Hopeless, tired and scared. Maester went bouncing on the same emotions for a long time. He considered it an eternity to say the least. The feelings were natural and healthy but none of them were the emotions proven to elevate effects of sorcery. Even for an experienced Maester like him it was a challenge to keep his sanity intact.

And his sorcery was suffering due to his state of mind.

Everywhere his eyes reached to, there were swarming werewolves. Climbing on the walls that were once death sentence for those werewolves. The armor Saer had brought were still on the fight but they had given up attacking their enemies.

Rudolph assumed the armors were blessed with senses by their forgers because they had clumped together at the entrance as the number of werewolves was increasing for them to handle.

Maester Rudolph heaved the waves at the werewolves trying to scratch the walls. The energy left his hands with force but lost their intensity on hitting the target.

And each wave he threw next was weaker than the last one.

Still, he kept sending those waves, exhausting himself. Finally his body took the toll and he stopped. His glowing fingers dimmed and lost their luminosity. He flicked his fingers and a flicker of light wrapped around his fingers. But, he just kept staring at them instead of doing anything.

Disappointing himself, he had given up on magic before the magic had given up on him.

With him down and dusted, the light on the walls also subdued and died. Werewolves then began breaking big chunks of concrete with each hit of their paws.

Rudolph crouched, holding his head while taking the bitterness of defeat.

A sharp light appeared beside him. Rudolph's instincts twisted his head at the source of light. He had to rub his eyes to realize he was seeing Nortze and Gisella. They glanced down at Rudolph and gave each other a nod.

Soon their fingers glowed. Brightness produced by Rudolph's best sorcery didn’t even reach one tenth of his luminosity. Gisella spread her hands, creating a ball of light illuminating the entire castle premise.

On the other side, Nortze was storing a behemoth cloud of energy. Rudolph heard an ear numbing sound coming from it. The muscles near his jaws tightened and his sight blurred. He knew he was passing out. He glanced up at Nortze through the barely transparent cloud of pink energy.

"Release." Nortze commanded his wife.

The only thing Rudolph could relate the sound with was lightening. The wave passed over him and hovered above their heads. It glowed and glowed then everything went white.