Rise of the Horde

Chapter 863 - 862

Brekk raised his objection at the second clan gathering, which Drakk had called to present the cistern’s completion and the windbreak wall’s progress. He stood without ceremony and spoke without heat.

He was perhaps fifty. Lean and grey-templed, with the physical economy that decades of highland combat developed in men who had never relied on size and had therefore become excellent at everything else. He had been one of Brokk’s senior lieutenants. He had fought at Harken Field, at the Threian capital engagement, and in seven further engagements since the campaign that the kingdom’s northern push had produced. He had survived all of them, which in the highland tradition carried specific weight. A man who had survived that many engagements had either considerable skill or considerable luck, and in Brekk’s case the warriors who had fought beside him knew which one it was.

"Three weeks ago," Brekk said, "the Threian army burned the Ashkar settlement. Forty families. Everything they had built over twenty years. The army did not distinguish between warriors and non-warriors." He looked at Drakk. "The Ashkar families are sleeping in this fire-hall now. I want to know what a windbreak wall and a new cistern do for them."

The hall was quiet. Not hostile to the question. Waiting for the answer, because the question was the right question and everyone in the hall knew it.

Drakk did not rush his response. "They are sleeping in the fire-hall because it has a roof and the fire-hall is here. When the windbreak wall is finished and the lodging project begins, the Ashkar families will have shelter that is not borrowed. That is the wall’s specific contribution to their specific situation."

"In two months," Brekk said. "The Threian army moves faster than two months. The army is at the Ravine settlement’s northern approach right now. I received this information this morning." He paused. "We are building while the enemy advances. I am asking whether this is the correct response to that specific fact."

It was a good question. It was the right question given the right facts, and Brekk had the right facts. The hall could feel that too.

"What do you propose instead?" Drakk said.

"Mobilize the full warband. Send it north to the Ravine settlement. Fight the Threian army on highland terrain in the cold season, where our knowledge of the ground is our advantage and their numbers matter less. Push the advance back and buy time." He looked at the gathering. "We know how to do this. We have been doing this for forty years. We do not know how to build."

"Thirty-eight percent of this clan’s warriors died in the capital," Drakk said.

"Yes. Which means the remaining sixty-two percent need to fight now, before that number gets worse."

"If we send the warband north," Drakk said carefully, "what are we sending them to do? Fight until the Threian advance retreats. Then what? We come back here. A week later, they advance again. We send the warband north again. This continues until the sixty-two percent becomes fifty. Then forty. Then thirty. The army does not stop because we win one engagement. We have been winning individual engagements for forty years and the border has not moved in our favor."

He looked at Brekk.

"The settlements that burn are burning because they have nothing permanent to anchor a defense. Not because they cannot fight. Because fighting a retreating defense in open terrain without anything fixed to hold produces the same result every time. The army advances, we push back, we hold temporarily, they come again. We cannot exhaust an army that replaces its losses from a kingdom of several hundred thousand."

"Then we make walls in two months and they burn the next settlement while we do it," Brekk said. He was not wrong about this and he knew he was not wrong, and his expression said as much. He was presenting a real problem, not a complaint. He deserved a real response.

"Yes," Drakk said. "That is going to happen. I am not pretending it will not." He looked at the gathering. "I am asking you to do two things at once. The warband fights, because the army will not stop while we build. But the builders build, because if we stop building every time the army advances, we build nothing, and in ten years we are exactly where we are now except with fewer warriors and the same number of permanent structures, which is none."

He turned back to Brekk.

"The Ravine settlement needs fighters. I am sending you to lead them. You are the best unit commander I have and that settlement needs the best." He paused. "When you come back, bring me the Threian army’s approximate strength and their supply line’s furthest reliable extension. That information is what determines when and where the wall matters most."

Brekk looked at him. The look of a man who had raised the right objection, been given a real answer, and was deciding whether the answer satisfied the objection or simply managed it.

He nodded, once, and sat down.

Drakk went back to presenting the cistern’s completion numbers. The meeting continued.

Brekk left for the Ravine settlement the following morning. He took twelve warriors with him. He did not look at the windbreak wall as he passed it on the way north.

After the gathering dispersed, Drakk stayed at the fire with Tharuk and Droktagar. The three of them had the fire-hall to themselves except for the Ashkar families sleeping on the far side of the room.

"Brekk will fight well at the Ravine," Tharuk said.

"Yes."

"And he will come back with the numbers I asked for," Drakk said. "He is too good a commander not to. He wants to win the argument even if he is not making it anymore." He looked at the fire. "The numbers will probably help us. We need to know where the army’s supply line ends. That tells us where the wall matters most."

Droktagar was looking at the fire-hall floor, which was where the Ashkar families had been sleeping on folded blankets for three weeks. He was calculating something.

"The lodging project," he said. "If I start the foundation survey tomorrow and Tharuk starts the first course by the end of the week, we have the Ashkar families in actual rooms before the end of the second month."

"Do it," Drakk said.

Droktagar picked up his notation book and began writing the survey plan before the conversation had properly ended. He had the specific energy of a builder who had been waiting for authorization and was not going to waste any of the time on the other side of it.