Rise of the Horde

The combined force’s daily experience over the next six days was the experience of an army that was large enough to be militarily decisive and was finding itself unable to exercise the decisiveness that its size entitled it to because the army it was trying to exercise decisiveness against kept being somewhere else or coming from a direction that the decisiveness had not been pointed at.

Aldrath’s strategic adjustments were professional and logical and each one produced the result that Khao’khen had calculated it would produce: the adjustment addressed the specific action that had prompted it by allocating more resources to the specific problem, which reduced the resources available for the strategic actions that were not being adjusted for.

The supply convoy escorts grew from one hundred cavalry to one hundred and fifty. The signal relay stations were rebuilt with standing guard posts of thirty soldiers.

The dispatch riders were given cavalry escorts of ten riders each. Each of these measures addressed a real problem and each of them drew from the central reserve that was the combined force’s ability to mass for a decisive engagement.

By the sixth day, the reserve that Aldrath had been maintaining for the pitched engagement that his campaign plan assumed would eventually occur had been reduced by three thousand soldiers allocated to protective functions that the pre-campaign planning had not required. Three thousand soldiers protecting things was three thousand soldiers not fighting things.

Snowe identified the pattern and brought it to Aldrath on the evening of the sixth day. "We are being drained," he said, in the direct way he had learned to communicate with the Lord-Commander after weeks of shared campaign experience.

"Each protective measure is correct. The sum of the correct measures is a force that is spending its operational capacity on protection and losing the offensive mass that is our primary advantage."

"I know," Aldrath said. "The alternative is to leave the supply convoys and the relay stations and the dispatch riders unprotected, which gives the enemies unrestricted access to our logistics and communication infrastructure."

"Which is also what he wants."

"Yes. It is a trap that operates in both directions. We protect, we drain. We do not protect, we are disrupted. Either path leads to reduced operational capacity." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"The only path that does not is the path that makes their strike teams not worth using," Snowe said. "Which is the path that reduces the value of the targets they are hitting."

"We consolidate," Aldrath said. "Bring all supply forward to a single depot close enough to the main camp to be protected by the main body. Eliminate the relay stations in favor of direct messenger communication within the consolidated force. Accept the logistical overhead of consolidation in exchange for the reduction in exposed targets."

* * * * *

In the Horde’s position in the Meren valley, the Throat and Hammer Teams returned from their operations and reported to Khao’khen in the evenings with the specific energy of warriors who had spent the day doing something they were good at and who were returning to camp the way craftsmen returned from productive days at their work.

It was not the energy of warriors who had been fighting for survival. It was the energy of warriors who had been fighting because fighting was what they did and they were very good at it and the current campaign was providing them with an extraordinarily rich variety of opportunities to demonstrate how good.

Krak’thul reported the convoy operation with the detail and the embellishment that his personality required, the tactical account accurate in its essentials and decorated in its presentation with the running commentary he maintained through every operation, addressed partly to his team and partly to the absent enemy and partly to no one in particular.

"The cavalry thought they would see us coming. They did not see us coming. This is because we did not come from the direction they were watching. We came from the direction they were not watching. This is a basic principle that apparently requires demonstration." He paused for effect. "We demonstrated it. They have learned. Or they are dead, in which case the learning happens in the next life."

The team leaders who reported after Krak’thul were less theatrical but equally precise, the operational reports of warriors who had taken their missions seriously and executed them with the focus that Khao’khen’s training had built.

What struck Khao’khen most in the reports was not the tactical success, which was consistent with what the planning had projected. It was the quality of the warriors who were delivering the reports.

They were lighter than they had been. Not physically, though the campaign’s physical demands were written in every body in the force, but in the particular lightness that came from operating without the restraint that the diplomatic phase had required.

The Horde was fighting. It was fighting well. And the warriors who were doing the fighting were, in ways that Khao’khen had not fully anticipated when he gave the order that removed the ceiling, visibly pleased about it.

Dhug’mhar arrived last from a separate operation and delivered his report with the combination of exhaustion and satisfaction that characterized a warrior who had been extremely active for twelve hours and had not yet decided which of those qualities he felt more strongly.

"The patrol we intercepted," he said, "was better than the last patrol we intercepted. They had learned from what happened to the last patrol. Unfortunately for them, we had also learned from what happened to the last patrol, and our learning was more comprehensive than theirs." He grinned. "Perfection notes that improvement in the enemy is the purest compliment available and accepts it graciously."

"How many escaped?" Khao’khen asked.

"Some. Enough to report. Which was the point."

"Good."

"Perfection observed that the current operational conditions are significantly more enjoyable than the previous operational conditions. The restraint was professionally appropriate and Perfection understood its purpose. But Perfection is an orc and orcs fight well when they are happy and Perfection is currently very happy."

Khao’khen looked at the chieftain for a moment. At the burns and the scarring that marked a warrior who had fought demons in the south and a general’s guard in the east and everything in between, and who was standing in a campaign tent in a valley in the middle of a kingdom that was sending its best against him and was losing and who was happy about it.

"As long as the happiness does not interfere with the judgment," Khao’khen said.

"Perfection’s judgment has always operated best when Perfection is happy," Dhug’mhar said. "This is simply true."

Arka’garr, across the table, said nothing but his expression suggested that on this specific point, he had no argument to offer.