Thaddeus did not retreat further. He was a colonel who understood the distinction between the tactical withdrawal that preserved force for later use and the strategic withdrawal that conceded ground whose loss changed the campaign's fundamental geometry, and conceding the corridor approach entirely meant surrendering the one piece of ground that Snowe's entire plan had been built around.
He established his own position two hundred paces from the Horde's ridge line, his engineers working through the first night with the urgency that the situation demanded.
The earthworks rose with the methodical efficiency of professional soldiers who had been fortifying positions throughout the campaign and who brought to this construction the accumulated knowledge of what had worked and what had not.
