Wizard and Warden, prequel two

Their two familiars disappeared into the rigging, Valerius' bat flapping silently to the forecastle while Malwyn's owl circled aft. 

"No sign of boats," Valerius said, half-leaning on his staff against the sway of the ship. 

"Nothing alarming back here," Malwyn answered, just before she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and gave an undignified squeak. She cut down at the scaled hand caught the top of the rail and a reptilian forehead raised itself up. 

"Malwyn?"

"Lizardfolk," she called loudly. "No boats, they're just swimming over."

"That," muttered Valerius, "explains a lot." He muttered and gestured, and a handful of glowing red darts launched themselves at a pair of lizardfolk who were coming up over the port railing. 

Malwyn focused, letting the outside world fall away. There was only her blade, the battle, and the aura of icy cold that she channeled into the steel. A faint white patina of frost covered it, and when she struck the lizardfolk warrior staggered back, the edges of the wound in its chest black with frostbite. She swung again, but missed. 

The sailors were fighting back as well, harpoons and belaying pins and a couple of well-placed nets all deployed to deadly effect, and for a moment it looked like the attack would break. Then a lizard-man appeared on the bow, having apparently climbed the anchor, and smashed down the first sailor to come at him with a long trident that seemed carved from pure ivory. Two more came up behind it, even as Valerius surrounded himself with a quartet of illusory images to make himself harder to hit.  

A series of fiery beams lanced out from the dwarven wizard's hand, striking the lizardfolk warleader; the warleader staggered back, but shook off the damage, raised his spear, and threw it. 

By sheer luck it found its target, and Valerius staggered back. Blood stained the shoulder of his robe.

Malwyn broke off from the injured lizard-warrior and flung herself between them. She felt the brush of a bone-tipped spear against the back of her hair as she moved, but another sailor moved in with a belaying pin and she lost track of the enemy behind her. She couldn't get up the stairs and reach the warleader and his guards, but she could distract them... 

She cast the spell she had prepared earlier: Enlarge. 

The warleader, now half her size, lowered his head briefly, hissed, and then flung himself forward. His guards followed at his heels. 

She caught him with her enlarged greatsword before he could get close enough to attack, cut him and poured frost into the wound. The warleader twisted, ignoring the injury, and stabbed hard with his trident, driving it into her thigh. She'd need to remember to dodge; at this size, she was an easy target. And how the hell had he gotten it back? That had to be magic.

The two guards continued past her, angling for Valerius, but Valerius met one of them with Shocking Grasp. It wasn't enough damage to take the guard out, but it was definitely enough to set it back on its heels. 

Malwyn swung at the warleader, and this time both strikes connected; with the additional damage from the aura of frost around her blade, he went down. 

The guards were still focused on Valerius, and two of his illusory doubles disappeared to when they attacked. Valerius and his remaining doubles gestured at the undamaged one, and it collapsed, paralyzed. Malwyn brought her sword around, and cut down the injured guard; at the edge of the railing, one of the lizard-folk looked up to meet her eyes, then threw itself backwards into the water. 

A moment later the attack was over. The lizard-folk who could were escaping; Malwyn thought that was less than half of them, maybe as little as a fifth. 

The ship's captain, Cleave Sparkstone, came hurrying down from the raised stern. "What now?" he asked. 

Valerius was looking at his pierced and blood-stained robe in disgust. "Find their ship," he said quietly, looking over at Malwyn. "If we can't find it, we question to the prisoner here." He gestured down at the immobile lizard-woman at his feet. 

"Ropes," growled the captain. "Bind this one to the mast!"