by Blizzard
Gorefiend brought all of his cargo to Hellfire Citadel, where Warchief Ner’zhul was waiting. By now, the Horde had received word that Alliance forces were streaming through the Dark Portal. Time had grown short, and Ner’zhul was anxious to begin.
He was stunned, however, to see the full measure of what Gorefiend had brought back. Not only had he obtained the three artifacts, but he had also returned with a large number of suspicious carts. These items belonged to a surprise guest: Deathwing. The black dragon and other members of his flight had come through the Dark Portal disguised as orcs so as not to draw attention to themselves.
Ner’zhul was initially terrified of Deathwing. Even though the dragon was not wearing his true form, he radiated immense power. Deathwing sensed the potent Skull of Gul’dan in Ner’zhul’s presence, and he demanded it for himself. The warchief balked at this request, but only for a moment. He was in no position to resist a creature like Deathwing, and he had no further need of the skull. Its purpose had been to reopen the Dark Portal.
Deathwing was interested in using the skull’s lingering energies to strengthen his dragonflight and accelerate the growth of his eggs and whelps. As a token of “friendship,” Deathwing left a portion of his black dragons with the Horde to protect Hellfire Citadel against the Alliance’s invasion.
With the Skull of Gul’dan in his possession, Deathwing left Hellfire Citadel. He settled on Gorgrond as a suitable place to hide his clutch of black dragon eggs.
Meanwhile, Ner’zhul put his own plans into action. The gathered artifacts would grant him enough power to open portals to other worlds, but he needed to find a place to begin the ritual. The Dark Portal’s location had been chosen because it rested on a convergence of magical ley lines, but now that was in Alliance hands.
The only other nexus of ley lines Ner’zhul knew about was at the site of the Black Temple. He ordered the bulk of the Horde to accompany him to that location. The warchief left Kargath Bladefist and his Shattered Hand at Hellfire Citadel to hold the Alliance army at bay.
Khadgar and Turalyon both agreed that stopping Ner’zhul was their highest priority. If he were to fall, the Horde’s plan to escape to other worlds would collapse. Believing that Ner’zhul was still in Hellfire Citadel, the Sons of Lothar launched an all-out offensive against the stronghold.
Chieftain Bladefist and his Shattered Hand had dug in at the citadel for a siege. The orcs had hoped to hold the Alliance at bay for a week. Their defenses fell before the first day ended. Even with the help of black dragons, Kargath simply had no means to repel simultaneous attacks from dwarf gryphon riders in the sky and soldiers on the ground. Once Khadgar and his fellow magi joined the fray, Kargath had to abandon his position and flee into the wastes.
The Sons of Lothar were victorious, but they had no time to rest or rejoice. The presence of black dragons at Hellfire Citadel was an ill omen. What was worse, Khadgar discovered that Ner’zhul had marched southwest with the rest of the Horde and most of his potent artifacts. Strangely, the archmage did not sense the Skull of Gul’dan moving with them. He felt its presence somewhere in the north.
Khadgar knew that the Sons of Lothar could not simply focus on Ner’zhul. The archmage needed the Skull of Gul’dan to destroy Draenor’s side of the Dark Portal. After much debate, Turalyon decided to split his forces. One half would track down the Skull of Gul’dan. The other would apprehend Ner’zhul and the artifacts in his possession.
Khadgar, Turalyon, and Alleria Windrunner led the forces that sought out the Skull of Gul’dan to the north. Danath Trollbane and Kurdran Wildhammer pursued Ner’zhul to the south.
The chaos of the coming battles would soon overwhelm both sides of the war.
Ner’zhul and the orcs were disappointed to hear how fast Hellfire Citadel had fallen, but they already had a considerable head start on the Alliance. The Horde knew this land, and they were moving quickly. It didn’t seem possible that their enemies could catch up to them.
Unfortunately for Ner’zhul, Kurdran Wildhammer and his gryphon riders had decided to scout ahead. They found the warchief and his small army at the edge of the Bone Wastes, west of Shadowmoon Valley. The dwarves rained hell upon the orcs, bombarding them with impunity. Unless Ner’zhul and his people found a safer route to the Black Temple, they would soon die.
There was only one such path nearby: through the draenei tomb city of Auchindoun. Much of the holy site was in ruins, but many of its crypts and tunnels were intact. During the Horde’s war against the draenei, Gorefiend had learned much about Auchindoun. He knew of little-used passageways that led toward Shadowmoon Valley—paths that Ner’zhul and his forces could travel through to elude the Sons of Lothar and get closer to their destination.
Auchindoun was a haunted and twisted place. It would not be safe to enter, but Ner’zhul had no alternative.
As he led his forces into the tomb, the gryphon riders launched a bold new attack—one that they would soon regret. Kurdran was knocked from his mount and captured by the Horde. Before the other dwarves could rescue him, he was taken into Auchindoun’s darkened corridors. Kilrogg Deadeye interrogated Kurdran, hoping to learn about the Alliance’s true numbers. The dwarf held his tongue even under unspeakable torture.
Danath Trollbane’s ground forces were not far away. When they arrived at Auchindoun, some of the gryphon riders explained the situation. It would be very dangerous to rescue Kurdran. In Auchindoun’s tight quarters, a large force was little more effective than a small one, and the orcs knew the terrain. They would be capable of outmaneuvering Danath, no matter how many troops he brought with him.
An unexpected source of aid presented itself. An Outcast arakkoa named Grizzik had been following the Sons of Lothar as they pursued the Horde south. He had no love for the Horde. Years ago, Chieftain Kargath had toppled the high arakkoan capital, Skyreach. His orcs had killed nearly all of its inhabitants, and they had captured high arakkoa and thrown them into the cursed Sethekk Hollow. Grizzik was one of these unfortunate prisoners. He emerged from Sethekk Hollow as an Outcast, warped and twisted by the region’s shadowy energies. Eager for vengeance, Grizzik offered to lead the Alliance through Auchindoun.
Guided by the arakkoa, Danath and his soldiers stormed through the tomb city. They moved carefully, avoiding the Horde’s ambushes, and methodically searched Auchindoun. In time, they liberated Kurdran.
Yet Ner’zhul was nowhere to be found. Only Kilrogg and the remnants of his Bleeding Hollow clan stalked Auchindoun. They had volunteered to occupy the Alliance while the rest of the Horde escaped to the Black Temple. It was not simply nobility that drove Kilrogg to make this sacrifice. Years ago, he had performed a ritual that granted him a vision of his own death. He now realized that Auchindoun was the place where he would breathe his last breath.
The Bleeding Hollow fell upon the Alliance forces. As blood spilled across Auchindoun, Danath confronted Kilrogg. The two engaged in a brutal duel that echoed through the tomb city’s halls until Danath plunged his blade through the orc’s throat. With their chieftain dead, the rest of the Bleeding Hollow scattered or surrendered.
Kilrogg’s sacrifice was not in vain. He had given Ner’zhul the time he would need to safely reach the Black Temple with the rest of the Horde.
Gorgrond was inhospitable terrain, the perfect place for Deathwing to build a refuge from those who could not fly. He and his black dragons swooped down on the mountains in force, seeking out safe places for his eggs.
Though the land was barren, it was not unoccupied. Gorgrond was home to the gronn who had survived Draenor’s slow decay. The mightiest of these giants was known as Gruul. He lorded over a number of ogres and lesser gronn who dwelled in the mountains. Gruul’s kind were highly territorial, not prone to living in close proximity with one another. But the calamities that had befallen Draenor had changed them. The gronn now joined forces in order to survive.
Gruul and his followers had no intention of allowing intruders to conquer their home. The
y fought back, surprising the black dragons with their ferocity.
Deathwing ignored the gronn, seeing them as little more than pests. He focused on finding a number of hiding places for his unhatched children while the rest of his dragonflight fought the native creatures.
His arrogance led to the ruination of his plans. While Deathwing was distracted, the Sons of Lothar arrived in Gorgrond, searching for the Skull of Gul’dan. The Alliance soldiers were deeply unsettled by what they had found. Battles between black dragons and gronn had resulted in many deaths. Gruul and his followers had taken to impaling their slain enemies on spikes, displaying their corpses to all.
The gronn nearly turned on the Sons of Lothar with violence, but Khadgar and Turalyon were quickly able to demonstrate that the Alliance was also the enemy of the black dragonflight. They struck a simple bargain with Gruul. If he gave them safe passage through Gorgrond, they would help him defeat Deathwing.
The gronn and the Alliance prepared an ambush at the largest cache of Deathwing’s eggs, nestled in one of Gorgrond’s barren valleys. The Sons of Lothar wasted little time; they destroyed as many of the unguarded eggs as they could, hoping to lure Deathwing into the open.
When Deathwing learned of their actions, he and his draconic followers appeared in the skies and unleashed their molten fury on the intruders. It was just the moment Gruul had been waiting for. The massive gronn scaled Gorgrond’s mountains to battle Deathwing with his bare fists.
Meanwhile, Khadgar lashed Deathwing with his arcane power, ripping apart the metal plates bolted to the black Dragon Aspect’s spine. Deathwing’s body began to come apart. Molten energies burst forth from his broken form, spilling fire and magma across Gorgrond. The pain was so great that it forced him to drop the Skull of Gul’dan. If he had taken only a few more wounds, he might have died on Draenor that day. Instead, Deathwing abandoned his plans, flying straight back to Azeroth through the Dark Portal (and over the heads of many startled Alliance soldiers).
Deathwing would never forget what happened to him that day. He swore vengeance on those who had attacked him, particularly on Khadgar.
As fighting continued between the gronn and the other black dragons, Khadgar and the rest of the Sons of Lothar collected the Skull of Gul’dan. Then they beat a hasty retreat, fearing that Gruul and his followers would turn on them once they had defeated the dragons.
When the fighting in Gorgrond was done, most of the black dragons were dead or dying. Gruul reasserted his dominion over the land. His battle with Deathwing would earn him newfound respect among his followers, and he would become known as the Dragonkiller.
GRUUL FACES DEATHWING
Having recovered the Skull of Gul’dan, Turalyon turned his forces south. Shadowmoon Valley was far, but he had magic to help him expedite the journey. Khadgar and his fellow magi opened a series of portals through which the Sons of Lothar reached southern Draenor.
Outside the Black Temple, the two halves of the Alliance army reunited. Yet they had not reached the city in time to stop Ner’zhul. What was worse, the Horde had prepared for their arrival. The remnants of the orcish army had dug in around the Black Temple to keep the Sons of Lothar back.
Much to Khadgar’s dismay, he sensed potent energies lashing out from atop the Black Temple. Ner’zhul and his followers were in the midst of preparing their spell to open new portals. There was no time for a drawn-out siege, no time to find a way around the Black Temple’s guardians.
The Sons of Lothar launched themselves against the city and crashed into the defenders. While battle raged, Khadgar and his fellow magi hunted for Ner’zhul, hoping to reach him and disrupt his spellwork.
They would not succeed.
Atop the city’s largest tower, Ner’zhul had gathered some of the death knights and a number of Shadowmoon orcs to help him with his spellwork and protect him from the Alliance. He and his followers had harnessed the power of the Eye of Dalaran, the Book of Medivh, and the Scepter of Sargeras. Ner’zhul tapped into the nexus of ley lines beneath the Black Temple, but he was woefully unprepared for the amount of skill needed for this ritual. He was desperate to succeed, and his recklessness caused the energies at his command to spiral out of control. As planned, Ner’zhul blasted multiple holes through the fabric of reality, but they were followed by others. Many others.
The magic that Ner’zhul had unleashed destabilized Draenor’s ley lines. Unimaginable forces began to tear open rifts across Draenor. With each passing moment, the world groaned louder in upheaval. Fissures erupted across land and sea.
Khadgar and the other magi arrived just as this chain reaction was unfolding. They managed to recover the Eye of Dalaran and the Book of Medivh, but not the Scepter of Sargeras. With the artifact in hand, Ner’zhul and a few of his closest followers escaped into the nearest portal.
Ner’zhul had saved himself but doomed his world.
Khadgar had recovered most of the stolen artifacts, but the damage to Draenor had already been done. The unstable rifts opening across the land would soon shatter the world and almost certainly kill everyone on it. Even worse, the destructive energies would blast through the Dark Portal into Azeroth.
After consulting with Turalyon, Khadgar knew what needed to be done. The Sons of Lothar would have to destroy the Dark Portal to protect their homeworld, and they would have to do so from Draenor. With chaos unfolding all around, there was no time to gather on Azeroth and perform the task there. It was a suicide mission, but no one hesitated.
The energies lashing across the world hampered Khadgar’s own magical abilities, preventing him from creating a portal to Hellfire Peninsula. He and his allies were forced to use gryphons to reach the Dark Portal. Khadgar, Turalyon, Alleria, Kurdran, Danath, and a number of other expedition members made the journey.
NER’ZHUL OPENS COUNTLESS PORTALS ACROSS DRAENOR
Most of the Alliance soldiers stationed at Hellfire Citadel had already retreated back to Azeroth, but now the remnants of the Horde were scrambling through the Dark Portal as well.
And the orcs were none too pleased to see that someone had come to close off their only means of fleeing.
The two sides crashed together outside the yawning gateway in their desperate attempt to escape oblivion. As the battle raged, Khadgar and the other magi unleashed the raw power contained within the Skull of Gul’dan, trying to touch as little of its fel essence as possible. Turalyon and his forces encircled the sorcerers and fended off the terrified orcs who sought to flee from their world.
The magi’s spellwork ignited a massive explosion that destroyed the Dark Portal’s stone frame and severed the bridge between Azeroth and Draenor. Yet there was little time to savor the victory.
The magical stress unleashed by Ner’zhul’s spell was still spreading through the world, and it was growing more destructive by the moment. As violent earthquakes shook the land and continents fell away, Khadgar and the Sons of Lothar ran through an open rift nearby, not knowing where it would take them or whether they would survive. Only moments later, the world itself ripped apart.
Draenor, the realm touched by Aggramar and shaped by the primals and the breakers, the realm of the glorious Apexis civilization and the mystical orc clans, was no more.
The orcs who had escaped through the Dark Portal before it closed brought grim tidings to the Horde on Azeroth: their homeworld was gone. Ner’zhul had sacrificed everyone to save himself and a handful of his loyal followers. It seemed impossible that anyone else could have survived Draenor’s destruction.
For Chieftain Grommash, this news was devastating. His only surviving family—his son, Garrosh—had still been on Draenor, in the Mag’har camp. Grommash put aside his grief and led his Warsong clan north to take shelter in the isolated Swamp of Sorrows. He was not giving up; he was merely regrouping. Grommash believed that there would never be peace between the orcs and the humans, and he wanted his fighters to be ready for battle.
The members of the “true Horde” regarded t
he news about Draenor as confirmation that they were the rightful successors to Warchief Blackhand’s rule. In the years to come, Dal’rend and Maim would strengthen their forces.
The Dragonmaw in Grim Batol would do much the same. Zuluhed and many of their clan had returned to Draenor at the end of the Second War. Yet with news of their homeworld’s destruction, the Dragonmaw on Azeroth believed that their leader was dead. Nekros took command over his people. He ordered them to continue lording over Alexstrasza and her red dragons in Grim Batol.
Other members of the Horde saw no reason to keep fighting the Alliance. The noble mok’nathal Rexxar believed the rest of his people had perished on Draenor, and he was disgusted by everything that had transpired in recent years. His loyalties were now dust. Rexxar retreated into Azeroth’s wilds, and he wandered the world in solitude.
Tucked away in the Alterac Mountains, Drek’Thar and the Frostwolf clan carved out a new home. They isolated themselves from other orcs in the hopes of escaping the Alliance’s wrath. It was a harsh and lonely existence, but it was not without its benefits. Drek’Thar had rekindled his connection with the elements, and he used them to keep his people safe.
Far from the Eastern Kingdoms, Cho’gall and the Twilight’s Hammer clan knew nothing of Draenor’s fate. Even if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered. The whispers of the Old Gods were calling to them. Cho’gall and his followers sailed toward the distant continent of Kalimdor in search of their dark masters, eager to help them bring about the Hour of Twilight.
They did not know they were being followed. Garona had picked up Cho’gall’s trail, and she tracked the former Shadow Council member to the mysterious lands of Kalimdor.
