Chapter Summaries

Prophet Velen arrived in Northrend and offered the starving Argent Crusade food and warm clothing, but Tirion Fordring refused in the name of human dignity. After soldiers froze and tried to desert, Draenei patrols fought them, while N'Zoth announced he had discovered where Orc souls went.

• Thrall welcomed Velen, and the two leaders exchanged false compliments before the Draenei camped near the Argent Crusade.
• Velen saw the Argent Crusade's miserable conditions and offered Tirion Fordring food and clothing, but Tirion refused both offers and had Velen escorted out.
• A cold front killed thousands of Argent Crusade soldiers and injured many more; Tirion executed severely wounded soldiers, and the Orcs turned the dead into rations.
• Many starving soldiers deserted toward Icecrown Citadel, so Tirion asked Velen to send Draenei guards while continuing to reject his aid.
• Draenei patrols clashed with a mass of deserters, and the weakened Argent Crusade soldiers were slaughtered.
• Kel'Thuzad mourned the fallen soldiers in Icecrown Citadel as N'Zoth announced he had learned where Orc souls went.

Robbie and Kel'Thuzad used Orc souls to create armor that prevented the Scourge from aging, while N'Zoth warned them that the Maw was consuming souls and they should keep a low profile. At the coalition camp, Theramore soldiers attacked the Orcs and later the Draenei, leaving Thrall captured and the Draenei's spaceship dismantled.

• N'Zoth told Robbie that Orc souls were being sent to the Maw, which was beginning to consume innocent souls, and suspected Elune and the Jailer were involved.
• Robbie and Kel'Thuzad confirmed that Orc souls could prevent aging, and Kel'Thuzad had made one hundred thousand suits of armor for Scourge soldiers.
• Theramore's thirty thousand soldiers refused to wait for the other armies, then attacked the Orc camp at night and killed Thrall's three thousand Orcs before capturing and torturing Thrall.
• The Emissary rescued Thrall, but the coalition punished only a few Theramore soldiers because the entire army had participated.
• Theramore soldiers raided the Draenei camp, beat Velen, and caused him to flee to Dalaran, after which they dismantled the Draenei spaceship while the soldiers scattered.

After Theramore and the Darkspear Tribe descended into chaos, Sylvanas used the Emissary’s authorization to crush both groups and replace Thrall as leader of the allied forces. Thrall hinted to Vol'jin that he had a hidden plan as the allies prepared to face the Scourge.

• Jaina refused Velen’s demand for compensation after Theramore’s soldiers caused chaos, while the newly assembled Darkspear Tribe entered Northrend and ate Argent Crusade warriors under Tirion Fordring’s orders to remain passive.
• The Darkspear Tribe and Theramore fought over the Tauren camp until Cairne Bloodhoof offered five thousand Tauren as rations, dividing them between the two groups.
• Sylvanas challenged Thrall’s leadership, and the Emissary authorized her to kill a third of the undisciplined soldiers to restore order.
• Sylvanas attacked Theramore and the Darkspear Tribe with two Forsaken forces, killing ten thousand Theramore soldiers and three thousand Darkspear members and turning them into Forsaken laborers.
• Vol'jin worried that the Forsaken would dominate the Horde, but Thrall hinted that he had a plan and watched Icecrown Citadel.
• The Emissary approved Sylvanas’s actions, and she effectively replaced Thrall as leader of the allied forces.

The Alliance and Horde leaders entered Icecrown Citadel expecting to find Arthas alone, but he trapped them in visions of past Orc atrocities. Arthas then revealed a rain of Burning Legion Infernals descending on their armies, while Thrall was nowhere to be seen.

• Sylvanas gathered the leaders and proposed that each race bring only a thousand elite troops into Icecrown Citadel, and they agreed.
• Varian warned Magni Bronzebeard that the Horde had become stronger, but Magni dismissed his concerns and questioned his loyalty.
• Tirion Fordring and Lor'themar tried to gain Sylvanas's favor, and Sylvanas grew uneasy when Tirion admitted he had heard nothing from Taelan.
• Sylvanas and the other leaders reached the Frozen Throne, where Arthas opened his eyes and triggered tormenting visions of Orcs slaughtering and eating their people.
• Arthas called the leaders fools and directed their attention to green clouds and a Maelstrom as Burning Legion Infernals fell toward their armies; Sylvanas realized Thrall had disappeared.

The Burning Legion’s Infernals slaughtered the Alliance and Horde armies gathered at Icecrown, trapping their leaders as Thrall revealed he had arranged the attack. Thrall then sent Magtheridon and the Legion into Icecrown Citadel to kill Arthas, leaving the Lich King’s fate uncertain.

• Countless Infernals descended on the armies surrounding Icecrown Citadel and burned nearly all the soldiers to ash.
• Tirion Fordring, Magni Bronzebeard, Vol'jin, Velen, Sylvanas, Jaina, Cairne Bloodhoof, and the other leaders realized they were trapped after the Infernals sealed the area and Jaina could not open a Portal.
• Sylvanas urged the leaders to fight, then killed the Undead Varian when he despaired.
• Thrall welcomed Magtheridon and admitted he had lured the Alliance and Horde elites to Icecrown so the Burning Legion could destroy them and leave the Orcs dominant.
• Magtheridon led a vast horde of Infernals into Icecrown Citadel to attack Arthas and bring down the Scourge.

With Velen and the Draenei refusing to fight without his orders, Sylvanas led the other races against the Burning Legion, but their forces were routed. Thrall and Magtheridon captured Icecrown Citadel, and Thrall began punishing the leaders of the Alliance and Horde before Sylvanas attacked.

• Velen dismissed the invasion as a Holy Light trial, and Sylvanas failed to persuade the Draenei to fight without his command.
• Sylvanas sent the Tauren, Forsaken, Dwarves, and other races against the Burning Legion, but their forces were defeated one after another.
• Magtheridon and Thrall took the Frozen Throne, where Thrall declared the Scourge destroyed and revealed his plan to rule Azeroth.
• Thrall condemned Cairne Bloodhoof to become livestock and had him nailed to a wooden frame when he protested.
• Thrall offered to spare some of the Darkspear Tribe as hunting dogs, then had Vol'jin nailed to a frame as well.
• Sylvanas attacked, firing an arrow at Magtheridon because Thrall was shielded by Legion soldiers.

Thrall and Magtheridon defeated the leaders gathered at Icecrown Citadel, tortured them, and revealed the Burning Legion had engineered the Scourge’s downfall. They discovered High Tinker Mekkatorque had escaped, while Lor'themar Theron remained unnoticed as Azeroth faced ruin.

• Magtheridon blocked Sylvanas’s arrows and knocked her into the abyss, while Thrall said the Forsaken must be destroyed.
• Felhounds drained Jaina’s mana, and Legion Guards nailed her to a wooden frame; Magni and Tirion were also beaten and left to die on frames.
• Thrall attacked Velen, but Velen continued praying until Magtheridon inflicted torment on his soul and explained that the Holy Light could not reach Icecrown Citadel.
• Magtheridon revealed that the Burning Legion had manipulated the Scourge’s decline by sending forged souls to fight it, provoking Azeroth’s backlash.
• Thrall and Magtheridon realized High Tinker Mekkatorque was missing, searched Icecrown Citadel, and concluded he had escaped.
• Lor'themar Theron trembled nearby, unnoticed by Thrall, Magtheridon, and the Legion soldiers.

Robbie and Kel'Thuzad watched Magtheridon prepare to use the corpses of Azeroth's leaders and soldiers to summon power from the Shadowlands, threatening to destroy half the world. As the Scourge plotted to stop him, Arthas confronted Velen in an illusion and accused him of serving as Elune's eyes.

• Magtheridon piled corpses on the Frozen Throne and told Thrall that breaking Arthas's ice coffin could cost half of Azeroth, including every Orc.
• Kel'Thuzad warned Robbie that Magtheridon was summoning a mighty being from the Shadowlands, and Robbie told him to infuse Taelan's weapon with Frost's power.
• Arthas's sudden movement inside the ice frightened Magtheridon and Thrall, who fled before cautiously returning.
• Velen relived the day he became a prophet, then resisted Arthas's attempt to make him kill an Orc who resembled Thrall.
• Arthas accused Velen of being Elune's eyes and declared that the Scourge's last power rested with the last Lich King.

Arthas unleashed the Scourge’s hidden power, froze the Burning Legion, and saved the leaders gathered at Icecrown, while the Emissary concealed Thrall’s betrayal as a test by Elune. The leaders left Northrend believing the Scourge was finished, unaware that the real show was about to begin.

• The Frost around “Arthas” shattered, and he used Frostmourne to freeze Magtheridon and the Burning Legion while a protective glow saved Thrall and the Alliance and Horde leaders.
• The Emissary told Thrall that Elune had tested the Scourge, then ordered him to claim he had only followed her commands and to preserve the Alliance and Horde’s unity.
• Thrall and the Emissary planned to kill Arthas through Tirion Fordring, using the danger of divine punishment as their reason to make him a scapegoat.
• The Emissary told the freed leaders that Elune’s test had proved the Scourge was hiding its strength, and Varian and Sylvanas reappeared alive.
• The Emissary assigned Tirion the glory of killing Arthas, and the leaders departed Northrend as Tirion eagerly accepted the task.

Tirion Fordring turned the campaign against the Lich King into a publicity spectacle, recruiting wealthy and noble heirs for a staged assault on Icecrown Citadel. After Plague Rats killed the heirs and Tirion escaped to Dalaran, Thrall arrived to visit him.

• Tirion Fordring used Peace Dove’s arrangements to recruit noble and merchant children, charging enormous fees for places on teams with different levels of publicity.
• Big Candle Gagg directed rehearsals for a promotional scene, and Tirion Fordring led the Argent Crusade in a staged march on Icecrown Citadel.
• Tirion Fordring brought the heirs into the citadel, reassuring them as they climbed through its eerie, bloodstained halls.
• A swarm of Plague Rats attacked the group, and Tirion Fordring escaped to Dalaran using Divine Shield and a teleportation scroll while the heirs were killed.
• Tirion Fordring feared the heirs’ families would hold him responsible, and the next day Thrall came to visit him.

Thrall forced Tirion Fordring to surrender the Argent Crusade’s wealth and agree to let other leaders claim the Scourge’s treasures, then used the reporters’ deaths and a fabricated account of the battle to preserve Tirion’s reputation. Meanwhile, Stormwind gained citizens from a parallel world, and Thrall’s propaganda drew more people into the Argent Crusade.

• Vol'jin told Tirion Fordring that reporters had discovered the remains at Icecrown Citadel, and Thrall revealed he had killed them all except Big Candle Gagg.
• Thrall and Vol'jin offered to protect Tirion’s reputation in exchange for the Argent Crusade’s income, access to Icecrown Citadel for Sylvanas and Jaina, and Varian’s and King Bronzebeard’s claims to the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne; Tirion agreed to everything.
• After Tirion left, Thrall declared that history would repeat itself and that he alone deserved the highest throne, leaving Vol'jin unsettled by how unfamiliar Thrall had become.
• The Emissary told Medivh that Stormwind’s sudden new residents came from a parallel world destroyed by an advanced Kobold civilization, while they discussed the Moon Goddess’s purpose and the growing strength of the Alliance and Horde.
• Thrall’s account portrayed Tirion as having defeated Arthas and the fallen nobles’ children as heroic sacrifices, prompting more people to join the Argent Crusade.

Varian resented Tirion Fordring’s growing popularity and planned to use the attack on the Frozen Throne to eliminate him and other leaders. In Northrend, Meryl Winterstorm warned Tirion that Thrall, Varian, and Sylvanas all had hidden schemes, leaving him facing an approaching bloodshed.

• Stormwind citizens demanded a statue honoring Tirion Fordring, while Varian privately plotted to kill Tirion, Thrall, Sylvanas, and Jaina during the assault on the Frozen Throne.
• Varian worried that Tirion might try to become the next Lich King and decided he had to seize the Helm of Domination.
• Tirion Fordring brooded over his failed plan to replace Arthas as the Lich King while eating a Tuskarr at the Argent Crusade camp.
• A guard seized the Ashbringer from Tirion Fordring and revealed that Archmage Meryl Winterstorm wished to see him.
• Meryl praised Tirion Fordring, then warned him that Thrall planned to wipe out the leaders at the Frozen Throne and that Varian and Sylvanas also had hidden schemes.

Meryl persuaded Tirion Fordring to accept the Undead Emperor’s support by claiming the Emperor could preserve Azeroth’s balance and take the Scourge from Arthas. Tirion agreed to serve him, but after leaving camp, Meryl collapsed from the Ashbringer’s Holy Light, and the guard revealed that they were Dreadlords plotting to become the new Lich King.

• Meryl warned Tirion Fordring that he would die without powerful support and claimed there were over five million Undead hidden across Azeroth.
• Meryl used a Communication Gem to show Tirion an avatar of the Undead Emperor and claimed the Emperor could destroy the Frozen Throne with one hand.
• Meryl told Tirion that the Undead Emperor intended to take the Scourge from Arthas to preserve Azeroth’s balance.
• Fearing that the Orcs would destroy him and the Argent Crusade, Tirion agreed to serve the Undead Emperor.
• After leaving the camp, Meryl convulsed from the Holy Light he had suppressed, and the guard revealed that they were Dreadlords seeking to become the new Lich King.

Varimathras and Meryl prepared to replace the Lich King and use the Scourge against Azeroth, while Thrall and Gallywix exploited a campaign to save the world to amass wealth and troops. The scheme devastated Kalimdor, but Thrall’s reputation as a savior grew, and he entrusted his fortune to Gallywix.

• Varimathras revealed himself to Meryl, dismissed concerns about Thrall and Sylvanas, and planned to seize control of the Scourge for Kil'jaeden.
• Thrall asked Gallywix to devise a plan to profit from the assault on Icecrown Citadel, and approved Gallywix’s proposal to plunder the Goblins.
• Gallywix limited the assault to twenty-five places, used media campaigns and violence to pressure Goblins into the auction, and drove the prices up until the buyers lost most of their wealth.
• Gallywix forced rich Goblins to donate and levied taxes on ordinary Goblins and other Kalimdor races, concentrating the region’s wealth in Thrall’s hands.
• Thrall used his fortune to obtain a hundred thousand Orc soldiers from the Caverns of Time, while Kalimdor’s economy collapsed and more than half its sentient beings died from cold or starvation.
• The catastrophe did not harm Thrall’s reputation, and he placed his wealth under Gallywix’s management to avoid suspicion.

Tirion led Thrall and the racial leaders into Icecrown Citadel, where they reached the Frozen Throne after struggling to break through an ice wall. When Tirion tried to remove the apparently dead Lich King's Helm of Domination, the figure fell and revealed a young man who called him “Father!”

• Thrall boasted that the Orcs should rule Azeroth, while Tirion shamelessly agreed and Varian condemned him.
• The group cleared the plague rats on the citadel's third floor but found an ice wall blocking the way forward.
• After Arthas taunted them and the leaders pressured Tirion, he led the twenty-five Elites up to the Frozen Throne.
• The Lich King appeared motionless, and a frightened young Blood Elf climbed the steps and declared him dead.
• Tirion approached to take the Helm of Domination, but he fell down the steps with “Arthas,” whose helmet rolled away to reveal a young man calling Tirion “Father!”

Tirion learned that the Lich King was Taelan, killed him, and claimed the Helm of Domination before turning on the witnesses. Meanwhile, Thrall threatened the other leaders with his Dragonblood Orcs, but Sylvanas defeated them with a Banshee and warned that her own threat was serious.

• Tirion recognized Taelan as his son and Lich King, then lowered the Ashbringer after believing Taelan had been controlled by the Helm of Domination.
• Taelan claimed Arthas and the Scourge commanders had aged to death, then tried to kill Tirion with Frostmourne when Thrall appeared.
• Tirion blocked Frostmourne, killed Taelan with the Ashbringer, took the Helm of Domination, and threatened the twenty-five witnesses.
• Thrall demanded that the leaders surrender half their people as food and slaves, then summoned two hundred Dragonblood Orcs to intimidate them.
• Sylvanas summoned a Banshee, whose shriek incapacitated the Dragonblood Orcs, and told Thrall she had not been joking.

Sylvanas, Magni Bronzebeard, Jaina, and Tirion Fordring each tried to seize power after the apparent destruction of the Scourge. The Emissary backed Tirion and condemned Thrall’s leadership, while Tirion prepared to reveal a more powerful Undead Scourge.

• Sylvanas demanded the Warchief position from Thrall and called on Varian and Magni to provide people and labor for the Forsaken.
• Magni destroyed Sylvanas’s Banshees with Fire Elementals and demanded that she submit, then claimed Icecrown Citadel’s relics for the Dwarves.
• Jaina fought Magni with Ice Elementals, defeated his Fire Elementals, froze him in an ice coffin, and asked Sylvanas to support her bid to become Warchief.
• Tirion Fordring arrived carrying Arthas’s Helm of Domination and claimed the leadership of the Alliance and the Horde for himself.
• The Emissary confirmed that Tirion had destroyed the Scourge, rebuked Thrall, and said the Orcs had to prove themselves without Elune’s support.
• Tirion told Jaina that Azeroth held a more terrifying power and prepared to show everyone the true Undead Scourge.

Tirion Fordring handed the Helm of Domination to Meryl for an unseen Emperor, but Jaina and Varimathras intervened. When Varimathras pulled a soul from the helmet, he discovered it was the Primordial Emissary, and Varian’s shattered crystal ball began producing a growing green hair.

• Tirion Fordring gave Meryl the Helm of Domination, and Meryl declared that the Emperor would unite Azeroth and rule through Tirion Fordring.
• Jaina attacked Tirion Fordring and demanded that Meryl leave the helmet behind, but Varimathras appeared and took it.
• Varimathras pulled an Orc soul from the helmet, and the Emissary identified it as the Primordial Emissary.
• Varimathras bargained with the Emissary to become leader of the Scourge and take Varian’s form to rule Stormwind City.
• Varian rejected the Emissary’s demand that he die and shattered a crystal ball, from whose shards a green hair began to grow.

Varian released green-furred Kobolds that multiplied whenever attacked and absorbed elemental, Fel, and other powers. The Emissary’s forces failed to stop them, and Elune’s power began shining on the Kobolds.

• Varian revealed that the green-furred Kobold was a world-destroying weapon from his parallel world, and Jaina’s frostbolt made it split into dozens of Kobolds.
• Jaina’s frost and fire magic, Varimathras’s Fel, and the Emissary’s magical seal all failed to stop the Kobolds from multiplying.
• Magni Bronzebeard petrified the Kobolds with a Titan relic, but they broke free, and Sylvanas’s deathly arrows only made them divide further.
• Sylvanas ordered Antonidas to bring apothecaries through a Portal, and their plague turned the Kobolds into Undead Kobolds without stopping their growth.
• Tirion Fordring broke free and struck the Undead Kobolds with Ashbringer, producing Kobolds infused with Holy Light.
• The Emissary prayed to Elune, and a gentle divine power shone upon the Kobolds.

Elune transformed the Kobolds into plants, but they revived as a rapidly multiplying horde that overwhelmed Icecrown Citadel. After Robbie sealed the Kobolds away, Varian told the leaders that they would spread across Azeroth within three months and insisted their takeover was a cleansing, not destruction.

• Elune turned the green-haired Kobolds into plants, prompting the leaders to praise her while the Emissary prepared to punish Varian.
• The plants split open and produced more than ten thousand Kobolds of varied types, which attacked the leaders and multiplied whenever they were killed.
• The leaders escaped through Portals, and Robbie moved the Kobolds and the original Icecrown Citadel into a sealed layered space before replacing the citadel.
• In Dalaran, Varian taunted the Emissary and claimed he knew how to handle the Kobolds, while Thrall bit off Rhonin's right arm.
• Varian told the Emissary that the Kobolds could spread across the world within three months and called their takeover a clearing away of trash.