columns will use. Not blocking them. Waiting for the column compression that the approach routes’ terrain enforces before they reach the valley entrance, because a column on a road that narrows to a chokepoint two miles before it reaches its destination is a column that cannot spread to deal with contact on its flanks."

"Each column meets an ambush on its approach rather than a defensive force in the valley."

"Each column meets a different ambush, designed for the specific terrain of its specific approach, executed by warriors who have been positioned in that terrain since the night the Verakh reported the plan." Khao’khen moved four markers to their approach positions. "Except the eastern column."

"Why not the eastern column?"

"Because Aldrath is a good general and he expects the symmetry. He is testing whether we have anticipated all four approaches, and he is watching the eastern column’s report to tell him whether we have. If all four columns are ambushed simultaneously, he knows the plan was read. If one column reaches the valley unopposed, he knows it is the one approach we did not prepare for and he reinforces it as the breakthrough axis."

"We want him to reinforce it."

"We want him to send his reserve cavalry through the eastern approach behind the eastern column, committing his reserve to the one axis that the valley terrain makes narrowest. When the reserve cavalry follows the eastern column in, Trot’thar’s two thousand close the eastern entrance behind them."

* * * * *

The four columns moved at dawn and the three ambushed columns experienced the engagement that the terrain and the positioning had prepared for them, each one specific to the constrictions of the road it was using and the positions available in that terrain.

The northern column’s engagement was the loudest, because the northern approach ran through a hollow that carried sound and the warriors positioned on both sides of the hollow were not interested in silence once the Roarer volleys had opened.

"Your column formation is as tight as your thinking!" This from Krak’thul, whose position on the northern hollow’s western face gave him a close enough view of the column’s compressed formation to maintain a running assessment of its quality. "You march like you have somewhere important to be! You do not! We are your somewhere important!"

The western column, which found its approach cut by a shield wall across the road at the two-mile mark, had the particular experience of watching the shield wall advance toward it rather than waiting to be charged, which was the tactical choice that the 5th Warband had been given and that its warband master had interpreted with the creative aggression that the new operational parameters permitted.

The southern approach column, which was the smallest at fifteen hundred soldiers, met the terrain’s cooperation with the Horde’s preparation in the form of the narrow cut between two limestone outcroppings that the Verakh had identified as the point where the column would compress to single file for approximately sixty paces, and sixty paces of single-file column under fire from elevated positions on both sides was the most expensive sixty paces that fifteen hundred soldiers had ever walked.

The eastern column found nothing. Clear road. Open valley entrance. The valley visibly occupied by two thousand warriors and the Snarling Wolf.

The eastern column’s commander reported the clear approach. Aldrath sent his reserve cavalry through the eastern approach behind the eastern column, committing eight hundred riders to what appeared to be the breakthrough axis.

The eight hundred riders entered the valley. The eastern column moved south toward Millbridge. The Snarling Wolf flew above the market hall.

The valley entrance closed behind the reserve cavalry as Trot’thar’s formation sealed the road.

The eastern column, which had entered the valley expecting to secure it, discovered that the valley was occupied in a more specific way than the advance observation had indicated, and the reserve cavalry that was supposed to be exploiting the breakthrough was inside a valley entrance that was now sealed, with two thousand orcish warriors between them and the exit.

Aldrath’s plan had found the one approach without an ambush and had committed its reserve to that approach. The reserve was now inside the position that the plan had been designed to capture.