"Why haven't the reinforcements from Lordaeron and Stormwind City arrived yet!" Danath Trollbane pounded the table furiously. "What exactly are King Arthas and King Varian doing?"
The Nethergarde Keep commander's anger was not without reason.
Six days had passed since the Horde crossed the Dark Portal; counting the distress signal they had sent a day earlier, it had been seven days.
Yet to this day, apart from the floating city Khardros descending from the sky, Nethergarde Keep had not seen a single Alliance soldier arrive as reinforcements.
"Even crawling, seven days should be enough to get from Stormwind City to Nethergarde Keep!" Danath cast an angry glance north.
What he did not know was that the Black Dragon Prince Nefarian had tricked Lordaeron's reinforcements into going to Blackrock Mountain, while Stormwind City's reinforcements were currently locked in a bitter battle with the Black Dragon Princess Onyxia in the Black Morass.
For the first three days after crossing the Dark Portal, the Horde had launched fierce attacks on Nethergarde Keep, at one point leaving the fortress in grave danger... But after support from the floating city Khardros repelled their offensive, they began building fortifications near the Dark Portal again.
Danath badly wanted to launch a counterattack while the Horde was reeling from defeat... But he had far too few troops left.
Of the Alliance warriors at Nethergarde Keep, only a little over a thousand were still fit to fight.
Although fifteen hundred dwarf musketeers had arrived aboard the Khardros to reinforce them, they could, at most, help shore up the defenses; launching a counterattack with such a pitiful force would be no different from marching to their deaths.
He had also hoped the gryphon riders aboard the floating city would bomb the Horde's positions again, as they had several days earlier.