Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [99]
"Why does the naga not show itself?" asked Sungar. "It's a coward."
"It wants to survive," I said, "but it also wants to win. It will not disappoint its phaerimm masters. It can read our minds and knows our-"
The wall behind me collapsed. I barely kept my balance enough to stay standing. I turned around and saw the naga coiled ahead of me, hissing at me with its fanged mouth. The orcs backed away once again.
"Something's wrong," I mumbled to myself as I prepared another magic missile.
I launched the spell-bolt at the monster's face, but it never impacted. Instead it bounced off the air surrounding the naga and flew back at me, striking me in the chest. I went flying backward, agony radiating through my torso to all parts of my body. I screamed and fell hard onto the stone of the ruin. Sungar rushed over to my aid, while the naga licked its lips in amusement.
"What has it done?" the chieftain asked me.
"It's wrapped itself in some kind of magical field," I answered, teeth gritting in time with my throbbing pain. "It turns magic back on its wielder."
"That's no match for Uthgardt steel!" Sungar shouted and ran forward, swinging his mighty battle-axe and letting out a loud war cry. The naga tried to dodge, but the battle-axe caught it in the neck. The field around it flickered, and I saw the axe energized with a red burst of energy shooting down to its wielder. Sungar and the naga both writhed in pain, and both seemed on the verge of collapse. The naga desperately swung around its tail, but Sungar, the agony obvious in his every move, sliced through its flank with his axe, sending the stinger flying off into the crowd of orcs. Sungar collapsed from the pain, letting the axe fly away. The naga came about and prepared to rip his throat out with its fangs. I watched helplessly.
A rain of Uthgardt spears, hammers, and throwing axes flew at the naga's thin, serpentine length, a few of them striking their mark exactly. The creature writhed in pain and let out a sharp scream that could have shattered glass. The Uthgardt at last penetrated the row of orcs behind us, and I felt arms strain to lift me from the ground onto the back of a horse. It was Thluna.
"You saved a mage," I said weakly.
"The second time I've done that," he answered.
I saw one of the other barbarians pull Sungar from the ground and bury a warhammer into the naga's ugly face, killing the monster at last.
Thluna brought his horse around and started charging away from the battlefield. I turned my eyes to the orcs and saw that it was happening just as I predicted. When orc after orc realized that it was armed and standing beside a member of a rival tribe, its instinct was not to ask questions. By the time we were clear of the area, orc-on-orc fights were breaking out like a string of Shou firecrackers.
* * * * *
Only fourteen of us left the battle, about a third of those who entered it. Sungar was the most badly wounded and took up most of the shaman's spells, so the rest of us were left to heal on our own. We set up camp nearby. Food was running scarce, the Fallen Lands offering little in the way of vegetation or wildlife. Whatever the orcs usually ate, it was likely consumed by the naga's army, so several of the most able-bodied Uthgardt set off for the Greypeak Mountains to the west to hunt.
Thluna, myself, and a few of the others went back to the battlefield to recover the honored dead from among the piles upon piles of orc corpses. Surely there were some survivors of the battle, but so few that the Uthgardt considered this among the most glorious victories in their tribe's history, one about which great songs would be sung. I doubted, somehow, that Arklow the Civilized Mage would get a verse.
I inspected the ruin and found it was even more badly damaged than before. However, I did notice for the