United for the first time since entering the Bloodsucking Forest, the adventurers, mercenaries and soldiers of the expedition were finally pushing the naga back.
The battle was intense, a match for the savage storm overhead, the downpour doing nothing to dampen the ferocity of either side, even as mana pools emptied and muscles burned for oxygen.
Dozens of people lay dead or dying, perhaps more – it was near impossible to tell in the darkness – but at last the toll was mounting for the enemy too.
It was commonly understood that an ordinary human, a farmer or a laborer thrown into a fight for their life, might endure only a couple of minutes of intense activity before reaching exhaustion. A practiced adventurer was different; experienced and strengthened through the trials of their craft and invigorated with mana, they could fight a melee for around ten, even fifteen minutes before being spent.
Lyanna’s sword glanced sloppily off the scales of another spearman, her aching arm protesting the overuse.
Ignoring the cries of her muscles, she brought the blade back up to lodge its tip in the gap between two scales at the throat of her foe, then forced it through.
Fifteen minutes was a long time to spend battling to the death against monsters in the dark. Lyanna had no idea if it had been more or less by that point, but both sides were nearing their limits.
The young gold-ranker wasn’t in the habit of prayer, but she thanked the gods that it was the naga who faltered first.
A few heads turned as a horn sounded out towards the southern side of the camp, but few paid it any real attention in the frenzy of a winning push. Any efforts to crest the walls there would be quickly repulsed once the main attack was dealt with.
With the leadership of Jalera and the addition of the Lastborn the serpentine attackers were being overwhelmed despite their advantage in armor and visibility. Their initial onslaught had been rapid and focused, yet the push had halted as the expedition’s reinforcements took the field. Victory seemed to have been decided almost too easily – it would be only a matter of minutes until the naga were forced back out through the breach in the walls.
More horns were sounding, but they were close to breaking the main naga attack, too close to divert attention now.
With Dolm and Marcus at her side, Thunderbolt was united again, at least temporarily, and as they coordinated to take down another powerful naga, Lyanna finally dared to believe that they really were going to win.
That was when she felt the huge swell of mana coming from that direction.
Too late she called out with the urgency that she should have felt earlier.
A moment later came a great crashing of water, as though the heavens had fallen entirely upon them, a rampaging river booming into the camp walls and smashing through in an instant, hurling debris, logs, even people into the air with its impossible rage.
Staring off to the southern end of the enclosure, Lyanna saw the waters breaking, sweeping away much of the ruin of tents and containers crushed by the initial swell, to leave a second swampland entrance to the beleaguered expedition camp.
She wasn’t the only one staring.
Lightning flashed overhead, a boom to put that of the magic to shame, and by its light the party from Faron saw a second force of naga swarming the gap, easily as many again as had already attacked them.
Into the breach poured the naga, flowing like a second river, fiercer still than the first which had created it.
The opening was half the width of the one to the west, but with the bulk of combatants already fighting on the western wall there was only a token force able to meet the second attack.
Jalera understood just as well as she did of course – already the older adventurer was barking orders, diverting Lastborn units to meet the second front.
It was as the Lastborn were reluctantly but obediently bringing their people about to face the naga directly, that Lyanna felt a third surge of power.
Soaked to the skin though she was, the battle and humidity made the conditions hot if anything, yet as her head twisted towards the eastern wall she felt a chill.
The horns hadn’t stopped after the second breach was opened.
Despite a fatalistic premonition of futility she tried to shout some warning. It fell on deaf ears. Everyone was already fighting, or about to be. There was no-one left to call on.
The third spell struck the walls to the east, and once again a storm-surge of conjured water plowed through the barrier and ravaged the camp and defenders within.
She didn’t need to be able to see through the maze of surviving tents and the haze of darkness to know that a third force of naga would even now be fighting their way in.
They were surrounded on three sides now.
Her attention was brought back to her position on the west of the camp by a stabbing spear, the naga behind it hissing triumphantly as she caught Lyanna distracted.
A heartbeat too slow to react, Lyanna gasped in pain as her assailant forced the weapon between the lames of her pauldron, piercing her shoulder.
Dolm put an arrow between the naga’s eyes and the spearwoman dropped.
Mechanically she pulled out the spear and dropped into the mud after its owner. The injury it left was a shallow one, and not to her sword-arm, thank the gods. It could easily have been poisoned, or smeared in any number of unpleasant substances, but she would have to trust in her heightened resistance to protect her.
“Focus, Lyanna!” Dolm shouted, over the storm and the chaos. “Push ‘em out on this side and the others’ll be easier!”
Assuming the naga didn’t have any more shots of the water magic which had thrice breached the walls thus far, she reflected.
It did seem unlikely that they could produce magical attacks that powerful repeatedly. Each shot had punched through magically compressed earth in layers as thick as they were high.
Assuming that were so didn’t ease her concerns much. Even if the enemies couldn’t break down the walls further, the barriers weren’t so high that the naga couldn’t simply climb up. Each foot of surviving wall was a potential battleground, needing defending – all while they were pushing back the three incursions.
But they were still overwhelming this one at least.
Naga warriors were falling back under the pressure of the adventurers and mercenaries, while the baron’s soldiers had been sent to reinforce the surviving lengths of wall. Even the delegation from the Solar Church had joined the defense, providing magical support and healing.
Lightning flashed overhead once more, another peal of thunder tearing through the landscape like a roar of natural fury, and by its light Lyanna saw a second row of figures, taller and broader, charging towards the breach in the walls.
Jalera had seen them too. She called on the fighters to brace themselves.
Slithering through, the second wave struck out in all directions in an instant, even seasoned adventurers pushed back or cut down.
Far from retreating, the naga were on the offence again, laying waste to their victims with powerful blows and devastating magic.
In seconds the exhausted defenders were in retreat, the line collapsing in multiple places.
Putting the first wave to shame, these new attackers were masters of warfare. It was as if they were some form of elite special unit, the naga’s own Lastborn or gold-rankers, but she had never known monsters to form such groups.
Something more was present with them too. Within their lines she felt a strange, twisting, coiling power at work.
The Lastborn fired a fresh volley of arrows and spectral bolts at the massed enemy force. The individual projectiles were near invisible in the dark, but with over a hundred fired at a time the wave of attacks were clear.
Mere paces from the naga line that wave seemed somehow to turn away, projectiles veering or deflecting up over the enemy, as if swatted aside by an unseen giant hand… or tail….
At the center of the naga formation Lyanna saw the shadow of a towering figure, armed with a great trident and exuding a thick, achingly intense essence. It had been he, she was certain, who stopped the Lastborn volley.
Strangely, the naga weren’t returning fire, even though any sorcerers or slingers behind their front line could have done so with impunity. Instead they relied only on close range weapons and magic.
The storm threw the scene into surreal relief then, the monstrous naga made radiant as the sun by another flash, casting a rich light all about him, refracted by golden rings piercing his broad hood like a twisted crown and gleaming from his scales, themselves a near perfect match for the sheen of the precious metal.
This was the monster responsible for the attack, and the one for whom these elites had gathered; the so-called Sultan.
Instinctually Lyanna was certain that her blade would never pierce those scales. Her spells would not break that foe. He contained essence beyond any of them, even Jalera. It would surely take many lives, and dozens of their best to bring down such a creature. But he wasn’t alone, and already the sounds of fighting to their east and south were growing louder.
They were embattled on three sides, with a monster beyond any Lyanna had ever seen at the head of an army of naga.
“Dolm, Marcus!” she screamed over the tumult. “We’ve got to get out of here! We can still make it down the north slope!”
“What?! And give up on the entire expedition? And abandon everyone?!” Marcus asked, revulsion clear in his voice and on the dim outlines of his face. “You may not care what happens to mom, or to anyone else, but I do!”
She could have slapped the boy right in his bitter, stupid, arrogant mouth, but the momentary burst of anger drowned in the hopelessness of their plight.
“Please Marcus, just listen! We can’t win, not against them! That thing, the ‘sultan’, even Jalera can’t beat that! We have to retreat!” Lyanna pled, grabbing him by the shoulder. “We have to escape, everyone does!”
Jalera’s voice powered through the storm and the chaos. “All gold-ranks, to me! Defeat this foe and the enemy breaks! Bomond, to the front!”
It seemed a miracle that she still hadn’t given up, but her rallying cry came at the worst possible moment for Lyanna. The wavering expression on her little brother’s face hardened once more, and he shoved her hand away.
“They’re calling us,” he answered her, with the disdain of a disgusted stranger. “I’m going.”
“But… you’re not even gold-rank….”
Lyanna doubted he even heard her final words as he and Dolm left her there.
~~~
Guildmaster Bomond cursed the day Thunderbolt came to him, with news from the forest, and he cursed the wretched, scheming traitor Lyanna for the multiple personal and professional disasters she had inflicted upon him. She was just as bad as Jalera. Worse in fact. This, all of it, was entirely her fault.
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She would pay of course, but first he had to clean up her mess. The monsters would regret their brashness, and he’d see that ‘king’ of theirs gutted. The baron would surely enjoy keeping the head as another trophy. The useless would-be adventurer could even pretend to have helped catch this one himself.
Anchored in place, his greatshield turned aside a barrage of spears, glaives and other polearms from the naga vanguard, leeching away their impacts as if drinking the energy from them.
Focusing his mana into the vast, layered wall of metal, he redirected the stored power into a slam forwards, propelled with supernatural strength; a shield bash with all the force and fury of his decades of toil behind it.
The shockwave drove back the rain, scattering the naga with ease.
Advancing into the broken lines, he wielded the mass of metal like a weapon as much as a barrier, crushing foes on its edges and driving the pointed base into any who fell, reflecting back enemy spells from the enchanted surface.
Penetrating so deep into the enemy formation alone would be suicide, even for him, but he was simply plowing the way for the other adventurers behind.
Common-born trash, fighting was all they were good for. All most adventurers were good for. But Bomond was different. It wasn’t supposed to still be like this. He was supposed to be ennobled by now, to be a diamond-rank adventurer turned baron, with all the power and prestige he could desire, and a comfortable keep and lands to retire to.
Lyanna brought all the old anger back to him. Jalera had been the first to derail his dreams. Spurning his own advances he could tolerate, but when she so publically rejected those of the nobles, professional and personal, she had been holding the entire party back for her petty pride and childish grudges. She who worked and trained harder than anyone, would rather exert her talents in exterminating ogres than enjoy their fruits feasting with nobles. What she called fierce independence he called stupid petulance…. To look down on even dukes was nothing short of professional suicide for an adventuring party, even a gold rank one.
Yet she had the nerve to decide to go it alone, to turn her back on the party which had elevated her from a young and naïve silver rank girl to a famed gold-ranker in a matter of just a few years, and then on to the rarified rank of diamond. She claimed the split was to protect their positions – any ire she earned would be hers alone – but Bomond knew she had done it to spite him.
The enmity had lingered, festering over the years, as she went on to ever greater success, until the day finally came when she really could antagonize even a duke and come out on top… yet Bomond had tasted none of those triumphs.
With a bitter grunt he caved in the head of a coiling serpentine monster with his gauntlet as it tried to weave past him, enjoying for a moment the sensation of bone breaking, imagining it to be Jalera.
Even now she moved at his back, reaping naga with incinerating bands of white-hot fire, harvesting the glory all for herself.
As ever he had been, Bomond was tasked with defending against the retaliations of those who endured her attacks, his ears ringing with the ghastly screeching of her spell.
Enchanted and nigh unbreakable, his greatshield had, in his hands, saved her life countless times, yet his shield-arts had none of the prestige or showmanship of her magic, and he had never received more than token praise as her defender.
The mononymous guildmaster knew Jalera had cheated him, dissolving the party just to prevent his own rise to become Bellwood’s second diamond-ranker.
Without him this spearhead attack on the monster ‘sultan’ would have been suicidal, no matter how powerful Jalera was, but once again all credit would be hers, with only a token thanks for the guildmaster who made the victory possible.
He’d thought that she would be a useful connection to call on, one to ensure his success, even if it meant sharing the glory with her too, but seeing her in person again after so many years had driven the truth home.
There were numerous famed adventurers who had grown soft with age and prosperity. They tasted success and it sated their hunger. They developed a taste for the finer life which they had never known before, and their powers and skills were left to molder.
It was clear to him now that Jalera had never slackened her incredible efforts. When the old party stopped each evening to rest it was always she who stayed up that extra hour to train, and she who practiced her magic throughout her watch turns, despite the revolting sensation of exhaustion that came with depleting one’s mana.
Now she was further above him than ever.
Dedicating herself to the profession she had chosen, she prospered because of her training and discipline, rather than despite their lack. As her powers grew her name became famed throughout the Gulf, while Bomond had simply stagnated, his skills slowly rusting, his own success that of a mere provincial official.
Now Lyanna had undermined even that paltry position too.
Had the mimic ever really existed at all, he wondered, or was her whole party in on it?
He’d make them pay together, either way. Them, Jalera, and anyone else who tried to disgrace or denigrate him.
Ahead the enemy lines were parting, the naga attack broken by the core of high-rank adventurers Jalera had assembled.
Thunderbolt was among them, he noted with ire through the corner of his eye, fighting together once more. He knew Lyanna had been lying to him. When the battle was over that would be added to the long list of mistakes she’d regret… assuming she survived of course.
He could see the leader now, a giant golden serpent with an imposing presence. He was powerfully built, with a body honed by warfare, yet there was a strange, monstrous beauty to him too.
The naga were trying to close the gap, dozens gathering to defend their overlord, yet the beast in question looked unconcerned to meet the adventurers in person.
Jalera gave a shout, and Bomond flattened himself to the ground at the familiar signal, anchoring himself in place.
Magic burst out in an unseen wave of force, unseen hands of attraction grappling at any and all metal in their path, hurling weapons from hands or shoving back those who gripped them too tightly.
Among the adventurers too, many were too slow or too unaware to anchor themselves in time, but the naga suffered the worst of it. Jalera had gotten better at directing her magic too it seemed.
With a path to the leader clear, all that remained was to take his head and put down the naga attack once and for all.
Jalera abandoned the shelter of Bomond’s shield, kicking off his shoulder to leap over his head and gain a clear line to her target.
Wreathed in white energy as she soared, even he found himself struck by the sight of her – and sickened by his own reaction.
Speaking magic into her gauntlets, a screaming coil of dazzling power flashed out from between her palms, blooming towards the golden figure.
All was over, and once again she meant to take all the credit at the last moment.
It was just as Bomond was thinking so, that he felt something amiss, something strange about the so-called Sultan, and indeed the space around him. The creature had been unperturbed by the attempt to disarm him, but he seemed equally unfazed by this new move for his beheading.
The superheated arc of essence flashed out, then bent to one side, twisting unnaturally around the Sultan – and straight back at Jalera!
Her eyes widened, but she couldn’t dodge while airborne.
The distorted spell crashed into her chest, dueling layers of magic wailing as Jalera desperately tried to hold back her own attack.
Slammed down into the red mud, smoking in the wake of the impact, the Sultan ignored her, his trident striking out all around him as other adventurers came at the giant reptile. Each fell in turn, as though they were still stone-rankers, new to the basics of combat.
Bomond watched the golden trident thrust towards him, but the motion baffled even his experienced eyes – the naga too far back for the stab to reach.
All the same he raised his shield to block it, but the blow never came.
A few paces to his side an old woman from Bosquerime cried out as the huge weapon thrust through her midriff with impossible speed, the shaft somehow twisting and elongating as if it were stretching out like a snake to strike.
She fell, bleeding, and in the darkness and chaos Bomond paid her no further heed. His eyes were locked on the figure of the Sultan, mind turning over the bizarre attack. He heard no chant, and it seemed nothing like the puerile spells of the subhumans. It could only be a supernatural technique, one activated with incredible speed. Yet he’d felt no mana from the weapon itself, rather the essence he could detect was diffuse, spread all around the Sultan like an aura.
“The trident stretches!” was the best warning he could give.
Jalera was back on her feet. Her elegant scarf had burnt through, but her breastplate was undamaged and her movements unperturbed as ever.
All around them adventurers and naga were in a melee, the snakes desperate to drive the expedition forces back from their monarch. The adventurers had little time to claim his head before they would be overwhelmed by the pressure from multiple sides.
“Cover me, Bo!” Jalera ordered.
For the first time in many decades Bomond heard a note of fear in Jalera’s harsh command.
The Sultan struck down another hapless ally, and from Bomond’s side she launched a lashing tongue of magic at him.
Once more the attack seemed to bend impossibly.
By its light Bomond even thought he could see the pouring rain distorting too, falling… sideways… along the path of the diverted attack.
He couldn’t make any sense of the sight, but he knew what he had to do. Galling as it was, they needed Jalera.
A few words were enough to heighten the reinforcement of his shield. A lunge forward caught the returning attack on its surface, absorbing what it could and scattering the excess energy in dazzling ripples of dreadful power, washing over the top of the angled barrier to dissipate harmlessly into the air.
For the first time the Sultan locked eyes with the guildmaster.
He had no chance to unleash the charge his shield bore; the serpentine monarch raised a clawed hand, and before he knew it Bomond was hurled towards him.
Desperately anchoring himself to stop the motion, his shield barely made it to clang against the trident aimed at his throat.
Another thrust came, stretching out to chase him even as he tried to backstep, then a third followed in deadly pursuit, each stronger and faster than the last, as if the trident were alive, a monster in its own right, dedicated to hunting him down.
Backing up step by step, Bomond’s arms were throbbing from the repeated strikes, his senses pushed to the limits as he felt as much as looked for the hunting fangs of the trident.
Spurred on by his failed attack on Bomond and the furious exchange, tempted by the sight of his prey so close to being overwhelmed, the Sultan had advanced too far and allowed himself to become isolated.
Adventurers closed behind him, and Bomond showed the taller figure a malicious grin. He hadn’t spend decades as a vanguard for nothing.
Attacks came at the menacing naga from all sides now, taking the pressure off the guildmaster.
Among them was Thunderbolt. The brat, Marcus, Lyanna’s idiot boy brother was at the front. With his skills and limited essence there was no way he could land a fatal blow, but supported by his party he was performing far better than Bomond could have imagined; recklessly throwing himself at his foe while expertly placed arrows were keeping the Sultan on the defensive, his strange power of deflection absorbed by the need to ward off the lightning Lyanna called down upon him.
Bomond noticed that he couldn’t seem to return the latter in the way he did Jalera’s white-hot gaseous fire.
It must be the speed, he reasoned – there in the midst of the storm, Lyanna could call upon unlimited energy to fuel her lightning, and the speed of the bolts left the naga no moment to gauge the attack and return it. Instead the arcing lashes of energy were launched back up into the clouds overhead, returning into the cracking, booming storm sky which Lyanna had somehow harnessed.
Jalera cut the air with another wave of white tongues, and the Sultan chanted for the first time, reciting strange and alien words that reverberated in the ear and bore down into the bone of the skull.
Something was wrong with Bomond’s eyes.
The space between the Sultan and Jalera was wrong; the backdrop of battling people and monsters seen through the dark and rain seemed disjointed, as though there were some sort of… folded mirror.
Her attack reached the spot and turned, not in a flowing curve as before, but at a bizarre, sharp angle, emerging in the wrong direction entirely, the loop of radiant, screeching energy mowing through the ranks of the adventurers and a few naga off to one side.
Marcus took full advantage of the distraction, and for the first time the Sultan hissed with pain, as the boy’s axe bit into his tail and lodged between his scales.
Turning, infuriated by the indignity more than the minor wound, the Sultan almost ran the boy through with his trident, the golden spearhead twisting nigh-impossibly at the last moment to swat away a glowing arrow from Dolm. Behind him, Bomond felt Lyanna desperately reciting another incantation, gathering power in her staff.
Dueling Jalera and Thunderbolt both, the snake had totally forgotten about Bomond. For just a moment it seemed the guildmaster was clear of other foes too, the furious battle keeping the naga’s guards busy too.
It was the perfect opportunity.
He chanted the words to command his shield, forming the spell within which would once more unleash the accumulated power. Thanks to Jalera and the Sultan it would be an attack of unprecedented ferocity.
The so-called Sultan would die by his hand, not that of Jalera, or even that wretched Lyanna.
The boy was there too of course, pinned by his own axe, and far too slow to dodge the attack. A welcome bonus. No-one could possibly blame the Guildmaster, he would be doing only what he had to, to save the expedition which Marcus himself had so callously endangered. Lyanna would taste some measure of the rage and humiliation she had inflicted upon him, and regret her powerlessness even as he, Guildmaster Bomond, ascended to new heights, the famed hero who slew the Naga King.
He gathered the essence and took his stance as he chanted the final words. If only he could have caught Jalera in the crossfire too….
Agony tore through his body, blinding light overwhelming his eyes, searing heat boiling the blood in his veins through his armor and forcing air from his lung in a ragged scream.
Smoking despite the torrential rain, Guildmaster Bomond fell to one knee in the wake of the lightning strike, his shield crashing down at his side to shake the earth.
~~~
Steam rose from her staff where rain struck and evaporated from the metal surface. Observing the droplets, Lyanna’s mind was blank.
Around her, eyes were staring at both she and the figure she’d struck down, despite the battle still waged all about them.
Guildmaster Bomond was struggling to rise again in the wake of her thunderbolt.
Even Marcus, retreating from his near-death at the trident of the Sultan, looked shocked and outraged in equal measure.
“What did you do?! You killed Bomond!”
“He was going to kill you both!” she answered, tears streaming invisibly down her face among the water.
The Sultan of Scales had no such questions. He turned upon the stricken guildmaster with purpose in his eyes.
Jalera tried to stop him, but her attack was reflected away once again.
Dolm fired at the creature too, but the Sultan twisted his body, and the hastily nocked shot glanced off the monster’s thick scales.
The trident rose.
Standing on one knee, Bomond raised his shield to meet it.
Everyone was screaming, Lyanna among them, but it was too far. Her finest shot, so carefully prepared to strike down the Sultan, had been spent on the treacherous guildmaster instead.
The Sultan tore the great wall of metal aside with his tail.
Someone was shouting for retreat.
With a surreal bewilderment she realized it was Jalera, turning and waving back the others.
She was abandoning Bomond, Lyanna realized.
He seemed to realize it too, with a cry of rage and bitterness that cut through the storm.
A moment later the trident fell.
Run through, guildmaster Bomond spat a final breath of blood, and then collapsed amid a dissonant chorus of screams.
It was a death like that which befell so many adventurers, ignominious in the end, despite his years of toil and lofty aspirations, yet with him died the hope of them all.
The naga were everywhere now, more numerous than ever, flooding uncontested through the breaches to the south and east to encircle the expedition force.
Jalera had vanished at the moment of Bomond’s death, abandoning the expedition in an instant.
Perhaps that had been the smart move. Burned and stunned by the surprise attack, even with healing the guildmaster couldn’t have returned to the fight at his full strength, and both he and Jalera together had been needed to challenge the monstrous Sultan.
With the loss of both their commander and their vanguard, the adventurers broke too, fight turning to flight all around the camp in an instant.
Mercenaries were more disciplined, Lyanna noted dully, as she was dragging Marcus by the arm through the crowd, but even if they, like her brother, were too stupid or arrogant to see it, all hope had died with the guildmaster.
The sight of Bomond was still burned into her eyes… as he felt from her attack, and as he struggled to raise himself once more…. As he spat blood, and fell once more, for good….
All that was left to them was the small hope of escape.
With the camp encircled on all sides atop the hill, only the slope down into the jungle to the north gave any sliver of a chance.
First they had to fight their way through the chaos of the overrun camp however, and then scramble through the debris and the murderous roots in the dark and rain… while praying that none of the naga gave chase.
It was a slim chance indeed, but the bulk of the adventurers were already moving northwards all the same.
Among them she saw Eustas and Katia, the latter giving her a murderous glare. It promised vengeance, justice for Bomond and reprisals from the guild, perhaps even the country.
She and Dolm pulled Marcus that way regardless. Survival came first.
The boy finally seeming to understand the hopelessness of their position, and was moving without resistance when she heard a noise behind them and came to a halt herself.
Through the screams and storm, Lyanna heard the sound of a horn over the cacophony.
At first she wondered if she was losing her senses, but others were turning to look too.
Just visible through the veils of nighttime precipitation, she saw a figure atop the walls, just by the breach. They were waving, shouting something through the clangor of the battle. A second figure sounded the horn again.
Lyanna wondered if the minds of the two guards had simply snapped, leaving them sounding a desperate alarm even after the fight was lost….
But the fight in the breach beside them wasn’t quite lost it seemed – the naga were still entering, surrounding and overrunning the Lastborn forces, yet there were flashes of magic and the disarray of combat behind them somehow, from outside the camp.
The storm winds shifted for a moment, and Lyanna heard faintly the words of the figures; ‘the hill’s a trap!’
Many of the adventurers seemed to disregard the advice, but some were making for the south now, rather than the north.
The thought came to Lyanna, that if the naga had known where to find them, that it was as simple to encircle them on four sides as on three. Why then leave them a difficult, but possible avenue of escape, unless it be to entice them to take it, and stumble blindly into another force of enemies at the base of the slope.
“Dolm, Marcus, this way!” she barked, dragging them along even as they too hesitated.
They sprinted for the momentary opening in the battle to the south.
Reaching the front, Lyanna’s lightning punched through a dozen naga, mercenaries scattering as the unexpected charge of adventurers plowed into the enemy.
She heard cheers from the overstretched defenders, and felt a fresh pang of guilt. They had no idea her goal was to escape, to abandon them.
“Come with us!” she yelled. “The battle’s lost! We have to get out of here while we can!”
There was no time to stop and see who might be receptive to the message.
Thunderbolt sprinted through the stunned naga, some others at their backs, the improvised attack team clashing with the rows behind the front and fighting through them with renewed ferocity, despite their exhaustion.
Survival drove them now. The naga, pressed from the rear as well as front, collapsed under the dual assaults, parting to allow the adventurers through.
In an instant they were past the walls and out on the open plateau.
All around naga were fighting back against the mysterious rescue team. Try as they did, the group couldn’t hold their own for long, even with the additions from within the camp – there were simply too many enemies.
A few more people made it through the breach, before the figures atop the wall called on them all to fall back.
There was something odd about the silhouette of the leading man, a young beastfolk adventurer missing a helmet, but Lyanna had no chance to examine him as they fled together into the woods to the south, running flat-out for the mountain pass ahead, and the thunder-wracked peaks of the Cyclopean Bones, lit by the raging storm.
They kept running, even as the sounds of dying and defeat faded into the roaring weather, but Lyanna could still hear those noises.
The anguish of his voice. The screams as he fell.
The look on his face, just visible through his helm, of fear and betrayal.
Lyanna might not have swung the weapon, but she had killed Bomond all the same.
With him she’d killed countless more too.