Rise of the Horde

Chapter 829 - 828

Yohan’s walls appeared on the fourteenth day’s horizon.

The walls were the walls that the city’s construction had produced: stone, twelve feet high, the height that the walls’ defensive purpose required and that the city’s builders’ capability had achieved during the years that the city’s construction had occupied. The walls enclosed the city that the walls protected. The city that the walls protected was the city that Khao’khen had built from nothing and that the building’s years had converted from nothing to the thing that the walls enclosed.

The walls’ appearance on the horizon produced the sound that the walls’ appearance produced in seven thousand warriors who had been marching toward the walls for fourteen days and who had been fighting for the walls’ preservation for months before the fourteen days’ march began.

The sound was not a war cry. The sound was not the organized chant that the Rakshas produced during engagements or the synchronized vocalization that the Yurakk warbands produced during the building-clearance technique’s execution. The sound was the sound that warriors produced when the warriors saw home after the absence that the campaign’s duration had imposed. The sound was rough and unstructured and the sound was the sound that emotion produced in warriors whose discipline contained the emotion under every circumstance except the circumstance that home’s appearance on the horizon represented.

"YOHAN!" The cry erupted from the column’s center and propagated through the formation in the wave that the cry’s content produced. "YOHAN! YOHAN!"

Arka’garr did not correct the formation’s loss of marching cadence. The 1st Warband master’s silence during the formation’s disciplinary lapse was the silence that the lapse’s cause warranted. The master whose corrections during drills were specific and targeted and whose voice carried flat certainty permitted the lapse because the lapse was the lapse that home’s appearance deserved.

"PERFECTION HAS RETURNED TO THE CITY THAT PERFECTION’S ABSENCE HAS DIMINISHED!" Dhug’mhar announced, from the Rhakaddon column’s position, at the volume that the announcement’s subject warranted. "YOHAN’S DIMINISHMENT IS THE DIMINISHMENT THAT PERFECTION’S ABSENCE PRODUCES IN ALL LOCATIONS THAT PERFECTION VACATES! YOHAN’S RESTORATION COMMENCES WITH PERFECTION’S ARRIVAL!"

"Duum," Graka said.

"GRUKK SEES HOME!" Grukk announced, from the ogre’s position behind the goblin sappers. "GRUKK IS HAPPY! GRUKK WILL OPEN GRUKK’S OWN DOOR! GRUKK’S DOOR IS THE BEST DOOR!"

The column’s pace increased. The increase was not the increase that orders produced. The increase was the increase that home’s proximity produced in legs whose march’s duration had sustained the pace that discipline maintained and that home’s proximity’s motivation now exceeded. The discipline did not break. The pace simply quickened within the discipline’s structure, the way that a heartbeat quickened within the heartbeat’s rhythm when the heartbeat’s cause was the cause that quickening warranted.

Yohan’s northern gate appeared as the column approached. The gate was open. The gate’s opening was the opening that the city’s preparation for the return had produced: the gate open, the approach cleared, the 2nd Horde’s warriors lining the approach road in the formation that the welcome’s protocol prescribed.

Yakuh stood at the gate.

The young Skallser chieftain stood at the northern gate’s threshold with Ikrah at his right and Pelko at his left, the three Skallsers whose assignment to the city’s defense had been the assignment that the city’s survival had confirmed. Yakuh’s bearing was the bearing that the bearing’s context produced: upright, composed, the specific posture that a subordinate commander produced when the subordinate’s superior returned from the campaign that the subordinate’s holding had enabled.

Khao’khen walked to the gate. The chieftain walked ahead of the column. The column halted behind the chieftain at the distance that the halt’s protocol required. The chieftain walked alone to the gate where the subordinate commander waited.

The two commanders faced each other at the gate’s threshold. The facing was the facing that the facing’s significance produced: the chieftain who had marched north and the commander who had held the city and the gate’s threshold between them that represented the boundary between the campaign’s foreign operations and the city’s domestic sovereignty.

"Chief," Yakuh said. "Yohan stands."

"Yohan stands," Khao’khen said. "The holding was the holding that the chief required."

"The holding was the holding that the Skallsers performed."

"The holding’s performance is the performance that the chief acknowledges."

The acknowledgment was the acknowledgment that the acknowledgment’s weight required. The weight was the weight of months of separation and months of trust and months of the specific uncertainty that distance produced in commanders whose command was divided by the distance that the campaign’s geography imposed. The acknowledgment’s delivery resolved the uncertainty. The resolution’s content was the content that the holding’s success communicated: the trust was justified. The selection was correct. The city survived.

Yakuh stepped aside. The gate’s threshold was open. The chieftain walked through the gate. The Horde followed.

The Yohan First Horde entered Yohan.

The city received the Horde with the reception that the city’s population produced when the population’s army returned from the campaign that the population had sent the army on. The reception was not organized. The reception was organic. The civilians lined the streets. The children stood at the street edges. The forge workers emerged from the forge district’s workshops. The administrative personnel stood at the administrative buildings’ doorways. The healers stood at the medical facilities’ entrances. The farmers who worked the fields beyond the eastern wall came to the gate to see the column’s passage.

The Snarling Wolf banner entered the city at the column’s head. The banner’s crimson wolf on its black field with the eight-petaled white flower caught the wind that the city’s streets channeled between the buildings’ walls. The wolf’s direction on the banner was forward. The wolf’s direction was always forward. Inside the city, forward was the direction that the banner’s carrier walked, which was the direction that the chieftain walked, which was the direction that led to the city’s center where the campaign’s conclusion would be formally marked.

The warriors entered the city behind the banner. The warriors’ faces were the faces that the campaign’s months had produced: weathered, scarred, the faces that combat and march and foreign territory and home territory combined to compose. The faces were the faces that home’s reception brightened with the brightening that home’s familiar streets and home’s familiar buildings and home’s familiar people produced.

Warriors found faces in the crowd. Faces found warriors in the column. The finding was the finding that returning armies produced when the returning’s destination included the specific people whose specific faces the returning warriors had carried in the warriors’ memories throughout the campaign’s duration.

The campaign was over. The Horde was home.

Vol duum mok. No surrender. The dead watch.

The dead watched. Three hundred and twenty warriors who had marched through the northern gate at the campaign’s commencement and who did not return through the northern gate at the campaign’s conclusion. Three hundred and twenty warriors whose names had been spoken at the capital’s remembrance rites and whose names would be spoken again at Yohan’s remembrance wall where the names’ permanent inscription would preserve the names for the future that the campaign had secured.

The dead watched. The living returned. The city received both the living’s presence and the dead’s memory with the reception that both deserved.

The wolf was home.