Rise of the Horde

Chapter 806 - 805

The barbarian ammunition arrived two hours late.

The dwarven supply caravan’s emergency dispatch, requested at the twelfth hour and expected at the twentieth hour, arrived at the capital’s northwestern breach at the thirtieth hour. The two-hour delay was the delay that the mountain road’s conditions and the caravan’s draft animals’ fatigue and the specific logistical friction that emergency supply operations produced when the operations’ urgency exceeded the operations’ infrastructure’s capacity.

The dispatch consisted of twelve wagons bearing the thundermaker ammunition that the palace district’s defense required: forty thousand thundermaker balls and the powder charges that the balls’ firing demanded. The wagons’ arrival at the breach was the arrival that Garrok had been counting on and that the counting’s timeline had been calibrated to produce the arrival before the Horde’s advance reached the palace compound’s walls.

The arrival was late. The Horde’s advance had reached the palace compound’s outer perimeter during the two hours that the arrival’s lateness had consumed.

Seven of the eleven thundermakers inside the city had been captured by the flanking technique that the Yurakk warbands applied to the intersections’ buildings. Four thundermakers remained in barbarian control at the palace compound’s immediate approaches, the approaches that the compound’s walls’ proximity had allowed the barbarian defenders to concentrate their remaining forces at.

The ammunition wagons were unloaded under the barbarian infantry’s boomstick fire from the compound’s walls. The unloading was the unloading that combat conditions produced in logistics operations whose urgency exceeded the safety that normal unloading protocols provided: the crews threw the ammunition crates from the wagons rather than lowering them, the crates’ landing on the cobblestones producing the specific risk that ammunition crates’ rough handling created and that the handling’s urgency required the crew to accept.

The four remaining thundermakers were reloaded. The thundermakers’ barrels, which had been firing the final rounds of the pre-dispatch ammunition during the advance’s final hours, received the fresh ammunition that the dispatch provided. The barrels were hot from the sustained firing. The fresh ammunition entered the hot barrels.

The first thundermaker fired at the Rakshas’ formation at the palace compound’s southern approach. The ball crossed the two-hundred-pace distance and struck the spear wall’s front shield. The shield shattered. The warrior behind the shield fell. The Rakshas’ gap-closing discipline closed the gap.

The second thundermaker fired. The third. The fourth. Four weapons at the two-hundred-pace range that the palace compound’s approach provided. Four balls every sixty seconds. The rate that four weapons’ staggered reloading sustained.

The Rakshas halted. The four thundermakers’ direct fire at two hundred paces was the fire that the Rakshas’ shields could not survive because the range was too close for the balls’ velocity to be reduced by distance and the balls’ full impact was the impact that the shields’ construction could not accommodate.

"The ammunition arrived," Sakh’arran reported. "Four thundermakers reloaded. The Rakshas cannot advance against four weapons at two hundred paces."

* * * * *

Khao’khen looked at the palace compound.

The compound’s walls were twelve feet high. The compound’s approaches were controlled by four thundermakers whose fresh ammunition sustained the continuous fire that the approaches’ denial required. The compound’s interior held approximately eight thousand barbarian warriors whose boomstick ammunition was the ammunition that unlimited dwarven supply provided and whose supply had just been replenished by the dispatch that the mountain road’s staging point had sent.

Inside the compound, Garrok stood on the wall’s fighting platform with the specific assessment that the ammunition’s arrival had produced: the defense was sustainable. The thundermakers’ fire controlled the approaches. The boomstick ammunition sustained the walls’ defense. The eight thousand warriors held the compound’s perimeter. The Horde’s advance, which had cleared the city’s districts building by building and avenue by avenue, had reached the position where the advance’s momentum encountered the resistance that the thundermakers’ concentrated fire and the compound’s defensive architecture combined to produce.

"The tusked brutes are stopped," Tharn said.

"The tusked brutes are stopped at the compound’s perimeter. The tusked brutes are not stopped in the city. The city outside the compound is the tusked brutes’ territory. The compound is ours. The situation is the situation that siege produces: the besieged holds the interior and the besieger holds the exterior."

"We are besieged inside the city we conquered."

"We are besieged inside the fortress within the city we conquered. The fortress’s defense is sustainable with the ammunition that arrived. The dwarven supply chain’s continued deliveries will maintain the ammunition’s availability. The tusked brutes’ supply is finite. The tusked brutes manufacture their own ammunition but the manufacturing is in their city to the south and the ammunition’s transport to the capital requires the supply line that the distance between the city and the capital creates."

"We outlast them."

"We outlast them. The dwarven supply sustains us. The distance exhausts them. The compound holds. The thundermakers fire. The tusked brutes’ advance stops at the walls that the thundermakers protect."

Outside the compound, Khao’khen received the same assessment from Sakh’arran.

"The compound is sustainable," Sakh’arran said. "The dwarven supply replenished the thundermakers. The four weapons control the approaches. Our Rakshas cannot advance into the thundermaker fire at two hundred paces. The barbarian defense inside the compound is the defense that sustained ammunition supply permits."

"Then we do not assault the compound."

"We do not assault the compound. The thundermakers deny the compound’s approaches. The boomstick fire denies the walls. The compound is the position that the thundermakers’ advantage makes unassailable by direct assault."

"The compound is also the prison that the barbarian army occupies while the Horde controls the city around it."

"The prison analogy is accurate. The barbarian army holds the compound. The Horde holds the city. The barbarian army cannot leave the compound without encountering the Horde’s formations in the streets. The Horde cannot enter the compound without encountering the thundermakers’ fire at the approaches."

"Stalemate."

"Stalemate at the compound’s perimeter. Not stalemate in the strategic picture. The strategic picture includes the thundermaker batteries outside the city’s walls. Plenty of thundermakers positioned at the siege positions that breached the capital’s walls. The batteries’ crews are outside the walls. The batteries’ ammunition is outside the walls. The Horde controls the city’s interior. The Horde can reach the city’s walls from inside. The Horde can open the gates from inside."

Khao’khen looked at the map. The compound at the city’s center. The Horde’s positions surrounding the compound. The city’s walls surrounding the Horde’s positions. The thundermaker batteries outside the walls surrounding the city’s walls.

"The walls’ gates," Khao’khen said.

"The walls’ gates are controlled from the interior. The Horde occupies the interior. The Horde can open the gates."

"If we open the gates, we invite the thundermaker batteries’ fire into the city’s interior."

"If we open the gates, we also invite the Baron of Frost’s griffon squadron’s access to the thundermaker batteries that the walls currently protect from the squadron’s attack angles."

"The Baron."

"The Baron of Frost’s two remaining griffons have been conducting surveillance of the exterior battery positions since the Horde’s insertion. The Baron cannot attack the batteries because the batteries are positioned behind the walls’ protection and the walls’ height exceeds the griffons’ attack dive’s requirements. If the gates are opened, the walls’ protection is compromised and the Baron’s attack angles are restored."

"Two griffons against those thundermakers."

"Two griffons whose frost bolts have destroyed thirty-five thundermakers over twenty-five nights of sustained guerrilla operations. Two griffons whose specific capability is the capability that the situation requires: the destruction of thundermaker ammunition wagons through thermal detonation at the ranges that the frost bolts’ accuracy provides."

Khao’khen looked at the map. The specific configuration that the map displayed. The Horde inside the city. The barbarian compound inside the Horde’s perimeter. The thundermaker batteries outside the city. The Baron of Frost outside the thundermaker batteries.

"Send a message to the Baron," Khao’khen said. "Tell him the gates open at dawn. Tell him to prepare the frost bolts for the ammunition wagons behind the batteries. Tell him that the Horde provides the access and the Baron provides the destruction."

"The Baron will appreciate the access."

"The Baron has been fighting the thundermakers longer than we have. The Baron’s appreciation is the appreciation that sustained combat produces in a warrior whose enemy has been the same enemy for twenty-five days and whose enemy’s destruction is the warrior’s specific mission."

The message departed through the Verakh relay. The night continued. The compound’s thundermakers fired at the perimeter. The Horde held the city. The Baron waited for the dawn.

Three forces. Three positions. Three plans. The resolution was approaching. The resolution would come with the dawn’s light and the gates’ opening and the frost bolts’ flight and the thundermaker ammunition’s destruction.

The wolf held its position around the compound. The wolf could wait one more night. The wolf had been waiting for months. One more night was the night that patience required for the patience’s final Chapter to be written.