After realizing he couldn't ambush Lordaeron as planned, a furious and humiliated Orgrim Doomhammer, feeling as if he'd been played, turned his forces toward the royal city of Alterac instead.
This decision struck terror into Perenolde's heart.
He feared not only the Horde's retaliation but also the implications of the Alliance's judgment.
The Horde's failure to seize Lordaeron meant they had missed their only real chance of victory, making it more likely that the Alliance would emerge as the ultimate winner.
Perenolde suddenly realized his act of surrender had made him look like a fool.
In Alaric's words, what he had done was akin to joining the Soviet Union in 1990.
Perenolde couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of treatment awaited him in the future.
Of course, it was too early for him to worry about that now, first, he had to deal with the wrath of the Horde.
So he sent emissaries to Orgrim again and again, dispatching letters and pleas from every conceivable angle, trying to prove that he wasn't the one who had leaked the intelligence.
But the Horde didn't listen.
Would a horde of savage orcs bother with such excuses?
As the Horde's army reached the gates of his city, Orgrim made his move and launched an all-out assault on the royal capital.
In truth, Orgrim wasn't being irrational or blindly blaming Perenolde for the leak.
He understood well that once Perenolde had defected, he was essentially tied to the Horde's fate and had no reason to betray them.
But at the same time, Orgrim knew that someone who could so easily betray his own people wasn't a wise or noble king, he was a despicable schemer.
Such a man had no concept of loyalty and would always act in his own interest.
If Perenolde could betray the Alliance to save himself, he could just as easily betray the Horde to avoid the Alliance's revenge.
Rather than wait for that betrayal, risking a two-front war against Alterac and the Alliance, it was better to eliminate Alterac preemptively and deal with just one enemy.
Even as the Horde's forces closed in, Perenolde continued to cling to compromise.
He still hoped Orgrim would realize that he, Aiden Perenolde, had never betrayed the Horde or leaked information, and that with some concessions, the Horde might spare him.
Then, once the Alliance entered Alterac territory and began encircling the Horde, he could send out his troops and earn some credit for aiding the Alliance, perhaps that would count as atonement and a correction of his earlier mistake.
In Perenolde's view, Alterac was a small and weak nation. Given a sudden attack by the Horde, surrendering to protect the lives of his people was understandable, as long as, when the Alliance arrived, he turned against the Horde, it wouldn't count as fully betraying the Alliance.
He thought he'd calculated everything perfectly. But both Alaric and Orgrim saw straight through him.
The latter had no intention of giving Perenolde any chance, while the former had orchestrated everything behind the scenes, the true manipulator of Alterac's betrayal.
And so, the royal capital of Alterac came under brutal attack from the Horde.
Orgrim's decisiveness took Perenolde completely by surprise.
In the end, King Perenolde paid the price for his actions.
Because he had failed to prepare adequate defenses, the Horde broke through the city walls with just their first wave of attacks and poured into the city.
The soldiers and civilians inside panicked, fleeing in all directions.
None of them had imagined this would happen, they had been told that the Horde was merely passing through Alterac and had no intention of launching an attack.
Initially suspicious, they had come to believe it after observing the Horde's recent behavior.
But now they knew they had been wrong.
The Horde was still the same savage, bloodthirsty race it had always been. Their so-called honor and oaths meant nothing. In the end, slaughter came anyway.
In the royal capital, most soldiers and civilians either died or fled. Only General Haas of Alterac stood firm, leading a contingent to resist the Horde head-on.
This loyal general tried to use what little strength he had to defend his king and his nation.
But in the end, he too fell.
How could a small force of men possibly stand against the mighty orcs?
General Haas and his soldiers held the line for barely fifteen minutes before the Horde broke through.
After slaying several orc warriors in quick succession, Haas was finally cut down by a barbaric axe.
With Orgrim leading the charge, the Horde swiftly moved through the city streets and into Perenolde's royal palace.
There, they found the cowardly and despicable king, and without another word, Orgrim beheaded him.
This marked the first time in the war between the Alliance and the Horde that a king had been slain by the Horde.
At last, Alterac's royal capital fell into the hands of the Horde.
Countless civilians and soldiers fled the city, fled from Broken Ridge.
But soon, they were met with aid and shelter.
In fact, the conflict between Perenolde and Orgrim had already been within Alaric's predictions.
What Alaric hadn't expected was that Perenolde would be so utterly incompetent, that he would lose a city in less than a day.
Fortunately, Alaric had made arrangements with Janice in advance.
The Barov family swiftly took in the fleeing refugees from Alterac's royal city and the Broken Ridge region, providing them with shelter and order.
Dedicated refugee camps housed the fleeing civilians, while the soldiers were absorbed into the Barov family's private army and stationed in the family's core territory.
The County of Caer Darrow, to guard against any further Horde advances following their occupation of Broken Ridge.
However, this action would prove unnecessary.
Because after taking Broken Ridge, Orgrim had no intention of pushing deeper into Alterac territory.
His goal in attacking the capital was solely to crush Alterac's main resistance.
Orgrim now understood that, even though he still commanded tens of thousands of elite orc troops, such a force could accomplish little in the heart of Alliance territory.
Worse, they were now surrounded by enemy forces from all sides.
His only choice was to admit his strategic failure and retreat, either back to the Arathi Highlands, or even across the Thandol Span, to consolidate the Horde's power and preserve its fighting strength.
Only then might the Horde survive.
Unfortunately, for Orgrim, it was already too late.
The Alliance had begun launching a full-scale assault against the Horde forces entrenched in and around Broken Ridge.
From the north, troops from Lordaeron led by Alexandros Mograine descended through the mountains into Alterac.
From the south, the Alliance main force under Anduin Lothar marched in from the Hillsbrad Foothills and Tarren Mill.
And from the east came Alaric, leading a force composed of the Barov family's former private army and scattered soldiers from elsewhere in Alterac, advancing slowly from Caer Darrow and steadily compressing the space in which the Horde could maneuver.
To the west lay only impassable mountains.
Once again, Orgrim found himself trapped in an Alliance encirclement.
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