The Yohan First Horde emerged from the southeastern highland corridor on the morning of the seventh day.

The transition was abrupt. One moment, the column was moving through the narrow valleys and rocky passages that had defined the march for a week, the terrain pressing in from both sides, the sky a narrow strip of blue between the ridgelines that channeled their movement. The next, the highlands fell away and the Threian frontier opened before them like a door swinging wide, the rolling farmland and scattered woodlands of the kingdom’s eastern border stretching to a horizon that seemed impossibly distant after days of confinement in the corridor’s stone embrace.

Khao’khen halted the column at the corridor’s mouth and rode forward with Sakh’arran to survey the terrain. The Verakhs had already deployed into the open ground, their scouts fanning outward in the surveillance patterns that would provide the situational awareness the Horde needed to operate in unfamiliar territory.

The Threian frontier was not what most of the warriors had expected. The orcish territories were wild, defined by the relationship between the land and the creatures that inhabited it, the terrain shaped by nature rather than by the deliberate intervention of beings who considered themselves the land’s owners. The Threian frontier was different. Fields had been cleared and planted in patterns that spoke of generations of agricultural practice. Roads connected settlements whose buildings were constructed from stone and timber with a permanence that suggested the people who built them intended to remain forever. Fences divided land into parcels whose boundaries reflected ownership rather than geography.

It was, to orcish eyes, both foreign and instructive. This was what civilization looked like when it had been building for centuries rather than years. Yohan was the first orcish city. The Threians had been building cities since before the orcs had learned to work iron.

“Valdenmarch,” Sakh’arran said, pointing northwest to where a stone fortress was visible on a rise approximately eight miles from their position. Even at this distance, the fortress’s walls were clearly defined against the sky, their angular geometry speaking of military engineering rather than the organic shapes that natural stone formations produced. Banners flew from the walls, too distant to identify but present in numbers that indicated a garrison at full alert.

“The pinkskins knows we are here,” Khao’khen observed.

“He has known for days. The observation post reported our approach. He has had time to recall his patrols, secure his supplies, and prepare his defenses. We face a garrison that is expecting us.”

* * * * *

Khao’khen studied the fortress through the spyglass that the Verakhs had captured from a Threian patrol during the Lag’ranna campaign. The instrument was superior to anything the orcish craftsmen could produce, its lenses ground with a precision that brought distant objects into sharp focus. Through it, he could see the details that distance obscured: the soldiers moving along the walls, the cavalry horses in the courtyard, the supply wagons that had been positioned behind the walls in arrangements that suggested a garrison preparing for a prolonged defense.

The fortress was well-positioned. It sat on a natural rise that provided clear sight lines in every direction, the approaches to its walls open ground that offered no concealment to an attacking force. The walls themselves were stone, thick enough to resist conventional assault, with towers at regular intervals that would allow the defenders to concentrate ranged fire on any point of the perimeter. A dry moat, not deep but wide enough to slow an assault, circled the outer wall.

“Assessment,” Khao’khen said.

Sakh’arran had been studying the fortress through his own glass. “Fifteen hundred defenders, based on the Verakh intelligence. Stone walls, standard Threian frontier construction. The garrison has been reinforced with supplies but not with additional troops. Gresham has sent for reinforcement, certainly, but the nearest significant Threian force is General Snowe’s command, which is stationed in the northern provinces. Minimum two weeks before reinforcement arrives, probably longer.”

“Two weeks.”

“If we can take or bypass Valdenmarch within two weeks, we operate in the Threian interior before their field army can concentrate against us. If we cannot, we face a reinforced garrison and an approaching relief force simultaneously.”

Khao’khen lowered the spyglass and looked at the fortress with his own eyes, seeing not the details but the shape of the problem. Valdenmarch was not the objective. It was the gate. Behind it lay the Threian heartland, the settled provinces where the kingdom’s wealth and population were concentrated. The fortress existed to delay an invasion long enough for the kingdom’s military to respond.

“We do not need to take it,” he said. “We need to get past it.”

Sakh’arran nodded. He had reached the same conclusion through a different analytical path. “A siege consumes time and resources that we cannot afford. A direct assault against stone walls costs casualties that reduce our strength before we reach the real objective. But bypassing the fortress leaves an intact garrison in our rear that can harass our supply lines and provide intelligence to Snowe’s approaching force.”

“Then we solve all three problems at once,” Khao’khen said. “We screen the fortress with enough force to prevent Gresham from sortying against our rear. We move the main body past Valdenmarch through the open terrain to its south. And we advance into the Threian interior before Snowe can respond.”

He turned to Sakh’arran. “How long to execute?”

“If we begin at dawn tomorrow, the screening force can be in position by midday. The main body can begin its passage by afternoon. By the second morning, the Horde is past Valdenmarch and moving northwest toward the Threian settled provinces. Gresham watches us pass from his walls and can do nothing about it without abandoning his fortress.”

Khao’khen smiled. It was not a warm expression. It was the expression of a chieftain who had spent months planning for this moment and who could feel the plan’s components clicking into place with the satisfying precision of a mechanism designed to produce a specific result.

“Dawn,” he said. “We move at dawn.”

He turned to address the assembled chieftains and warband masters who had gathered for the operational briefing. The faces around him were weathered, scarred, and focused. Dhug’mur’s granite expression. Vir’khan’s predatory alertness. Dhug’mhar’s characteristic confidence, his arm still bearing the faded marks of the Scorcher’s burns. Arka’garr’s professional calm. These were warriors who had fought demons and survived. A stone fortress defended by fifteen hundred pinkskins did not impress them.

But Khao’khen did not want them impressed. He wanted them disciplined.

“We do not attack the fortress,” he said, and watched the understanding settle across the room. “We do not waste warriors or ammunition against stone walls when the real objective lies beyond them. The pinkskins expect us to batter ourselves against their defenses the way every orcish army in history has done. We do not give them what they expect. We give them something they have never seen: an orcish army that understands the difference between an obstacle and an objective.”

Trot’thar would command the screening force. The War Chief accepted the assignment with the professional acknowledgment that characterized the Horde’s officer corps. Holding a position was as critical as making an assault, and Trot’thar understood that the screening force’s discipline would determine whether the main body’s passage was contested or uncontested.

The First Horde made camp that evening within sight of Valdenmarch’s walls, their fires visible from the fortress’s towers, their numbers impossible to ignore. Eight thousand four hundred warriors, spread across the Threian frontier in encampments that spoke of organization and confidence rather than the scattered, chaotic bivouacs that Threian commanders associated with orcish armies.

Inside Valdenmarch, Colonel Gresham watched the fires multiply across the darkening plain and understood, with the professional clarity that defined his approach to command, that the war he had spent six months preparing for had arrived.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep