120 sari southeast of the green capital, there is a geologically shifted formation of hills, not high, but standing at the top can also be reflected in the large woodland.
Ramesile's rescue team was overlooking with the king of unicorns when Hora turned his head and asked, "How did you know that a slave-catching party would retreat from here? There are traces left by humans all over the forest, but most of them are forgeries for misdirection. If you misjudge, the chances of finding them again are slim."
"Remember the rainforest cat that I just saved from being caught by the flesh-eating vine, it told me."
Hora surprised, the Tia forest actually have other intelligent magic beast, could torch flame mage's investigation is wrong? He asked, "What did the rainforest cat say?"
Rameshirai a serious face, "It said: meow-"
A cold wind blew through the elves, and they all winced in unison. Hora stared at Ramesilai for a long time: "Elves have a special sense of humor."
The rangers in the back were in tears, my friend, this is definitely not Tia's humor.
"Well, actually, this is a long-prepared trap. As soon as the slave catchers retreat east, they will find a few clean springs on the road, fewer old vines and carnivorous plants in the way, and drier ground to facilitate the rush ..."
"All done for the elves?"
"En, we also planted some direction pointing plants along the way, of course, specially bred. The more veteran slave catchers the more likely they are to be misled and eventually converge on this area."
Wise layout, the unicorn praised, even without the druids, the forest is still the home of the elves. Hora looked into the distance, his front hooves beat, and the invisible class spell spread out in all directions.
[Detect Evil], adult unicorns can release this class spell with any posture, unlimited times. But the camp aura will be blocked by the dense forest, so you have to stand high up to see the starry evil red aura coming out from between the leaves.
"See, 19 evil ones are 20 sari away from us, marching at medium speed. But detecting evil can't see your compatriots." While speaking, once on the ground to draw out the formation of the slave catchers."
The new recruits came over to look and were surprised, "Scattered formation? In the forest, looking for death?
"Not scattered is also looking for death, the enemy has its own way, I think I ran into a familiar face, I hope I can gouge out his other eye."
"One-eyed Usher!" The new recruit was surprised.
"You know him?" Rameshirai was a little surprised.
"Of course." The recruit gritted his teeth, "A cousin of mine who was a ranger was captured by that hitokiri, hung from a branch, and had his left eye plucked out. Usher was more vicious than the average slave catcher, preferring to kill hostages rather than be rescued."
"Just so you know, no attacks without my orders."
When the rangers lurked near the slave catchers, they saw their formation and immediately understood, cursing shameless and despicable.
Usher, nicknamed One Eye, walked in the center of the formation, carrying a potion-anesthetized elf on his back, with two shield-wielding followers close by for protection. The other humans marched in groups of two, three groups spread out, like the three corners of an equilateral triangle.
Each group carried a mouthful of sacks, bulging hard to tell if the elves inside. The two people carrying the sack waist stretched out a thin rope connected to the sack, the most maddening place is that the sack with the Tia language written: there is kerosene, pull the rope, the elves die.
The first task of the rangers is to rescue, want to rescue smoothly the best noiseless sneak attack. And one-eyed Usher specifically for this point in line formation. Want to drink the elf on the back of Usher, must first solve the three groups around, and the real sack connected to the rope with flint, a pull on the fire. This makes it impossible to snipe silently, and in the face of the fierce reputation of Usher, the rangers could not take the risk.
Just shoot the rope and then kill, the new soldier was confident that he had such bow skills. His arrow-hooked arm was caught, and Rameshirai emphasized the order with a biting look.
"Observe, you must determine which sack contains a fellow soldier."
Ush stuck out his tongue to moisten his dry, cracked lips, and his only eye glinted sharply. He had been in the forest for 20 years and, with the exception of the old, immortal dogfish, was almost the longest-serving slave catcher leader. As the mortality rate and the rate of return is very high occupation, each slave catcher leader has its own survival secrets. The dogfish relies on cunning, Usher clings to cruelty, without which he would be the same as other mediocre guys.
Now, intuition tells him that the sharp-eared ones have found themselves, hidden behind the shadowed leaves. But what can that do, they dare not strike. Instead, these guys ... Usher turned his head to look next to his own team of only nine people, another team of 10 people distinct from them.
The leader of that team is a large bald man, nicknamed also bald. His secret is cheeky, found their sack formation, then dead skinned stick up. Even if the light weapons he also smiled bitchy. Bald head also caught two slaves, just straight back.
One-eye mulled over the idea of trying to find a way to drug the diet and snatch the goods when they set up camp.
Usher led two teams across a small stream, the ground is muddy but the terrain is open, the elves to not be exposed, you have to pull away.
Was complacent, lightning of thought ran through the brain field, Ush found himself making a fatal mistake, the mud at the water's edge is softer, experienced rangers can judge the contents of the sack from the depth of the tracks. Cold sweat slid down his forehead, what if the ranger hadn't noticed ...
Ush immediately made a decision, in the Tyrian forest expecting a fluke is looking for death. "Enemy attack! Up smoke!"
"It's all fake, shoot!"
Rameshirai's order was one step behind Usher's. The humans pulled the rope, the flint inside the sack rubbed, and sparks touched the sulfur and other flammable materials, spewing out a large amount of irritating smoke. The arrow shot at Usher because of vision interference, through the left cheek, leaving a transparent hole in the ear.
The scene was chaotic, and the elves had moistened masked scarves, but the orange smoke still stung their eyes. Accuracy was greatly reduced in the tear-dimmed haze. And the human haphazardly shot back at the crossbow can basically ignore, standing still and can not hit the thing.
In the chase, Usher found four of his men dead, while Baldy lost five men and had one of his slaves snatched away. One-eye grinned, using terrain and subterfuge to get away from the chase, that was the dogfish's specialty, and One-eye had his own way.
"Stop!" Usher growled. The bald man was subdued, but the ranger's arrow did not stop.
Hands up and swords down, Ush rattled and laughed strangely as he tossed a bloody paste at the Ranger, an elf's pinky.
"Stand back."
The rangers sputtered with rage, all regretting how they hadn't killed the scum first.
No ranger backed up, Usher did not hesitate to drop his sword, and another finger flew into the air. The bald man was not so determined, and a crippled slave was only one-fifth the price of an intact slave. He put the tip of the blade on the only one elf and shouted: "All get out! Any more attacks thrown over will be heads."
Ramesile stepped forward with a cold face, he could tell the difference between the bald-headed colorfulness and the one-eyed brutal madness, and Ush's next sword was definitely not a finger.
"We don't attack, stop his bleeding, now." Rameshirai said in common tongue.
One-eyed Ush ignored, he looked provocatively at Ramesile, the tip of his tongue sliding over the face of the elven hostage like a ravenous python. The slave catcher leader looked at the ranger's hateful face with admiring eyes and shared enjoyment. He let his men dress their wounds and organize their backpacks without a care in the world. Before the bald head are anxious to pee, ordered to leave.
The rangers looked angrily at the slave catchers hiding into the jungle. "Captain, they can't fool us again with the sacks, replay the ambush and kill the leader outright."
Ramesile shook his head: "Just because there is no more barrier, Usher is attacked again, the hostages will surely die. You can doubt his courage, but you can't question his ferocity."
Hora came out, the previous battle because of concern for the hostages, simply did not participate in the battle.
"Reorganize the team, we go around in front of them."
"I thought they said they couldn't attack?" The rangers were puzzled.
"We still have the odd soldier." Ramesirai glanced at the unicorns. "I have a plan, I need your assistance, and it will take more than brutality with the humans to rescue ... them."
...
The next escape route, the bald head a strong pat on the back, the self-satisfied tone makes one-eye partly disgusted. Usher made up his mind that he must kill the parrot and grab the slave to make up for the loss.
"Stop!" Ush reached over and yanked the hostage, sword to his throat, and he saw Ramses just standing in the way.
"Relax, I'm just here to negotiate a deal."
"Get out or he dies." Usher didn't believe a word of it.
The ranger captain spread his hands, his laid-back tone reminded the slave catcher leader of a landlord: "Be open-minded, all of you are out to feed your families, you are, and so am I."
"What do you want to do?" The bald man opened his mouth and asked, not moving his knife if he thought he could solve it with his mouth.
"Five, I need five more human bodies to deliver to the council of elders, the rest can just leave. And next time I come just bring enough bodies that I can get credit for and I'll make way for you."
Usher and Baldy looked at each other, and there were exactly five people on each side. Baldy cursed angrily and said, "*** to our stupidity! Bullshit two words trying to provoke us to kill each other, on what basis."
"By virtue of ... uneven distribution of benefits minions, look, two teams, an elf, how to share?"
"Hahahaha ..." bald head laughing face red, "so these fake pussies do not know how to count."
"Is that so? I'll count again, one ...," Rameshirai said, while using extremely slow movements to set up the arrow and draw the bow. The slave catchers were on the edge of their seats, they didn't believe that the elves would dare to ignore the hostages, and the slave catchers didn't want to believe that, then none of these people would leave the forest alive, except Usher.
"Boom." The bowstring twitched and Ush almost cut the hostage's throat, but no, as he saw incredulously that the arrow hit the elf in the bald man's hand.
"Still one." Rameshirai grinned.