The War of the Spider

Beneath Northrend, the nerubians of Azjol-Nerub resisted the growing Scourge. Their living bodies resisted the plague, and their underground kingdom gave them tunnels and strongholds from which to fight. This was a people defending its home, not an undead army waiting to be discovered.

That resistance could not protect their dead. The Lich King raised fallen defenders and turned them against their own people. Anub’arak, once their king, was killed and compelled to serve the power he had opposed. Each defeat therefore cost the living more than territory: it gave the enemy more soldiers.

The kingdom fell, but its people were not entirely extinguished. Living survivors continued to resist in its ruins. The surviving nerubians faced undead enemies who wore the shapes of their former kin.