Skinks are the nimble hands of the Seraphon and the closest thing the temple-hosts have to a voice. They scout, they scheme, they tend the slann and crew the war-beasts, and in battle they flow around the foe in hissing swarms — a sting of poisoned darts and javelins, then gone into the undergrowth before the enemy can decide whom to strike back.
What skinks lack in bulk they repay in wit. They read battles the way their priests read stars, redirecting ambushes and beast-handlers on the run, and their high, clicking speech carries the only running commentary the Great Plan will ever receive. The slann dream the design and the saurus enforce it, but it is the skinks — scampering, scheming, indispensable — who make it work.