Conquest of the Horde

Durotar Drought Continiues

WATER PRICES continue to rise as the situation in Durotar shows no sign of improving for another long month. The night elves of Ashenvale continue to refuse all Orgrimmar's overtures for humanitarian aid, demanding the full withdrawal of all the Horde's forces in Northern Kalimdor to south of the Mor'shan Rampart before they will bring any terms to the table. Currently, Thunder Bluff is sending shipments of food, water and other provisions through the Barrens from fertile Mulgore to aid their close allies, but the High Chieftain of the Tauren has emphasised that his people's settlements in Mulgore do not have anything like the agricultural capacity to keep these donations coming for much longer.

Another well ran dry in Razor Hill yesterday, with yet more peons refusing to work until they have a legitimate guarantee that an alternative water source will be secured for their families. The substantially reduced workforce in Durotar is struggling to meet even half its typical labour quota, which is likely to mean another quarter of stagnation for the Kalimdor economy. This marks the abrupt end to an unprecedented surge in business interests by Kezani cartels in the Horde's heartland, one which sought to capitalise on the powerful war economy that arose to supply the Warsong Offensive's efforts in Northrend. The infrastructures that arose to support the Horde's campaign and demonstrated its unique economic capabilities now seem to be in a tragic state of terminal decline as this unprecedented period of scarcity persists.

The Times received a report last week that a full warband of Grunts stationed near the Great Lift in the Barrens had abandoned their posts and are currently suspected of desertion. There has been little sign of them since, but they were last seen heading towards a supposed 'meeting' somewhere in the deserts of the south, where an alleged solution to the Horde's problems was to be discussed. Floundering under the ineffecutal rule of a so-called Warchief, who so far has refused to participate in any actual conflicts his Horde has found itself in for nearly the past decade, it is easy to see why calls for action among the orcs are growing louder. They are a people who admire strong, dynamic individuals, and while they revere the wise, all orcs know that wisdom not tempered by the willingness to act is no wisdom at all.

Crippled by indecision and a reliance on the unreliable predictions of certain Farseers, the Horde's crude governmental structures seem to be teetering closer and closer to outright collapse in the face of these challenges, while its robust military remains uneasy in its state of general demobilisation. But if Thrall cannot salvage the Horde's fortunes, then who can?

Rumblings Across Kalimdor

The Stormwind Post

Four Troop Ships Sink Near The Maelstrom

The Post has been notified that four Stormwind-flagged ships of a flotilla of twelve have been sunk and destroyed while passing by the Maelstrom. The cause for this disaster is believed to be a freak storm or some kind of seismic activity on the seabed. The flotilla was bound for Theramore for a diplomatic mission and a joint training exercise with Proudmoore's Marines.

It was the Grand Admiral's intention for us to 'show solidarity and goodwill towards our brothers and sisters in humanity across the sea'. Soldiers on the ships were from the Sixth Legion's First Company, the Fifth Legion's Eighth Company and the Seventh Legion's Third Company. There are believed to be no survivors, but it appears that the other eight vessels will be making Theramore Harbour safely.

The KTS Intrepid, the KTS Windbreaker, the SS Sea Lion and the SS Golden Mane are believed to be the vessels affected. The Earthen Ring is currently said to be working around the clock in investigating the recent erratic behaviour of the world's waterways. Even inland, rivers have been seen steaming and stirring unnaturally. More on this story as it develops.

The Lordaeron Herald

Returning Hand of Vengeance Mobilises Into Silverpine

Divisions of the Hand of Vengeance, recently returned home from Northrend, have been remobilised to reinforce our holdings in Silverpine Forest, with a High Executor of the Deathguard citing unusually bold movements of Alliance forces in Hillsbrad as the reason for the move. An anonymous press statement from within the Halls Executive has stated that they intend to preempt and deter any invasion by living aggressors.

King Varian Wrynn has made no secret of his designs to steal Lordaeron from under us. The Herald applauds the brave heroes of Her Majesty's Deathguard as they stand vigilant against the treachery of southern aggression.

The Ironforge Tribune

Civil War Hits Shadowforge City

With the recent public revelation of the demise of Emperor Dagran Thaurissan of the Dark Iron Clan, extreme civil unrest has erupted in the imperial capital of Shadowforge City and has subsequently escalated into a fully blown armed conflict.

Initially assumed to be a mere succession crisis, interviews with refugees reveal that the conflict is not clearly divided between the backers of different claimants on the Imperial Seat as initially assumed. Rather, the chief belligerents of the armed struggle appear to be the Priesthood of Ragnaros and their followers attempting to usurp power from imperial loyalists.

Thaurissan was reported killed by Alliance special agents dispatched by King Magni several years ago. The deeply secretive Dark Iron Empire fervently denied these claims and suppressed all rumours of the emperor's alleged death within their territories, but it appears that news has finally broken to catastrophic results. The Empire's stability was hinged around the cult of personality that developed around the Thaurissan dynasty. It is unclear if Thaurissan has even produced any heirs.

The nature of the conflict strikes the Tribune as unusual. Emperor Thaurissan was said to be a devout follower of the Priesthood's fiery religion - they were heavily integrated into Dark Iron government almost as an apparatus of the state. It seems unlikely that the leaders of the Priesthood, having once been so close in the Emperor's inner circle, were unaware of his demise. What prompted their seemingly spontaneous rebellion is thus unclear.

The Tribune is informed that the Shadowforge Senate has been governing in secrecy from the Imperial Seat alongside the Emperor's unknown wife acting as regent, citing prolonged illness to explain the Emperor's public disappearance. The High Seat of Ironforge's press office continues to deny the scandalous rumours that alleged that our Princess Moira had eloped with Thaurissan.

---

The Stormwind Post

Disappearances Continue

A young journeyman watchmaker by the name of Roger Schofield has been reported missing by his parents. A denizen of Old Town, Schofield appeared to have left most of his belongings, leaving behind only a note that described his intention to 'go to a better place, to strive for a better future'.

This marks the Kingdom's fiftieth disappearance in a protracted string of missing person cases this month, amidst ongoing environmental disturbances. Last week, the Woodwell Farmstead in Elwynn Forest was said to have completely disappeared off the map, abandoned without a trace. Stormwind CIS is said to be working around the clock to determine a correlation between the cases.

More on this story as it develops.

The Hearthglen Times

Lordaeron At War!

It seems the Forsaken are on the warpath across old Lordaeron in an unprecedented display of aggression against their Alliance neighbours, with Silverpine Forest and expanding swathes of the Hillsbrad Foothills already brought decisively under their control. This marks an enormous escalation from the status quo of years past, where skirmishing between the human and Forsaken settlements in the Foothills had been the norm, and where the towns of Ambermill and Pyrewood had attacked Forsaken interlopers on sight without expecting reciprocation. These events herald a major shift in the balance of power on the Lordaeronian subcontinent. Could this be the revenge that was promised after the Alliance launched its attack on the Undercity following the Wrathgate?

The situation began to escalate midway through January. One of Garrosh Hellscream's firsts acts as Warchief was to relax the restrictions imposed on the Forsaken military in the wake of the Wrathgate Disaster. This led to the vast bulk of the Forsaken's forces being recalled from Northrend duty and rapidly mobilised into Silverpine, with their navy soon tripling its presence along Lordaeron's western coast. Methodically, the Forsaken army first put the township of Ambermill under siege, then advanced to the Greymane Wall, before doubling back on itself and surrounding Pyrewood Village.

Ambermill is believed to have secluded itself behind a magical barrier to escape the Forsaken's wrath, while the Wall is allegedly under sustained bombardment as the Forsaken attempt to press an advance into the kingdom of Gilneas, believed to be in ruins in the wake of famine and civil war. Pyrewood was captured after a short siege and placed under the Undercity's administration. The Forsaken are now believed to be carrying out a campaign of deforestation and excavation in southern Silverpine to deny the worgen their hunting grounds and hasten their extermination.

Concurrently, the forces of Tarren Mill mounted renewed aggression in the Hillsbrad region, bombarding the town of Hillsbrad Fields, making sallies against Southshore and launching a lightning raid against Dun Garok which is believed to have laid the dwarven stronghold to utter waste. Alliance resistance in the region was valiant, but insufficient. With the Southpoint Pass from Silverpine secured, the Forsaken would march the rest of their army into Hillsbrad, subjecting the town of Hillsbrads Fields, the centrepiece of their designs, to a brutal pincer movement. Conflicting reports have left the region since -- some refugees claim the settlement is under occupation, whereas others allege that vicious fighting persists from street to street. Skirmish warfare and partisan fighting appears to be ongoing throughout the surrounding countryside.

Spokespeople of the Undercity maintain that these advances are well within the Forsaken's rights as heirs to the nation of Lordaeron, and that the end goal of this campaign is the reunification of the kingdom, once again under the Capital's central government. Their advance into Gilneas, likewise, is being legitimated under demands of recompense for the nation's inaction when Lordaeron was collapsing before the Scourge. Stormwind and the Alliance continue to categorically deny any claim the Forsaken have on the legacy of Lordaeron, but the court of King Varian has yet to issue a statement in response to these upheavals. The Stormpike Guard and the League of Arathor are reported to be actively reinforcing the humans of Hillsbrad, however.

With fighting threatening to spill out into the Hinterlands, the Arathi Highlands and the southern Plaguelands, the Argent Crusade has placed its forces on high alert for interventionary action. Additional Argent overseers have been deployed to various factional bases in the Plaguelands, including the Stormwind-held Thorondril Bridge and the Forsaken's outposts at the Bulwark and the Marris Stead. Highlord Fordring has yet to comment one way or the other on the Forsaken's alleged territorial rights, but has urged the leadership of both sides of the conflict to avoid rash action and to enter any negotiations with mind towards a lasting peace settlement.

And they fumble blindly as comprehension of their doom slowly dawns . . .

. . . and why, you ask?

You dare ask why the fire burns?

---

War on the Savannah

In a display of aggression between man and orc of the kind not seen for ten years, Alliance forces have advanced directly into the Horde-controlled territories of the Barrens with intent to establish a clear and uncontested route between Theramore and Ashenvale.

The Alliance has also made efforts to establish a naval blockade around the sea port of Ratchet to attempt to disrupt Horde trade, in solemn violation of the terms of neutrality under which the Steamwheedle Cartel has been bound for decades. Calls for an explanation made by representatives of Trade Prince Steamwheedle have not yet been answered.

Skirmishing continues to escalate. The Alliance forces have secured a strong foothold in the Southern Barrens, and the battle lines are becoming ever more clearly drawn. Neither King Varian of Stormwind nor the acting Warchief Hellscream have yet issued a statement on the matter, with the leadership of both factions providing every impression that this has been waiting to happen for years. More on this story as it develops.

---

The Ironforge Tribune

The Prodigal Daughter Returns

Princess Moira Bronzebeard, rumoured bride and beloved of Emperor Dagran Thaurissan I of the Dark Iron Empire, has returned to Khaz Modan suddenly to stake her claim on the regency of Ironforge. This unusual gesture comes as the very Mountains of Khaz shake with unprecedented quakes, alongside rumours that her father, our reigning King Magni, has abruptly taken severely ill with an as-yet-unidentified malady following an unknown ritual in the depths of the Old City.

The princess came accompanied by a baggage train fit for an empress and a hundreds-strong entourage of many Dark Iron nobles, senators and other notables under traditionally recognised flags of parley and truce. Staggered along the roads in their wake trailed further thousands of what the Tribune believes to be refugees from the aforementioned crisis in Shadowforge City.

The Ironforge Senate has convened an emergency meet to determine a swift resolution to this emergent crisis. Every option up to and including the immediate declaration of martial law is reported to be under consideration -- a measure which has not been enacted by the Senate for two hundred and sixty years since the outbreak of the War of the Three Hammers.

---

Mak'gora!

In light of unconfirmed reports of orcish raids on kaldorei caravans traveling through Ashenvale, his hardline approach with the Alliance of Theramore and an increasingly dispassionate stance on the Lordaeron conflict, High Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof of the United Tauren Tribes has issued a formal challenge to Warchief Garrosh Hellscream for the position of leadership of the Horde. This comes amidst unresolved negotiations concerning Mulgore's so-far-continuous stream of supplies sent across the Barrens to Durotar; many tauren elders are reported to believe that the bounties of their lands alone cannot sustain the Warchief's current aggressive policies.

This is the first such challenge issued in the three years since the younger Hellscream himself declared one against then-Warchief Thrall, in a ceremony that was interrupted and left inconclusive by a sudden Scourge attack on the Horde capitol of Orgrimmar.

The mak'gora is an ancient orcish ritual of settling diputes over leadership, typically of clans or military organisations. It is customary for the combatants to determine the rules in advance of each ceremony -- Bloodhoof and Hellscream are said to be engaging in an exciting battle stripped to their loincloths, with weapons blessed by a shaman of their naming. Elder Crone Magatha Grimtotem has expressed a significant interest in these proceedings, stepping forward to take the young Warchief's weapon through the appropriate rites and blessings before the bout.

The fate of the Horde is balanced on the edge of a blade. The Times is proud to bring you the hottest news as soon as it hits the presses!

---

---

He pressed through the leather flaps into his mother's study, lips pursed around his tusks. It was not in his habit to intrude upon her sanctum while she was in meditation, but . . . by his reckoning, she hadn't eaten in days. Hers was an invaluable service to the community, he knew, but damn if the old worg didn't know when to take a rest, and even less with her recent worries. He cleared his throat--

Her totems were scattered across the floor.

She lay sprawled on her back, eyes rolling, mouth frothing. An unhealthy jaundiced pallour had settled across her usually verdant face.

"Mother!"

He ran to her, boots crunching over broken sapta vials, and that's when he noticed the plain orcish lettering drawn into the hard-packed red dirt beside her.

---

The Stormwind Post

Bizarre Seismic Activity Shakes The Park

The Royal Academy has issued a warning regarding the recent tremors that have been felt in the Park District. For the past seven days, they have been recorded at a magnitude that is inconsistent even with the semi-regular quakes that have been recurring throughout the kingdom for some months now. Provincial areas such as Westfall and Redridge are reported to be particularly affected.

The Academy has expressed its confidence, however, that these anomalies should cease on their own in a few days' time. In the meantime, Park residents are urged to remain calm. Watch out for falling tiles, stay safe and stay

---

She came running down the hill and slammed the door shut behind her, barred it. Then she started hauling as much furniture as her old bones could muster, ducking and weaving under the rotten old cottage's array of beams and supports. She was too tall and they were too low and it wasn't the only shoddy marriage in this house, but she'd gotten used to manuoevring through both and either by now. She'd marched through worse, after all.

Already, fists and clubs were pounding on the door. "You can't hide, unbeliever!" Their mad leader shrieked. You could hear the spittle flying off his gums as he wailed it. "You only prolong the inevitable! Your little door can't protect you from what's coming!"

Damn if she didn't wish it could protect her from the man in purple's shrill whining. This was the Westfall she came home to from the wars? This was a home fit for heroes, like the King had promised? She was getting far, far too old for this. Her disheveled, worry-stained husband approached her, and she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Get the children," she said. "Get in the cellar. I'll be down in a minute."

He held her gaze. "You sure?" His voice was firmer than she was used to. He'd noticed her reaching for the old sword on the mantle.

"I'll be down in a minute." That put him in his place. He gathered the kids in his arms and gently steered them towards the trapdoor at the back of the cottage without a single glance over his shoulder.

He watched their heads drop down below the floorboards before she sighed slowly, blew out her cheeks and turned to face the window they were trying to smash. Her callused fingers fit into the handle's leather grooves like they were a silken glove, tailor-fitted, and she smiled despite herself at the soft hiss of steel on scabbard as the blade came loose. She cleared her throat, prepared to bellow, and--

And the world shook, the door burst open, and she hit her head so hard and so sudden on the thickest and sturdiest of all those bloody beams that blinding light flashed through her eyes -- and she realised, a stupid moment later, that the hill outside wasn't . . . there any more. Even as the blood filled her mouth and the yowling cultists spilled into her home, she couldn't help but stare, incredulous.

Pieces of it were floating.

---

The Ironforge Tribune

Martial Law Declared, Curfew Imposed

In accordance with our ascendant queen's most recent decrees, the Tribune has been ordered to halt publication indefinitely. Our editors fully endorse this notion as a necessary measure in dealing with the current crisis.

All citizens are hereafter encouraged to remain within their homes. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. May Empress Moira I of Clans Thaurissan and Bronzebeard prosper in her reign. May the Mountains of Khaz endure any

---

" . . . So y'see, lad," he snorted gruffly at his son, scowling as he sorted through his instruments, "there's really nothin' ta seamanship. S'all a matter o' knowin' yer tools an' knowin' how to use 'em. Like this one."

The boy blinked as he was handed a collapsible spyglass. They were floating in a 'practice dinghy' in a bog as black as bile twenty paces behind the homestead, practising rowing and other . . . 'essentials' of the nautical life. Gingerly, he extended it and weighed it in his hands. "Wha' I do wi' it?"

His father frowned menacingly. "Put it ta yer eye . . . no, no, the other way, y'feckin' idjit! Now, seein' as the fog's thick in along the coast taday, we'll try a landmark. Look over yonder. What's that big bloody stone thing over there, eh? Big enough for ya, is it, ya myopic lil' bastid?"

"It's . . . th'Dam, da'. Stonewrough' Dam."

"Aye."

"Bu' . . . " he paused, lowering the spyglass. His cheeks had gone the colour of sour milk behind his scraggly tufts of young beard. "Why's there a crack in it?"

The elder sailor turned around. His eyes went wide, and the crack went wider. The earth growled below them, and steaming bubbles hissed to the marsh's stagnant surface.

---

The Hearthglen Times

Progress in the Plaguelands

It is with great pleasure that the Times can report the Argent Crusade and Cenarion Circle's completion of several of the joint Plaguelands restoration efforts throughout various territories recaptured from the Scourge. Several previously abandoned farmsteads have been purified and made open, their lands arable and their air clean once again, and are open for letting at reduced rates. See inside for further details.

Most of the former denizens of Sorrow Hill Graveyard have been identified, put to rest and reinterred appropriately, with a new plot opening to honour the heroes of the long and hard-fought Argent campaign to reach this milestone. A celebratory statue of the Highlord is due for unveiling in a few days' time.

We pray that this is the beginning of a new age of prosperity for Lordaer

"Sir, the breathers, the dogs, they're everywhere! We can't-- we can't-- we need to keep--"

"Look up, lad." The beating of great wings filled the unnaturally still air with echoes.

" . . . huh?"

"What do they look like to you?" Spectral feathers drifted serenely down to fade away into the ground.

" . . . angels, sir."

"Aye. Angels. Come to deliver us."

They were bathed in the most beautiful of all the lights he'd ever seen, and the corpses around them began to stir.

---

Wastewanders Migrating By The Thousand

Steamwheedle trappers and scouts have reported that the regular raiding campsites of the nefarious Wastewander Bandits have begun to pack up and leave. Spotters aboard our zeppelins have stated that their unusual exodus is heading to the old ruins in the south-southwest end of the desert.

Well, wherever those ruffian savages aren't, the people of Gadgetzan are happy to be. Remember, ladies and gentlemen -- you ain't felt the heat until you've felt the heat of a Tanaris summer! Vacation packages to Steamwheedle Port are available at the late-spring reduced rates for the next week or so, featuring sand safaris, oasis bar crawls and more!

Come to Gadgetzan -- where the well never runs

---

"Damn it, man, I got family on the slopes of Mount Kajaro. Close family. They gotta get outta there right quick before somethin' real bad happens."

"Nah, nah, my friend, it's all good. Old girl's just got a bit of a temper on 'er, y'know? She gets grumpy from time to time. Lets out a growl or two, steams a little. She cools off after a while. S'nothin' to worry about."

"Huh. Guess you're right."

The sun beat mercilessly down on the two bruisers. They were still on the tail end of the driest wet season on Cartel records here on Tanaris, and where they'd once made sure to liberally splash their faces and throats with water off the tap every half-hour or so, the wells were temporarily on 'VIP rationing'. Like hell if he knew what that meant, but as a general rule of thumb, you didn't ask the bosses these inconvenient questions, in his long experience. Stay alive, do your job, get paid.

"Man . . . " his buddy was saying. "Water looks good today. I could really go for a dip in the sea right now. Y'know?"

"Sure thing. Go out there right now, strip down to your trunks. I hope something nasty swims up your-- . . . "

He blinked, trailing off. Usually, from their canopied guard tower beside the eastwards gate, they had a nice enough view of the rolling deserts that terminated in the sheet of shining silver that was the Great Sea, but today . . . today it was working double-time. Even beneath that thicket of black stormcloud -- today, it was truly something special to look at.

He sniffed as the westwards wind caught him. Salt in the air, too. A quick dip after the noon shift seemed awfully tempting, but there was something . . . off. He squinted against the glare of the sun.

"Hey, uh, wait a minute. Does that look right to you?"

"What?"

"The sea."

"Whaddya mean?"

" . . . It looks like it's getting . . . closer."

---

The Theramore Gazette

Harbours Temporarily Closed

The Theramore Maritime Authority has temporarily barred access to the ports of our fair city to vessels not flying Alliance military flags, in response to several days of dangerous overcrowding in the docks. In response to the increasingly violent storms that have been hitting the coastline, inordinate numbers of merchant ships have been taking residence within the safety of our harbours in the hopes of passing through this rough season on land.

This comes in the wake of in excess of thirty shipping accidents off the Dustwallow Gulf in the past three months, with many vessels and sailors still missing, presumed lost. Similar incidents have been reported in kaldorei waters. Representatives of the Lady Proudmoore's closed council have assured the Gazette that our support for the ongoing Alliance offensive in the Barrens remains undaunted and steadfast in defiance of these unseasonable

---

The waves were crashing right over the low deck of their streamlined cutter, now, thrashing mercilessly against its ancient hull. Her brothers and sisters -- her crew -- were scrambling around, struggling to keep their footing on the slick floors, clinging to the masts and ropes for what scant safety they could as the monstrous waters raged around them.

Seven hundred years she'd captained this vessel, and seven hundred years it had never failed her. So the captain clung to the wheel with all the might her well-muscled arms could muster, teeth gritted so hard her gums tasted bloody, a constant prayer to the Goddess for fortune and fortitude upon her silently moving lips.

Chaos. Fury. Elemental fury. The Darnassian language had a word for that, a name -- a name that sprung to every ship's captain's mind in times like this, times of great peril, but it was a name that was never spoken aloud. Not by sane men and women. It was a name she'd heard whispered in the shadowy streets of Auberdine far more often than she would have liked in recent days. There were less sane men and women around in the world than there had been seven hundred years ago, even ten.

She turned her gaze to the sky and made to vocalise her prayer in song. She searched for the moon to focus on, but the clouds approaching on the horizon were impossibly thick, impossibly black, impossibly--

Impossible. That . . . was no cloud. Another beat of its dread wings took it impossibly closer, impossibly fast. A deafening roar shook the whole world to its bones around her.

She saw the malice in its infernal eyes as the vessel went under, and in those molten pits she saw the doom of all things. Auberdine, she thought as its burning shadow passed overhead. It's heading for . . . Her mind reflexively drifted to prayer again, but despite the frigid saltwater rushing into her lungs it almost made her want to laugh. The Goddess could not save her from this.

What could save anyone from this?

Then scabrous arms folded slowly around her in a cold embrace, pulling her deeper into the darkness as she drowned.