Rise of the Horde

Chapter 830 - 829

The remembrance wall received the names on the third day after the return.

The wall was the wall that the city’s northern gate’s interior surface provided, the stone surface where the names of the warriors who had fallen in the city’s defense during the Season of Damnation had been inscribed and where the names of the warriors who had fallen in the northern campaign would now join them. The wall’s stone surface was the surface that the names’ permanence required: granite, smooth, the surface that the inscription’s tools could carve and that the inscription’s depth could preserve against the weathering that time’s passage would apply.

Three hundred and twenty names. Each name carved by the stonemason whose skill the carving required and whose pace the carving’s care demanded. Each name occupying the space that the name’s letters required on the wall’s surface. Each name followed by the inscription that the name’s bearer’s service warranted: the warband, the engagement, the date.

The carving took three days. The days were the days that the carving’s precision demanded from the stonemason whose hands performed the carving with the care that the names’ significance required. The stonemason was an orc named Tharuk, a warrior whose injuries during the Season’s defense had converted the warrior from a combat-capable warrior to a warrior whose combat capability’s loss had been replaced by the craftsmanship that the warrior’s hands had developed during the recovery that the injuries’ healing produced.

Tharuk carved each name with the attention that each name deserved. The attention was the same attention for the first name and the three hundred and twentieth name. The attention did not diminish. The attention was the attention that the carving’s purpose sustained throughout the carving’s duration because the purpose was the purpose that the names’ bearers’ sacrifice deserved.

The ceremony was held at sunset on the third day. The ceremony was attended by the warriors who had returned and the families whose warriors had not returned and the civilians whose city’s security the warriors’ sacrifice had contributed to and the children whose future the warriors’ campaign had secured.

The Amazzfer raised the totem. The Golden Wolf’s shimmer settled over the assembly with the warmth that the shimmer provided when the shimmer’s purpose was the remembrance’s protection of the memory that the shimmer enveloped. The shimmer touched the wall. The shimmer touched the names. The shimmer touched the gathering whose presence the names’ inscription had convened.

Khao’khen spoke the names.

Three hundred and twenty names spoken by the chieftain whose command had directed the warriors whose names the chieftain spoke. Each name spoken individually. Each name followed by the silence that the name’s speaking required. Each name’s silence occupied by the memory that the name’s speaking evoked in the listeners whose memories included the warrior whose name the silence honored.

The speaking took forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes during which the sunset’s light transitioned from the golden light that the sunset’s early phase produced to the amber light that the sunset’s middle phase produced to the deep red light that the sunset’s final phase produced before the light faded and the torches’ light replaced the sunset’s light.

The last name was spoken in torchlight. The last silence was observed in torchlight. The last silence ended and the formation’s voice spoke the words that the silence’s conclusion required.

"Vol duum mok."

No surrender. The dead watch.

The dead watched from the wall. The dead’s names, carved in granite, watched from the wall’s surface with the permanence that the granite’s composition provided. The dead would watch from the wall for the years that the granite’s durability sustained and that the city’s continuation maintained. The dead would watch the children grow and the city expand and the civilization develop and the future unfold that the dead’s sacrifice had contributed to securing.

The families received the condolences that the condolences’ delivery required. The delivery was personal. Khao’khen delivered the condolences to each family individually during the days that followed the ceremony. The delivery was not delegated. The delivery was the delivery that the chieftain performed because the chieftain’s responsibility for the warriors’ deployment included the responsibility for the deployment’s consequences’ acknowledgment to the families whose warriors the consequences had claimed.

The deliveries took seven days. Seven days during which the chieftain visited the families whose warriors had fallen and during which the chieftain spoke the words that the words’ content required: the warrior’s service, the warrior’s courage, the warrior’s contribution to the campaign’s purpose. The words were not formulaic. The words were specific to each warrior because each warrior’s service had been specific and the specificity deserved the recognition that the specificity warranted.

During the seven days, the city resumed the rhythm that the city’s function produced when the city’s army had returned and the army’s return’s disruption had settled into the normalcy that the return’s integration produced. The forges operated. The fields produced. The training grounds resumed the drills that Arka’garr’s return restored to the drills’ pre-campaign intensity. The administrative systems processed the campaign’s documentation and the campaign’s veterans’ reintegration and the campaign’s aftermath’s requirements.

Vor’gath arrived at Yohan on the ninth day.

The eldest shaman’s arrival was the arrival that the treatment’s completion and the recovery’s sufficient progress combined to permit. Rakh’ash’tha had accompanied the shaman from the capital to the frontier and from the frontier through the Narrow Pass to the orcish lands where the Verakh escort had received the shaman’s party and guided the party to Yohan’s northern gate.

The eldest shaman entered the city on foot. The walking was the walking that the recovery’s progress permitted: slow, deliberate, the near-Seventh Circle’s returning power sustaining the body that the toxin’s assault had weakened and that the antidote’s treatment had stabilized and that the recovery’s biological processes were restoring at the pace that sixty years of shamanic practice’s accumulated physical resilience determined.

Khao’khen received the eldest shaman at the city’s center.

"The mountains’ elder arrives at the wolf’s den," Vor’gath said. "The den is not what the mountains expected."

"The den is what the wolf built," Khao’khen said.

Vor’gath looked at the city. The looking was the looking that a near-Seventh Circle shaman performed when the looking’s purpose included the perception that the shamanic tradition provided alongside the visual observation that the eyes’ function permitted. The shaman saw the city’s physical structure: the walls, the buildings, the streets, the forges, the training grounds. The shaman also perceived what the shamanic tradition’s perception detected beneath the physical structure: the spiritual density that a community’s collective purpose produced in the space that the community occupied.

"The den is alive," Vor’gath said. "The den’s life is not the life that walls and forges produce. The den’s life is the life that purpose produces in the people who share the purpose. The wolf has built something that the mountains have not seen in the lowlands."

"The wolf built what the wolf’s people needed," Khao’khen said.

"The wolf built what every people need and what few leaders provide: the place where the purpose and the people and the ground combine into the thing that lasts."

The eldest shaman would remain in Yohan for three weeks. The three weeks were the weeks that the recovery’s completion required and that the shaman’s observation of the city’s civilization would occupy. The observation would produce the understanding that the observation’s depth generated in the shaman whose wisdom was the wisdom that the highland clans’ future decisions would be informed by.

The understanding would travel to the highlands with the shaman. The understanding would inform the highlands’ assessment of the orcish people and the orcish city and the orcish chieftain whose character the understanding encompassed. The assessment would contribute to the mutual non-aggression’s stability and the arrangement’s longevity that the stability’s maintenance sustained.

The wolf’s method. Building the future one relationship at a time. One treaty at a time. One elder’s understanding at a time.

Forward. Always forward. The forward that built.