Turalyon started to tell his friend that yes, he had seen ogres before, and he had realized this one had two heads, when the strange ogre raised its empty hand toward a cluster of Alliance soldiers. Turalyon blinked, thinking his eyes were playing tricks upon him. Had he just seen fire pour from the creature's outstretched hand toward the soldiers? He looked again. Yes, there were flames licking about the soldiers now, and the men were dropping their weapons to beat at themselves where the fires danced across their armor and clothes. Several were pulling off their cloaks, which had ignited, and others were rolling in the grass, trying to put out the flames that tormented them. How had the strange new ogre done that?

"Damn!" Khadgar had clearly seen it as well, if his increased cursing was any indication. "He's an ogre mage!"

"A what?"

"A wizard," Khadgar snapped. "A bloody ogre wizard!"

"Ah." Turalyon dispatched another foe and stared at the monstrous ogre again, trying to understand this. The largest, strongest creature he had ever seen, and it cast magic? Wonderful. What would it take to kill such a beast? He started to ask Khadgar this, and choked on his words as the ogre mage suddenly reeled and fell forward, the hair on the back of its head spiked straight up by the last of the rainfall. At first Turalyon thought it was leaning down to do something to the bodies before it, perhaps devour them with its twin mouths, but the creature did not get up again. And then he realized that what he had taken for hair was too solid for that. Those were shafts, too big to be arrows. Spears!

"Yes!" Alleria cheered, raising her bow high in salute. "My people have arrived!"

And she was right, Turalyon saw. From the forest emerged row upon row of elves. These wore more armor than Alleria and her rangers, and heavier gear, and carried shields and spears as well. Clearly it had been their weapons that had felled the ogre mage. Turalyon had never been so happy to see anyone in his life.

"They have excellent timing!" he told Alleria, having to shout to make himself heard over the chaos of combat. "Can you relay messages at all?"

She nodded. "We use gestures for hunting, and they can be read at a distance."

"Good." Turalyon nodded and pounded another orc into the ground as he marshaled his thoughts. "We need to crush the Horde between us. Tell them to advance toward us, but also to spread out along the edges and sweep in. We'll do the same. I don't want the orcs to just squeeze out the sides because then they could close in on us instead." Alleria nodded and began gesturing toward the forest, and Turalyon saw one of the elves in front nod and turn to his fellows. Khadgar had been close enough to hear the discussion and he was already turning toward a nearby unit leader, shouting orders and telling the man to pass them along as well.

Both armies began to fan out, the Alliance forces retreating slightly so they would have room to move. The Horde clearly took this as a sign of defeat, because a cheer went up among the orcs. Most of them had not yet seen the elves, who were still partially hidden beneath the trees. That was fine. Turalyon wanted them taken by surprise as much as possible, to reduce the chance of their getting away. He pulled his men back, detailing several units to hold the orcs at bay while the others got some distance between them, and then sent a third of his troops to each side and told them to sweep back in from there. The rest he kept with him, and he could see the Horde's puzzlement as he turned and led the charge straight back into their midst.

On the far side, the elves had arrayed themselves in a similar fashion. And as the Horde braced itself to meet Turalyon's attack, the elves stepped forward, sweeping down with their spears to slice into the rear—most row of orcs. Many fell without a sound, but enough gasped or sighed or groaned that others turned to see what had disturbed their comrades. And then a ragged shout went up as the orcs realized they were beset on both sides.

Several orc warriors turned and tried to run, realizing they were now trapped between two armies. But the arms of both human and elven forces curled around, blocking any escape. The orcs were forced to stand and fight, and most did so happily, losing themselves in rage and bloodlust. But with enemies on all sides, and elven bows and spears to complement human swords and axes and hammers, the orcs began to take heavy casualties.

Turalyon felt a surge of hope. They were winning! The Horde still outnumbered his own soldiers and the elven warriors, but they were trapped and undisciplined. Each orc was fighting for himself or with a handful of others, most likely members of the same clan, and that left them vulnerable to the human and elven tactics. Particularly as his own men and the elves began working together more smoothly, the elven archers firing into a cluster of orcs to thin their ranks and cause confusion before the humans waded in, with the elven spearmen right behind them to stab and block and keep the orcs from ganging up on any soldiers. Already he could see visible gaps in the Horde, and as the Alliance and the elves moved in those gaps expanded, leaving only pockets of the orcs behind.

Then he heard a loud roar. Glancing to the east, Turalyon saw a sight that made his stomach clench. Another of those monstrous two—headed ogres was striding into the battle, laying about with a massive club that he realized was simply a tree trunk with the branches shorn clean. A second of the brutes was right behind the first, a similar club in its own gargantuan hands, and then a third and a fourth followed them. Where were all these creatures coming from?

The two—headed ogres waded into the Alliance troops, sweeping away whole units at a time. Turalyon quickly ordered his men to fall back and let the elves handle this new menace. But the first ogre had been taken by surprise. These were better prepared. They used their clubs to knock aside the flights of arrows and volleys of spears, and then crashed into the elves, sending the slender warriors flying. The Horde began to reform around these massive figures, and more orcs poured in behind them, filling their ranks back out and quickly shifting the numbers back in their favor.

"We have to do something fast!" Turalyon shouted to Khadgar, who was beside him again. "Otherwise they'll sweep us back toward the mountains or west toward the water and we'll be the ones trapped!"

Khadgar started to reply, but Alleria interrupted him. "Listen," she shouted. Her ears quivered.

Turalyon shook his head. "I can't hear anything except fighting," he told her. "What is it?"

She grinned up at him. "Help," she answered. "Help from above."

"There! I see them!"

"Aye, I see them as well, laddie," Kurdran Wildhammer snapped, privately annoyed that the young gryphon rider beside him had spotted the battle first. "Circle around, lads, and then aim for those monstrous brutes in the center. Mind the clubs, though." Tapping Sky'ree with his heels, the Wildhammer leader sent her screaming around and down toward the battlefield. One of the strange two—headed monsters glanced up and, seeing them, roared in reply, but Kurdran was moving too fast to evade, especially with orc warriors everywhere, hampering the giant's progress. As he dropped Kurdran raised his stormhammer, muscles tensing in anticipation. The beast roared again and swung at him with that massive club, but Sky'ree dodged the blow and flew so close her wing—tip brushed one of the creature's faces. Then Kurdran threw, putting all his considerable strength into the toss. The skies echoed with thunder and a lightning bolt struck the creature just as he did, lending its strength to the impact. The creature reeled back, its one head caved in, the other blackened, and toppled. It crushed three orcs when it fell, and its club smashed into several more.