Raim.

Of course, Jary finds himself thinking, of course Raim is the vampire who got caught in his trap. It only makes sense. Jary laughs, doesn’t care how manic it sounds.

“Fate bloody hates me!” he yells, shocking Mirel and Jeveth enough to make them pause.

Oh good.

Jary activates four magic circles on his bracelets. Similar circles, only bigger and made of fire, appear under his booted feet and his palms. He lifts a few inches into the air with the power of the spell. It’s not lightning or windwalking, but it should be fast enough.

He slides with the practiced moves of someone who’s spent a lot of time working with ice, comes behind Jeveth and blasts him into the side of the cliff with both hands. Jary keeps the fire contained, tries not to make it too hot.

The game has changed now that he has Raim to protect, but that doesn’t mean he wants to melt his friends.

The skin of his palms feels hot and dry. It cracks on his thumb and the droplet of blood that seeps out sizzles briefly.

Jary takes a deep breath. Raim is a vampire, which means Raim can’t die. No matter what Mirel and Jeveth throw at him, he’ll be fine. Hurting, but fine. Rationally, Jary should run for it, come up with a plan.

He won’t.

Mirel and Jeveth regroup. Jeveth is clearly worse for the wear. Whether he’s just bruised or sports a few cracked ribs, the look he sends Jary is murderous.

Mirel’s whip snaps with a loud crack. Jary ducks, gets his hands in the creek at the centre of the ravine and causes a watery explosion. A mist hangs in the air. Jary can feel anything that disturbs it.

Mirel’s whip snaps again, but it’s a ruse. She throws ice needles at Jary, who melts them with the spell hovering by his left hand. The ones that fly past hit the ground and cover the area around them in a thick layer of frost.

Not pulling her punches, then.

Sorrow comes swinging at Jary’s head from behind. He turns as he avoids it, sees one of the spells engraved on its shaft light up and gasps when he feels something grab his legs and work up his body, clearly about to immobilise his hands.

The shadow. Of course. Jary lets his spells burn bright for just a moment. It hurts even through his boots, not to mention his palms, but it works, the bright flash is enough. He can move again.

Jary eyes Mirel out of the corner of his eye, hesitating. He knows Mirel’s mirror-shields can turn any spell back on him. That’s why he hasn’t really gone on the offensive. He needs to think his way out of this.

A thought comes to him and he resents it immediately, but he knows it’s smart. There are sealing tattoos on his wrists and ankles - thin, barely visible bands. They are meant to stop him from using too much magic at once. Jary releases them.

He pulls water from the creek for a healing spell, lets it work on his hands to eliminate the distraction. He builds a cage-like structure out of ice to protect Raim. And he turns on Jeveth and Mirel.

Ice spikes erupt from the wet ground wherever the two hunters stop for even a moment. Shadow stepping and wind walking is all that saves them. Jary shatters a spell bottle, releasing a hundred small flames into the air, filling the ravine. They explode in bursts of light and hotness upon touch. Jary focuses on moving them along an orbiting trajectory around himself and Raim.

The ice spikes push Mirel and Jeveth to move. They can’t dodge all of the flames, and soon they are badly singed, sooty and breathing hard. A gash on Mirel’s right thigh shows she wasn’t quick enough to escape the ice. She gets close enough to Jary to almost reach him with her sword, but he blasts himself away, sliding safely to Raim’s side, while Mirel gets pushed into a flame that explodes across her back.

Jary takes no satisfaction in hearing his friend scream in pain, but he knows war. Shutting down his emotions is easy. He crouches near Raim, feels his magic being sucked in by the vampire. But beyond that, if he reaches out, he can feel his focus, keep himself centred.

“Jary, stop!” Jeveth yells. “You’ll burn out if you keep this up!”

Is it concern, or a ruse? No matter.

“I’m fine, thank you!” Jary yells back. “Worry about yourself! This isn’t a fight you can win!”

Mirel growls and snaps her whip to detonate several flames. “We’ll see about that!”

Smart move - or it would be, if Jary’s spell was a simple one. Each detonated flame creates at least two new ones to take its place. The explosions will be smaller each time and eventually peter out into nothing, but until then, the air will be pretty much on fire.

Meanwhile, Jary is stuck in the centre of a fiery hurricane with a vampire. Jeveth and Mirel don’t know this, but Jary won’t last long with Raim sucking magic out of him. It’s a double-edged sword, having his focus so near.

Jary shifts the spell. He brings the flames into clumps, forming birds out of them. And sends them flying. Jeveth and Mirel can barely stop to breathe between dodging the fire birds and the ice spikes. The terrain turns against them as well, covered with jagged and slippery ice. Jary is almost sure he has this when he remembers his friends were accepted as mage hunters for a reason.

Jeveth finally finds enough of an opening to discharge one of his more powerful spells. A wall of fire heads Jary’s way, melting the ice in its way, swallowing up the fire birds. Jary only has enough time to roll into the icy cage beside Raim and reinforce it with several layers of ice. It barely holds. The next things he knows he’s blind - Mirel’s mirrors in combination with Jeveth’s light spells, most likely. Jary’s mist has evaporated and it costs him precious time to create more.

Is this the end? Is he going to have to start over? He should have prepared for his own death. How could he have been so stupid?

The new mist tells Jary that he’s less than a second from being beheaded by Sorrow. No time to react. He keeps his eyes closed and waits.

It doesn’t happen. A small explosion near Jeveth’s grip on his spear is enough to change the angle. Someone too fast to properly detect with the mist grabs both Jary and Raim, and carries them a short distance away.

By the time Jary reorients himself enough to get a look at what’s happening, the newly arrived stranger has engaged Jeveth and Meril.

Not a stranger, or not exactly. It’s Gin, and he seems to be having a good time. He’s not even shadow stepping, Jary realises, watching Gin evade the hunters’ attacks with unfair ease. The bastard is just that fast.

And he still wears that infuriating goatee.

Gin puts enough space between himself and his opponents to shout, “could you two stop! There’s really no point!”

Both hunters start chanting, clearly not about to abandon the fight, so Gin sighs and activates the tattoos wrapped around his left arm. They light up, glowing slightly through his sleeve.

Magic vines burst out of the ground and wrap around the hunters - limbs first, then mouths and necks. Jeveth and Mirel sag and lose consciousness as the vines sap them of energy and lower them to the ground.

Gin turns to look at Jary and Raim. Jary blinks, and suddenly Gin is standing an arm’s length away. He’s dressed for travel, and as shaggy and unkempt as he’s always been.

“Hi. Saw you protecting my friend. Really nice of you, but very strange. Who are you?”

Jary gulps, tries to get a handle on his nerves. He can’t mess this up. “I’m Jary, recently escaped from the College of Sinon. I set up a trap for the hunters.” He inclines his head towards his unconscious friends, then gestures to Raim. “But he got caught in it. I couldn’t just leave him like that.”

He hopes honesty is the right answer to Gin’s question. It’s the only logical reason he can give for protecting Raim.

“That so?” Gin crouches beside Raim, prods at him. “How long do you think he’s gonna be out?”

Jary shakes his head, feeling as helpless as he acts. “I have no idea how my trap might have affected a vampire.”

“You noticed. Well, of course you did.” Gin scratches his goatee. “Carrying him alone wouldn’t work, so you’re gonna help. Objections?”

Jary has many, but he knows it’s pointless. He can’t confront Gin, and he has too much grudging respect for the man to try anything underhanded.

He was heading for Wyrn anyway.

“Nope,” he says. “But it’s going to be difficult even with the two of us. How far are we travelling?”

Gin looks straight into his eyes then. “You have experience handling vampires?”

“In my previous life. Yes.”

“Huh.” Gin straightens, stretches and turns towards the unconscious hunters. “Now then…”

“Wait!” Jary is shocked when he manages to grab Gin’s elbow. “You don’t have to hurt them. They were after me, not your friend.”

“You know them?”

“Yeah. I… We were colleagues.”

Gin looks thoughtful. Or maybe just annoyed. “Fine, how about this - I’ll tamper with their memories a little.”

He releases the vine spell, which returns to his arm as a tattoo, and activates another spell stored in his firefly pendant. Tiny bugs made of lightning float towards the unconscious hunters and slip ino an ear each.

Jary grimaces. “Is that safe?”

“Should only wipe the last few hours and give ‘em headaches.”

Jary collects his things. Pulls on a hooded robe, ostensibly because of the cold, but really he just needs something to hide behind. He’s not ready for this. Not ready to go to Wyrn. He hasn’t figured out all the answers yet.

He props Mirel and Jeveth against the more mossy side of the ravine before they head out, tries to make them comfortable. He draws magic circles on either side of them, creating twin flames the size of a fist. It’s not much, but he can offer them at least a little warmth and protection.

“Come, they’ll wake up soon,” Gin calls.

He’s carrying Raim on his back, completely unprotected against the vampire’s pull on his magic. It’s going to be a long journey.