by Blizzard
Gul’dan awakened from his coma to find that the world had changed. Before, he had commanded immense power over the Horde. Now, he had none. His Shadow Council was destroyed, and Doomhammer was the new warchief. Gul’dan knew that if he did not win Orgrim’s trust, he would meet the same grisly fate as his warlocks.
Gul’dan pleaded for his life, and he pledged his loyalty to the Horde. The warlock promised Doomhammer that he would no longer seek to manipulate the orcs. He disavowed his connection with the benefactors who had taught the orcs fel magic, claiming that they had betrayed and abandoned him.
The warlock knew that his word was worth little more than dirt to Orgrim. He needed something more to win the warchief’s trust. Gul’dan saw that the Horde was desperate for power. Without it, the orcs would fail in the coming war against the humans. He told Doomhammer that he could create new warriors, ones who could stand toe-to-toe with humanity’s spellcasters. Clerics and magi had proved to be troublesome opponents in the First War. From what human prisoners had told the orcs, nations like Lordaeron incorporated far more of these spellcasters into their armies than Stormwind had.
Doomhammer didn’t trust Gul’dan, but the warlock was right. The Horde had no answer to human magic, especially after the warchief had outlawed the use of fel energy. The draenei had wielded similar abilities to those of the humans, but the armies of Lordaeron and the other northern nations were far greater in number.
Orgrim gave Gul’dan a chance to prove his worth. If he could produce something useful, he would live. If he could not, the warchief himself would be the one to end his miserable existence. Orgrim knew that leaving Gul’dan alive was a risk, but he believed that he could control the warlock rather than become his accomplice and puppet as Blackhand had.
Having forestalled his execution, Gul’dan entertained the thought of murdering Doomhammer. He abandoned his scheme when a familiar voice whispered to him—the voice of Kil’jaeden.
After years of silence, Sargeras had commanded Kil’jaeden to reconnect with his servant. The demon lord told Gul’dan to leave Doomhammer in charge of the Horde. He had sacked Stormwind, accomplishing what even Blackhand had failed to do. He was a leader the Legion needed—a leader who could conquer Azeroth’s defenders. Kil’jaeden ordered Gul’dan to do whatever he could to help strengthen the Horde and ensure that it completed its goal. Once again, the demon lord promised the warlock power if he followed the Legion’s will.
Kil’jaeden had every intention of making good on his promise, but Gul’dan did not trust him. He had grown tired of serving as the Legion’s pawn. Though Gul’dan feigned obedience to the demon lord, he plotted betrayal. He now knew the Tomb of Sargeras’s location. He could seize the power within the tomb for himself. What need did he have of Kil’jaeden or the Legion?
To reach the tomb, Gul’dan would require loyal allies. He would need an army to protect him from the Horde’s inevitable wrath when it learned of his intentions. Gul’dan convinced Doomhammer to grant him permission to form his own clan, the Stormreavers. The warlock claimed that he would keep his activities visible to the entire Horde, unlike when he had ruled over the Shadow Council and shrouded himself in secrecy. He and his clan members would be forced to fight on the front lines alongside the rest of the army. In truth, Gul’dan planned to use the new clan as a means to expand his influence and power.
Doomhammer suspected as much, but he was confident he could stay one step ahead of Gul’dan. If the warlock wanted a clan of his own, so be it. Orgrim would plant spies among the clan to keep watch on Gul’dan and his activities.
There was another reason for Orgrim’s decision. Opinion among the orcs had turned against Gul’dan and his use of fel magic, and no clan would accept him or his followers into its ranks. If the warlock was to make an impact in the war, he would need a clan of his own.
Gul’dan contemplated many ways to deliver on his promise of making new warriors. It was paramount that they secretly pledge their loyalty to him, and so the warlock turned to his Shadow Council. Though its members were dead, their spirits remained intact. If Gul’dan could bring them back from the grip of death, he believed they would be forever grateful to him.
Gul’dan and Cho’gall gathered the Shadow Council’s disembodied spirits and searched for a way to place them into physical shells. The warlock considered using the bodies of orcs—or even ogres—who had fallen in the First War. Yet he knew that the Horde would never stand for such desecration of its honored dead. It would cause an uproar among the clans and lead to swift retribution against Gul’dan.
No, orcs and ogres were out of the question, but humans were not. Gul’dan would meld the Shadow Council’s spirits with the corpses of Stormwind’s greatest knights.
Because fel magic had been outlawed, Gul’dan would transform these soldiers into powerful necromancers. He and Cho’gall conducted bloody ritual after bloody ritual to complete their work. After a series of bitter failures, they finally succeeded.
Gul’dan fused the spirit of his old ally Teron’gor to the corpse of a fallen Stormwind knight. Necromantic energies surged through the rotting body and raised it into undeath. This shambling skeletal horror became known as Teron Gorefiend.
He was the first of what Gul’dan would call the death knights.
FATE OF THE NECROLYTES
The orc necrolytes had been an interesting experiment, but they did not prove as effective in combat as Gul’dan had hoped. In the end, he did find a good use for them. Gul’dan and Cho ’gall sacrificed the necrolytes, using their necromantic energies to reanimate the death knights.
These soldiers of darkness were the ultimate successors to warlocks. They had no need of food or rest. The death knights could summon necromantic energies to rip the life from their enemies and even raise the dead as reinforcements on the battlefield.
Having perfected his techniques, Gul’dan forged more death knights. The sight of them sickened Orgrim. They were unnatural abominations, and they had been created from the fallen members of the Shadow Council, the very organization that Orgrim saw as responsible for killing the orcs’ homeworld. Yet despite all of the warchief’s misgivings, he could not deny the death knights’ potential. They used a different breed of magic than fel sorcery, one that was immensely powerful but would not drain the land of life.
After weighing his options, Doomhammer accepted these unholy warriors into the Horde. The longer he waited, the more he risked losing the element of surprise in attacking the human nations. The death knights were the weapon he needed to crush Lordaeron, a means to strike fear into his enemies and counter humanity’s magic. Orgrim ordered members of the Blackrock clan to keep a close watch on the death knights. Secretly, the warchief planned to destroy Gul’dan and his undead soldiers once the Horde had secured victory.
Orgrim was right to mistrust the death knights. Though they openly swore their allegiance to the Horde, they cared little for the warchief or his armies. The death knights were also not the subservient followers that Gul’dan had hoped they would be. They were loyal only to themselves, and they acted solely to preserve their own existence.
After the creation of the death knights, all that remained was to replenish the Horde’s dwindling supplies and armaments. For that, Orgrim turned his gaze to Khaz Modan, homeland of the Bronzebeard dwarves.
The Bronzebeard dwarves were a proud and resilient people. For over two thousand years, they had dwelled in Ironforge, a grand city carved into the heart of a mountain. The surrounding region, Khaz Modan, was filled with dwarven blacksmithing forges, and the mountains were rich with oil and metal ores. Before moving against Lordaeron, the orcs would conquer the dwarves’ homeland and use its resources to bolster their arsenals.
Amid a fierce blizzard, the Horde marched into Khaz Modan. The dwarves were ready. Demolition teams collapsed the mountain tunnels leading into the region, slowing the orcs’ approach. Meanwhile, the dwarves called upon their old allies, the gnomes, for aid. The two races pool
ed their resources and set up defensive positions across Khaz Modan.
Despite these preparations, the dwarves and the gnomes were no match for the orcish army. The Horde swept into Khaz Modan with the fury of a winter storm. Hundreds of dwarves and gnomes fell before the orcs’ hungry blades. One by one, the Horde conquered the small settlements, outposts, and armories that dotted the icy landscape.
Khaz Modan’s defenders withered before the Horde’s onslaught. The gnomes retreated to their capital, Gnomeregan, while the dwarves fled back to their fortress city, Ironforge.
Seeing the dwarves as the greater of the two threats, Doomhammer committed his forces to toppling Ironforge. Yet it would not fall as the rest of Khaz Modan had. Nearly all of the city’s residents took up arms. They knew this might be their last stand, and they were prepared to die with battleaxe in hand before surrendering.
The Horde smashed against Ironforge like a battering ram, but to no avail. Every dwarf who died in battle brought ten orcs with them to the grave. The cost in lives grew so great that Doomhammer called off the siege. Ironforge was not his main goal, and he saw no need to throw his soldiers’ lives away to conquer the stronghold. Doomhammer had what he needed. Khaz Modan and its bountiful resources were his to exploit.
THE DEFENSE OF GNOMEREGAN
The orcs also made attempts to destroy Gnomeregan, but they never succeeded. The gnomes were a brilliant race, and they harnessed their advanced technologies to defend their lands. They rigged explosives throughout the forests and hills that surrounded Gnomeregan. Many orcs fell to these booby traps before they even reached the gnomish capital.
Gnomeregan itself was shielded by an impenetrable iron gate. After weeks of bombarding the entrance with siege engines, Doomhammer called off the attack. As he’d done with the dwarves in Ironforge, he commanded the Bleeding Hollow to keep the gnomes contained in their city. But the warchief made no further attempts to conquer Gnomeregan. It would escape the Horde’s wrath.
To keep the dwarves contained, Doomhammer stationed the Bleeding Hollow clan outside Ironforge’s gates. He then ordered his Blackrock orcs to mine the surrounding mountains and commandeer the dwarves’ forges. Before long, thick smoke blanketed Khaz Modan. Blacksmiths distributed newly wrought armaments and siege weapons throughout the Horde.
The time to invade Lordaeron was drawing near.
After conquering the bulk of Khaz Modan, Doomhammer plotted the next phase of his campaign. To reach the human kingdoms by land, the orcs would need to pass through a swampy mire to the north called the Wetlands. It was a perilous route. Transporting siege engines and an army through that terrain would be a long, grueling slog. Then the orcs would be forced to cross the narrow Thandol Span bridge that led into the northern lands—a site the humans could easily defend.
The humans would likely expect the Horde to cross north by land, but Doomhammer would not do the expected. He would build a fleet of ships and launch a surprise attack in the heart of humanity’s territories.
Though few orcs publicly questioned Doomhammer’s decision, many had reservations about his plans. The orcs were not a seafaring people. Most of the superstitious clans feared the open sea.
Much to Orgrim’s surprise, Gul’dan and his Stormreaver clan proved to be instrumental in persuading the Horde to cross by sea. The warlock and his followers urged their allies that it was the best course of action, and that the voyage would be safe. Orgrim welcomed the assistance, but he remained wary of Gul’dan’s motivations.
In a bay tucked in the southwestern Wetlands, Orgrim oversaw the construction of a vast yet crude fleet. Orcs knew little of shipbuilding, but they had allies who did. Some of the Horde’s ogres had maritime knowledge, and they helped construct immense vessels called juggernaughts. The Amani trolls also instructed the orcs in the ways of building small but swift ships that could safely navigate the seas and rivers.
In addition, Doomhammer acquired aid from a completely new ally: the goblins. These ingenious and cunning creatures had witnessed the Horde’s arrival and its conquest of Stormwind. More war was on the horizon, and they were determined to profit from it. Rather than avoid the orcs, the goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel approached the invaders with an offer. The Horde was new to Azeroth, and it had much to learn about the world and its cultures. The goblins could provide new technologies, maps, and other useful information to the orcs…for the right price.
The warchief would not force the bold goblins into servitude; that was something Blackhand might have done. Orgrim saw more benefit in treating them as equals. If it was gold they wanted, gold they could have. The orcs had recovered a fortune from Stormwind’s coffers, but they had no need of coin. Doomhammer paid the goblins handsomely for their aid. When he learned that they were also accomplished shipwrights, he hired them to oversee the construction of the Horde’s fleet.
With help from the goblins and the Horde’s other members, orc builders set to work. Doomhammer did everything he could to camouflage the construction from human scouts.
Far north of the Wetlands, the Council of Seven Nations continued debating the merits of unity. During these meetings, gnome and dwarf refugees arrived with dire news: the orcs had conquered Khaz Modan. This turn of events shocked the human leaders. The dwarves and the gnomes were mighty, and the speed with which their territories had fallen defied understanding. What was worse, the Horde was now encroaching north.
Even with this troubling development, King Greymane of Gilneas and King Perenolde of Alterac stubbornly resisted calls for creating the Alliance. They feared that by unifying, they would lose some of their regional power. Divisions widened between the gathered leaders. Their arguments grew so fierce that Gilneas and Alterac threatened to abandon the council.
One person in attendance could not stand by as the humans squabbled over meaningless issues. His name was Turalyon, and he was one of Lordaeron’s most venerated priests.
Turalyon brought Stormwind’s prince, Varian, to his side. The priest called on the leaders to forget their old differences. If they underestimated the orcs, every kingdom would suffer Stormwind’s fate. Their cities would burn, and their children would become orphans much like Varian—if their children survived at all. The orcs were not a merciful people.
Turalyon argued that the kingdoms stood at a crossroads. If they failed to unite, history would know humanity as a people who were too proud to band together. A people who’d had a chance to save Azeroth but instead had thrown it all away over politics and illusions of power.
Yet if humans did unite into the Alliance, they could change history. They could arise as Azeroth’s guardians. After all, no other race in the known world had humanity’s resources, its strength of leadership, or its bravery.
The Council of Seven Nations erupted in applause after Turalyon’s speech. His words even swayed Greymane and Perenolde. That very day, the human leaders voted unanimously to form the Alliance of Lordaeron.
Debates followed about who could best lead the Alliance military, and the rulers decided on Anduin Lothar. Because he was from Stormwind, he had no political ties to the northern human nations. He could command the armies fairly and act as a neutral party in disputes.
Lothar accepted this title with great humility. As supreme commander of the Alliance army, he wielded more power and influence than any human had since the days of the ancient king Thoradin.
Lothar immediately rallied the Alliance’s forces and ordered them to gather in Hillsbrad Foothills, a region north of the Wetlands.
As the human forces amassed, Lothar made other preparations. The Alliance was composed of disparate nations, some of which were rivals. They all had different customs and ways of life. Lothar needed something to bind them as one. He needed champions whom every human could rally behind, no matter where they came from.
The clerics were the most obvious choice to fill this role, but they hadn’t fared well in the First War. Though they were brave, they lacked martial training. Clerics were
better suited to using the Holy Light to mend wounds off the battlefield. Lothar needed something else.
TURALYON RALLIES THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN NATIONS TO FORM THE ALLIANCE
The solution came from the Church of the Holy Light. Archbishop Alonsus Faol had recently learned of everything that had transpired in Stormwind, including how the clerics had fared. He met with Lothar and proposed forging a new order, one that would represent the best qualities of humanity. It would comprise soldiers who were skilled not only in wielding the Light, but also in leadership and the arts of traditional warfare.
With Lothar’s permission, Faol recruited a handful of knights to form this new order. These individuals all showed an aptitude for the Holy Light, and they also exemplified the qualities of loyalty, bravery, and honor.
Faol called his students the paladins, and their group was named the Order of the Silver Hand.
The order’s members were revered individuals from Lordaeron. There was Turalyon, the priest who had helped forge the Alliance at the Council of Seven Nations. There was Saidan Dathrohan, a mountain of a man who was gifted with immense physical strength. Then there was Tirion Fordring, a knight renowned for his zeal and resilience. Lastly, there was Uther. He had already apprenticed under Faol for some years, and he was an accomplished knight and a pious believer in the Holy Light.
Lothar also sent one of his comrades from Stormwind to undergo paladin training: Gavinrad the Dire, a battle-hardened knight who had fought in the First War. Faol welcomed this student with open arms.
The city of Stratholme would later serve as the paladins’ base of operations. Yet for the time being, Lothar kept them close, ordering them to travel alongside the main Alliance army. Day and night, the holy warriors were trained vigorously. Faol taught them how to use the Light to comfort their allies and smite their enemies, and also how to lead by example. They would be more than just weapons. No matter how dire times became, the paladins would serve as lights in the darkness, as beacons of hope to guide the Alliance.
