Yoshi had already given kill orders to the sprites before they began the climb. The twenty sprites split into four different groups, each with five archers. Richter had handed out a few vials of poison to the meidon sprites prior to the climb, and each sprite had three or four arrows with the leech poison smeared on. Alma continued to fly above them all, her dark body unseen, and gave real time updates as to the positions of the goblin guards.
Seeing her visual feed, Richter felt like he was looking at one of the old games he used to play. Specifically, it looked like Battlefield 9: Water Wars. He shook his head to clear it of idle thoughts and focused on what he was seeing. Enemy combatants walked around lazily chatting to one another and ridiculing the prisoners. Two were fully drunk, judging by the bottles they held and their lopsided gait. The sprites moved forward, trusting in the darkness and their Cloaks of Concealment to keep them hidden. They all looked at the goblins they would attack soon and waited for the signal.
When Yoshi had told him what would trigger the attack, Richter looked at him in shock and disgust. His anger had started surging again, and the adept was the closest available outlet for it. The half-sprite had said nothing in defense. He had just returned Richter’s gaze and let the chaos seed remember his previous words. Ultimately, the chaos seed had nodded in acquiescence.
So the sprites waited in the dark, watching their hated enemies. Each of them nurtured murder in their hearts, wanting nothing more than to set their dark impulses free. The wind blew lightly, bringing another putrid gust of the camp’s stink to their noses. No one moved. Then, another high-pitched scream rent the air from the poor souls being violated just north of the cages. The goblin guards all stopped and turned towards the sound, leering in gross joy at the pain being caused.
The sprites unleashed death.
Twenty bowstrings snapped as one; the sound finished before the woman’s begging scream even ended. Arrows sprouted as if by magic from eyes, mouths, throats, hearts and heads. The goblins collapsed to the ground. Watching them fall, all Richter felt was a rough and bitter satisfaction as he thought, I hope you enjoyed that scream, you filthy fucking animals. He moved into action.
Half of the sprites rushed forward to search the bodies of the goblins for keys to the cages. Getting closer, the smell of unwashed bodies and bodily waste was nauseating, but Richter fought down the impulse to vomit and accomplished his task. He and Sion secured several ropes from his bag to the bars of the cages. The other ends were thrown over the cliff. Then the prisoners started to arrive.
Several of the children cried out in fear when their cage doors were opened, but the others quickly quieted them once they realized they were looking at sprite faces. All members of the strike team scanned the surroundings, but no goblins came looking. Richter guessed that cries of pain and fear were most likely commonplace, so even if they had been heard, they were probably also quickly ignored.
One by one, the prisoners left the cages and walked to the cliff’s edge. There was a tense moment when one of the larger human captives shoved a woman out of the way in his haste to leave the cage. It was not the time to address it, however, so Richter just used Analyze and made a note of the man’s name, Edgin.
The prisoners who were strong enough to climb down the ropes immediately went over the side. They were instructed to start walking west and were assured that the strike team would catch up soon. After suffering at the hands of the goblins, they needed no further urging. Small children were tied to adults with lengths of rope and taken over the edge as well. Richter was confused that there were no elderly prisoners, but then he looked back at the emptying cages. In each were the decaying bodies of prisoners that had already succumbed to disease and harsh conditions. His heart almost broke when he saw the small form of a baby that had been left behind in the churned mud of the jail cell. After seeing the haunted look in the eyes of the prisoners, the chaos seed couldn’t find it within himself to cast judgement. Instead, he turned his eyes towards the north. He could still hear occasional screams and hooting goblin laughter. Phase two, he promised himself bitterly. Phase two.
Not all of the prisoners were strong enough to make the climb. Some were so weakened by disease that their health was in the low double digits. These, he knew, had to be strengthened. Richter waved one of the sprites over.
“Drape your cloak over my hands,” he ordered. Then he began to cast. Golden light surrounded his hands again and again as he cast Weak Slow Heal. The more powerful minor version of the spell would have had a greater effect, but he had a finite amount of time and an even smaller mana pool. Each time he cast the spell, he watched some of the color return to the abused captives’ faces and was gratified when a few were strong enough to attempt the climb.
Two of the other members of the strike team saw what he was doing and placed their hands under the cloak as well. Golden light surrounded the other sprites’ hands, and Richter breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the sprites were Life magi. His own mana had been close to being depleted. One looked at him and raised his other hand, moving it in hand speak.
^We handle this. Recover.^
Richter sat back and drank a mana potion. He would have liked to have had Alma’s help him with the healing, but she was too important in her role as overwatch. Only minutes had passed since they had killed the goblins guarding the prisoners, and Yoshi was determined to hold this position to give the prisoners as much time as possible to reach safety. If any goblins found the empty cages, the game would be up. So the strike team remained to kill any goblins that might approach. Richter’s gaze turned north, unable to forget that all the while, innocent men, women, and children continued to be violated only several hundred yards away.
The chaos seed understood the reasoning, but couldn’t help feeling sick about not helping the people the goblins were abusing. He also could not shake the fear that at any minute the strike team would be discovered and hundreds of goblins would bury them in hatred and steel. Almost as if his thoughts had summoned calamity, he heard a harsh whisper.
“I cannot leave. They have my wife and son!”
Richter looked to his left. On the other side of the cage, he saw a human man talking to Yoshi. The man had indeed whispered, but with the harsh inflections he was using, it sounded as loud as a tea kettle whistling to the chaos seed.
Yoshi leaned close and tried murmuring quietly to the man, but the human just shook his head vehemently, and said, even louder this time, “They are my family!”