“But I thought the healer was behind that door!” Ryn said.

“Yes, yes.” The old man had picked up a jog now, his leather bag swinging on his shoulder, and Ryn jogged alongside him. “My apprentice, Evlin. He’s about ready to take over from me now, though he can still be a bit clumsy.” Ryn recalled the screams. “When we saw the Empire coming we swapped places so that they would think he was the resident healer. They have their own method of prioritising who needs attention you see, and it’s by no means the same as mine. So I pretended to be sick with a minor illness and waited to see if anyone with a serious problem came in whom my apprentice wouldn’t be able to help. And then you did. Now, which way?”

They had reached a crossroads. Ryn pointed in the direction of the old woman’s house, and they sprinted the final stretch to it wordlessly. The cochobo was waiting patiently, still tied up. Three loud knocks got them in.

Inside Ryn rushed past the old woman to Nuthea’s bedside. “Here she is!” The old woman had provided a bucket, but she hadn’t done much else. “Please, if you’re really a healer you’ve got to do something to help her! She’s been cut, and the man who did it said she’s been poisoned too!”

“Stay calm,” said the old man, arriving at his side. “Poison, you say? What kind?”

Ryn tried to remember. What had the bounty hunter sad? “Agava?”

“Ajanga?”

“That’s right—that one!”

“Alright—step back; I need space.”

“That’s him!” said the old woman. “He’s the one who brought her here!”

Ryn spun.

Four black-armoured Imperial soldiers had appeared from the doorway at the other end of the room. They began to advance on Ryn, swords drawn.

The woman’s eyes were dewy, pleading. “I’m sorry…” she said. “Her face is on the poster... They took my son for their army… I need their favour…”

This time Ryn’s hand lit on instinct. He brought it up and across himself and flames flashed in the air for a moment.

“Fire!” he shouted at the soldiers. “Get back!”

They stopped in their tracks, helmets reflecting orange.

“Stay back, I tell you!” he yelled. “I’m Ruby-touched!”

The soldiers looked at one another.

“He can’t attack all of us at once, can he?” said one.

“It’s either death here or back at camp if we retreat,” said another.

They looked back at Ryn...

...and charged.

Ryn got his hand up in time to throw fire at one of them, who screamed and went down in a writhing mess, steam sizzling off him as he hit the floor.

“No, please!” the old woman was wailing. “You said you’d take him quietly! My house! My house!”

Ryn jumped backwards to avoid the swordswing of the first soldier that reached him. Cold terror seized his stomach. He didn’t know if he’d be able to throw fire again.

He dived out of the way of the next swing, rolling clumsily as he hit the ground. As he came up he caught a glimpse of the healer he had brought with him bent over Nuthea, reapplying a new bandage from his bag, completely focused on his work despite the carnage unfolding around him.

That gave Ryn some more fire.

He broke his limit.

“Stay BACK!” Ryn shouted, and flung out two hands palm open. “FIRE!” Billowing flames burst forth from them, hotter and redder than any Ryn had produced before.

The soldiers were ready for him. They ducked out of the way of the flame-jet which blasted straight into the opposite wall.

The attack subsided, but the flames did not.

Ryn’s body stiffened in horror.

He had set the building on fire.

“No!” the old woman screamed. “No! My house!” She fled for the front door and slammed it behind her.

The soldiers didn’t seem to notice. The three of them came on at him more cautiously now, step by deliberate step, brandishing their blades up in front of their bodies.

Despite the flames that started to leap up from the far wall and lick the ceiling, Ryn’s heart was cold again. That last attack had used him all up. He wasn’t sure that he could do it again...

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“FIRE!” he shouted desperately, throwing out his hands.

The soldiers winced and held up their arms to shield themselves.

Nothing.

“Damn it all,” Ryn murmured. “I don’t have anything left.” I tried, Nuthea. I tried, Mum, Dad, Cleasor.

The soldiers came on and the nearest raised his sword.

Ryn could run, but he wasn’t even sure he had the energy left to do that now either, and it would mean leaving Nuthea.

He hung his head and closed his eyes, accepting his end.

The front door of the house smashed open.

“Death and glory!” shouted Sagar.

“Imfis!” shouted Elrann.

The soldiers turned.

An explosion sounded and sparks sprang from the breastplate of one of them as he was knocked backwards into the wall by the shot from Elrann’s pistol.

Sagar leapt at the other two, twin swords twirling. Soon all four blades sang as they struck and blocked and parried. Ryn stood transfixed. Sagar was a whirlwind of fury.

The soldier Elrann had shot was up again, lurching towards Ryn. Another sound like a thunderclap, his armour flashed white, and he was knocked back into the wall again. But he shook his head and recovered himself more quickly this time, and came on.

“Damn Imperials!” shouted Elrann. “Their armour’s tougher’n I thought!” Ryn watched as she clicked off a mechanism on the top of each of her pistols and shoved them back down her overalls, before pulling out another object. “Farmboy! Get moving, kid! Make sure princess-girl is safe!” She flicked her hand and a long, thin, snake-like length of material that shone like metal uncoiled into the air with snap. A whip.

Elrann ran at the soldier she had been shooting and lashed out with her whip. It whistled across the soldier’s face faster than Ryn could see and the soldier dropped his sword and cried out, then clutched his eyes where blood gushed.

“Get to the princess, pup!” Sagar called over the ring of steel.

Nuthea! “Right!”

The old man still stood beside her, one hand restedon her forehead, the other on her abdomen, eyes shut. He seemed completely oblivious to the chaos taking place around him.

“Hey!” Ryn said. “What are you doing?

The old man opened his eyes, blinked and looked at Ryn with a furrow in his brow, like he had just woken from a dream. “Pardon? Oh. I am healing her, of course.”

A blood-curdling cry of pain from somewhere behind them. The old man didn’t bat an eyelid.

“Is she going to be alright?” Ryn sputtered.

“I believe so, yes,” said the old man. “We should probably get her out of here, though.” He glanced behind him. “Oh, the building seems to be on fire. And your friends seem to be victorious.”

Ryn turned to see Elrann and Sagar standing with three black figures splayed on the floor in front of them. Behind them, a backdrop of leaping orange and red like a vision of hell. Thick black smoke filled the room near the ceiling. Ryn’s cheeks prickled.

“Is she safe to move?” Sagar barked over the blaze.

“Yes,” said the old man.

“Come on then, fools!”

Ryn gathered Nuthea in his arms again, and the four of them sprinted for the door.

But the fire had spread. The front door itself was on fire, repelling them with smoke and heat.

They looked about frantically. The flames were closing in. Ryn’s chest was a vice around his heart.

“Hold on!” Sagar yelled.

He put his hands, still holding his swords, to his mouth, and inhaled, cheeks expanding.

Then he took his hands away and…

...blew.

A huge gust of air rushed from Sagar’s mouth making Ryn’s eyes water as it whooshed by. Ryn put a foot behind him to stop himself from being knocked over with Nuthea. The gust spread out the flames around the door to the house, pushing them back, and then forced open the door, which flew off its hinges with a snap of wood and tumbled into the street beyond, hitting another soldier who had been running towards the house and bouncing off him.

In the wind tunnel that Sagar held in place with his exhalation there was room to escape without being touched by the flames.

“Go!” Elrann cried.

Ryn shot forwards with Nuthea, aware of Elrann and the old man following close behind him, and was carried along by the air into the world outside.

They stumbled away from the burning building into the street. The cochobo they had taken from the bounty hunter was flapping and cawing wildly, waving its wings around in distress and trying to break its tether to the burning house.

Elrann flicked out her whip and split its rope with a snap, cutting it free.

The bounty hunter who had attacked them in the woods lay on the grass, now with his hands and his ankles tied, making muffled cries through the gag over his mouth and trying to roll away from the building.

In the distance, more soldiers in black armour were running towards them, , the old woman in tow.

“Vandals! Sorcerers! They set fire to my house!”

“Hey!” shouted the soldier Ryn remembered as Biggs. “Stop or we kill you where you stand!”

“Stay right there, arsonist rebel scum!” yelled Wedge.

An arrow thudded into the ground in front of them. A warning shot. Some of the soldiers had crossbows.

“I think I’ve got one more in me,” panted Sagar, reaching them and kicking over the bounty hunter with his foot to make him roll further away from the house, “but you’ll have to put me and the scumsucker on the cochobo afterwards, woman.”

“Do you have to be such a jackass that you call me ‘woman’ even when we’re in mortal fanger?” said Elrann.

Sagar didn’t reply, but sheathed his swords and took another deep breath, so loudly that Ryn heard it over the sounds of the hollering soldiers.

He waved his hand to get the rest of them to step out of his way. Then—

“WINDAAARAAAAAAAAH!”

This time his exhalation was somewhere between a shout and a scream.

This time Ryn lost his footing, and fell back on his arse still holding Nuthea. His ears popped as an invisible blast of wind tore down the street from Sagar’s mouth, rippling over the ground, slamming back the doors and windows of buildings, spraying dust and grass and dirt up into the air, making a noise like a hurricane as it ripped through Nont.

The soldiers flew backwards, scattering like ten-pins, some of them flying head-over-heels down the street, some of them getting swept up into the air. Ryn saw the old woman who had betrayed him take off from the force of the wind.

When the wind subsided none of the soldiers left were standing. Most had been blown away out of view.

Sagar was on his hands and knees, trembling. For once he didn’t have anything to say.

“Now’s our chance!” said Elrann.

Ryn heaved himself to his feet with Nuthea and the old healer helped him lift her onto the cochobo. He and Elrann lifted the bounty hunter onto it too to lie beside her, still cursing incomprehensibly under his gag. And finally they helped hoist Sagar, still shaking and silent, to sit on its back. There was just enough room on the cochobo for the three of them.

It cawed and looked at Ryn with its big beady white eyes, as if to say “What now?”

“Quick,” said Ryn, “let’s get out of here while we still can!”