Thunder shook the spindle-thin poles of the cheaply-made tent, lit through the convulsing canvas by the simultaneous rend cut through the sky by the lightning. For a heartbeat the fury of the storm flared brighter than daylight, before the expedition was plunged once more into rain-lashed night.
Perched as they were atop a slope of loose stone and tangled ranoma roots, the camp lacked the protection of the denser jungle below. To the South, East and West the land was near level for a few miles, a small forested plateau before the ascent into the mountains proper. Thinned as it was by the efforts to rebuild their carts and resupply, the forest would have given them some shelter from inclement weather from those directions, but to the north lay only the hillside they had so fatally ascended, leaving them totally exposed to the vicious storm whipping in from the plains and the Hronaram Gulf.
For the young leader of Thunderbolt, laying atop her bedroll in full armor, the turmoil outside was no more than background noise.
Winds threatened to tear the canvas from the stakes and the howling and booms made sleep near impossible of course, as Eustas and the others sharing the Guild tent with her bemoaned, but Lyanna couldn’t have slept regardless. Let the storm rage and the lightning crash, then. If it disturbed Bomond and his lackeys so much the better.
Her lip still ached where Bomond had struck her. An ordinary person would have a broken jaw from a blow like that.
It was after that ugly confrontation that he’d ordered her to spend her nights under watch. She wasn’t to leave the sight of him or one of his people, for any reason.
At least he couldn’t touch Marcus or Dolm. Not by any law of Bellwood or the Guild, and not without provoking the ire of the adventurers present on the expedition. It was Lyanna alone who would lose her future, who would-
Another streak of white cleaved through the sky, radiance visible through the tent, the boom hitting hard enough that Lyanna felt it in her chest and teeth. There was mana in the storm that night, and wisps danced about the peaks of several of the more ostentatious Lastborn tents.
To others they were frolicking spirits sent by Nemoi, the Mother of Storms, but to Lyanna they were no more than the manifestation of the power of lightning. Dangerous as they were, the dancing lights were a comforting sight for the gold-ranker, a reminder of the time she’d spent studying in the Capital… her ill-fated apprenticing, before her mother….
Something other than the storm stirred Lyanna from her reverie.
Over the wailing winds and the hammer of rain she could hear a voice, shouting through the storm.
Straining her ears she picked out several more, but against the cacophony it was impossible to tell what they were saying, despite how close they must be.
The sounds were coming from the direction of the walls.
Lastborn mages had overseen the erection of simple but sturdy compacted earth barriers, ringed by ditches dug by hand and lined with stakes. The defense seemed overkill given how few creatures in the forest were suicidal enough to approach a camp home at any given time to hundreds of people.
All the same, a horn was calling through the night, a long and fearful tone that carried through the wind and rain.
“What is that?” Eustas asked no-one particular.
“Probably a monster,” suggested Katia dismissively, “driven as demented by the storm as us.”
She rolled over and pulled a spare shirt over her head.
It wouldn’t be that strange for the storm to drive a panicked creature down from the mountains or out of the forest, Lyanna thought, but what had happened to the warning system in that case?
They had established a ring of adventurers and scouts in treetop hides all around the camp, far out from the walls, positioned and equipped to give advance warning of any threats, and to neutralize those they were able to face alone.
There was another immense boom, charged with more mana than ever, the shockwave making even the ground tremble beneath her. It was intense and focused enough it could even have been a spell.
Her thoughts went to the possibility of fire.
With the power of the storm a lightning strike could easily set tents or supplies ablaze, despite the downpour. It wouldn’t be the first time fire had torn through the expedition, although the previous disaster had been one she’d engineered herself.
Sitting up to listen, she heard the sounds of impacts.
Not thunder, but objects, hitting the ground nearby, then something huge flew into the side of the tent.
Poles snapped and fabric tore as some hard and heavy creature slammed right into her, bowling her over into Eustas to her side, the tent collapsing atop its occupants to the sounds of screams as the bloodied beast wailed and struggled.
Pulling her dagger she almost gutted the writhing bundle of twine and canvas before realizing from the noises it made that it contained a person.
Cutting the sheets apart, the figure of a man in full armor emerged, bleeding from cuts where his breastplate had been punctured.
Behind her, Eustas was wailing about his nose, broken for a second time in the impact, however no-one was listening to him. Nor were they paying heed to the lightly injured man who’d broken the side of their shelter.
Through the hole in the side of the ruined tent Lyanna was staring out at the raging storm and the huge gouge in the land ahead.
Tents had been pushed over or flattened, as if a great wave had rushed in, driving the soil and rock before it.
Her first thought was a flash-flood, not unheard of in the mountains, but they were camped on the flat – and the damage was far too precise to be natural.
The six-foot thick packed earthen walls around the camp were smashed through, and the sharpened stakes lining the outer sides were scattered about, tossed aside like twigs by the fury of the flood – as were many of the guards.
As if in answer to her question, Lyanna saw dark, glistening figures gliding through the pools of water left behind by the attack. Already they were spreading out, targeting those still on their feet after the magical strike.
She fumbled for her sword and staff as Eustas gasped nasally.
“Naga! Weh unduh attah!”
Lyanna left him there in the tent.
As she emerged a pair of the serpentine monsters were already upon her.
One swept a giant glaive at her from the side, the other bringing down a crude wooden axe overhead.
Stepping in she dodged the latter, the arms of the naga battering her armored shoulder, the blade missing her entirely.
Catching the glaive’s shaft, she impaled its owner in the throat, scales yielding to a straight thrust of her sword.
The axeman tried to slither back, seeing his friend slain, but Lyanna stayed with him, forcing him to defend desperately with the wooden handle of his weapon.
She knocked it aside with her staff and a burst of strength drove her longsword through his scaled chest.
That bought her a moment to take stock.
It had been mere seconds since the attack started, but already the roar of the storm was being challenged by that of battle, anyone able to fight rushing to defend the camp.
The Lastborn were conspicuous in their absence, but even with the bulk of the adventurers away, there were a glut of soldiers and mercenaries who halted the advancing line of monsters, the site of the intrusion rapidly becoming a melee.
Most of the defenders were clad only in bedclothes, boots hastily pulled on as they ran out into the muddy swamp of storm-churned ash and earth. Naga, however, took their armor with them everywhere they went, their scales so tough that needlegrass simply slipped off – as did any glancing strikes of the blade.
But the ready defenders must surely outnumber any Naga hunting party ten to one, Lyanna told herself. More by the time the rest of the camp could rally to the call.
Adventurers were tough too, with powerful martial skills and sorcery to call on.
Repeated crashes of lightning threw dazzling illumination over the scene, but competing with the fury of nature above were the exchanges of spells and the glow of supernatural strikes as the expeditionary forces crossed blades with the attackers in a chaotic series of clashes.
All around her magic users were adding their ranged support, a bewildering array of spells on display; from a metal staff Lyanna saw a spray of shrapnel firing out to impale one naga warrior even though his scales, while on the other side an archer weaved spells into his bow to fire arrows that hurled back any foe struck with the power of a geopod’s rock fists.
Magic was far from the preserve of the ranged combatant however. Just ahead a young beastfolk man did battle with two serpents at once, holding both back with a whip that unleashed powerful, stinging cracks with each blow, stunning his enemies.
Near him a spellsword fought with her enchanted blade, the weapon reacting as she spoke spells to it, growing and even twisting to evade the defenses of her opponent, seeking out the naga’s throat.
He fell, and she moved on to the two monsters the beastfolk man was handling.
But those monsters had their magics too. More primitive, yes, they lacked any magical medium such as a staff or wand, but they were no less powerful for that – the magic of the Cyclopean Bones was the power to conjure the elements in raw outbursts of savage energy, directly from the bodies of the incanters – befitting the brutal lands that birthed them.
Already naga sorcerers were laying waste all around them with whips of flame and spears of ice, whirlwind barriers and walls of water, and yes, even tongues of lighting, as many falling among the defenders as the attackers… perhaps more.
Lyanna too was beginning her own magic, the refined, secretive art of Stormcalling.
Focusing on magic in the midst of battle and storm was hard enough, but before Lyanna could speak even half her incantation a huge, powerfully-built naga woman singled her out, striking with a trident, aimed at her open-design visor.
Coils springing her forward, the blow gained incredible reach and power, but Lyanna deflected with sword and staff both, her arms straining against the force of the larger, monstrous enemy.
Even with her great strength, befitting a highly trained adventurer, the towering naga warrior was a formidable foe.
But it wasn’t only in strength that the naga competed with her – the reptilian followed the attack up with a breath of wind, howling louder than the storm above.
Lyanna hadn’t even realized the woman was chanting, but twisting to one side she escaped being blown off her feet by the attack, just barely keeping her balance on the muddy surface beneath her metal boots.
The distraction proved fatal to her incantation however, the spell breaking down as she lost focus on the supernatural words and their associated intent.
The formation of mana within her staff fractured then came undone.
Her feet sliding on the muck also put her in the wrong posture entirely to evade the weighted net swung at her chest by a smaller serpent, springing from the taller woman’s wake.
The net wrapped around her torso and sword-arm, but Lyanna managed to keep her staff-arm free of the tangle.
Her larger foe wasted no time in targeting her immobilized head with the trident once more.
With the speed and brevity that came only from years of practice, Lyanna whispered a sole word. The yellow quartz sphere at the tip of her staff flashed with a searing intensity, mere inches from the Naga’s face.
Magic required an extraordinary clarity and will, as well as precise control over the mana used to empower the mystical recitations which turned that will into reality, but with practice and eventual mastery came the skill not just of accelerating the incantation, but of internalizing the spell – holding the full understanding of the result in one’s mind and speaking aloud only a few words, or even none at all, creating the magic with only the clarity of intention and image.
To at one moment hold in her head all of the densely layered meaning and mysterious nuance of the supernatural prayer which brought forth lightning was near impossible of course, however a spell as simple as the ‘Lightning Flash’ was feasible.
It had been well worth perfecting the art. Her naga attacker had certainly never seen it coming.
With the woman momentarily blinded, Lyanna wrenched herself and the net both from the grasp of the smaller figure.
The trident narrowly missed her eyes, prongs glancing off her helmet, carving a groove in the plate.
The young adventurer was free of the woven ropes before her enemies could attack again, and the lesser monster fell with a blade in his throat before the greater threat had fully recovered from her blinding.
A warrior to the core, the woman whipped her tail low to cut off Lyanna’s subsequent advance, then put all of her considerable body behind a great thrust.
Her triplicate spearheads cut the air and scattered the rain with a fearsome sound, the points glowing with energy – mana, driving the weapon forward faster than muscle alone could.
‘Thunderbolt Stroke’ was the name her mentor gave Lyanna’s own supernatural sword-art, but where the naga had accelerated and sharpened the trident itself, Lyanna’s technique sent transmuted mana through her muscles as well as her blade; a trickle of lightning, speeding her reaction as well as empowering her body.
Though she swung second, Lyanna’s blade split the wooden shaft and bit deep into the arms which held it, electricity sending the monster into convulsion.
From there her victory was assured.
Transmuting mana within the body was a strenuous, dangerous technique, leaving her arm aching from the effort. Monsters might cast all their spells that way, but they lived short, savage lives and knew no better. For a human the technique was almost perverse, using up both stamina and essence in large amounts – but what mattered to Lyanna was that it worked, and put an end to another enemy.
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But many more naga were still battling their way inside the camp.
There were hundreds now, yet more were still coming through, too many for any hunting party.
Belatedly she understood that this was no opportunistic raid, but a planned and organized battle. One the Naga had joined with the intent to win.
Given their numbers and the chaos in which the defenders found themselves, they might well do so. Even the conditions favored the reptilians – their eyes worked well in the low light of a stormy night, where sputtering torches were the sole ‘steady’ illumination, and thick tails of muscle couldn’t slip or stumble in the mud or floods of the increasingly ruined camp.
As it had so many times before in recent days, her mind turned to flight.
In the chaos it would be simple for Thunderbolt to slip away and vanish into the forest. That presumed that Marcus and Dolm were present and able to go with her of course.
Scanning the darkness her heart was pounding harder than in the momentary death-struggles with the naga she’d slain.
There was no sign of either.
For a moment she saw the face of her mother, smiling despite the exhaustion visible on her wan features.
She’d promised to take care of Marcus, yet she’d brought him into this nightmare forest on some absurd quest for a mythical beast.
Brought him here to die amid a storm of lightning and monsters.
In her distress she never saw the hand until it clapped her armored shoulder.
She stopped her sword short of the throat of the man, Adrick.
Through the haze of rain and emotion she recalled that he too had been confined to the guild tent that night, due to the suspicions against him.
“S’alright,” he said, with a gruff calm that seemed entirely misplaced. “Saw your party a few tents over. Head south, you should see them.”
She didn’t even pause to thank him – Lyanna was already running, boots splattering and slipping on the slick surface as she moved through the maze of tents, cutting down anything which slithered into her path.
If Adrick was wrong then she dared not think what might have become of the duo. Dolm could handle himself, but that was equally true of the Naga. Marcus however, he was still green as new shoots, for all his misplaced confidence and bravado. The bravado made her all the more worried in fact.
She had to find them both, before anything else happened. Even if they didn’t want to see or talk to her, they could at least fight alongside her.
As for escape… even if they ran, Bomond had her contract. A choker around her neck as tight as one of those odious hands.
First, survive, she told herself.
Passing between two high tents she came to a long clear path between canvas peaks, and glanced over once more at the breached walls.
The Naga had forced the defenders back away from the opening entirely, and were entering uncontested now.
Flashes of lightning illuminated the shapes of bodies, littering the area, slick with water and blood, the torrential sheets sweeping up from the Northern plains beating the morass into a sickening mire, the scent of earth and metal thick even through the tempest.
Lyanna couldn’t help but observe that there were more human figures than naga ones among the dead.
Another wave of dazzling white arched over the vaulted roof of the sky, and her eye caught a figure mounting the broken edge of the walls, a naga, casually striking down the guards still holding out atop the remaining length of the six foot structure.
From that vantage point he loosed a reverberant shout, cutting through squall and scrum.
“Heed my words, vile invaders of Bellwood!” hissed the powerful voice, in startlingly good Hronan, magic carrying the speech on the winds, throughout the camp.
A flurry of arrows and spells loosed at the speaker for his trouble, but mages on the ground below stopped them all with a glistening wall of transparent ice.
“I am the voice of the grand and magnificent Sultan of Scales, true and rightful monarch of all Naga, overlord of the Bloodsucking Forest and liberator of the Cyclopean Bones! For your vile and despicable invasion the Sultan proclaims your lives forfeit! But we Naga are not without mercy – or empathy – our beastfolk cousins among you are as abused and debased as we the People of the Scale! We call upon all you beastfolk to throw down your arms and cease fighting, the Sultan in his magnanimity offers you all safe return to your homes!”
Despite the terror of the night attack and her separation from her party, Lyanna couldn’t help but stare at the battlefield envoy. Many others were listening too, in particular the beastfolk present, and even the Naga themselves seemed to have slackened their push for a moment.
“Furthermore!” he boomed, from his chest like a barrel, “In keeping his word to another of your number, the Sultan proclaims also that no adventurer shall be harmed, who sets down their arms and gives their surrender! Our justice will be taken from the soldiers and mercenaries of Bellwood, and none of you need lay down your lives for that treacherous and base pit of tyrannical and cruel ‘nobles’, who sent you here to die!”
It was too good to be true of course, the offer certainly no more than a tactic to divide them and allow the naga to capture prisoners for later execution… perhaps even consumption….
But even so those scattered adventurers still present in the camp were exchanging looks, a hesitancy falling over many of the most proficient combatants on the side of the defenders.
What if the offer was genuine? Who would fight and die for the sake of the Lastborn, or the baron of all people?
The momentary lull was shattered as a glowing ray of essence punched through the ice wall and the speaker both, penetrating scales like mere skin.
He might have had more to say, but the naga was thrown back by the impact, clutching his chest.
Then a huge concentration of mana flared up, and burst into a screeching wail of rending magic and heat which shone like a beacon through the night.
Shrouded in her magic, Jalera was unmistakable, a radiant silhouette that burnt with unnatural ferocity as she whipped out an arcing tongue of white death, carving a scar through the earth and melting loam into glass until it flashed through the wounded naga spokesperson, incinerating him in seconds.
Thrilled by the display of power from their figurehead, cheering sounded around the camp.
In an instant the battle was rejoined with doubled vigor.
Impressive and reassuring as it was to have Jalera on their side, Lyanna’s interest was in the archer who fired the first shot.
She found him, lit by the wash of flames from a burning tent.
Her heart soared.
She’d known there could only be one bowman with an arm that could penetrate such a thick glacial wall.
Running towards him, Lyanna waved, and Dolm gave her a nod, grim determination written on his features.
Behind him, Marcus wouldn’t even meet her eye, but he followed the older man in joining up with her all the same.
“Thank the gods you’re both safe,” Lyanna gasped, as she looked them both over and saw no signs of injury or damage to their armor.
“I don’t see what business of yours that is,” Marcus spat bitterly. “You made it clear that Thunderbolt is a one woman party now. We’re just fighting the same enemy as you are.”
“Fine,” she said, shaking off the barbs of his sharp tongue.
She was just grateful to see him safe.
Safe for the moment anyway.
“Stick with me and we’ll fight them off together, then you can go back to hating my guts when the sun comes up and we’re not dead.”
Secretly, both must have been as glad to see her as she was to see them, as despite their resistance the boys were quick to fall in line with her, the trio working together just as they had in the past to take down the enemies.
Her… former party at her side, Lyanna had a chance to focus on larger incantations, and even as another wave of serpentine monsters were slithering into the camp she met them with a bolt of lightning, leaping out from the tip of her staff to arc between each figure nearby.
With none but naga inside the radius of the attack it proved marvelously effective, the lesser power of the chaining spell still enough to cause painful burns and great disarray among the enemy.
Jalera too was making a great impact. The diamond-ranker had taken charge, barking out orders to the other adventurers around her as she fought, her harsh, clear voice audible through the storm, directing the defenses.
Armored in her magic she advanced without care for the mud, baked hard or seared into glass under her feet with each step, her ghostly aura of supernatural, arcing flame negating even the rain to keep her clothing pristine as she personally lead a counterattack. With her gauntlets she laid waste all about, controlled loops of curving energy projected from between her fingers like whips and nooses, intercepting spears and spells with ease and cutting as much as burning any foe foolish enough to stand – or slither – before her.
Watching her, Lyanna wondered if the rest of them were good for anything more than a distraction to occupy the rest of the enemy force until Jalera could get to them.
Finally and at last, after what felt like hours, the Lastborn were also emerging. The Lastcome as Lyanna thought sourly to herself, even though only a minute or two had elapsed. They were forming up into ranks under the command of Lady Ondora and Lieutenant Jowe. The officers, like most of their troop, were unarmored, some few having pulled on just a breastplate, loosely buckled, but all were armed and ready, closing ranks to reinforce the other forces already fighting, meeting the naga spears with their swords.
From there the battle intensified as evermore spells and projectiles flew, the Lastborn mages and archers attacking with the uniformity of a true military force.
Lacking bows, the naga retaliated with massed fire of spears, hurled by odd levers that hooked them at the base to launch the weapons with terrible speed and power, amplified by the coiling, muscular bodies of the throwers.
The combined efforts soon saw the chaotic tide turning, and at least, minutes after the assault began, the naga forces were on the back foot… or tail.
~~~
Without a helmet the torrential rain had quickly soaked Reynard to the skin, water pouring down through the armor of the young vulpine adventurer. He hardly noticed, focused instead on the battle within the expedition camp, flashes and sounds detectable even through the trees and weather.
It was difficult not to feel some sense of justice in the disaster now befalling the arrogant and cruel nobles and mercenaries who had pronounced his death mere days earlier, but Reynard felt no satisfaction.
Instead the conflict brought him shame and sorrow; shame that his weakness and his mistakes had led to the attack, and sorrow that his own kind were fighting and dying, alongside other innocent adventurers. Adventurers like Lyanna, who’d risked everything to save his life.
Restrained at the wrists by metal cuffs tied to a thick tree and guarded by a stern naga warrior, he couldn’t even attempt to slip away and provide what meager help his axe-arm might have offered.
The tree to which he was bound stood at the edge of a recently-cleared space, where the expedition had felled a cluster of younger trees and cut back the undergrowth. It had made a prime spot for the Sultan’s command post, a short distance west of the expedition’s stopping place. Pyreza, Qamar and the other courtiers who had joined the march were collected there, along with the Sultan’s personal royal guard, at least a hundred strong.
Morosely he reflected that there was likely no safer place in all of the Bloodsucking Forest – if you were a naga that was. For the people of Bellwood, the area was proving a place of death and carnage, as the screaming chaos from the camp revealed.
Learning that the force had been halted in place for two full days since his escape, he had hoped that they might have put in place fortifications able to hold back the attackers. He found the naga had come prepared for any such obstacles; the attack had commenced with an elite team of sorcerers, unleashing an enormous attack on the spiked walls, a giant wave plowing through ditches and leveling the barrier in an instant.
A castle wall would have proven more resilient, as would one reinforced with layers of tree trunks or other materials, but the barrier had likely been build only to hold back attacks by the wildlife. The expedition could never have imagined that their bulwark would come under fire from a posse of expert warriors, versed in the primal magic of the Harpies.
The small force responsible had withdrawn after one attack, and now warriors flooded after waters into the breach.
It worried the young captive to wonder why the Sultan had pulled back those magical experts, but he feared the explanation would be found with the huge detachments which had split off from the army. Some had peeled away to the southwest as they neared the expedition, but another huge force had split off earlier that day, descending the cliffs to circle around to the North.
Certainly no answers were forthcoming from the naga.
They made no special effort to hide their plans from their prisoner, or conceal how the battle went; instead they simply relied on his total ignorance of their language.
What little he could glean from the looks on their faces suggested he wouldn’t have liked what he heard even if he could understand it.
Qamar in particular was so at ease that they smoked a strange pipe as they sat on their coils.
The object was handsomely carved and painted in a pattern similar to that of snake scales, a long tube with holes making up the main body, while a round red bulb at the base appeared to be loaded with some sort of incense or leaf, from which the naga took deep puffs, drawing the smoke up through the body of the device, the holes allowing it to mix with air.
Others were more obviously anxious at least, but the Sultan himself seemed supremely confident, observing the battle closely through the trees and giving out orders.
Booms and shrieks joined the more usual sounds of warfare, and bright flashes cast bizarre horizontal shadows across the rocky open space, as though the lightning were falling to earth in the camp.
The eerie, menacing display rattled many present, yet their overlord still seemed unfazed.
He hissed some command to Qamar and Pyreza, and a moment later called for his personal weapon, the giant golden trident which was ever close at hand, a match for his own gold-adorned body and magnificent scale.
Pyreza seemed intent to argue on some point of the orders, but Qamar gave no objection. Their smoking proved far from recreational, as they instead played a series of notes through the pipe, inhaling as they did so, performing a sibilant melody with their inward breath, which they then unleashed in the form of glittering wisps of exhaled smoke.
Before his eyes Reynard watched them twist and coil into the forms of a triad of serpents, and in a moment the smoke trails were gone, half wafting and half slithering through the stormy night. One moved down and over the cliffside towards the base of the slope which the expedition had recently ascended, while the others moved east and southeast respectively.
Messengers, he guessed, sent to seek out the rest of the army; proof that they had the expedition encircled on all four sides.
The fox had never seen such a strange, elegant magic before, so very unlike the usual spells of ‘monsters’ from the region, but if they were indeed messages, the Sultan waited for no reply.
The towering overlord of the Naga raised his gleaming trident.
Lightning boomed overhead once more, and a roar rose up from all around.
The royal guard and those more martial of the courtiers set off, their Sultan in their midst, slithering towards the camp at a running pace.
The departure left the command post relatively empty. There remained only the personal troops of Qamar, Pyreza and the other courtiers – along with the advisors themselves.
All were entirely wrapped up in watching the battle, peering through the trees for some glimpse of the figure of their liege, or some sign of his victory.
Qamar appeared anxious now too, despite their calm exterior, but Reynard doubted they had much to fear, given their people’s numbers and tactics. He might be ignorant in all matters of warfare, but even stone-rank adventurers knew that if your enemy could surround you they put you at a huge disadvantage.
It would be difficult for them to close in on the north side of the camp of course, where the steep, rocky slope down to the denser jungles below was a maze of caustic roots and unstable terrain, but they seemed determined to destroy the humans no matter the cost.
Once more he found himself regretting his failings. If only he could have talked some sense into the Sultan, the whole battle could have been prevented, as could the losses both sides would surely suffer.
Instead the expedition out of Faron would be annihilated. They would fight to the death rather than surrender to monsters and be slaughtered.
The naga were sure to take heavy losses in such a slaughter too. Prideful, cruel and arrogant as they were, the Lastborn would make them pay dearly for their rarified blood when they realized they were encircled on all sides, outnumbered and with no escape.
A chilling thought struck Reynard, as he lent against the rain-slicked bark of the tree, feeling slimy water trickle down his spine and over the base of his tail.
What if the naga didn’t try to ascend the northern slope and complete the encirclement?
In the confusion of the storm and battle, the expedition members might well find themselves besieged on three sides, with only the treacherous prospect of a flooded, nighttime climb down the hill to escape.
How many would die trying to scramble down that path, which had already taken multiple lives?
What if a second naga army awaited them in the cover of the trees at the bottom?
As soon as he thought of it, Reynard became certain this was the Sultan’s true plan. Why trade lives with defenders resolved to die, when the naga could cut them down from the back as they fled, or slaughter them like livestock as they tumbled down the hill into their waiting spears?
Yet he couldn’t even try to warn them. The second he tried to escape, the guard would be upon him.
He had the needles he’d risked stealing earlier that day, but they wouldn’t even pierce the scales of a naga.
Thunder boomed overhead once more, energy vibrating in the air and sound ringing painfully in his sensitive ears. He closed his eyes in the pain of the flash, as did many of the naga. Although they could see well at night, the species detested bright light.
In a moment of idle despair, he wondered if the brutal power of the storm had been brought on by the shockwave from under the mountains, earlier that day – a strange echo in the sky of the tremors and power from the earth.
The triangular flaps of his out ears twitched as the sounds of battle returned in the wake of the powerful boom overhead.
Disorientated, he thought he could hear movement behind him, from the forest along the clifftop, rather than the camp ahead.
A moment later he was sure of it.
Turning, he saw figures burst from the bushes – humanoid ones!
Armed and armored, they were roaring and screaming in a frenzy as they charged at the naga, but the sounds were music to his ears.
Taken totally by surprise, several naga were cut down in moments, the practiced teamwork and martial skills of seasoned adventurers overcoming thick scales and raw power.
More were quick to join the fray, while others hissed warnings to the councilors present, Qamar, Pyreza and the other important people being forcibly pulled back, away from the new battle line. Reynard couldn’t tell in the dark how many adventurers had come, but it seemed the confusion afflicted the naga too. The command post disintegrated into chaos at the surprise attack penetrated through the rear line, and the naga’s defense became an evacuation.
Another crack of lightning scarred the sky, and Reynard recognized some of his rescuers; The Hunting Hawks. Pice and his team must have somehow been away from camp, yet close enough to return when the attack fell.
Unlikely as it seemed, their appearance was like a gift from the gods to the terrified young vulpine.
There wasn’t a moment to lose.
Slipping out the bone needles concealed under his cuffs, Reynard got to work.
~~~
Pice and Arn had been certain, when the naga appeared, that they would be caught and killed.
They hadn’t even dared raise the alarm, lest they give away their treetop hide to the foes passing beneath them.
The snakes had kept coming for what felt like an eternity, with numbers in the high hundreds at least. When the naga army had finally passed them by, The Hunting Hawks had waited, frozen in the treetops, for some sound, or sign.
It had been Arn who broke first, the panicked mercenary declaring that he was leaving. Abandoning the expedition and striking out alone back towards Faron. If Pice had any sense, he’d said, the Hawks would be coming with him.
As it transpired, Pice did not. On waking Kalla and the others his teammates had been first shocked, then outraged by what they’d done, but by then it was too late to fix his mistake.
The sounds of the battle starting had been audible even through the storm and the distance. The watchers in the other hides couldn’t fail to miss them either, and the nearby teams had grouped together to decide what to do. Many agreed with the recently departed Arn, however even Pice had found himself arguing against desertion in the end, as Kalla and Dodric played on his heavy conscience.
In the end all agreed; they wouldn’t just abandon the others without at least trying to help. The band of mixed adventurers and mercenaries would attack the naga forces in the rear, targeting their command post. Those mercenaries with experience of warfare assured the adventurers that if they could slay those directing the battle it could prove decisive, while if they were thwarted they could still retreat if it came to it.
It transpired that Pice was just the right amount of drunk for the plan.
Inebriated enough to be talked into throwing himself against the huge pack of terrifying naga, yet not so far gone as to trip over his own legs or drop his warpick.
He’d taken up the weapon after a horrible run-in with a geopod in a cave once, but it was proving quite effective at punching through naga scales too.
Until it got stuck, lodged in the body of one of his enemies.
Another naga was already a mere half-slither away, drawing back her spear to strike.
To his sides, Kalla and the others were already fighting other enemies.
Forgetting all about his shortsword in his drunken panic, he strained his muscles to try to wrench his weapon free, but to no avail.
The spearhead was about to strike, to leap out and impale him clean through the breastplate, but instead something else sprung from the darkness.
The shape of another humanoid jumped up onto the taller monster.
Hooking an arm around her neck, the figure stabbed at her neck and face frantically with some sort of spike in their free hand. It glanced off her hide, but as she thrashed against the grip of the interloper a lucky jab caught her in the eye and the naga screamed in pain, shuddering and hurling the small attacker off to crash into a tree.
The distraction was enough for Pice to work his pick free, and end the life of the wounded, agonized enemy.
Others seemed to be pulling back, rather than engaging the adventurers, and a frail cheer went up as they realized their momentary victory.
The victory felt hollow when Pice realized that the leaders had certainly been among the first to escape, but he’d take failing and surviving over dying any day.
“Who or what is that?” Dodric asked, as Pice was helping the newcomer up, from where they’d fallen at the base of a tree.
“Dunno, he saved me though!” Pice said, standing the smaller man up. “Owe you one.”
“Are you… Reynard?!” Kalla asked, astonishing them all.
Her keen senses were proven right however. With their position already given away they were lighting their torches, and the flames gave them a good look at the distressed features of the young adventurer, who had so recently escaped death at the hands of the Baron and the Lastborn.
“It’s the traitor who burnt the camp! He brought the naga here!” shouted someone.
“No!” Pice insisted quickly, “No way that were Reynard! ‘Sides, he jus’ saved me! Look, his leg’s all cut and bleeding too, musta been captured when he was escaping! Right kid?!”
“I heard the fire was some other guy, Adrick,” Dodric argued.
“No way, it’s gotta be that little brat, Marcus, thinks he oughta be in charge. Shoulda seen the murderous look in his eye when they took his monster finds off him too,” someone else chimed in, near anonymous in the gloom.
Kalla gave an exasperated growl. “Whatever! We can bring him along and deal with him later. Right now we should be the ones escaping!”
“Right,” said Dodric, nodding. “Naga know we’re here now, we blew the surprise attack – too many snakes, we were never gonna get to the leaders. They’ll be sending more warriors to finish us off once they realize there’s less than two dozen of us here.”
Pice hated to admit it, but they were right. They couldn’t get to the leaders fast enough, so all that was left for them to do was get away.
“Guess so. Better head southwest. Avoid the camp. Bit of luck and we’ll make it down the cliffs safe, then we’re clear back to Faron.”
“No!”
Heads turned to stare at the speaker, who faltered at the massed stares.
“Wha’cha mean, ‘no’, Rey?” Pice asked, frowning.
He had a feeling in his gut that he wasn’t going to like what the fox had to say.
“Staying here’s suicide; they’ll send a hundred of their monsters and wipe us out!” Dodric protested angrily. “Whose side are you on?!”
“Not here, we gotta help the others, back at camp!” Reynard insisted.
“What?! They were gonna execute you!” Dodric responded. “You get hit on the head after you lost your helmet?!”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not why! I seen the naga splitting up as they was marching – they got the camp surrounded!”
“Say we believe you,” Kalla said, a wary look in her eye as she regarded her countryman, “nothing we can do about that now, kid, there’s only twenty of us.”
“Nineteen,” cut in someone else. “Monsters got Willa. Marn can’t fight with that arm either.”
“Right,” Kalla nodded gravely. “If they’re lucky they can escape back down the hill, but we won’t do them any good getting killed here.”
“No, that’s just it,” the fox insisted desperately, shaking his head. “They sent a whole second army to wait at the bottom of the slope! I saw ‘em split off earlier, I’m sure that’s where they was goin’!”
“What, and we should take your word for that, and go save the day?” asked one of the mercenaries. “There are already eleven lives on your hands, after that stunt with the monsters on the hill!”
“That weren’t me! Lastborn lied about the whole thing, I got nothing to do with it!” Reynard protested angrily. “And I don’t know nothing about no fires neither!” he added, his point somewhat lost on several of the others thanks to the triple negative.
“Think, why’d I wanna lie about this anyway? I’ll be going with you!”
“Why go at all?” the mercenary demanded, looking as scared as he did angry.
“Because if they try’n escape down the hill everyone’ll be slaughtered! Not just nobles or the baron, our friends too! We can’t just abandon them!”
Many were still suspicious of the fox, but the words were a twist of the knife in Pice’s heart, sheepish looks coming over the faces of most of the Hunting Hawks, as well as many others.
If only he’d had Reynard’s bravery, Pice thought.
The courage to throw himself at a towering naga, armed only with a stick to save someone who’d never lifted a finger to save him… who hadn’t even risked raising the alarm to warn the others….
With the sounds of more naga already coming for them, the team had no more time to deliberate.
Reynard’s heroic actions proved decisive.
They would follow him.