The blizzard sweeping down from above the Griffon Mountains swiftly draped the earth and mountains in a blanket of silver, rapidly burying the scarlet bloodshed upon the battlefield.
What puzzled Huozi and the others was that the enemy's high-intensity offensive, exploiting their wolf riders' charge, did not last long.
After suffering more than a third in casualties, they swiftly withdrew at the sound of a horn and regrouped on both flanks.
Taking their place were five thousand Orc infantry massed in a dark throng at the pass, along with a barbarian tribe numbering just over two thousand.
At that moment, aside from the Gnolls and Duergar, despair filled the hearts of nearly every human.
Relying on the terrain and their superior equipment, along with the archers and Mage corps expending their remaining spell slots, they had already greatly blunted the wolf riders' first assault.
Even so, Huozi and the others had paid a steep price. At least two hundred Gnoll warriors and over half the Duergar had been badly wounded, while the militia had suffered at least a hundred casualties beneath the ravaging assault of several dozen Frostwolf riders who had broken through the line.
Such results would have been staggering within the Silvermoon Alliance.
For even the most elite Silvermoon cavalry, when facing the ferocious Frostwolf cavalry with equal numbers, would find it difficult to achieve a one-to-one casualty ratio.
Yet the absolute disparity in Combat Strength remained before them. Faced with a combined infantry force of over seven thousand Orcs and barbarians, along with wolf riders poised to strike from both flanks, no one knew how they could possibly win this sudden, brutal war.
What let them breathe a little easier, however, was that for some unknown reason, these Orcs did not launch their all-out assault as soon