Camping tactic
Finally, after this seemingly endless trek trough Azjol-Nerub, Arthas and Anub'arak had reached the foot of the Icecrown glacier, on top of witch laid the frozen throne and their master, the lich king.
A new painful psychic order from Ner'zhul informed Arthas that the gathered blood elves and nagas led by Illidan were here to destroy the lich king on Kil'jaeden's order. He had to reach the frozen throne and free his master.
"Do you hear me Arthas, this is the end!" Illidan's voice rang out from the other side of the glacier.
"Illidan has mocked the scourge long enough. It's time we put the fear of death back into him." declared the death knight to his troops. "Now Anub'arak, how do we reach the frozen throne?"
"The entrance is sealed by four obelisks; the four must be activated in order for the door to open. Illidan's army has already gathered around two of them, we must drive them back and activate the four obelisks to open the door to the frozen throne, before Illidan does so of course." explained the crypt lord.
Upon hearing this, the undead army, probably assuming Arthas was about to order them to do so, attacked the nearby naga base, leveled it to the ground and started establishing a base camp of their own.
Arthas, who had still been pondering what Anub'arak had told him, suddenly realized his troops were getting a little overzealous and commanded them to cease all activity. The former nerubian king was taken aback by this descision: "But death knight, Illidan is even now activating an obelisk, if we don't move quickly he'll…"
"I've been thinking about this precisely, what will happen if Illidan activate all for obelisks?" asked Arthas.
"Well the door to the frozen throne will open!"
"Right and what will happen if I activate them all?"
"The door will also open…"
"Now tell me Anub'arak, why would I bother beating the crap out of Illidan, wasting valuable resources in gold, corpses and lumber thwarting Illidan's every attempt to do exactly what I need done?"
"I'm afraid I don't follow…"
"Come with me Anub'arak, and all of you as well, have faith, I shall lead you to victory with minimal loss…" Arthas said with a smirk, sending his undead mount toward the glacier.
Meanwhile, Illidan was done activating the first obelisk and ordering the nagas to form a defensive perimeter around it, so the undead wouldn't reclaim it.
"One down, three to go." He though.
After doing the same to the second obelisk, he turned to one of his naga lieutenant and asked about the scourge's resistance so far.
"Lady Vashj report that she as seen none of the walking dead and Prince Kael says he had a skirmish with a few ghouls, but nothing serious. Otherwise, the troops around the first obelisk say they were not attacked." explained the myrmidon.
"Haha! Arthas must realize that we overwhelm him in number and power, find the two other obelisks and guard them, the frozen throne will be open in no time!" Illidan ordered, please with what he perceived to be a winning battle.
After successfully activating the third obelisk and still not seeing any undead, Illidan started getting a little suspicious. He called the messenger again.
"My lord, we didn't want to bother you while you were activating the obelisk, but one of our patrols has gone missing. Prince Kael sent a detachment of blood elves to search for the undeads an hour ago and we had not heard of them since." he explained.
"How many blood elves are we talking about?" Illidan asked.
"About ten of them, mostly spell breakers."
"But otherwise you found no base camp, no blighted land, and no undead troops? There have been no attacks on our obelisk defense station?" Illidan wondered.
"Air reckons detected none of this, we found no trace of the missing elves, but seeing as we are fighting an army that feed and raise soldiers from the dead, that's to be expected."
"Arthas must be unable to raise a necropolis and just wandering around the glaciers looking for a flaw in our defenses with what little troops he has. Let the death knight fight his desperate guerrilla, we have one last obelisk to activate." the night elf concluded.
Finally Illidan succeeded in activating the fourth obelisk…not that this was particularly hard since, as Vashj and Kael confirmed, the glacier had been eerily silent during the activation of the last one. Anyway, all four obelisk having been activated by the demon hunter's power, the door to the frozen throne were now open, the lich king was now within reach.
"Vashj, Kael, get the troops ready to leave this frozen wasteland, I'll go deal with the lich king and be back in a few minutes." Illidan said.
"Are you sure you don't want us to accompany you?" Kael asked.
"Ner'zhul is a soul frozen in an ice prison, it's not like he can defend himself without his undead army, which clearly isn't here." Illidan assured.
Assuming the demon hunter should know what he was doing, the two lieutenants left him to prepare the nagas and blood elves for departure. Illidan made his way to the doorway at the base of the glacier, where the doors to the frozen throne were open. Kil'jaeden would be satisfied and would fulfill his promise, more magical power than Illidan could ever dream off. He had a shiver not at all due to the fact that he had been walking around bare chest in an artic mountain for more than an hour.
Upon arriving in sight of the doors, and still having not encountered a desperate undead assault, Illidan saw fit to voice his disappointment; hell he had hoped that Arthas would have at least tried to stop him: "Is that all Arthas, is that the power of the scourge, I told you it was the end, I didn't though it'd be enough to make you back off! Aren't you even going to show yourself and make a last stand for your precious lich king?"
From behind a spider statue that decorated the entrance to the glacier, Arthas appeared, on foot, meters away from the entrance and standing just between Illidan and the open doorway.
"Ah, Illidan, I guess I should be thanking you for having opened these doors, I dare say they were in the way. Oh, and while I'm at it, thank you also for slaying Tichondrius, he really was a thorn in our side." Arthas sneered.
"The fallen prince shows himself at last…" Illidan got his twin warglaives out "It seems you will make this last stand after all."
"Now tell me, why I would fight you, I mean, Ner'zhul is loosing his power by the minutes, I don't have time to deal with you. Beside, in case you didn't notice, I'm much closer to the door than you are."
"You hid here all along, letting me do all the dirty work so you could get to your master with no effort, clever I must say. But your pride will be your undoing Arthas, you shouldn't have waited here to gloat about your plan, I can run much faster than you, with only a few meter head starts, it's a race you'll loose. Not that I won't dice you up before going after Ner'zhul though." Illidan said with a sadistic grin.
"Whose pride will be whose undoing, demon hunter? You're the one who made the critical mistake here…" Arthas assured.
"And that would be?" Illidan asked as he charged the death knight.
Arthas slammed his foot on the ground.
"You came here alone…" he answered.
Anub'arak popped out of the snowy ground right between Illidan and Arthas, clicking his mandibles threateningly at the demon hunter. Eight other crypt fiends also climbed to the surface, surrounding Illidan. The night elves quickly surveyed his surrounding, clearly taken by surprise by the burrowing undeads.
"…Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with my master. Anub'arak, as thanks for his numerous service to the scourge, please let Illidan leave after I'm done up there. Oh, while I'm at it, Illidan, tell Kael his blood elves made fine addition to the army I sent to the coast to destroy your ships." Arthas declared before entering the icecrown glacier.
Illidan took a few seconds to let all that sink in…he had just been so damn screwed. He tried to fly up above the undead nerubian, but he immediately found himself ensnared by one of the crypt fiend's web. He tried to immolate himself, but for reason that defied any thinking creature's comprehension, nerubian web are fire resistant. He tried his full demon form, but still the webbing would not burst.
The words: "DAMN YOU ARTHAS!" rang trough the entire glacier.
Receiving a mental command from Arthas as soon as the death knight fused with the lich king, the crypt lord and his minions left Illidan and returned to their underground tunnels.
Illidan was soon joined by his two lieutenants who told him that their armies had suffered crippling lost when they were ambushed at the coast by the scourge. Illidan gruntingly opened a portal to the outlands and called retreat for the surviving troops.
Today still, Illidan sit in his throne in the extra planar fortress, replaying the entire battle in his head and refusing to believe how thoroughly Arthas had outsmarted him. Slowly driven insane by his own failure, all he could do was wait for Kil'jaedan to visit his warth upon him for it.
And meanwhile, on top of the icecrown glacier, a lonely armored figure sits on a throne of ice, gazing at the horizon, one arm on the armrest and the other on the hilt of his sword. Now the new, mightier lich king, one thing came to Arthas's mind.
"Man, this is boring…"
(Morale: If you could design your own plans in warcraft3 rather than follow those your (so damn smart) characters come up with, the game would be easier. ;)