Heroes of Newerth

Story

Jeraziah watched the burning piles of corpses. His soldiers. Men and women, men and beasts. They were killed defending each other, their faith, and their home. Their king. Martyrs boomed their prayers beside fires that crackled and sizzled as bodies were burned. A shamanic monkey with bloodied fur chanted words of mourning for the fallen, and though Jeraziah did not understand the language, he knew exactly what the words meant. The priests did this work for the souls of the dead, helping them into the afterlife that awaited them. Not long ago, Jeraziah would have participated in the ceremony. Now he simply watched as the bodies were burned to ensure that they would not have to be killed again. He recognized faces in the flames. They were friends he had eaten with at dawn the night before the attack. They grimaced as the fire touched them. Jeraziah knew it was the heat straining dead flesh and muscle, but he still fought the urge to reach into the pyre and pull them out. Perhaps there was still a spark of life in them, a faint light he could hold in his hands to make it glow again and return it to a desperate family. The faces reddened, blistered, and turned black. The king did not look away. Only when the flesh was gone and the empty skulls stared back at him did he turn to the other fires burning beside the dead legion warriors. The demon bodies emitted a foul, acrid smoke and burned stubbornly. Most of the creatures were born in the fire and needed the pyromancer's attention to succumb to the flames. "Whatever it takes," Jeraziah had told them. "There is nothing left but ashes. Then dump it with blessed water and bury it all." The Hellbourne piles were smaller than the Legion's. That gave no indication of the true blood toll, for the demons had a habit of eating their dead even in the chaos of battle, but Jeraziah knew he had lost too many. He also knew that it could have been much worse. The raid had been successful. It was one of several initiatives by the Paragons whose presence had immediately changed the course of the war. They had also changed alliances within the Legion - the Holy Order found their presence blasphemous, and some members of the King's War Council found their cold, detached deliberations and estimates of losses offensive - but Jeraziah could not dwell on that now. The paragons were at work. That was all that mattered. The URSA corps had been silenced by the overwhelming power of the Argentine sorcerers. Temporarily, perhaps, but the king was enjoying every moment while the self-righteous URSA licked their wounds and tried to cobble together something to counter the ancient, elemental magic of the Paragons. And as much as Jeraziah welcomed this sorcery, the knowledge of Newerth they carried with them was perhaps even more valuable. The Paragons knew the land as it had once been, the secrets it held, and they grasped every new disturbance in Newerth, from the smallest leaf settling at the bottom of the Rulian swamps to a monument toppling in a valley of the Sang-La Mountains. The crystals in their bodies communicated with the massive cliffs of the Iron Mountains that glittered with silica, with the grains of sand and dust that blew across the Great Desert, with the tiny fragments absorbed through roots into the flora of Caldavar, Death's Cradle, Fúathmoor, and even the enigmatic Luminary. To the Paragons, the corruption of Newerth was like a bloodstain drenching a white shroud. They knew at all times where it was and where it could be thwarted. And to Jeraziah, this information was better than any scouting reconnaissance or bestial divination. The Emerald and Bloodstone Paragons had shown Jeraziah the ancient, hidden path through the Ardu foothills to the west of the Burnt Fields. The foothills, considered impassable, served as a natural barrier to the keep of hell and the endless corruption that flowed from the scar. While this kept the demons from pouring into Newerth en masse, it also made it impossible for Jeraziah to conduct a proper siege without veering north into the Iron Mountains or south into the Great Desert. Both would result in countless casualties through attrition before the actual battle had even begun. After this small raid, a push into Hellbourne territory, Jeraziah allowed himself to hope that there was another way. He left the smoldering fires and found the two Paragons watching the sun rise over the eastern mountains. They were slightly wounded, but not bleeding and not in need of the food or wine that people craved after being near death. "You wouldn't tell me before," the king said. "And what about now? Why didn't we know about this way through the Ardu? My patrols have searched every crevice of these rocks." "Over it, yes," said the lapis lazuli wizard. "Not through it? Or in?" The emerald sorceress nodded once. "The way is not open to those who have not walked it." Jeraziah grou