by Blizzard
When a few more days passed and Orgrim’s guards hadn’t returned, the orc grew suspicious. He sent other warriors north to find out what had happened. These scouts made a grim discovery.
Orgrim’s friends and one of his “trusted guards” were dead. His scouts took it upon themselves to find the other assassins. They tracked down the Shadow Council servants before they made it back to the Horde lines in the south, and a fierce battle erupted. Orgrim’s warriors returned victorious, reporting back to their commander in secret.
It was a stroke of luck. If Gul’dan had heard about Durotan and Orgrim’s rebellious intentions, he would have had the Blackrock orc’s throat slit in the night. Orgrim was determined to avenge his friends and his people, but he bided his time, waiting for an opportunity.
Over the course of months, the orcs’ brutal slash-and-burn raids on the countryside had razed farms, towns, villages, forges, and trade houses. Stormwind’s economy was in ruins. More critically, many sources of food either had been destroyed or had fallen into the Horde’s hands. Stormwind City’s supplies would run dry within a few months.
Knowing this, Warchief Blackhand initiated the next phase of his war. He would bring the Horde north and conquer a region called the Redridge Mountains. From there, the orcs would then launch an invasion into Stormwind City itself.
The foothills of Redridge fell to the Horde with little resistance. It was so easy, the orcs believed the humans would not challenge them at all before they reached Stormwind City.
That was exactly what Commander Lothar hoped they would think.
STORMWIND AND HORDE TERRITORIES DURING THE FIRST WAR
Blackhand led a small orc raiding party into the mountains, seeking to claim the township of Lakeshire as a Horde stronghold. Without warning, Lothar and his knights roared down the slopes, surrounding the orcs in an expertly executed ambush. The Horde raiders fought hard, but nearly every one of them died in the attack. Lothar almost collected Blackhand’s head that day as well, but the warchief was accompanied by two Shadow Council warlocks. Their fel fire turned the tide of battle, forcing Lothar to retreat before he could draw Blackhand’s blood.
Blackhand and the other survivors limped back to the Horde encampments. In the coming weeks, a much larger force would go on to take Lakeshire and the surrounding land. Blackhand had little gratitude for the warlocks who had saved his life. His brush with death had humiliated him. He blamed the Shadow Council for not sensing the impending ambush, and he personally executed the two warlocks for incompetence.
Gul’dan was less than pleased by this development. The warlocks were his subordinates to discipline, and he did not have an unlimited supply of them to spare.
Blackhand ignored Gul’dan’s anger. As warchief, he was above being questioned.
The ambush on Blackhand gave Gul’dan something to think about. He had seen that humans would fight hard when outnumbered, and he suspected that a siege of Stormwind City would be more difficult than the Horde believed. Though the orcs had destroyed Shattrath City, that had been under much different circumstances. The Horde was now divided—some of its most powerful clans still remained on Draenor. Years of war, famine, and hunger had also weakened the armies.
What was more, Gul’dan had learned about Medivh’s defense of Stormwind City against the Gurubashi trolls in years past. He had also discovered fragments of knowledge about the history of the Guardian and the Council of Tirisfal. All of this only deepened the mysteries surrounding Medivh. Was he sincere in wanting the Horde to conquer Azeroth? Was he truly a puppet of the Burning Legion? Or did he have some ulterior motive in mind? If so, Medivh might find a reason to wipe out the orcs just as he had done to the Gurubashi.
Gul’dan recalled how he had empowered the Horde before its conquest of Karabor: he had broken the world’s elements and infused their energies into the orcs. Azeroth teemed with elemental spirits, and they were much stronger than those on Draenor.
Shadow Council spies reported sensing massive elemental activity to the northwest of Redridge, near a smoldering volcano called Blackrock Mountain. Cho’gall confirmed those reports, but he kept some information to himself. Not only did the two-headed ogre sense elemental power in the mountain, but he had also discovered that the local spirits were in league with the Old Gods.
The Shadow Council secretly traveled to Blackrock Mountain, planning to subjugate its inhabitants. It was a disaster. No orc had ever dealt with this level of raw elemental might on Draenor. The first few Shadow Council warlocks who tried dominating the elements faced a grim fate: they were burned from the inside out by gouts of flame.
Deep beneath Blackrock Mountain lived Ragnaros, the elemental lord of fire. He commanded innumerable lesser elementals as well as an entire nation of mortal slaves. For centuries, the Dark Iron dwarves had served as Ragnaros’s loyal subjects. Whenever a warlock tried to trespass too deep into the mountain, the Dark Irons would attack, their forces bolstered by raging fire elementals.
Before the Shadow Council incited Ragnaros and his minions to all-out war, Cho’gall mediated peace. His fledgling connection to the Old Gods allowed him access to the mountain’s depths, and after extensive conversations with the Dark Iron dwarves and Ragnaros’s elemental lieutenants, an accord was reached. The Old Gods were delighted with the work the Horde was doing, and they wanted to help, but they had no intention of giving even a scrap of power to Burning Legion puppets like the orcs. After all, Sargeras and his armies stood in direct opposition to the powers of the Void. Yet they did grant the Shadow Council a small refuge—called Blackrock Spire—high in the mountain. If the warlocks remained there, they would not be disturbed by Ragnaros or his followers.
Gul’dan was disappointed that his quest to seize the mountain’s power had failed, but he was pleased that Cho’gall had proved to be such an effective diplomat. Had he known about the ogre mage’s true motives and his newfound reverence for the Old Gods, he might not have been so glad. Yet for now, a secret haven was something the Shadow Council desperately needed. Tensions between Blackhand and Gul’dan were rising. A refuge was a priceless thing.
The mountain’s power could wait until later.
Brightwood, Westfall, and the Redridge Mountains were now under Horde control. The time to strike at Stormwind City had come.
Warchief Blackhand scoffed when Gul’dan told him his mission to Blackrock Mountain was a failure; he had expected nothing less. He was prepared to crush Stormwind City without the help of borrowed elemental power.
Thousands of Horde soldiers flooded through Elwynn Forest and established siege lines outside Stormwind City. They encircled the stronghold, cutting off all access except for the sea. Blackhand ordered Kilrogg and Cho’gall to lead the Bleeding Hollow and Twilight’s Hammer clans in an assault against Stormwind.
To soften the city’s defenses, the Horde bombarded the walls with siege engines through the night. At dawn, Kilrogg and Cho’gall launched their attack. Orcs charged the battlements, while warlocks engulfed Stormwind’s soldiers in fel fire. The losses among the city’s defenders were staggering.
It seemed to Blackhand that Stormwind would fall by midday. No one was more astonished than him to hear cries of an attack on the Horde’s rear lines.
Lothar had led the lion’s share of Stormwind’s knights around the Horde by sea, and he was now leading a charge through Elwynn Forest. The orcs in the rearguard were caught utterly by surprise, and the knights carved a massive gash into their lines.
The Horde attack soon collapsed. The Bleeding Hollow and the Twilight’s Hammer broke off their aggression and tried to push back the knights. Stormwind’s enormous gates opened, and soldiers poured out of the city in a counterattack, acting as a hammer to Lothar’s anvil.
The orcs had no way to fight off the two-pronged assault. They could only run. It was the biggest disaster the Horde had ever suffered.
The defeat infuriated Blackhand. He barely restrained himself from executing Kilrogg and Cho�
�gall, but only because he suspected their clan members would revolt.
The Horde withdrew to its holdings in Redridge to draw up a new plan of conquest.
Stormwind’s victory over the Horde had not been a matter of luck. Lothar and King Llane had been acting on very specific information. Many of the Horde’s battle plans had been provided by Khadgar, who had learned them from Garona.
Gul’dan knew that Garona was revealing information to her human friends about orcish culture and the Horde’s movements, but he did not order her to stay away from Karazhan. The details Gul’dan had learned through her about Medivh and his mysterious home were too valuable to give up, despite the risk posed to the orcs’ war effort.
Garona and Khadgar conversed frequently when they were together in Karazhan, especially about their growing concerns for Medivh. In recent months, Karazhan had become darker and more twisted. Tormented spirits floated through the hallways in greater numbers than ever before. From time to time, Khadgar and Garona were subjected to vivid, horrific visions of the past, present, and future.
Khadgar suspected this was all due to Medivh. The Guardian’s mood swings had vanished entirely. That was a relief, but only at first; his rage had disappeared, but it seemed to have been replaced with nothing at all. It was as if Medivh had simply lost the ability to feel anything. As he withdrew from his humanity, the fabric of reality in Karazhan seemed to unravel.
Khadgar searched through the books in the tower’s libraries, desperate to find any clue that would explain what was happening. An obscure tome seemed to hold answers. There was an ancient technique that allowed a skilled mage to evoke visions of specific memories. Unfortunately, the spell proved unreliable. Khadgar was rarely able to summon a vision of the moment he wanted, and questions about Medivh did not work at all.
After much trial and error, Khadgar decided to use the spell in a different manner. Perhaps he could see the origin of the rift connecting Azeroth with the orcish homeworld.
This latest effort succeeded, but the answers it provided were almost beyond belief.
Both Khadgar and Garona watched in horror as a new vision unfolded around them. They saw a mysterious stranger confronting Gul’dan on Draenor. The hooded man convinced the Shadow Council to create the Dark Portal and invade Azeroth by showing that the world was ripe for plunder.
Then they saw the stranger’s face up close; it was none other than Medivh. The person who had unleashed the Horde upon Azeroth was the Guardian of Tirisfal.
Scarcely had the troubling vision faded when Medivh learned of what Khadgar and Garona had discovered. The half-orc and the human narrowly escaped the Guardian’s wrath. They fled to Stormwind City, hoping to warn King Llane and Lothar of Medivh’s treason.
Khadgar insisted that Garona be allowed to enter the city, and she accompanied him when he met with the king. Gul’dan was watching through her eyes, and when he realized she was in the same room as Stormwind’s ruler, he tried to compel her to murder Llane. Garona resisted the strange urge to commit violence, not realizing that it was coming from the warlock.
Llane could not believe that Medivh was responsible for such treachery, but Lothar did. He trusted Khadgar. As hard as it was to admit, he knew now that Medivh was a great threat to Azeroth, even more so than the Horde.
Lothar charged the knight Gavinrad with commanding Stormwind City’s defenses. Then he led a war party to Karazhan, accompanied by Garona and Khadgar. With a heavy heart, Lothar vowed to capture or kill his childhood friend.
Observing this all through Garona’s eyes, Gul’dan panicked. He had not yet found the location of the Tomb of Sargeras, and he could not allow Medivh to die before he learned it. As Lothar and his allies arrived at Karazhan and began their attack, Gul’dan reached out to the Guardian’s mind.
At first, Medivh’s mental defenses were too strong to penetrate. Yet as the battle commenced, he grew distracted. Gul’dan frantically rummaged through the Guardian’s memories, searching for any useful information.
Just as he had done during the fight with Aegwynn, Sargeras assumed control over the Guardian’s thoughts and actions. He unleashed the full might of his powers on the intruders. The battle at Karazhan was a maelstrom of fire, steel, and magic. Garona’s mind was assailed by the Guardian’s spells—Sargeras tried to take control of Gul’dan’s mental chains and use Garona against her allies, but it was only partially effective. Confusion rippled through the half-orc. She soon found it impossible to differentiate between friend and foe.
Khadgar was nearly killed in the assault; Sargeras tried to rip his soul from his body, and when that failed, he drained part of his life force. The apprentice was prematurely aged, a young man who had become old and wizened.
In the end, it was Khadgar who buried a blade in his mentor’s chest, fatally wounding him. Striking down the Guardian forced Sargeras’s spirit from his body, banishing the Legion’s lord into the depths of the Twisting Nether.
In Medivh’s last moments, his thoughts became clear for the first time in his life. The full realization of what he had done, of the untold deaths he had caused, pressed down on him. He had utterly failed as Guardian, but Khadgar and his allies had accomplished what Medivh could not. They had defeated Sargeras and thwarted his plans. Medivh’s last words were of thanks—he had only gratitude for Khadgar, Lothar, and their companions.
Garona was not there to see Medivh draw his last breath. She had already fled Karazhan. No one knew where she had gone, and there was no time to search for her.
It had been many centuries since a Guardian had died in combat, and never before had one been possessed by demonic power. Medivh’s death had drastic consequences. Fel energy exploded outward from the tower of Karazhan, turning the surrounding land into a dangerous, thorny blight. The region west of the tower—Brightwood—would become known as Duskwood.
There were repercussions for the Horde as well. Gul’dan had succeeded in finding what he wanted—he now knew the location of the Tomb of Sargeras. Yet when Medivh was defeated, the warlock had still been scouring his memories for information. The shock of the Guardian’s death slammed into Gul’dan’s mind and threw him into a deep coma.
RELICS OF POWER
When Gul’dan was prying into Medivh’s thoughts, he learned more than just the Tomb of Sargeras’s location. The orc also gleaned valuable knowledge about Azeroth’s history and artifacts of magical power that lay scattered throughout the world.
Far from Karazhan, Gul’dan’s sudden coma sent shockwaves through the Shadow Council. They did not understand what had happened or why. Warchief Blackhand was also confused, but not terribly unhappy. He had not been pleased with the Shadow Council’s recent efforts, and he knew that Gul’dan had been trying to assert more and more control over the Horde.
Orgrim Doomhammer believed that his time had come. The Shadow Council was in disarray, and Blackhand was still reeling from the recent failed attack on Stormwind City. Orgrim would have no better chance to erase the corruption that had damned the orc people.
He challenged Blackhand to a mak’gora, a duel to the death, calling the warchief a traitor who had sold his people into servitude to dark forces.
It was not a challenge Blackhand could refuse. No orc could, not without losing the Horde’s respect. He could not even have Orgrim assassinated in secret—Blackhand had relied on the Shadow Council for such tasks.
Painted with clan symbols and adorned in oil, the two orcs dueled for hours. Orgrim ended the contest when he crushed Blackhand’s skull with his family’s weapon, the Doomhammer.
The watching orcs kneeled before the victor, proclaiming their new leader Warchief Doomhammer. Orgrim spoke to the Horde, telling them that Gul’dan and his warlocks were not what they seemed. Their fel powers were what had killed Draenor. Orgrim declared that he would cleanse the Horde of the foul darkness that had poisoned it. His first step was to outlaw the practice of using fel magic, on pain of death. Azeroth would not suffer Draenor’s fate.
Yet the full measure of Orgrim’s vengeance would have to wait. After Blackhand’s death, the Shadow Council had fled. Orgrim did not know where they had run to.
For now, Orgrim focused his attention on the war with Stormwind. He did not relish the prospect of more battle, but he had no choice. To return to Draenor meant a slow death. The only way the orcs would survive was by conquering Stormwind and making it their new home. If they did not defeat their enemies, they would be at the mercy of a strange world.
Warchief Doomhammer ordered the clans to prepare for one final assault. They were moving before the sun had set.
Warchief Doomhammer would take no chances with the second attack on Stormwind City. He unleashed the full might of the Horde against the stronghold. He had briefly considered calling on the Warsongs, the Shattered Hand, and other clans that were still on Draenor to reinforce them, but there was no time. Every day that passed was another day that Stormwind had to regroup.
As the battle commenced, both sides knew that this day would decide the fate of Stormwind. There would be no quarter, no mercy, and no retreat. The Horde breached the city’s walls and stormed into the streets, but Stormwind’s defenders held them at bay. At least, for a time.
King Llane was convening with his military commanders in Stormwind’s keep when he received word that Garona had arrived from Karazhan. Lothar and Khadgar were still gone, and the king was worried about their fate.
Eager to learn what had happened, Llane allowed Garona into his presence. She was going to tell him about the battle with Medivh. Before she could, something snapped in her mind.
She had resisted Gul’dan’s order to kill King Llane before, but her encounter with the Guardian had scrambled her thoughts. The line between friend and foe blurred. Her willpower faltered. The warlock’s old command to kill the king flared bright in her mind. Deep down, she had no wish to slay Llane, a stranger who had welcomed her into his kingdom, who had treated her with more respect in recent months than the orcs had shown her in a lifetime.