Chapter 27

2 Days Later, Hearthglen

"Finally…Hearthglen, I could use some rest" Jaina sighed. Indeed, her elegant robes were stained with mud and blood from the fighting. The rest could go the same for the force following Arthas as well.

Arthas had pushed the column incessantly, and they had covered many miles in a few days. "These are the times I wish I had a horse," Arthas thought bitterly, feet aching.

As the walled town came into sight, a great noise from the town's square began to echo in the air. Approaching, it became clear that the garrison was on full alert, companies of footmen marching back and forth between the gates of the town.

Archers stood resolutely upon the two walls which presided over the south and west entrances into town, as great blasts were heard inside. Arthas knew the noise; dwarven blunderbuss rifles, inaccurate, strange devices used by the mountain dwarves to fight off trolls and kobolds that might appear, even roaming bands of orcs or bandits.

The dwarves had always been an ingenious ally, inventing explosives with strange black powders and great barreled cannon that had been used in Lordaeron now for nearly fifty years upon the walls of the Capital City and other great fortresses. Unfortunately, not much else other than their rifles were really useable in battle, due to heavyweight and faulty design.

"It looks like they're preparing for battle" Arthas muttered as the column split off into the town. "I had informed them of my arrival, but they wouldn't put up this fanfare just for a Prince…something else is going on" Arthas thought.

Entering the town and passing several buildings and towers, Arthas and Jaina came upon the vast courtyard where the garrison was training. As if on queue with his earlier thoughts, a sergeant, reported to him.

The man bowed, and stood at attention, saluting the Prince.

"Milord! Thank the Light you arrived when you did! During the night, a vast army of undead warriors emerged and began attacking villages at random! They overran Mardenholde Keep by this morning, and now they're heading this way!"

"Damn it! Jaina, I'll stay here to protect the village. You go as quickly as possible and tell Lord Uther of what's happened" Arthas said, eyes already viewing the defensible locations, few as they were.

"But-"

"Go Jaina! Every second counts!" Arthas exclaimed.

Jaina met Arthas's gaze, looked straight into his reassuring eyes, and ran. As soon as she was out of town, she began reading off her scrolls of teleportation and disappeared in a blinding flash of light. Well, at least the elf Cyrus was here. His healing powers would be sorely needed in the battle to come.

The army that had come to follow Arthas had taken a different route, a quicker shortcut past Hearthglen straight toward Stratholme. Even if called, for now, they wouldn't be able to turn about. No doubt they had encountered the Scourge already.

Another thing that deeply disturbed Arthas was the fall of Mardenholde Keep…a great fortress which had housed many paladins in its day, and had not fallen even to the orcish Horde when they had flooded across these lands years ago…and yet, it had fallen in less than a night. Indeed, this was trouble.

Still going over the defenses, Arthas noticed a pile of crates below one of the scout towers along the south wall of the town. Feeling as if his air had been punched out, he walked toward the crates, which bore the seal of Andorhol.

"Wait-what was in those crates?" he asked the sergeant.

"Just a grain shipment from Andorhol. No need to worry, milord. Its already been distributed amongst the villagers" the man said cheerily, eager to please the Prince.

"Oh no…" Arthas whispered. Looking back, he saw dozens of peasants and guards collapse, seizures, and convulsions overcoming them. From outside the town, a lone horseman rode through the gates.

"The undead are upon us!" he shouted out as if doom's day had come. Window panes shuddered and the ground itself shook. The trees swayed in the weak wind, and the same eerie sounds of moaning began to rise from the town. All of a sudden it became clear. An attack from within, and beyond!

"The Plague wasn't merely simply meant to kill my people. It was meant to turn them…into the undead! Defend yourselves!" Arthas shouted out. The Siege of Hearthglen had begun.

The Plague of Undeath

By this point, late summer of the year 613, the Plague has spread across many of the most northern towns of Lordaeron. The epidemic as driven droves of citizens south, who now seek protection in overcrowded cities, making them all the more vulnerable to contraction. As revealed by Prince Arthas, the Plague was secretly embedded in the grain by the Cult of the Damned, and distributed across central and eastern Lordaeron.

The undead armies, now rising from the corpses of those who contracted the Plague, are under the control of the necromancers of the Cult, who in turn follow the Dreadlord Mal'Ganis, a demon of indubitable power who has arrived upon this earth to wreak havoc upon the kingdoms of men, in order to clear the path for a much more sinister and deadly invasion…

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