At Ashwell, Khao’khen received the intelligence about Snowe’s defense and said nothing for a long moment.

The silence was the silence the chieftains recognized as the silence that preceded the decisions that no one expected. The silence that preceded the bridge of silence, the drum wall, the march on the capital.

"Snowe is defending his home," Khao’khen said.

"With eight hundred soldiers and two thousand militia against twenty thousand barbarians with dwarven weapons and shamans," Sakh’arran confirmed. "His earthworks are holding. The construction techniques are consistent with our own defensive engineering. He adapted our methods."

"He learned from fighting us."

"He learned from losing to us. The quality of the education was different."

Khao’khen stood at the command table and looked at the map. The barbarian advance. The Snowe dominion. The king’s army, reduced and retreating with dwindling ammunition. The Horde at Ashwell, fortified and watching.

"If the barbarians take the Snowe dominion and the king’s army collapses, the barbarians control the northeastern provinces," Sakh’arran said. "Twenty thousand warriors with unlimited dwarven supply between the capital and the highlands. The capital’s garrison of five thousand with finite ammunition cannot hold against them."

"And if the capital falls?"

"If the capital falls, the kingdom’s central authority ceases to exist. The provincial governors become independent actors. The agreement we negotiated becomes unenforceable because the entity that would enforce it no longer exists."

"And if the barbarians turn south after taking the capital?"

"Their line of advance passes within forty miles of our position. Twenty thousand dwarven-armed warriors with thundermakers and shamans, riding the momentum of a conquered kingdom, encountering the Horde at Ashwell."

The room was quiet.

"We have discussed this," Khao’khen said. "The Horde does not fight the pinkskins’ war. If the barbarians win, we negotiate with the barbarians. If the pinkskins win, we negotiate with the pinkskins."

"And if the barbarians do not negotiate?"

"Then we fight the barbarians. Seven thousand warriors against twenty thousand barbarians with dwarven weapons. The arithmetic is unfavorable."

"The arithmetic against the pinkskins was also unfavorable. Eight thousand against forty-seven thousand."

"The pinkskins did not have dwarven thundermakers aimed at our shield wall. The barbarians would. The spear wall that ground the pinkskin infantry into the earth would be ground by thundermaker fire before the infantry reached us. The Tohr’terra that absorbed arrow storms would not absorb thundermaker balls. The Golden Wolf’s shimmer nullifies magic below the Fourth Circle. It does not nullify dwarven iron traveling at thundermaker velocity."

Sakh’arran let the assessment settle. The assessment was the assessment of a commander who understood his army’s capabilities and their limits, the specific honesty that Khao’khen applied to every tactical reality regardless of whether the reality was favorable.

The strategic calculation that Khao’khen was performing was the calculation that separated the campaign’s tactical dimension from its political dimension, the calculation that had been the campaign’s defining characteristic since the first day the Horde crossed the frontier. The Horde’s interest was Yohan’s security. Yohan’s security required either a stable kingdom that honored agreements or the absence of a kingdom that might threaten Yohan. Both outcomes served the Horde. The Horde did not prefer one outcome over the other. The Horde preferred the outcome that cost the fewest warriors and provided the most durable security.

If the kingdom survived weakened and exhausted, the kingdom would negotiate from weakness and the Horde would negotiate from strength. If the kingdom fell and the barbarians replaced it, the barbarians would be the Horde’s new neighbor and the Horde would negotiate with the barbarians from the position that the barbarians’ exhaustion and the Horde’s intactness provided. If whoever won refused negotiation, the Horde’s seven thousand warriors, rested and fortified and fully supplied from Yohan’s independent production, would take by force what negotiation should have provided.

* * * * *

"The preferred outcome," Khao’khen said, "is that neither side wins decisively. The preferred outcome is exhaustion. The barbarians expend their momentum against the kingdom’s resistance. The kingdom expends its remaining resources against the barbarian advance. Both sides arrive at the point where continuing is more expensive than stopping. At that point, the Horde is the only intact military force in the region. Intact, rested, fortified, with full ammunition and full capability. At that point, whoever we negotiate with negotiates from weakness. We negotiate from strength."

"And if one side wins before exhaustion?"

"Then we deal with the winner. If the winner negotiates, we negotiate. If the winner refuses, we conquer. The Horde has demonstrated the capability. The capability does not diminish because the opponent changes."

"Thrak’gul," Dhug’mhar said. "Rock-brained situation. But Perfection trusts the chief’s assessment. Perfection always trusts the chief’s assessment. The chief has not been wrong yet, and Perfection tracks these things carefully because Perfection’s survival depends on the chief’s judgment and Perfection values Perfection’s survival very highly."

"Vor’kash drak," Arka’garr said. We fight as one. The 1st Warband master’s statement was not about the strategy’s logic. It was about the 1st Warband’s commitment to whatever the chief decided, because the commitment had been correct at every previous decision and the 1st Warband did not abandon patterns that produced survival.

"We watch," Khao’khen said. "We wait. We prepare for every outcome. And we do not reveal our intentions to either side until the moment our intervention produces maximum effect."

The wolf held its position at Ashwell. The wolf watched the northeast with the patience that wolves applied to situations where two prey animals were fighting each other and the wolf’s optimal strategy was to wait until the fighting exhausted both and then take what the exhaustion provided.

The wolf was patient. The wolf was ready. The wolf would act when the moment was right, and not before.

Dhug’mhar, who had been listening with the attention that the Rumbling Clan’s chieftain applied to discussions affecting Perfection’s operational future, spoke.

"Perfection has a question. If the barbarians come south with thundermakers, how does Perfection charge into thundermaker fire without Perfection’s mount becoming three tons of dead Rhakaddon? The charge that broke the pinkskin formations worked because the pinkskins did not have thundermakers aimed at the charge line. The barbarians would."

The question was, beneath the theatrical delivery, the question every tactical commander was asking.

"If we fight the barbarians," Khao’khen said, "we do not fight them the way we fought the pinkskins. Different enemies require different approaches. The approach for the barbarians has not been designed because the fight has not been decided. When it is decided, the approach will be something the barbarians have never seen."

"Perfection is satisfied," Dhug’mhar said. "Conditionally."

"Perfection’s satisfaction is always conditional," Graka observed.

"Perfection’s conditions are high because Perfection’s standards are high."

The wolf did not choose its enemies.

The wolf’s position at Ashwell was the position that the entire campaign had been building toward, the position that the campaign’s every phase had been designed to produce: the position of the strongest force in the region, intact and rested and fully supplied, waiting for the outcome that the other forces’ mutual destruction would produce. The wolf did not need to fight because fighting was not the wolf’s optimal strategy. The wolf’s optimal strategy was patience, and patience was the strategy that the wolf had been executing since the day the camp at Ashwell was established.