While the Orcs tried to force their way through the passage held by the Dark Iron Dwarves, the six northern human kingdoms continued to revel in peace and prosperity.
Anduin Lothar, the commander who had retreated from Stormwind City in defeat, visited several kingdoms in succession, telling their kings how formidable the Orcs were.
Through his efforts, the kings finally took the threat seriously and began discussing whether to form a joint army.
Many, many years had passed since humanity split from the Arathor Empire into seven kingdoms.
Without a powerful enemy to face, the seven kingdoms had never joined forces.
There were even occasional minor clashes between kingdoms.
The obstacles to suddenly bringing such kingdoms together into a joint army went without saying!
However, the Kingdom of Lordaeron, the strongest of the six kingdoms overall, was willing to do everything it could to bring about this union.
Terenas Menethil, king of Lordaeron, was a ruler of considerable foresight.
The southern kingdom frequently fought the Jungle Trolls, so its army could hardly have been weak.
Yet the Orcs had swiftly crushed it.
The more one considered that outcome, the more terrifying it became.
Unless they assembled an army several times larger than the Orcs' forces, they would likely struggle to stop those brutes from marching north.
At the conference attended by the supreme rulers of all seven human kingdoms, King Terenas, still in his prime, pounded the table.
"Gentlemen, I believe those savage, brutal Orcs have already prepared to invade our lands.
"If we cannot unite, our homelands will face a terrible catastrophe!"
King Terenas's prediction did much to advance the formation of the Alliance.
Some kings were more warlike by nature and had already been entertaining the idea of fighting the Orcs.
After some consideration, those kings were the first to nod, agreeing to contribute troops to a joint army.
Even if the other kings objected, they could only bow to the majority.
The wealthy Kingdom of Lordaeron generously committed two hundred thousand new recruits.
Granted, raw recruits had little fighting ability.
But the enemy would not attack immediately.
After six months or a year of training, surely they would be ready for battle!
The other kingdoms were unwilling to fall behind.
The stronger ones contributed eighty to a hundred thousand troops, while the weaker ones offered twenty to thirty thousand.
The Dalaran Magic Kingdom, which had no proper army, instead supplied a contingent of Mages to deliver magical strikes.
In the end, the seven kingdoms mustered nearly six hundred thousand troops.
To honor its ancient pact with the human empire, the High Elf Kingdom also dispatched a company of Rangers to provide ranged support.
A ranged force numbering only a few hundred was hardly noticeable in a war involving a million combatants.
But the High Elves could not send more troops from their homeland.
At most, they could muster some additional High Elf Mages from nearby Dalaran to provide support.
Herad thought much the same.
He paid no mind whatsoever to the Orcs' regular troops.
The Orcs looked formidable, but their actual strength was nothing special.
The Dark Iron Dwarves, Bronzebeard Dwarves, and Gnomes were all forces that were not to be trifled with.
When facing them, the Orcs had to divert large numbers of troops to contain them and prevent attacks from the rear.
The Burning Steppes, occupied by the Dark Iron Dwarves, were particularly deadly!
The only way through that region was to pass through the enormous Blackrock Spire.
Would the Dark Iron Dwarves, who had spent untold manpower and resources building Blackrock Spire, simply let these Orcs through when all they did upon arrival was shout for blood?
Thousands of Blackrock Orcs and Firegut Ogres had already fallen in assaults on Blackrock Spire's gates.
Only those two highly heat-resistant races could fight at full strength in the Burning Steppes.
As their losses mounted, Orgrim felt as though his heart might burst.
To replace the Blackrock Clan's losses in several major battles, the Warlocks had even begun using dark magic to force their young to mature.
But continuing this war of attrition against those stunted dwarves was clearly no solution.
Orgrim ordered Gul'dan, who had only just awakened from his coma, to find a way to solve the problem at once.
Gul'dan had previously tried to infiltrate Medivh's soul to steal secret information.
Unfortunately, Medivh had been cut down at that very moment by his apprentice Khadgar and a band of friends.
The resulting shock to his soul had nearly killed Gul'dan.
By the time he awoke after several months in a coma, everything outside had changed!
Blackhand, the Horde Warchief he had backed, had had his head smashed in by Orgrim's great hammer.
Most of the Warlocks under him had also had their skulls crushed, while a handful had joined Orgrim.
Though Gul'dan was powerful, he could only meekly submit in the face of Orgrim's Artifact Hammer.
He had no choice.
The entire Horde now answered to Orgrim.
More infuriating still, the brute had an artifact backing him up.
Anyone who refused to submit would be challenged to single combat, then have their head smashed in with one blow!
With Orgrim holding an overwhelming advantage in both personal strength and power, Gul'dan had no choice but to obey.
As he gazed at the towering Blackrock Spire and the enormous ramp leading to its gates, Gul'dan silently abandoned the idea of a frontal assault.
That enormous ramp alone would be difficult enough to set foot on.
Whenever an enemy dared step onto it, the Dark Iron Dwarves would charge out to fight to the death!
The blood of Blackrock Orcs and Firegut Ogres had filled every crack between the stones of the ramp.
No one could shake the Dark Iron Dwarves' resolve to defend their homeland.
Since these tenacious Dark Iron Dwarves could not be budged, extraordinary measures were the only option!
Gul'dan soon devised a solution.
He would send people to dig up the corpses of human Knights.
His requirements were that the bodies had to be intact, and the stronger they had been in life, the better.
Orgrim scoffed at Gul'dan's underhanded scheme.
But these were extraordinary times, and he could only accept such desecration of the dead for now.
Knights possessed great strength, status, and wealth.
Their bodies had received the finest professional embalming.
Even Knights who had been buried for several months showed no serious signs of decay.
Orc Warlocks had almost all started out as Shamans.
Besides summoning the power of the elements, Shamans were highly skilled in Necromancy.
Gul'dan, a Grand Warlock, was particularly adept at necromancy.
But his ambitions went beyond merely creating a batch of zombies.
Ever since learning that Orgrim had killed all his Warlocks, Gul'dan had been plotting how to resurrect his followers.
Although the slain Warlocks had been physically destroyed, their powerful souls lingered in the world, unwilling to depart.
Gul'dan had therefore used special items to safely store their souls while awaiting a suitable opportunity to resurrect them.
After the Knights' bodies had been professionally prepared and inscribed with mysterious arcane runes, Gul'dan inserted a purple crystal into each corpse's chest.
The purple crystals were diamond-shaped and roughly the size of a thumb.
These were Soulstones, used to store the Warlocks' souls.
Soulstones were formed from vast numbers of soul fragments, their substance somewhere between the illusory and the physical.
Under the effects of necromancy, the Soulstones fused with the Knights' corpses.
The Warlocks' souls also took perfect control of their new bodies.
Upon receiving their new bodies, the Warlocks instinctively tried to regain command of dark magic.
But their bodies were dead and could not produce normal mana.
The mutated mana generated by their corpses was a strange, cold, and evil energy.
This chilling energy was incompatible with any known spell.
In other words, the corpses could not become spellcasters.
However, circulating that chilling energy through their bodies greatly enhanced their physical toughness.
Even great axes and heavy hammers struggled to break through their undead flesh.
Watching his followers rise from the ground one after another and examine their new bodies, Gul'dan was thoroughly pleased with his creations.
With these undead spreading death and terror, taking Blackrock Spire would be more than manageable!
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