Rise of the Horde

Chapter 868 - 867

Kael and Vor’gath arrived at Yohan’s northern gate on an afternoon when the forge district was running a full production day and the wall-mount installation crew was finishing the third anchor point on the north face’s second vector position.

They came with eight highland riders and no letter of introduction, which was consistent with Kael’s approach to everything. The thing itself was the communication. Preamble was a form of asking permission that he had never found useful, because the answer to preamble was always either yes, in which case you had wasted time asking, or no, in which case you had wasted time being denied before doing it anyway.

Vess at the gate log wrote down the names and affiliations with the thoroughness that Vess brought to every visitor, a thoroughness that reflected a personality suited to the specific administrative virtue of not distinguishing between important and unimportant arrivals when recording them.

Kael watched this happen with the focused attention that characterized his observation of any system he encountered. He was not impatient with it. He was observing it.

"The gate log is daily?" he asked Vess.

"Daily, with cross-reference to the weekly population count and the supply intake manifest," Vess said, without looking up from the writing. "Visitors are flagged by origin and by stated purpose. Departures are logged against arrivals to track residency duration and identify any discrepancies between stated and actual length of stay."

He looked up. "Would you like to state your purpose?"

"Strategic assessment," Kael said.

Vess wrote this down with the same thoroughness he wrote everything. Kael noted the absence of visible reaction to the answer, which in a gate administrator was either trained or natural. Either way it was the correct response and indicated a well-run system.

Sakh’arran received them in the administrative hall twenty minutes later. He offered the specific greeting he used for guests who had not announced themselves: complete, professional, giving nothing away about whether the arrival was convenient or inconvenient, because that information was not relevant to how the guest should be received.

"Kael of the Highland Clans," Sakh’arran said.

"Sakh’arran of the Yohan First Horde." Kael looked at the administrative hall with the same systematic attention he had given the gate log. The wall map. The document stacks. The two administrative officers at the far end working through what appeared to be supply manifests. The organization of the space itself, which told him things about how the people who worked in it thought.

"The Chieftain is at the Tekarr Arch," Sakh’arran said. "I expect his return within the week. I can brief you on the current situation, or I can show you the city first."

"The situation first," Kael said. "The city will still be here after I understand what is happening in it."

Vor’gath, who had not spoken since they entered the gate, was looking at the wall map with an expression that was not quite the expression of a man reading a map. It was the expression of a man listening to something the map was not saying aloud.

Sakh’arran made the decision that Kael’s arrival warranted. The man had traveled eight days to have a conversation. The correct response was to have the conversation without managing it.

"The situation is this," Sakh’arran said, and told Kael about the Arch. He told him everything: the deviation, the cycling, the two-rhythm pattern that Rakh’ash’tha had identified, the archive records and the previous orcish settlement, the implication that the Abyss had cleared the territory once before and that the Arch had been built to prevent it from recurring. He told him what the Abyss was, what the Order of the Seal maintained, what the Keystones kept in place. He told him about Ferrath and the missing response.

Kael listened. He did not interrupt, which was the specific behavior of a man whose analytical process ran in parallel with input rather than in sequence with it. The questions built during the listening and were produced at the end, in order of priority.

When Sakh’arran finished, Kael was quiet for ten seconds.

"The territory between the highland clans’ southern border and the Arch’s location," Kael said. "If the Arch fails, the breach territory expands outward from the failure point. The highland clans’ territory is directly in the expansion path between the Arch and the Lag’ranna foothills."

"Yes," Sakh’arran said.

"The proposal I sent through the diplomatic channel six weeks ago was for a military alliance. That framing is now inadequate to the situation." He paused. "What is the Chieftain’s current thinking on the Arch’s defense?"

"He wants a coalition," Sakh’arran said. "Not a treaty. A working arrangement between every party that has standing interest in the Arch’s stability. You are one of those parties."

"Yes," Kael said. "I am." He looked at the wall map again. "Where is Vor’gath?"

Sakh’arran looked. Vor’gath had crossed the room to the wall map while they were talking and was standing with one hand raised but not quite touching the map’s surface, at the section that showed the Tekarr range.

"Vor’gath," Kael said.

"I can feel it from here," Vor’gath said, without turning around. "I could feel it when we came through the northern gate. There is something wrong in the direction of the Iron Hills." He lowered his hand. "Different wrong than the Arch. Further wrong. Something that has already happened rather than something happening."

Sakh’arran looked at Kael. Kael looked at the wall map.

"The Ferrath Arch," Kael said.

"Yes," Sakh’arran said. He did not explain how Vor’gath had reached the same conclusion by a different route. It did not need explaining.

Vor’gath came away from the wall map and sat at the table across from Sakh’arran.

"The learning hall," he said. "May I visit it tomorrow?"

"Yes," Sakh’arran said. "The morning session begins at the second hour."

"I will arrive before it begins," Vor’gath said. "I want to see it before it knows I am there." He paused. "The Arch’s pressure. When I said there is something wrong in the direction of the Iron Hills. I want to be clear about what I mean by wrong." He looked at Sakh’arran. "The Arch’s pressure feels like something active. Something working. What I feel in the Iron Hills direction feels like something that has already concluded. The wrong of an outcome rather than the wrong of an ongoing process." His eyes were steady. "I have felt this before, after battles. The specific quality of ground where significant deaths have occurred. Not haunting. Nothing mystical. Simply the way that a place carries what happened in it for a period after the happening. The Iron Hills direction carries that quality."

Sakh’arran was quiet. Then: "Sixty dwarves," he said.

"I do not know the number. I know the quality of what I feel. It is consistent with significant loss."

Sakh’arran made a note. He wrote it in the margin of the intelligence briefing rather than in the main text, because it was Vor’gath’s perception rather than confirmed intelligence and it needed to be labeled as such. But the margin was where the notes went that the main text needed to keep nearby.

Kael was watching Vor’gath from across the room with the expression he used when adding a variable to a calculation that did not fit any existing category. Then he looked at Sakh’arran.

"The coalition structure begins before the Chieftain returns," he said. "There is work we can do now that does not require his presence. I would like to start it."

"Tell me what you need," Sakh’arran said.