Human soldiers screamed. One took an arrow through the calf and went down hard. Another caught one in the thigh. A third took a shaft through his shoulder—not lethal, but painful and disabling.
The probe teams scattered immediately, falling back in semi-controlled retreat while dragging their wounded.
In the human command tent, Elric received the casualty report with no visible emotion.
"Three wounded at two hundred yards. Suggests their effective archer range is two hundred to two-fifty yards—standard for trained bowmen." He marked annotations on his map. "No pursuit, no follow-up volleys. They fired exactly enough to drive off the probe and no more. Disciplined."
"Orders, sir?"
"Medical treatment for the wounded. And adjust probe doctrine—no teams advance beyond two-fifty yards without prepared withdrawal routes and covering units. They've established they can hurt us at two hundred. Let's see what else they're hiding."
