Khao’khen assembled the war council within the hour.

The chieftains gathered at the command table with the speed that the chief’s summons produced and the specific energy that the delegation’s departure had released into the camp’s atmosphere. The energy was the energy that weeks of enforced patience had accumulated in warriors whose primary function was fighting and whose primary function had been deferred by the strategic waiting that the campaign’s patience had required.

"The barbarians have rejected the agreement," Khao’khen said. "The eldest shaman, who made the agreement, is incapacitated. The chieftains who command in the shaman’s absence have chosen to hold the capital and the valley and to dismiss the Horde’s claims."

"Thrak’gul," Dhug’mhar said. The Orcish word for rock-brained delivered with the specific warmth that the word carried when applied to enemies whose decisions had just guaranteed their encounter with Perfection.

"The barbarian force is twenty thousand by estimate warriors with one hundred and twenty-one thundermakers," Sakh’arran said. "Plenty of dwarven ammunition. Two Seventh Circle shamans, one of whom is the eldest shaman currently incapacitated. Nine lesser shamans at the Fourth Circle and below. Five Sixth Realm chieftains, all wounded from the Threian campaign but all combat-capable. The barbarian warriors are mostly Fourth Realm with champions at the Fifth."

"Our force is thousands of warriors," Khao’khen said. "Full supply. Roarers at full complement. Rhakaddons at full complement. Warg cavalry at full complement. Siege equipment operational. Ogre guard at full strength. The Golden Wolf operational. The Amazzfer recovered and ready."

"Thousands against twenty thousand," Sakh’arran said. "With one hundred and twenty-one thundermakers."

"Thousands against forty-seven thousand Threians was the engagement that this campaign produced four months ago. The Threians had mages and cavalry and formations that the kingdom’s military academy had spent centuries developing. The barbarians have thundermakers and shamans and the specific ferocity that highland warriors produce. Different opponents. Different advantages. Different approach."

"The approach?"

"The approach is the approach that the opponent has never seen. The barbarians have been fighting the Threians for weeks. The Threians fight with formations and discipline and structured magic. The barbarians adapted to the Threian approach. The barbarians’ adaptations are the adaptations that the Threian approach produced. The barbarians have not adapted to our approach because the barbarians have not fought us."

"The thundermakers," Arka’garr said. The 1st Warband master’s contribution was the contribution that the tactical consideration’s most important variable demanded. "The thundermakers are the weapon that the Threian army could not counter. The spear wall that ground the Threian infantry into the earth will be ground by thundermaker fire before the infantry reaches us."

"Yes," Khao’khen said. "The spear wall cannot hold against one hundred and twenty-one thundermakers. The Tohr’terra that absorbed the Threian arrow storms cannot absorb thundermaker balls. The Rhakaddon charge that broke the Threian formations will be broken by thundermaker fire at the ranges that the charge requires to build momentum."

"Then how do we fight them?"

Khao’khen looked at the map. The capital’s position. The barbarian army’s disposition within and around the capital. The terrain between the Horde’s position and the capital.

"We do not fight them in the open. We do not present the formations that the thundermakers are designed to destroy. We do not advance across open ground into the bombardment that one hundred and twenty-one weapons produce."

"Then how?"

"We go where the thundermakers cannot follow. The thundermakers are siege weapons. The thundermakers fire at walls and formations and positions that the weapons’ ballistic trajectory can reach. The thundermakers cannot fire at targets that the thundermakers’ ballistic trajectory cannot reach. The thundermakers cannot fire at targets that are too close to the thundermakers’ own forces for the thundermakers’ blast radius to distinguish between the target and the force."

"We fight inside their formation," Sakh’arran said.

"We fight inside their formation. We bypass the thundermaker batteries. We penetrate the barbarian army’s perimeter at night, in the method that the Throat Teams and the camp penetration operation used against the Threian combined force. We enter the capital. We fight in the streets where the thundermakers cannot fire because the streets’ confined space puts the thundermakers’ blast radius inside the barbarian infantry’s positions. We fight the barbarians in the urban terrain where our tactical advantages apply and the thundermakers’ advantage does not."

"The Threians fought in the streets and lost."

"The Threians fought in the streets with empty boomsticks and exhausted mages and a wounded king and the specific condition of a force that had been ground down by weeks of thundermaker bombardment before the street fighting began. We fight in the streets with full Roarers and full fire spheres and the Golden Wolf and the Rakshas spear wall and seven thousand warriors who have not fought a single engagement in weeks and whose readiness is the readiness that weeks of rest and training have produced."

The war council absorbed the plan. The plan was the plan that no orcish army had ever attempted: the insertion of a full field army into an urban environment behind the enemy’s heavy weapons’ effective range, the conversion of the thundermakers’ decisive advantage into the thundermakers’ irrelevance through the specific mechanism of fighting inside the blast radius that the thundermakers could not fire into without destroying their own forces.

"Vor’kash drak," Arka’garr said. We fight as one. The 1st Warband master’s endorsement was the endorsement that the plan’s tactical validity required from the warrior whose formation was the plan’s primary instrument.

"Grak’thar," Khao’khen said.

"GRAK’THAR!" The council answered.

The Horde prepared. Thousands of warriors, weeks of rest, full supply, the specific readiness that patience had produced and that the barbarians’ insult had released. The wolf was moving. The wolf was hunting. And the hunt’s target was a capital city occupied by twenty-nine thousand barbarians whose thundermakers would not save them in the streets that the wolf was coming to fight in.

The Horde’s preparation was the preparation that the campaign’s accumulated experience provided for the specific operation that the preparation’s purpose demanded. The preparation was not the preparation that a conventional army conducted for a conventional assault. The preparation was the preparation that the Horde conducted for the operation that no conventional army would attempt: the full-force insertion into a capital city occupied by twenty-nine thousand warriors with one hundred and twenty-one thundermakers, conducted at night, through a gate whose dimensions accommodated single-file entry, with the specific purpose of converting the thundermakers’ decisive advantage into the thundermakers’ irrelevance through the mechanism of fighting inside the blast radius that the thundermakers could not fire into without destroying their own forces.

The Throat Teams’ veterans briefed the warband masters on the urban infiltration techniques that the camp penetration against the Threian combined force had demonstrated: the movement patterns that confined spaces required, the communication protocols that noise discipline demanded, the specific adaptations that the Horde’s formations required for the transition from open-field combat to urban combat’s specific constraints. The briefings were conducted through the day’s remaining hours, the urgency of the preparations compressed into the timeline that the midnight departure demanded.

The Amazzfer prepared the Golden Wolf for the urban deployment’s specific requirements. The totem’s activation in the capital’s confined spaces would produce the shimmer’s protective effect at the specific radius that the streets’ width and the buildings’ height determined, the radius smaller than the open-field radius but sufficient for the deployment’s coverage because the deployment’s area was the area that the streets’ network provided rather than the open field’s expanse.

The ogres received the news of the impending engagement with the specific enthusiasm that the news’s content produced in beings whose primary desire was smashing and whose primary frustration was the absence of smashing and whose absence’s duration had been the duration that the campaign’s patience had imposed.

"SMASHING?" Grukk asked, when the briefing’s content reached the ogre guard force through the chain of command’s hierarchy.

"Smashing," Sakh’arran confirmed.

"FINALLY. GRUKK HAS BEEN WAITING. GRUKK HAS BEEN PATIENT. GRUKK’S PATIENCE IS THE PATIENCE THAT GRUKK’S SIZE MAKES IMPRESSIVE AND GRUKK’S SIZE IS VERY IMPRESSIVE. GRUKK IS READY FOR SMASHING."

"The smashing occurs inside a city. The city’s buildings are the things that the smashing does not include. The smashing is directed at the barbarian warriors whose occupation of the city the Horde is contesting."

"GRUKK UNDERSTANDS. GRUKK SMASHES BARBARIANS. GRUKK DOES NOT SMASH BUILDINGS. GRUKK CAN DISTINGUISH BETWEEN BARBARIANS AND BUILDINGS BECAUSE BARBARIANS SCREAM AND BUILDINGS DO NOT."

The preparation continued through the evening and into the night. The Horde prepared. The wolf prepared. And the barbarians, sixty miles north, continued their celebration without the awareness that the thing they were celebrating’s security was the security that the thing approaching from the south was about to remove.