Dawn of the third day...

The windless, bloody night was over and Sigmir and I were on the move again. We heard the horns sound what Sigmir told me were distress-calls three times during the first hour and knew that our pursuers had found their scouts. Then there were lots of horn-sounds, calling them into larger groups, too large for us to contend with but maybe we'd be able to slip between them or around them to loose them. We were trying to use their signals to map out the groups, in order to give them the slip. I had periodically covered our tracks with magic, so they should have problems to simply follow our tracks on a permanent basis, especially with fewer but larger groups.

Suddenly, I felt something close in on us and it felt, just wrong. Like an oily, tarry film of filth. When it reached us, Sigmir stumbled and almost fell, I just managed to stop her in time. On her face, an angry, red brand became visible and I felt the film wrap around her. I reached out with my mind, akin to reaching out for Ice to manipulate it with my Ice-Magic. I felt something connect and suddenly the filth tried to reach me. I focused my mind on my magic and tried to wrestle with it and was able to slow it down, whatever it was. The other half of my mind was racing, trying to do something, not daring to reach out as well, in case a second magical contact-point would give the filth a second point to attack. In desperation, I threw together a Rune-Triangle out of Dark Radiance, Devours, Darkness in because parts of it felt familiar, similar to my own dark magic but wrapped in something else, something nasty. The runes flashed and a dark halo surrounded Sigmir and me for a moment and the filth became a little less.

Encouraged I cast another spell, this time a Heptagon out of those Runes as I had seen that repeating a rune strengthened the overall spell but made it also more costly. To better explain, if a spell with three runes costs five Astral Power and produces an effect at a magnitude of five, using two of the runes doubled in a pentagon can produce the same effect, only at a magnitude of ten but for a cost of eight. So more runes meant more bang for the same buck or more versatility. Right now, Bang was all I cared about, so I drew the seven runes and with a flash of darkness, the strange, filthy magic was gone. Now, I had time to see the messages I'd ignored.

Skill gained You gained the Skill: Dark Magic Those who have a strong affinity with an element can do basic manipulations of that element without the need of spells. The extent of those manipulations depends on the skill-level.

Skill increased You increased your skill: Darkness Rune-Mastery [42/100]

It was strange, when using Ice-Magic I linked to something corporeal, something my mind could reach like I'd reach with my hands. But Darkness? Darkness was the absence of light, was it not? Didn't they say, there is no light without shadow, so vice versa, no shadow without light? I'd have to think about that.

Sigmir looked at me, she was looking horrified and gasped “Those monsters!” there were tears in her eyes, so I placed a hand softly on her cheek in support. “They cursed me. They used my father's blood or bones in order to place a curse on me so they could track me. I never suspected they'd do something that vile, desecrate father's remains in such a way.” Now, I was getting worried, we had been able to escape from them because they had to search but if they had a tracking beacon on Sigmir, we had a problem. A short thought on leaving her behind, almost made me sick, discarding that warm feeling that I was feeling when looking at her, something I had never felt before in such a way? Not an option.

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I gave her a short hug, then simply turned and started running. The horns were coming closer so we had to run at a high clip, slowly draining our stamina.

The pine-forest we were running through, suddenly opened up and we were standing before a deep canyon, deep down below us was what had to be an iced over river. It was at least twenty yards across so jumping or using a small tree as a bridge was out. Looking to the sides didn't help any.

I was stumped, trying to find an idea, I might be able to save Sigmir with my Ice Magic by letting her ride on the Frozen Shuttle but when I told her to hold onto the Shuttle, she saw through my idea and discarded it instantly. “I will not trade my life for yours. They pissed on honour, I will not become like them!” was her angry rebuttal when I tried to convince her. So, another way. Levitating myself with Ice Magic was as impossible as using your own hair to pull you out of a swamp. Magic simply didn't work that way. I heard a horn-blast sound not too far from us and knew we were running out of time. Then I had a simple, insane idea.

“Cover me!” I said to Sigmir and seated myself to provide the smallest possible target. Then I started to craft a Rune-Heptagon purely from Ice-Runes, channelling Astral Power into it and at the same time taking control of the output with Ice Magic, creating a bridge out of ice, starting a bit below the cliff on a small ledge and reaching towards the other side.

I heard grunts and the sounds of fighting behind me but dared not to look, concentrating on my task, knowing that the only way we'd live was to finish the damn bridge. Then I felt an impact in my back, warm blood gushing out. I suppressed the pain and focused my mind solely on my task, slumping together. I believe I heard Sigmir scream behind me. Floating on a sea of pain, I heard other sounds behind me.

I was not able to understand every word, but I later asked Sigmir and she told me what was said. “Stand down, Jonari! Sigmir, it is regrettable that you betrayed the clan. Look, even your Ancestors placed a Curse-Mark upon you. Tell me, Sigmir, was it worth it to spit on the clan to be with some outsider? The outsiders blood drenches the snow and you? You were famed for your strength and now you are brought low.”

Then, I heard Sigmir's voice close behind me, saturated with hate and anger. “Jongarn!” out of her mouth, it sounded less like a name and more like a curse. “Your lies are pathetic, we both know that I'm not cursed by the Ancestors, your pet-shaman used foul magic and desecrated the remains of my father who you and your father cowardly murdered. I spit on you. May the great wolf himself see your betrayal and rip your guts out!”

I felt the Ice connect to the other side, creating a make-shift bridge. My life was dwindling but I'd see this through. I had still two mist-engraved crystals so I laid them on my lap, uncorked the bottle of magic blood and said as loud as I could, “Sigmir, RUN!” With that I poured part of the blood onto the crystals and both crumbled after releasing prodigious amounts of mist. Then I felt hands pick me up and carry me.

My eyes fluttered open and I saw Sigmir's face above me, felt her hands pressing me to her chest. I felt a bit of blood wet my front and then I heard Sigmir grunt and felt her jump. Twisting my head showed me that we had cleared the bridge but also that a Warrior had already moved onto the bridge, chasing us. I had no more Astral Power but I still had a card up my sleeve. When creating the bridge, I had placed a large Shatter-Rune onto the ice itself and I had just enough strength left to toss the bottle with blood onto the rune, shattering the bottle on the ice and activating the rune with the magically saturated blood. The result was glorious, a thunderous roar rumbled into the forest and then a terrible scream rose when the Jonari on the bridge plummeted into the canyon.

I had a smile on my face when the world turned dark.