HoN Story: A Time of Heroes (part 4/7)

Heroes of Newerth Story: A Time of Heroes (part 4/7)

Few of the haggard human warriors had slept that night. Faces chiseled by hunger, bodies matted with the dust of endless marches, eyes drained of emotion by the extremes their hearts had known, they seemed like gargoyles strewn upon the field by an architect of nightmarish imagination and no coherent vision. Here they crouched about the dying embers of a fire. There they sharpened notched blades on whetstones worn down by the long years of use. Across the way, stewing in the gangrenous air of the hospital-tent, they lay waiting for a weary chaplain's last rites. Some, having waited years for death's last mercy, could not stay their impatience and departed early. Such were Man's finest warriors.

On the low rises in the otherwise flat meadow, scouts locked their keen eyes on the trees, waiting for any movement beyond the ripple of leaves in the wind. The dull thud of workmen's hammers marked the passage of time and the slow construction of rough battlements and arrow towers.

Jeraziah paced, said prayers he did not believe. He turned his eyes to the dawn sky and found it scabbed over with clouds. He closed the book of Sol and checked his blade against his fingertip, drawing blood. It rose in a perfect bead, like a seedling, and then raced down from his fingertip, plotting a streamway to his palm. He watched with muted curiosity, then wiped the still-bleeding finger on his breeches. Of pain, he felt nothing.

The stench of brimstone was heavy in the camp, even though the Hellbourne stood at the fringes. They knew no need for sleep or comfort. What hunger they had was not a mortal's need for food but a daemon's need for destruction; insatiable, yet it had found forage aplenty as they marched with the army like scavenging vultures and wolves. Jeraziah had no need to speak to them. He felt them in his mind, bade them array themselves for battle with his will alone, and watched as they ringed out around the camp. He readied the archers, order the legionnaires to form a wall before them. Called the chaplains from their duties with the dying so that they might aid in killing instead. His savage barbarian warriors moved into place without instruction.

It was morning, though there was no sun. And in his heart, he knew what was coming.

HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 1
HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 2
HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 3
HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 4
HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 5
HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 6
HoN Story: A Time of Heroes Part 7