I don't really get the ending, please explain

don't get me wrong, this is probably one of the best bang for your buck sword and sorcery flicks out there, but I am slightly confused about the ending. I am going to put aside the fact that the Beastmaster controls all animals in the movie except the enemy horses at the end of the movie? Why not command the horses to turn on the Juns? I will put that huge plot hole aside for now.

So the plan was to get the Juns into the tar pit and ignite it. Which they did (although indirectly because that dude got shot with an arrow. Many Juns get wasted at this time. Then, for no apparent reason, the Jun leader wants to fight Dar 1-on-1 instead of letting the Juns just kill them. After Dar defeats the Jun leader they get surrounded by the surviving Juns and Sed says to Dar, "it almost worked". WTF?! the plan worked perfectly, but all the villagers disappeared. Were they not supposed to fight too? Why the *beep* did they not get out and help! They were all at the gate when the battle started. Where the *beep* did they go?!!! Even if the heroes got killed before the bird people showed up, the Jun leader and at least half his army is dead. Are the villagers not ready to finish this battle off? Seriously, I will never understood why they claimed defeat (at the time the bird people were showing up).

I do think having the bird people come and finish the Juns was cool, but a back story to them being enemies with the Juns would have been cool too. Also, the final battle should have been more like a Braveheart style fight with hundreds of villagers fighting the Juns. The Bird people still could have saved the day, it was just retarded to only two guys fighting the entire Jun army. Maybe I am missing something?