Rise of the Horde

Chapter 826 - 825

The frontier markers were placed on the sixth day at the positions that the treaty’s geographic specifications designated.

Five stone markers. Each marker carved from the granite that the frontier’s geology provided, each marker standing four feet above the ground surface, each marker’s weight sufficient to resist the displacement that weather and time would attempt and that the marker’s permanence was designed to withstand.

The carving was Zul’jinn’s work. The master smith had prepared the seal molds before the Horde’s departure from the capital, the molds’ designs executed with the precision that the master smith’s craftsmanship provided to every task that the craftsmanship’s application addressed. The Horde’s seal, the snarling crimson wolf on the black field with the eight-petaled white flower, was carved into the south-facing surface with the detail that the seal’s significance warranted. The Threian kingdom’s seal, the crowned lion on the golden field, was carved into the north-facing surface with the same detail, the same precision, the same permanence.

Colonel Gresham arrived at the frontier line on the morning of the placement with the escort that the arrival’s formality required: twelve soldiers, the kingdom’s banner, and the colonel’s personal standard that the frontier garrison’s command tradition prescribed.

The placement ceremony was not a ceremony in the traditional sense. The placement was the placement that two military commanders performed with the efficiency that both commanders’ professional temperaments produced: the markers positioned, the alignment confirmed, the witnessing performed by both parties simultaneously, the documentation signed by both commanders at the field table that Sakh’arran had assembled for the documentation’s execution.

"The frontier line is established," Gresham said, after the fifth marker’s placement. "The kingdom’s territory ends here. The orcish territory begins here. The treaty’s geographic specification is fulfilled."

"The frontier line is established," Khao’khen confirmed. "The Horde crosses the frontier line into sovereign territory. The crossing is the crossing that the treaty’s fulfillment produces."

The two commanders stood at the frontier line’s central marker. The marker stood between them, the Threian seal facing north toward the colonel, the Horde’s seal facing south toward the chieftain. The marker’s position between the commanders was the position that the marker’s purpose symbolized: the boundary that separated and the boundary that defined and the boundary that both parties had agreed to honor.

"Chieftain," Gresham said. "The kingdom will remember this campaign. The kingdom’s remembering will be contested. Some will remember the Horde as the enemy that marched through the kingdom’s territories. Some will remember the Horde as the force that liberated the capital. Both memories will exist. The coexistence is the coexistence that history produces when history’s events are complex enough to support multiple interpretations."

"The interpretations will compete," Khao’khen said. "The competition is the competition that the formal acknowledgment is designed to influence. The acknowledgment does not eliminate the memory that views the Horde as the enemy. The acknowledgment provides the memory that views the Horde as the ally with the institutional support that the competing memory lacks. The institutional support is the support that determines which memory the kingdom’s grandchildren inherit."

"The grandchildren," Gresham said. The word carried the weight that the word’s temporal implications produced in the officer whose career had been dedicated to the present’s requirements rather than the future’s possibilities. "The chieftain plans for grandchildren."

"The chieftain plans for the future that the grandchildren inhabit. The planning is the planning that the present’s actions produce in the future’s conditions. Every action in the present is the action that the future’s grandchildren live with. The campaign was the action. The treaty was the action. The frontier line is the action. The acknowledgment is the action. The grandchildren inherit the actions’ consequences."

Gresham was quiet for the duration that the statement’s weight required. The duration was the duration that a frontier officer allocated to the reconsideration of an opposing commander’s strategic depth when the depth exceeded the depth that the officer had previously assessed.

"The kingdom is fortunate," Gresham said, "that the commander who marched through its territories was this commander and not a different one."

"The kingdom is fortunate that the officer who held its frontier was this officer and not a different one," Khao’khen replied.

The exchange concluded. The frontier line was established. The markers stood in the positions that the markers’ permanence would maintain across the years that the permanence’s duration encompassed. The markers’ surfaces bore the seals that the treaty’s signatories had authorized and that the markers’ carving preserved in the granite that the frontier’s geology had provided for the preservation’s purpose.

Gresham extended his hand. The extension was the extension that the Threian tradition’s farewell between military professionals prescribed: the handshake, the grip that communicated the specific combination of professional respect and personal acknowledgment that the grip’s pressure and duration conveyed.

Khao’khen gripped the extended hand. The grip was the grip that the orcish tradition’s warrior acknowledgment produced: firm, brief, the contact that communicated the contact’s content without the contact’s prolongation that the content’s excess would have required.

"Colonel."

"Chieftain."

The hands released. The farewell concluded. The colonel turned north. The chieftain turned south. The two commanders walked in their respective directions with the respective paces that their respective purposes determined: Gresham toward Valdenmarch and the governance that the frontier’s post-treaty administration required, Khao’khen toward the Narrow Pass and the crossing that the homeward march’s final phase demanded.

The Horde crossed the frontier line. Seven thousand warriors stepped from the kingdom’s territory onto the territory that the treaty had designated as the orcish people’s sovereign land. The step was the step that the step’s significance produced in warriors whose campaign had been fought for the specific purpose that the step represented: the transition from foreign ground to home ground, the crossing from the territory that the Horde had fought through to the territory that the Horde had fought for.

The step was small. The step’s significance was not.

"Sovereign ground," Sakh’arran said, as the strategist’s boots crossed the frontier line’s invisible extension between the markers’ positions. "The ground that the treaty designates as ours. The ground that the campaign secured. The ground beneath our boots."

"Home ground," Khao’khen said.

The Horde marched on home ground. The march’s character changed at the crossing the way that a march’s character changed when the march’s context shifted from the context of foreign territory to the context of sovereign territory. The warriors’ posture adjusted. The adjustment was small. The adjustment was the adjustment that home ground produced in warriors whose posture’s composition included the specific tension that foreign territory created and that home ground’s familiarity relieved.

The Narrow Pass lay ahead. The passage through the mountains that separated the frontier from the orcish lands. The passage that the Horde had crossed northward at the campaign’s commencement with the urgency that the campaign’s purpose demanded. The passage that the Horde would cross southward at the campaign’s conclusion with the pace that the conclusion’s satisfaction permitted.

The wolf crossed the frontier. The wolf was on home ground. The home ground received the wolf’s boots and the wolf’s warriors and the wolf’s banner and the wolf’s purpose’s fulfillment. The reception was the reception that home provided to the returning: the ground beneath the boots, unchanged, familiar, the ground that the boots had walked before and that the boots would walk again.

Home. The word that the campaign had been fought for. The word that the treaty had secured. The word that the frontier line’s markers preserved in granite.

Home.