Warcraft: Official Movie Novelization

The crowd stared, murmuring. “He does not even look orc now,” Orgrim heard. Gul’dan stood, panting, daring them to defy him. Orgrim saw several orcs turn to leave. Some of them, he noticed, had the green tinge to their skin. They had seen their fate played out before them should they continue to use the fel, and were choosing to have no part in it.

Orgrim turned back to his friend and chieftain, whom he had betrayed. Durotan, son of Garad, son of Durkosh, was still. But he had died as he had lived, with courage, and conviction, and in a righteous battle against a terrible foe.

He recalled Durotan’s words, before the Frostwolves had marched south to join the Horde: There is one law, one tradition, which must not be violated. And that is that a chieftain must do whatever is truly best for the clan.

Today, Durotan’s clan had not been Frostwolves. His clan had consisted of the entire Horde.

Orgrim knelt beside his fallen chieftain and grasped one of Durotan’s tusks. He twisted it free. “For your son,” he told Durotan. “So your spirit can teach him.”

“I will deal with you later, Orgrim Doomhammer,” Gul’dan threatened. Several orcs were striding away in disgust after the offensive spectacle they had just witnessed. One of them spat, “Your power is not worth the price, warlock!” Orgrim paused, wanting to see this play out. Gul’dan, all but frothing at the mouth in his rage, reached out his hand. Three orcs who had the misfortune to stand near him—including, Orgrim saw, many who had been faithful to the warlock—arched in agony as their life essences were not siphoned, not extracted, but savagely ripped from them. The white energy flowed into Gul’dan’s outstretched hand. The warlock raised his other hand, and from it streamed the sickly, all-too-familiar color of fel energy.

“Anyone else?” Gul’dan challenged. Those who had not already moved out of reach of the angry warlock stood, shuffling their feet. They did not want to stay, but neither did they wish to die as their comrades had. As Durotan had.

“And you, warchief!” Brimming with fel energy, Gul’dan whirled, his hand shooting out as he funneled everything straight into Blackhand. The warchief fell to the dead ground, screaming and writhing as his body was twisted and contorted. “You will take the fel,” Gul’dan shouted over Blackhand’s tormented cries, “and you will become stronger than any orc has ever been! And when the fel has remade you, you will crush the smallteeth!”

The green washed over and through Blackhand. Muscles swelled so large his armor popped off his body in places. Tendrils looking like veins pumping green blood twined along him, even down his metallic, claw-like appendage. Blackhand looked up, his eyes so bright with the fel that mist roiled from them. Orgrim turned away, sickened in body and spirit. It was too late for Durotan, and it was too late for Blackhand. But it was not too late for him, and the few others who had been forced to see with fresh eyes thanks to the sacrifice of the Frostwolf chieftain.

As he strode into the forest, away from the fel and its false promises, he heard Gul’dan screaming, “Now—claim my new world!”

The Black Morass, the enemy, and innocent prisoners awaited King Llane and his troops over the next rise. Beside Llane rode Garona, who had been casting concerned glances at him.

In silence, the small group crested this final rise, and Llane’s stomach turned to ice.

The Frostwolves will meet you on the way, Medivh had told him.

And so they had. Impaled Frostwolves lined the road, an obscene invitation to enter the vast encampment of orcs. Horror closed Llane’s throat as he looked from body to body. Some had pendants with the clan’s symbol dangling from their necks. Others had the Frostwolf banner stuffed into their mouths. There were so many…

Medivh had been wrong. The rebellion had been snuffed out. Their would-be allies had been reduced to gore-encrusted, stiffening corpses… or worse.

Llane took a long, deep breath. He forced himself to look past the horrifying spectacle, past the sea of orc tents, to the cages filled with prisoners. His people—still alive, for now. And beyond them—the Great Gate. The dark portal, which would shortly birth a flood of ravaging orc warriors. The Horde would descend upon Azeroth, slaughtering his people. The fel used to make them fierce would suck the life out of Azeroth, leaving it as dry and desiccated as the orcs’ own world. It was already happening. The Black Morass had been a swamp, but in the area around the portal, there was only parched earth, a grim preview of what was to come.

Unless, somehow, they were stopped.