Rise of the Horde

Chapter 833 - 832

Yohan grew.

The growth was not the growth that conquest produced. The growth was the growth that the campaign’s conclusion and the treaty’s sovereignty and the frontier line’s establishment combined to create in a city whose founder’s vision exceeded the city’s current dimensions and whose founder’s patience permitted the vision’s realization at the pace that the realization’s requirements determined.

The growth was physical. New buildings rose from the foundations that the construction crews laid during the weeks that followed the Horde’s return. The buildings were residential structures for the families whose arrival the campaign’s conclusion and the treaty’s sovereignty attracted: orcish families from the scattered settlements across the southern territories whose settlements’ isolation the treaty’s sovereignty’s protections now rendered unnecessary. The families came to Yohan because Yohan was the city that the orcish people had built and that the orcish people’s treaty with the Threian kingdom protected and that the orcish people’s military capability guaranteed.

The growth was institutional. Sakh’arran’s administrative systems expanded to accommodate the population’s increase. The systems that had managed a city of thousands expanded to manage a city whose population the arrival’s rate was increasing at the pace that the arrivals’ frequency determined. Tax collection. Resource allocation. Dispute resolution. The administrative functions that a civilization required when the civilization’s size exceeded the size that informal governance sustained.

The growth was military. Arka’garr’s training grounds absorbed the new warriors whose arrival the city’s reputation attracted. The warriors came from the tribes and clans whose warriors had heard the stories of the campaign and whose warriors’ desire to join the Horde the stories’ content generated. The 2nd Horde’s strength, which Yakuh’s holding had maintained at four thousand during the campaign’s duration, began the expansion toward the seven thousand that the 2nd Horde’s design specifications prescribed.

Zul’jinn’s forges expanded.

The expansion was the expansion that the master smith’s engineering vision and the forge district’s available space and the iron supply’s increased flow combined to produce. The Roarer’s design continued its iterative improvement. The barrel production’s rate increased from thirty-four per week to forty-one per week as the sulfur-removal process’s refinement reduced the process’s per-barrel time and the additional forge capacity the expansion provided increased the process’s throughput.

The anti-air crossbow platforms’ design evolved. Zul’jinn’s engineering mind, freed from the campaign’s immediate requirements’ urgency, applied the engineering’s focus to the platforms’ long-term improvement: increased range, faster reload mechanism, improved bolt stabilization. The improvements were incremental. The increments accumulated.

"Zul’jinn does not rest," Rakh’ash’tha observed, during the weekly assessment that the healer performed on the forge district’s workers’ health. "The absence of the campaign’s urgency has not produced the absence of the engineering’s urgency. The engineering’s urgency is the urgency that the engineering’s nature produces in the engineer whose nature is the nature that engineering occupies."

"Zul’jinn rests when the weapons are perfect," Zul’jinn said, from the workbench where the master smith’s scarred hands assembled the prototype that the hands’ current project required. "The weapons are not perfect. The weapons are better than yesterday’s weapons. Tomorrow’s weapons will be better than today’s weapons. The improvement continues until the improvement reaches the limit that the improvement’s physics determines. The physics’ limit has not been reached."

The city grew. The army grew. The weapons improved. The systems expanded. The civilization that the campaign had been fought to protect developed at the pace that the development’s internal momentum sustained and that the external security the treaty provided permitted.

Khao’khen walked the streets.

The walking was the walking that the chieftain performed in the evenings when the day’s administrative and military responsibilities had been addressed and the evening’s remaining hours provided the time that the walking’s purpose required. The purpose was the purpose that the walking had served since the city’s earliest days: the observation of the city’s condition, the assessment of the city’s development, the experience of the city’s life that the walking’s street-level perspective provided.

The streets were fuller than the streets had been when the Horde had departed for the campaign. The fullness was the fullness that the population’s increase produced: more families, more children, more of the ordinary noise that ordinary lives produced in the streets where ordinary lives were lived. The fullness was the fullness that the campaign’s purpose had been fought to protect and that the campaign’s success permitted to expand.

A child ran across the street ahead of the chieftain’s walk. The child was chasing a second child. The chase was the chase that children’s play produced: purposeless, joyful, the specific activity that childhood’s energy generated in the absence of the fear that childhood’s energy’s suppression required. The children were not afraid. The children were playing. The playing was the playing that safety permitted.

Khao’khen watched the children run. The watching was the watching that the watching’s cause produced in the chieftain whose campaign had been fought for the ground that the children ran on and whose campaign’s cost had been paid by the warriors whose names the remembrance wall preserved and whose sacrifice the children’s playing justified.

The children ran. The city grew. The wolf watched.

The future assembled itself from the materials that the present provided. The materials were the treaty and the sovereignty and the frontier line and the city and the army and the weapons and the administration and the children and the playing and the safety that the playing’s existence confirmed.

The materials were sufficient. The assembly was ongoing. The future was the future that the assembly’s continuation would produce when the continuation’s duration had accumulated the progress that the duration’s length provided.

Forward. Always forward. The forward that built. The forward that the wolf’s entire existence had been directed toward since the first orc had followed the first chieftain and the first chieftain had looked at the ground and said: this ground is ours.

This ground is ours. The words that the campaign had secured. The words that the treaty had formalized. The words that the frontier markers had inscribed in granite. The words that the children’s playing confirmed with each step that the children’s feet took on the ground that the words described.

This ground is ours.

The Snarling Wolf rested. Not the rest of cessation. The rest of completion’s pause before the next building began. The wolf’s snarl remained. The wolf’s direction remained. The direction was forward. The forward was building. The building was the legacy.

The legacy that lasted.

Forward.

Always forward.