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[center][b]Kalar Splint, Chief Ranger of Galuntrung Keep.[/b][/center]

[center][b]Outskirts of Okly.[/b][/center]

The Rangers slowed their pace as one unit, customary of their disciplined fashion. Okly lay up ahead, burnt timbers and rising smoke clearly visible through the Geshmere Road's shrubbery. Few trees surrounded the village, and the ground was fairly flat, offering little cover for fighters who preferred their actions to be discrete. 

"Attach dry strings," Kalar muttered, eyeing the black mass of people in the streets beyond.

The Rangers, and Kalar too, unstrung the damp strings from their yew longbows, and quickly attached dry replacements. A wet string impeded the mighty weapons' strength, reducing range and accuracy. Only a fool or a very desperate man used his bow in damp conditions. 

With not a word uttered, Kalar motioned his men forwards, and they broke apart to form a loose firing line. Their presence was not immediately noticed by those who waited, and this provided the Rangers the time they needed to identify them as friend or foe. Kalar ducked close to the road, and hurried along the paving slabs, his boots squelching lightly in the filth. His men followed, ten paces behind, keeping their formation as they came upon tumbled bricks and slanted timbers. 

Kalar spied his adversaries; they were not the people of Okly, in fact, none of them seemed familiar. Many had the look of bandits, and there was no doubt as to who led them. The aging Ranger Chief's eyes narrowed on the one he knew as the Red Eyed Terror, a hulking giant of a man responsible for the deaths of many an innocent. His existence, and continued survival, was a monument to Kalar's failures as a Protector of the Peoples. 

A low and contained whistle rang out from behind, and Kalar turned his head slightly to see one of his rangers motioning off to the center of Okly, where the statue of Lord Denarius lay broken upon the pebble square. Ten figures, clad in darkness, stood in a circle around the remains of Okly's heritage.

And then the situation changed rapidly, as it often did, becoming fluid. The Red Eyed Terror had turned away from his men, and was stalking towards someone on the road - a small feminine figure, with a telling posture. 

"Damn," Kalar hissed. Sending the bard forwards was a mistake of epic proportions. What had he been thinking? And where was Liara? 

The Ranger Chief was faced with a difficult decision. Attack, and risk himself and his men against a numerically superior force, or retreat and leave Adria to her fate... a fate he had given her. Were Kalar a clear headed tactician when it came to the loss of a woman's life, he'd of scattered to the wind, gathered his Rangers in force and brought down the wrath of Galuntrung upon the Red Eyed Terror. 

However, Kalar was not this way when it came to women. Painful memories of his wife and daughters, their faces clearer now than they ever were, haunted his strategy. He raised his hand, and a dozen longbows creaked as the Rangers drew back a volley. Just before he ordered them to lease, his eyes strayed to a collection of peculiar warriors north of the ruined statue, earlier obscured by some smoke and a stack of rubble, but now painfully visible for all to see. They were dressed in worn armour, and even from two hundred paces, their pallor seemed off. A quick head count put the enemy at around fifty, and Kalar inwardly despaired.

A frontal assault on an entrenched force? With twelve men?

Then the Red Eyed Terror hefted his maul, his crooked teeth gleaming in the sun, and Adria reached for something. 

"Fire!" Kalar roared, drawing an arrow himself. 

Thirteen arrows shot into the air, as thirteen longbows harped a devil's tune, and then they were sailing across the marred sky. Before they had even reached The Red Eyed Terror and his companions, another volley stormed forth, and then another. The air became thick with white feathered shafts, and they descended upon the enemy with no particular bias. 

The Rangers of Galuntrung were expert huntsmen, great survivalists and made some of the best marksmen in the Kingdom, but they were only human. Some of their arrows would hit, some wouldn't. Kalar's intent however, beyond saving Adria, was to cause disarray in the ranks of his adversaries; he needed them half broken before he even considered a melee. 

And so, in their loose line, the Rangers of Galuntrung kept up their barrage, unwavering to whatever may befall them in mere seconds or minutes.