During the battle of Zehnma Phloria's Awakened corps had shown its true value and proved that the Council had more tactics at its disposal to capture a city than Thrud. Now that she had been cornered, the Mad Queen was bound to retaliate as hard as she could.
All that she needed to gain the upper hand again was to plant one of her little slaves inside the Awakened's ranks and leak intel about every attack before it even happened.
At that point, Thrud would have just to wait for the main forces of the Council to be assembled in the same spot to take them all out in one fell swoop.
No matter how powerful the Awakened elders were, if caught in an ambush by over thirty Divine Beasts led by the Mad Queen herself, the Council would be done for and the War of the Griffons lost.
The representatives of the four races could no longer afford to underestimate Thrud.