The snake had raised its head again, forked tongue flickering in and out of its fanged mouth. Blood from Coll’s arm still stained the tips of its teeth.
We’ll teach you not to mess with us.
Benin drew on his mana and cast Levitate.
It was still like surfing on a silk cushion, but at least it no longer felt as though the cushion were actively trying to buck him off. He raised himself higher, then, once he was certain he was stable, he channeled a trickle of his rapidly draining mana into his hand and snapped his fingers.
A noise like a thunderclap burst through the air, and the serpent immediately snapped in his direction. But he was too high, beyond its grasp. For now. It hissed in frustration, just like before, and withdrew to uncoil itself further from the trees and extend its reach.
Benin anxiously watched his mana drain. Come on, come on, come on…
As soon as he spotted it coming back, he yelled, “About time! Dinner’s up here, snakey!”
It rose, hissing, and continued to rise. Benin was floating at least five meters in the air, almost above the level of the mist and the tops of the trees, and he gaped at the sheer scale of the massive reptile. Its tongue still flicked the air, tasting for him.
“Now!” he shouted.
The snake’s jaws gaped open, but before it could strike at Benin, there was a concussion down below. Hammer Smash sent tremors through the flooded ground, pushing the water away from the point of impact. It instantly came rushing in again, but not before the snake’s head plummeted downward toward the sound.
Just as he’d hoped, the jagged base of the broken tree trunk pierced the snake’s upper body, driven into and through it by the force of the serpent’s own momentum. The creature let out a terrible hissing scream.
Benin hurriedly lowered himself back to the ground. He winced as waves of cold water splashed up his legs, soaking his robes all the way to his waist. The serpent was thrashing ferociously, the seemingly endless coils of its body shaking the surrounding trees, sending surges of water everywhere, and triggering shriekers to add to the cacophony of its own agony.
The mage waded toward the broken trunk, careful to avoid the thrashing coils.
“Coll?” he called.
He almost fell over when the snake’s head lunged toward him, snapping at the air just in front of his face. The trunk impaling it had stopped it dead just before it could bite his head off.
“It’s still alive!” yelled Coll.
The serpent lunged back in his direction. Benin heard him swear. There was a splash, followed by sounds of a scuffle and more swearing.
He waded urgently closer, sparks crackling in his hands, though Levitate had left him almost entirely drained. He stopped dead when he rounded the thick trunk and saw Coll rolling around in the water, his arms and legs wrapped around the snake’s thick body as it writhed in a futile attempt to shed its unwanted rider.
There was a glimmer of metal in the warrior’s hand. Was he… was he going to try and cut the gnome out of the snake’s gullet?
It won’t work, you idiot.
“I can’t cut it!” Coll sounded surprised. Benin rolled his eyes, but the warrior had already tossed the knife aside. He began working his way further up toward the snake’s head.
“What are you going to do, choke it out?” He was only half jesting. There was very little Coll could do that wouldn’t surprise him.
“Get over here,” the warrior grunted. The gloved fingers of his left hand closed around the serpent’s snout, while his right hand gripped the edge of its lower jaw in between its front fangs.
It thrashed as Benin waded closer, but the warrior held its head firmly in the crook of his elbow. Though its violent movements dragged him back and forth, it wasn’t able to move its head enough to attack them.
“Go on, then,” said the warrior, teeth gritted with the exertion of holding the monstrous snake’s jaws open.
“What?”
“Get the little ‘un.”
“What?!”
“Hurry up. I can’t do this all day.”
Benin stared into the jaws of death.
He’s right. This is the only way.
“Hurry up,” Coll grunted again.
Benin rolled up his sleeve, held his breath, then plunged his hand into the snake’s mouth.
Its breath was hotter than he expected. He managed not to actually touch any part of the snake until he got to its throat. The surface was grossly smooth, as though lubricated. The same thing that helped it swallow its prey so easily now worked in his favor as he grimaced and pushed his hand deeper.
He could feel the hot, powerful muscles in its throat contracting around his arm, trying to swallow him too. He pushed down the urge to scream and flail and instead forced himself even further inside.
His fingers brushed against something hard. He pushed deeper; leaning in, his entire shoulder was now inside the snake’s mouth, its teeth just inches above his head. He made the mistake of glancing up, and almost passed out at the sight of more teeth. Even more so than the protruding fangs at the front, these curved backwards toward the throat. Benin now also noticed the angled ridges in the roof of the snake’s mouth, also angled toward the throat. Presumably this was all to prevent prey from climbing back out again.
He’d basically just stuck his arm inside a bag of very large, very warm needles. And the only thing keeping it from snapping shut on him was the grip of a single human warrior.
“Don’t—let—go!” he grunted to Coll.
With one last push, his hand closed around what definitely felt like a very small, booted ankle. He fished around until he found the other ankle, then grasped them both firmly together in his hand.
He tugged. The gnomish warrior shifted a little, but was stuck fast, trapped in the beast’s muscled esophagus. I doubt he can breathe
