Rise of the Horde

Chapter 885: Chapter 884

Khao’khen returned from the Arch on the second afternoon. He came with Kael and Vor’gath and left Arka’garr in command of the garrison, which now included forty highland warriors and twelve Yurakk on rotating watch. He came directly to Sakh’arran’s office, where Brekka Hammerfall was reviewing the trade agreement’s appendices with Durrek.

He greeted her with the directness that he gave every person he considered worth treating seriously: direct eye contact, the orcish acknowledgment bow at the depth that indicated a counterpart rather than a subordinate, no preamble.

"Minister Hammerfall. I am Khao’khen." He sat at the office table. "Tell me about the mining teams."

She told him. He listened with the same quality of attention he brought to Sakh’arran’s briefings: complete, still, not interrupting. When she finished he asked three questions: the precise elevation of the survey sites relative to the Ferrath Arch, whether any of the teams had been equipped with signal protocols for emergency communication, and whether the Thane had restricted movement in the northern ridgeline areas following the teams’ disappearance.

She answered: high elevation, same ridgeline as the Arch. Yes, signal flags, none triggered. Yes, all northern ridgeline operations suspended four weeks ago.

Khao’khen looked at Sakh’arran. Sakh’arran produced the archive summary he had written, the document about Var’kha, and set it on the table.

"Read the last section," Sakh’arran said.

Brekka Hammerfall read it. Durrek read over her shoulder.

Kael had come into the room behind Khao’khen and was standing at the wall. He had been given the archive summary by courier rider from Sakh’arran two days ago at the Arch and had read it there. He waited while the dwarves read it now.

Brekka set the document down. She looked at Khao’khen.

"The previous settlement at this location," she said. "Var’kha. Your archive records from our surveys."

"Yes."

"Evacuated rapidly, two hundred and twenty years ago, no indication of conflict."

"Yes. Forty years before the first Threian southern campaign. The Threians arrived to find empty land."

She was quiet for a moment. "And the Arch was built fifty years after the evacuation."

"At a historical breach point," Khao’khen said. "The documents say the Arch was placed at a known historical breach location. The breach that location refers to happened two hundred and forty years ago, approximately ten years before the Period Three survey found Var’kha empty."

"The breach event cleared the settlement," Durrek said. He said it like a man confirming a calculation.

"We believe so. Not by killing the population. By being present in sufficient proximity that four thousand people decided that leaving was the rational choice." Khao’khen looked at Brekka Hammerfall. "The Arch at Ferrath was in the Iron Hills northern ridgeline. The Abyss entity that destroyed the Ferrath Arch has been in that ridgeline for six to eight weeks."

"And my mining teams were working that ridgeline," she said.

"Yes."

She looked at her hands on the table. She looked at them in the way Sakh’arran had seen other people look at their hands when they were deciding something. Then she looked up.

"The pattern," she said. "The previous breach that cleared Var’kha. The Arch built at the previous breach point. The Ferrath Arch’s destruction. The escalating pressure at the Tekarr Arch. You are describing a sequence."

"Kael identified it first," Khao’khen said.

Kael, from the wall: "The Abyss targeted the most isolated Arch first. Ferrath is in the Iron Hills, the furthest point from any concentrated resistance. It was destroyed before anyone outside had reason to be watching it. Following the Ferrath breach, the pressure on Tekarr escalated and added new points of attack. The successful breach event amplified the assault on the remaining Arch."

"What happens if Tekarr falls?" Brekka Hammerfall said.

Khao’khen answered: "There are twelve Archs that the Order maintains. Aliyah Winters told me that three Keystones failing simultaneously at any Arch produces an uncontrolled breach. The Ferrath Arch is already destroyed. If Tekarr falls, whatever resources the Abyss has been applying to these two Archs redirects to the next target. The historical records suggest that once multiple Archs begin failing, the remaining ones fail with increasing speed because the Abyss is operating from an expanded territory."

"How much time does Tekarr have?"

"Sakh’arran," Khao’khen said.

Sakh’arran produced the revised assessment. He had finished it the previous evening. He set it on the table.

"Based on the current deviation rates, the communication event, the identification of a third entity at the sixth Keystone, and the parallel between the Ferrath sequence and the current Tekarr approach," Sakh’arran said, "my assessment is: weeks. Not months. If the third entity at the sixth Keystone accelerates in the way the second entity did after the Ferrath breach, the Warden cannot maintain reinforcement pacing across three simultaneous attack points with current resources."

Brekka Hammerfall read the assessment. She read it all the way through. She set it down.

"What do you need from the Ironbeard Clan?" she said.

Khao’khen looked at her with the specific directness he used when the answer to a question was important and needed to be received clearly.

"Come to the Arch," he said. "See it. Hear Warden Winters explain the reinforcement process. Understand what is being asked. Then make the Thane’s decision from knowledge rather than from distance."

"And what will the Arch ask of the Ironbeard Clan?"

"Presence," he said. "Resources. The willingness to treat this as your problem equally with ours. Because the Ferrath breach is in your territory and what comes out of it will reach us all at approximately the same time."

She was quiet for a full minute. Durrek did not interrupt her. Kael did not interrupt her. Sakh’arran watched her and respected the silence, because some decisions required their full weight to be felt before they were made.

"We will go north tomorrow," she said.

Kael left the office last, behind Brekka and Durrek. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at Sakh’arran.

"Your assessment of the deviation timeline," Kael said. "Weeks rather than months. That is based on current rates with current resources at the Arch."

"Yes."

"If we double the resources at the Arch, the timeline shifts."

"Also, yes."

Kael nodded. He was running calculations and the calculations were giving him a different number than the one on the page, and the different number was better, and he wanted Sakh’arran to know that he had found it. "Good," he said. "Then weeks is a floor, not a ceiling. We work from there."

He went to compose his orders for the accelerated highland garrison unit deployment. Sakh’arran watched him go. Then he picked up his pen and added a line to the revised assessment: timeline is contingent on resource application. Doubling Arch resources buys additional weeks. Every additional week is a week the coalition has to consolidate.