A month later.
The sun shone brightly over Menethil Harbor beneath a cloudless sky.
Daelin dressed and stepped out of his residence. Ever since the combined elven and human army had returned to garrison Menethil Harbor, he had worried that the Orcs Forces newly entering the Wetlands would attack Menethil City. That attack had never come, but some time earlier, he had received a battle report from Allied Command concerning the northern front in Arathi.
The situation on the Arathi battlefield was truly dire. According to the report, the entire Kingdom of Arathi had fallen and become one vast battlefield. The horse ranch, mines, lumber mill, and farms were all firmly in orc hands. Only in the northern half of Arathi Castle did some Alliance troops still hold out, fighting a bitter, stubborn resistance. Across Arathi, the orcs ranged almost unopposed over enormous distances.
The only sign that the Allied Army had not suffered a complete defeat was that, despite repeated fierce orc assaults, it had ultimately held Refuge Valley, Arathi's last safe foothold.
Throughout the many battles to defend Refuge Valley, the elf mages of Lor'themar's elven spellcaster regiment had played an especially prominent role. Their powerful area-of-effect attack spells had successfully kept large numbers of orc troops outside Refuge Valley, denying them even an inch of ground.
Allied Command believed that the orc army would leave some troops behind to maintain pressure on the last remaining Alliance resistance in Arathi, while the bulk of its forces would push through Arathi toward the northern reaches of the continent. Hillsbrad would be the first region attacked.
But with the Alliance army's chain of command in disarray, it could no longer gather troops quickly and effectively enough to establish a defensive line in the region. Alliance command had therefore been forced