Going to the Horde was no simple matter. Preparations had to be made beforehand.
The joint army of the Horde and Alliance had failed to secure victory this time. The Alliance was not alone in growing anxious; the Horde was hardly any better off.
If they could not defeat the naga, they would ultimately have to abandon Zangarmarsh.
The Alliance was not the only side that had begun to appreciate Zangarmarsh's importance. The Horde valued it just as highly. Every region of Outland had its own unique qualities, and Zangarmarsh's most distinctive feature was its ability to cause mutations in growing plants. These mutations were beneficial. Even ordinary mushrooms could grow into enormous, canopy-like structures. Some ordinary rice had already been planted in Zangarmarsh as an experiment, to see what it would become once fully grown.
Compared with the Alliance's lands, the Horde's territory was far more barren. The orcs, for instance, lived in the Barrens. The name alone made its condition clear. Names changed along with the landscape, just as they had in the Eastern and Western Plaguelands within the Kingdom of Gilneas. Those lands had not always borne that name. They had only become known as the Eastern and Western Plaguelands after falling into ruin.
The lands inhabited by the orcs in the Barrens were only somewhat better than the Eastern and Western Plaguelands. The soil in the latter was utterly dead and useless. Nothing planted there would grow, even with the help of druids. Nothing could change that. The Barrens were different. Though they appeared to be an endless stretch of barren red earth, drought-resistant plants could still grow there. The orcs had even planted some crops.
Although the orcs had only established farmland near the edge of Stranglethorn Vale, that still showed that the Barrens were