Somewhere to the north, General Aelric Snowe was riding toward a battle that would determine whether the Threian frontier held or fell. And behind the stone walls and earthen berms of Thornfield, the Yohan First Horde waited for him with the patience that Khao’khen had taught them was their greatest weapon.

The Baron of Frost saw the orcish position first.

He was flying at the head of his griffon squadron, nine riders in the attack wedge that had become their standard formation since losses at Lag’ranna reduced their number to less than a third of the original company. Stormclaw’s wings cut the morning air with powerful strokes that carried them above the low clouds, and from that altitude, the terrain unfolded below like a map drawn by a god with an interest in the arrangement of rivers and ridgelines and the forces that small creatures placed upon them.

The orcish position at Thornfield was immediately recognizable as professional military work. The Baron had spent enough years studying fortifications to distinguish between positions built by instinct and positions built by training, and what he saw on the eastern ridge was training. The earthen berms were properly constructed. The positions were staggered, preventing a single line of attack from engaging the entire defense simultaneously. Fields of fire overlapped in patterns that created killing zones at every approach.

And on the ridgeline, spaced at regular intervals, stood eight structures the Baron did not recognize. Wheeled platforms bearing what appeared to be oversized crossbows, their mechanisms angled skyward, their bolts visible even from altitude as dark shapes the size of small spears.

Anti-air weapons. Designed for the specific purpose of engaging aerial targets at the altitudes where griffon riders operated.

“Formation, hold altitude,” he called to his knights. “Do not descend.”

He circled the position at a distance he estimated was beyond the platforms’ effective range, cataloguing every detail the altitude allowed. The orcish army was deployed in depth, organized blocks of dark green and iron gray against the lighter ground. Behind the ridge, partially concealed, he could make out the Rhakaddons, their armored bulk unmistakable.

The griffon knights had been the Threian military’s decisive advantage in every engagement since the aerial corps was established. The orcs had built weapons specifically to contest that advantage.

“We observe. We report. We do not give them the chance to prove their weapons work before we understand what we are facing.”

* * * * *

The Baron’s report reached General Snowe two hours before the advance guard crested the hills north of Thornfield.

Snowe received it in the saddle, his silver armor bearing the dust of the road that his force had been traveling for three days at a pace that pushed men and horses to the edge of what sustained marching could produce. The General read the report with the focused attention that his staff had learned meant he was assembling a picture from its components, weighing each piece of information against his existing understanding of the enemy and adjusting his plans accordingly.

“Fortified position. Prepared defenses. Anti-air platforms.” He handed the report to Colonel Thaddeus, who rode beside him. “The orcish commander has done exactly what I would have done in his position. He has chosen ground that favors defense, prepared it thoroughly, and dug in to wait for us.”

Thaddeus studied the report. “Eight thousand against our combined force of nine thousand. In a fortified position with the river anchoring one flank. That is not a favorable ratio for an assault.”

“No. It is not.” Snowe looked north, where the hills concealed the river valley and the army that waited beyond them. “The orcish commander wants us to attack his prepared position. He wants us to spend lives and time breaking through defenses that he has designed specifically to maximize the cost of breaking through them.”

“Then we do not attack?”

“We do not attack his position. We attack his plan.” Snowe pulled a map from his saddlebag and spread it across his horse’s neck. “The orcish force is built around infantry. Heavy infantry, from the reports, disciplined and well-equipped. Their mobility is limited by the pace of their foot soldiers and their supply train. Their cavalry, the warg riders, are fast but few. Four hundred against our eight hundred horse.”

He traced a line on the map that swept south and east of the orcish position. “We pin them at Thornfield with the infantry and the advance guard. Then we swing the cavalry around their southern flank, cut the road that connects them to the southeastern corridor, and sever their supply line. An army without supplies is an army with a countdown.”

Thaddeus nodded slowly. “That requires the infantry to hold without attacking. To stand in front of a fortified enemy position and absorb whatever they throw at us without advancing.”

“Yes. It requires patience. The same patience that the orcish commander is counting on us not having, because every previous orcish enemy the kingdom has faced has been defeated by our willingness to attack and their inability to withstand it. This commander is different. He expects us to attack. So we do not.”

He folded the map. “But we prepare to attack. We make it look like we are massing for an assault. We push the advance guard forward to engagement range. We let the Baron’s griffons circle at altitude, visible but not committed. We create the appearance of an army preparing to throw itself at fortified walls, and while the orcish commander watches our preparations and positions his reserves to meet the assault that he believes is coming, our cavalry cuts his lifeline.”

It was the plan of a general who had learned from the Lag’ranna campaign that the orcish army’s greatest strength, its discipline, was also the foundation of its greatest vulnerability. Discipline kept the Horde’s warriors in their positions. If those positions became untenable because the supply line that sustained them was severed, the discipline that held them in place became the cage that trapped them.

“How long before the cavalry reaches the southeastern corridor?” Snowe asked.

“Two days. Three if they encounter resistance.”

“Then we have two days of theater.” He looked at his officers with the steady certainty that decades of command had produced. “Gentlemen, we are going to give the orcs exactly what they expect to see. And while they watch the show, we win the war behind them.”

The Threian advance guard crested the hills north of Thornfield at midday, their banners visible against the sky as bright points of color that announced the kingdom’s military presence with the deliberate pageantry that Threian commanders employed as a psychological tool. The orcish warriors on the ridgeline watched the banners appear and multiply, each one representing a unit, a capability, a piece of the force that had come to meet them.

Behind the ridge, Khao’khen stood beside Sakh’arran and studied the approaching force through his captured spyglass.

“They are not rushing,” Sakh’arran observed.

“No. They are not.” Khao’khen lowered the glass. “A rushing enemy is an enemy making mistakes. A patient enemy is an enemy with a plan.”

He looked south, toward the road that connected Thornfield to the southeastern corridor and, beyond it, to Yohan. The road that sustained the Horde’s supply line. The road that an enemy with cavalry superiority might be thinking about cutting.

“Double the Warg Cavalry patrols on the southern approaches,” he ordered. “And send word to Haguk. If the pinkskins try to go around us, I want to know about it before they have gone a mile.”

The two armies settled into their positions, separated by two miles of farmland and the particular tension that existed between forces that had arrived at the moment before battle and were each waiting for the other to move first.

The war had reached its fulcrum. What happened next would determine which way it tipped.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep