Light stabbed painfully through Msaka's eyelids as his consciousness slowly returned. His head throbbed painfully, and he let out an involuntary groan as he raised one hand to shield his eyes from the sun's glare. The sounds of battle no longer rang out over the area, though someone or something was moving around not too far from where he lay.

"What has happened?" was his first coherent thought. "One of the archers must have got a lucky shot..." He lifted his head and forced his eyes open, squinting through the daylight at the area around him.

Carnage lay all around. The dead bodies of jackal-like humanoids were interspersed with human and saurus corpses, the desert sand stained red in many places by their collective blood. Still, there was some life left in the scene; perhaps half a dozen men were picking over the wreckage, apparently checking the sprawled forms of their fellow guards for signs of life. A few still living sauruses, not many more in number than the people, were gathered together a short distance to one side of the battlefield. Apparently the caravan's defenders had prevailed against the assault, but only by the barest of margins. Msaka closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath to steady himself against the pain and nausea he was feeling.

He grunted out several curses as he carefully levered himself up into a sitting position, as doing so brought new waves of pain and dizziness from his wound on top of what he was already feeling. Reaching up gingerly, he felt along the top of his head and discovered a deep gouge running across his scalp from front to back, one that had almost certainly come from an arrow. The wound stung even more as he touched it, and he clenched his teeth together to stifle yet another groan.

"A lucky shot for the archer indeed, and a lucky one for me as well. A little bit lower and I would have fletching protruding from between my eyes," he thought bitterly, as he pulled his hand back. He took another deep breath, then focused his attention on his hand. Focusing as best as he was able to under the circumstances, he began forcing his fingers through the somatics of his Healing spell, building the webwork of magical power between them. Twice, his concentration nearly slipped as dizziness threatened to overwhelm him, but he managed to continue both times through sheer willpower and complete the spell successfully.

He closed his eyes, reached up and passed his hand and its energies over the heavy cut, trembling with the effort of staying upright. As the magic worked its way into the wound, the dizziness and pain swiftly abated, though it did not disappear entirely. Msaka felt along the top of his head again and found no outward sign of the deep slash that had been there until moments ago. Still, it was apparent from the twinge that ran through the area at the pressure from his hand that it was not yet entirely healed.

With a heavy sigh he withdrew his hand and prepared to call up his power again, but a call from nearby interrupted his thoughts. "Effendi, are you well?" came the voice, and Msaka opened his eyes again to see one of the surviving guards hurrying towards him from only a short distance away.

"What a stupid question. Of course I'm not well," Msaka thought, but held his tongue. Given the situation, he could hardly afford to alienate the few people left alive after the attack. "I will be soon," he grunted instead. "Then I can heal whoever else needs it."

The caravan guard certainly wasn't well himself. His right arm was being held in a makeshift sling, the forearm heavily bandaged. There were no splints visible, so it didn't seem likely that the bones were broken in it, but from the heavy bloodstains it was apparent that it was no minor flesh wound the man was suffering from either. Aside from that one serious injury, the guard seemed to have suffered only scratches and scrapes, none of them particularly serious in nature.

Msaka began working the complex pattern to build another healing web, eyeing the guard as he did. He spoke somewhat slowly, keeping most of his attention on his spell. "What happened after I was taken down by that arrow?" he inquired, his eyes slightly narrowed in concentration.

"With your lightning at an end, they surged forward, effendi. The battle became quite confused, and it was impossible to hold ranks effectively. Still, while outnumbered, we were the better equipped, and the fight became one of attrition. Their archers were unable to continue firing upon us for much of this time, as their own were mingled in among us, but they turned their attention upon the sauruses instead," the guardsman spoke, wincing at the memory. "In the end, they were driven off, with but a handful remaining, yet our own had been reduced in the same fashion, as you can no doubt see. Had not some of the jackalmen in the battle turned upon the sauruses as the archers had done, we may well have been slain to the man, but their inattention gave us a short reprieve."

The guard touched his bandaged arm with his good hand, grimacing as he did. "I myself took this wound late into the battle, but was forced to fight on despite it, as our side could not afford the loss of even one more."

Msaka had finished building his magical web as the man spoke, and passed it over the now mostly healed cut. The spell's energy penetrated within, repairing the remaining damage from the blow, and Msaka let out an audible sigh of relief as his mind cleared fully, the throbbing fading away completely from the area.

"What do we do now?" he asked, turning his full attention to the guard.

"We must salvage what we can and move on, effendi, before predators sense what has happened here, or the jackalmen themselves return," the guard sighed. "You said that you could aid with our wounds? If I might trouble you to tend to my arm..."

Msaka nodded and rose to his feet, beginning the healing spell a third time. Whoever had had an interest in the caravan's safe arrival wasn't going to be happy at this turn of events, but at least they would retain a few proceeds from it. Hopefully, Msaka and the remainder of the group wouldn't prove to be a magnet for further trouble.

And equally, he hoped that the attack on the caravan wouldn't prompt Aziza or anyone else to probe at his involvement in matters any more deeply than they were already likely to do.