Rise of the Horde

Chapter 819 - 818

The Verakh rider returned from Ashwell in forty-one hours.

The rider’s warg collapsed at the capital’s southern gate with the specific exhaustion that a relay system’s final mount produced when the final mount’s reserves had been expended across the last thirty-league segment without the rest interval that the segment’s standard operating protocol prescribed. The warg’s flanks heaved. The rider dismounted with the compound case in his hands and the expression that forty-one hours of continuous riding produced in a warrior whose assignment’s urgency had converted the riding from the transport that riding normally represented into the sustained physical ordeal that the urgency’s timeline demanded.

Rakh’ash’tha received the case at the palace’s eastern wing.

The healer opened the case with the hands that the case’s contents required: steady, deliberate, the scarred fingers that had forged alongside Zul’jinn and mixed the compounds that the Horde’s pharmacopeia contained now performing the specific function that the compounds’ application demanded. Two vials. The first vial contained the hepatic restoration compound, the amber liquid that the compound’s botanical base and mineral catalysts combined to produce. The second vial contained the neural stabilizer, the clear solution whose clarity was the clarity that the solution’s purity required for the application that the solution’s function performed.

"The window," Rakh’ash’tha said to Thessa, who had not left Vor’gath’s bedside since the examination.

"Narrower. The breathing’s rhythm has degraded since yesterday. The Seventh Circle’s autonomous function sustains the vital systems but the sustaining’s margin has decreased. The margin that existed two days ago was the margin that permitted observation. The margin that exists now is the margin that requires intervention."

Rakh’ash’tha administered the hepatic compound first. The vial’s contents entered the shaman’s system through the method that the compound’s delivery required: sublingual, the liquid placed beneath the tongue where the tissue’s vascularity provided the absorption rate that the compound’s efficacy demanded. The compound’s action was not immediate. The compound’s action was the action that the compound’s chemical interaction with the toxin’s hepatic binding produced over the timeframe that the interaction’s biochemistry determined: four hours for the compound’s molecular structure to locate and displace the toxin’s binding sites on the liver’s receptor surfaces, the displacement converting the receptors from the toxin’s occupied state to the compound’s restored state.

Four hours. Rakh’ash’tha sat beside the eldest shaman’s bedding and waited with the patience that the waiting’s subject required.

Thessa watched the orcish healer wait. The highland healer’s observation of the waiting was the observation that professional recognition produced in a practitioner observing another practitioner’s method. The waiting was not passive. The waiting was the active monitoring that the compound’s administration demanded: Rakh’ash’tha’s fingers on Vor’gath’s wrist, measuring the pulse’s rate and the pulse’s strength and the pulse’s rhythm at the intervals that the monitoring’s protocol prescribed. Every fifteen minutes, the healer’s scarred hands performed the assessment that the compound’s progress required.

At the third hour, Vor’gath’s breathing changed.

The change was small. The change was the change that a shallow breath’s depth produced when the depth increased by the fraction that the hepatic compound’s initial effect created in the diaphragm’s impaired function. The diaphragm’s impairment was the impairment that the toxin’s neural component had produced. The hepatic compound did not address the neural component. The hepatic compound addressed the liver’s degradation. But the liver’s restoration reduced the toxin’s systemic load, and the systemic load’s reduction permitted the body’s own neural function to recover the fraction that the reduced load allowed.

The fraction was measurable. The fraction was the fraction that converted the breathing’s rhythm from the rhythm that required intervention to the rhythm that permitted the neural compound’s administration.

"Now," Rakh’ash’tha said.

The neural stabilizer entered through the same sublingual method. The clear solution’s interaction with the toxin’s neural binding was the interaction that the solution’s specific chemistry produced: the displacement of the inhibitor’s molecules from the autonomic nervous system’s regulatory receptors, the displacement restoring the receptors’ function at the rate that the displacement’s completeness determined.

The neural compound’s action was slower than the hepatic compound’s. The neural compound’s action required the timeframe that the nervous system’s recovery demanded: twelve hours for the initial displacement, forty-eight hours for the regulatory function’s restoration to the level that autonomous breathing and cardiac rhythm and the other systems that the autonomic nervous system governed could sustain without the Seventh Circle’s emergency intervention.

Rakh’ash’tha explained this to Kael, who had arrived at the chamber’s doorway during the neural compound’s administration with the expression that the arrival’s timing communicated: the barbarian chieftain had been checking the eldest shaman’s condition at the intervals that the chieftain’s concern and the withdrawal’s administrative demands combined to permit.

"Forty-eight hours," Kael said. "The withdrawal’s completion is in thirty-one hours. The eldest shaman cannot travel in forty-eight hours."

"The eldest shaman travels when the eldest shaman’s condition permits," Rakh’ash’tha said. "The condition’s permission is the permission that the neural restoration’s completion provides. The completion requires the time that the completion requires. The time does not negotiate."

Kael looked at Khao’khen, who stood behind the barbarian chieftain in the corridor with the presence that the chieftain’s monitoring of the treatment produced.

"Vor’gath remains in the capital until the treatment is complete," Khao’khen said. "The Horde’s healers will continue the treatment. The eldest shaman will be escorted to the highlands when the treatment permits travel."

"The eldest shaman remains with the orcs."

"The eldest shaman remains with the healers. The healers are orcs. The distinction is the distinction that the eldest shaman’s survival requires the chieftain to accept."

Kael’s three-fingered hand performed the opening-and-closing that the hand performed when the mind behind the hand processed the variable that the hand’s owner needed to assess. The variable was trust. The variable was the specific trust that leaving the highland clans’ most important surviving elder in the care of the force that had defeated the highland clans demanded from the chieftain whose responsibility included the elder’s wellbeing.

The trust was the trust that the Horde’s conduct during the withdrawal had been building since the withdrawal’s commencement. The wounded treated. The dead permitted to be carried. The missing chieftain returned. The poison identified and the antidote administered. Each action a deposit in the account that trust required and that the Horde’s systematic generosity had been filling with the deposits that the generosity’s consistency produced.

"The mountains trust the healer," Kael said.

The words were not the words that the highland tradition’s formality required. The words were the words that the highland tradition’s sincerity produced when the sincerity exceeded the formality and the excess demanded the expression that the sincerity’s weight required.

Rakh’ash’tha acknowledged the trust with the nod that the acknowledgment required and returned to the monitoring that the neural compound’s administration demanded. The healer’s scarred hands on the shaman’s wrist. The pulse’s measurement at the fifteen-minute intervals. The patience that the healing’s timeframe required from the healer whose patience was the patience that the healing’s outcome depended on.

The withdrawal continued outside the palace’s walls. The barbarian main body, four thousand warriors in the column that the northern gate’s width and the mountain road’s gradient combined to produce, moved through the capital’s northern district with the pace that the wounded’s transport and the dead’s collection and the personal weapons’ carrying combined to sustain.

The Horde’s warriors maintained their positions along the withdrawal route. The positions’ maintenance was the maintenance that the withdrawal’s security required and that the Horde’s discipline provided without the specific orders that the maintenance’s continuation demanded. The warriors knew their positions. The warriors held their positions. The positions were held because the holding was the thing that the positions’ purpose required and because the warriors who held the positions were the warriors whose discipline was the discipline that held positions without being told to continue holding them.

The wolf watched the mountains leave.

The watching was the watching that the watching’s purpose required: the observation that confirmed the withdrawal’s orderly progression and the observation that assessed the withdrawal’s completion’s approaching timeline and the observation that calculated the next phase’s requirements as the current phase’s execution continued.

The next phase was the capital’s administration. The next phase was the joint authority that the Baron of Frost’s negotiation had established. The next phase was the fourteen days during which the Horde and the kingdom’s surviving administrative personnel would manage the capital’s essential functions while the Horde prepared its own departure.

The next phase was the phase that led home.

Thirty-one hours. The withdrawal’s remaining timeline. And then the capital would be the Horde’s alone, briefly, before the capital became the kingdom’s again, permanently, the temporary possession returned by the wolf whose possession had never been the objective and whose return of the possession was the final demonstration of the purpose that the wolf’s entire campaign had served.

The ground the people needed. Not the ground the pride desired. The distinction that the wolf made. The distinction that led home.