"I can't, I'm done."

The Fire Witch reached her limits and fell to the ground, a broken arrow sticking out of her shoulders. She lost her large, pointy hat at some point. The only reason I couldn't see all the blood covering her, was because the tunic she wore was red from the start. The black witch wasn't doing much better either. She was severely wounded too, and ever since her brother was struck down, she was unable to concentrate.

"Come on girls, just a little more." I was close to collapse, but I tried to keep them in the fight. One of my horns broke off, and my head felt like it was being torn apart. I got quite a few other wounds, but mostly minor ones. Still, it was getting harder to move. And we started to run out of space to retreat to. Half of our ogres and hobgoblins died.

"Feel free to fight a bit too, Bullhead," Ember complained, unable to move. My forces were all down, apart from maybe twenty orcs, the rest were already dead or dying. It was only thanks to the returning scouts that the rest of us was still alive. The wyverns they were riding performed nearly suicidal diving attacks and paid a heavy price.

The two raging witches used that opportunity to decimate the enemy magicians, their numerical superiority wouldn't go away that easily though. We probably routed, burned, or killed at least five hundred lizardmen already, but they still just kept on coming. It was the largest swarm we have encountered, and it didn't seem their end was near. Plus, there was another serious problem.

"I can't see the Elder anywhere, neither her gargoyle. And as much as I would love to say it, we did not beat her." Ember tried to sit up at least. Her words caused physical pain to the other witch, as it seemed. She was still casting one lightning bolt after the other. "She simply just disappeared. But I'm sure your brother made it back to the village."

"I will murder that cursed woman if I ever meet her again." She was spitting out the words between two spells. We were pushed back into a tight corner between the rolled-over carriages. Our pack animals have gone berserk at one point and ran away a long time ago. At least the pressure on us eased a bit, but we were still surrounded.

"Do you think someone will come to save us?" I asked Omerta, hoping she had good relations with the villagers. "I mean they wouldn't even let us in, maybe this is what they hoped would happen all along."

"The next lightning bolt will hit your remaining horn if you don't shut your mouth, Gorgon." She threatened me, and I decided to drop the matter. The Fire Witch on the other hand seemed to have only noticed what kind of injury I got during the fight. Her mouth flew open.

"Oh no, Bullhead, your horn." She complained. She reached her hand toward the remaining one but was a few yards too far to touch it. "The bastards, you're only half as handsome now. I got to avenge you."

"You better, the front row is about to collapse." I pointed it out as another ogre fell to the ground. Two orcs took his place, but we ran out of men and space. "What drives them still?"

"That crystal thingy you gave me. There must be more of them." She claimed, struggling to get herself off the ground. "Did you notice, that they never once attacked the Elder? Even when the gladiator pushed her right into their formation. I bet she has something to do with it."

"I'm so going to murder her!" Omerta yelled but fell to her knees in the next moment. She was completely exhausted too. All of us were. The battle must have gone on for at least two hours now, and it only seemed to get worse from here on out. The remaining wyverns were dripping their acidic blood all over the battlefield, and could no longer fly low from all the arrows the lizardmen archers shot at them. At the very least, these didn't have flying monsters, like the last horde.

But as I thought that, our last wyvern finally returned. I couldn't see if it brought someone in the saddle, but all reptiles suddenly turned to face them, finally halting their attacks, and the next moment a powerful, opaque barrier was erected around the survivors. The swarms of the lizardmen's arrows harmlessly bounced off of it.

They did send someone after all. The men were cheering, not too loud not too vividly, but it seemed like we might survive.

"Keep the first row. We don't know how strong is this barrier." I gave them the order. It was too early to celebrate. "The rest of you try to treat the wounded. How many of us can still hold a shield?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It couldn't have been more than two dozen. They didn't even answer. Everyone was too tired to talk, and the reptiles' assault continued a few moments later. But they didn't seem to be able to penetrate the barrier, even the witches were impressed with it, struggling to stay on their feet.

"I didn't know Lambert could do that," Omerta mumbled, then shook her head. "No, he only just learned the barrier spell from me. This must be someone else. Gitaut. It must be the tribe's shaman."

"Gitaut?" I asked surprised. Even though tired, this name still rang a bell. He had a hefty bounty on his head, one of the few people out there that the Demon Lord perceived as a threat. "The top student of the Magic Academy Gitaut? One of the three survivors of the first class?"

"What?" Omerta asked, almost half asleep. The way she talked, it sounded like she was drunk. I couldn't blame her, the moment the pressure eased on us, lots of my men collapsed too, and she sure did her part of the fighting. "He was the top student? I thought he dropped out."

"You can't call it being dropped out if the school is the one, that disappeared." I pointed out, looking in ave, as he was casting spells on the back of our wyvern. "He must be an insanely strong warlock, considering the other two surviving students both became demons."

"Warlock? No, he's just a shaman." Omerta shook her head. Fire rained down on the lizards, forcing them to pull back. I don't know what she has seen, but what she said didn't match the events unfolding around us. "I don't want to hurt him because he pretty much saved my life after I fought with the Elder the last time. But he's a weird one, nothing special. A shut-in in a backwater village."

"Whatever you say." I shrugged, watching him perform one amazing miracle after the other. Even Ember perked up now, getting jealous, and knowing what she could do, it was saying something. "In any case, it looks like you're getting saved by him again. And we might live another day too. Look, the lizards are running."

As they started to thin out, I realized, that this said shaman did not come alone. It all made sense when I spotted the Nightmares approaching. I remembered, what kind of hallucinations they caused when we first ran into them, and they had the same effect on the reptiles now. They even pulled a wagon, with at least a dozen orcs, armed with similar weapons that the gladiator used. I've never seen them before, but they were powerful. Their village was not to be messed with, they drove into the enemy formation, making them run.

"Oh, papa Gomel came back to us," Ember noted, trying to wave to them. She probably realized halfway through how bad of an idea it was with that arrow sticking out of her shoulder. "Ough, I'm hurt all over."

"We won't fit on that cart, and our raptors are gone." I shook my head, as they approached us. "Still, we won't have a better chance than this. Get up, men. Carry the wounded, we are leaving."

The lizard formation was completely scattered. If any of them turned back towards us, the orcs from the village shot them down immediately. The barrier dropped a few moments later, and the wyvern landed next to us. After all, Avalon made it and brought help with him. We were truly saved from the claws of death here. The magician coming with him was unassuming, but I remembered him from the village earlier.

Was he the famed Gitaut? At least he had a bounty large enough on his head, that people would have assumed he was famous. But he was relatively small for an orc, barely taller than Omerta, and had a strange-looking haircut. Still, I thought about dropping to my knees as a thanks, but in my condition, I would have been unable to stand up. The best I could do was bowing my head, and staggering forward.

"How's my brother?" Omerta asked immediately before any of us could say a thing. It was understandable, and the orc boy smiled awkwardly. The Nightmares arrived right behind him.

"They're in the hands of Lambert. The human is pretty good at healing, even if useless otherwise." He claimed, and the orc witch collapsed. She must have been relieved, but we were still on the battlefield. The shaman wouldn't stop looking around either. "Where is the Elder? Did you defeat her in the end? Hana's wounds looked terrifying."

"She's gone. Suddenly disappeared." The witch shook her head as I tried to drag her from the ground. "She was pretty badly wounded by a crossbow though. She might have retreated once more. It is hard to tell when because it was a bloodbath. Can you treat these people?"

"I can ask the spirits to stabilize them until we reach the village, but they already demand compensation," Gitaut told us. He must have been a shaman if he talked about spirits, but it made no sense to me. I wasn't about to complain after being saved though. "They've been draining my mana for a while now, I'm almost halfway out."

"Halfway?" Ember came to her senses for a moment. "Dude we're all dry. I'll pass out and sleep for a week straight."

I could easily imagine her doing that. The shaman simply grabbed the broken arrow in her shoulder and ripped it off without saying a single word. It shocked all of us, the Fire Witch the most, but no sound left her mouth. As the realization hit her, she didn't even complain. Her face completely relaxed, massaging her shoulder.

"Wow, you're good, It didn't even hurt." She gave him her best praise. He was already on to the next wounded soldier. "Gitaut, was it?"

"Please don't call me that." He rolled his eyes while performing miracles like it was the most natural thing in the world. "I hate that name."

The lizards were all but gone. They ran in every direction, back on the road, and into the woods. I refused to stick around until they regrouped. We headed for the village immediately.