Rise of the Horde

Chapter 834 - 833

The council that changed Yohan’s future was held on a morning when the forge district’s smoke rose straight into a windless sky and the training grounds’ drills produced the cadence that the city’s daily rhythm had absorbed into the background sound that the city’s inhabitants no longer consciously registered.

Khao’khen convened the council not in the war chamber but in the administrative hall that Sakh’arran’s governance systems occupied. The location was the location that the council’s purpose required: not a war council. A building council. The first building council that the Horde’s post-campaign phase had convened for the purpose that the post-campaign phase’s specific requirements demanded.

The attendees were not exclusively chieftains. The attendees were the attendees that the council’s purpose required: Sakh’arran for administration, Zul’jinn for engineering, Rakh’ash’tha for medicine, Arka’garr for training, Yakuh for the 2nd Horde’s integration, and three individuals whose presence at a council was the presence that the council’s civilian purpose introduced for the first time in the Horde’s institutional history.

Droktagar, the construction foreman whose crews had built the city’s expansion during the campaign’s absence. Mekka, a female orc whose management of the food distribution system had sustained the city’s civilian population during the months that the 1st Horde’s absence had reduced the city’s military provisioning to the 2nd Horde’s requirements. And Tharuk, the wounded warrior turned stonemason whose hands had carved the remembrance wall’s three hundred and twenty names.

"Yohan is a military city," Khao’khen said. "Yohan was built as a military city because the military’s requirements were the requirements that the city’s survival demanded. The campaign is concluded. The treaty is signed. The frontier is established. The military’s requirements remain but the military’s requirements are no longer the only requirements that the city’s future demands."

The council listened. The listening was the listening that the statement’s implications produced in listeners whose understanding of the city’s purpose had been the understanding that the city’s military function had defined since the city’s founding.

"The city must become more than a garrison," Khao’khen said. "The city must become a haven. The haven that every orc on this continent can travel to and find the things that every orc needs and that no orc has ever had: safety, shelter, food that does not depend on the next raid’s success, healing that does not depend on the next shaman’s availability, learning that does not depend on the next elder’s memory. The haven that the orcish people have never possessed and that the orcish people’s future requires."

"A haven," Sakh’arran said. The strategist’s voice carried the weight that the word’s implications produced in the mind whose analytical capability was already processing the implications’ scope. "The haven’s requirements exceed the garrison’s requirements by the magnitude that the haven’s purpose exceeds the garrison’s purpose."

"The magnitude is the magnitude that the haven’s construction addresses one requirement at a time. The construction does not require the simultaneous fulfillment of every requirement. The construction requires the systematic identification of the requirements and the systematic allocation of the resources that the requirements’ fulfillment demands."

"The requirements," Sakh’arran said, and the word was the word that opened the list that the word’s content initiated.

"Water," Khao’khen said. "The city’s water system serves twelve thousand. The haven’s water system must serve fifty thousand. The irrigation channels that the farming district employs are functional. The irrigation channels are not sufficient. The channels must expand. The expansion requires the engineering that the expansion’s scale demands."

Zul’jinn’s head rose from the position that the master smith’s head occupied when the master smith’s attention was divided between the council’s proceedings and the engineering problem that the master smith’s mind was perpetually processing. The rise was the rise that the word engineering produced in the mind whose engagement the word commanded.

"Zul’jinn can build pipes," the master smith said. "Clay pipes. Fired clay. The firing’s temperature is the temperature that the forge district’s kilns achieve. The pipes’ diameter determines the flow. The flow determines the population that the flow sustains. Fifty thousand requires the main line that Zul’jinn has not built but that Zul’jinn can design."

"Design the main line," Khao’khen said. "The design’s completion is the design’s priority alongside the Roarer improvement’s continuation. The weapons’ development does not pause. The water system’s development begins."

The allocation was the allocation that the dual priority’s balance required: Zul’jinn’s engineering capacity divided between the military development that the military’s continued readiness demanded and the civilian development that the haven’s construction initiated.

"Food," Khao’khen continued. "Mekka. The food distribution system’s current capacity."

Mekka stood. The standing was the standing that the standing’s unfamiliarity at a council produced in the orc whose presence at a council was the presence that the council’s civilian purpose had introduced. Mekka’s hands were the hands that food distribution’s daily labor produced: calloused from the grain sacks’ handling, scarred from the cooking fires’ proximity, strong from the repetition that the distribution system’s operation demanded.

"The distribution feeds twelve thousand daily," Mekka said. "The feeding requires the grain that the eastern fields produce and the meat that the hunting parties provide and the vegetables that the garden plots yield. Twelve thousand is the capacity that the current supply sustains. Fifty thousand requires the supply that the current production does not provide."

"The production must increase," Khao’khen said. "The increase requires the farmland’s expansion. The expansion requires the labor that the expansion’s clearing and planting and irrigation demand. The labor exists. The labor is the labor that the arriving families provide when the arriving families’ integration includes the agricultural assignment that the integration’s civilian track offers."

"Civilian track," Arka’garr said. The 1st Warband master’s voice carried the specific tone that the words civilian track produced in the warrior whose entire existence had been dedicated to the military track that the civilian track’s introduction now paralleled. The tone was not hostile. The tone was the tone of assessment, the professional evaluation that the warband master applied to every new concept that the warband master’s experience needed to categorize.

"Civilian track," Khao’khen confirmed. "Every orc who arrives at Yohan’s gates currently enters the military integration process. The process produces warriors. The city needs warriors. The city also needs farmers and builders and healers and administrators and craftsmen. The civilian track provides the path that the non-warrior arrivals require and that the city’s non-military functions demand."

"Not every orc is a warrior," Yakuh said. The young Skallser chieftain’s observation was the observation that the chieftain’s experience with the 2nd Horde’s integration had produced. "The arrivals include the old and the young and the injured and the orcs whose strength is not the strength that the shield wall demands. These orcs have been assigned to the auxiliary functions. The auxiliary assignment is functional. The civilian track formalizes the assignment."

"The formalization is the formalization that the haven requires," Khao’khen said. "The haven is not a garrison that tolerates civilians. The haven is a city that integrates civilians as the city’s essential function alongside the military function that the city’s defense requires. The integration is equal. The civilian’s contribution to the city’s survival is equal to the warrior’s contribution. The equality is the equality that the haven’s purpose demands."

The council absorbed the statement. The absorption was the absorption that the statement’s revolutionary content produced in minds whose orcish cultural programming had positioned the warrior’s status above every other status since the orcish people’s collective memory began.

Equal. The warrior and the farmer. The soldier and the builder. The fighter and the healer. Equal contributions to the city’s survival. Equal value in the city’s assessment of the contributions’ worth.

The concept was the concept that Khao’khen had carried from the histories that the chieftain had studied and that the histories’ civilizations had demonstrated was the concept that the civilizations’ longevity required. The civilizations that valued only warriors produced warriors and nothing else and the nothing else’s absence destroyed the civilizations when the warriors’ fighting consumed the resources that the nothing else would have produced.

The haven required everything. The haven valued everything.

The council continued. The requirements accumulated. The systematic identification that Khao’khen’s method demanded produced the list that the method’s application generated: water, food, shelter, healing, learning, governance, trade, craftsmanship, defense. Nine categories. Nine pillars of the haven that the nine categories’ fulfillment would construct.

Nine pillars. The construction began.