With the jumble of assailants out of the way and a decent portion of the group having split off to go rescue the captive, Tiral felt as if a few too many of them had decided to charge in headlong. While that was all well and good, there was also the possibility that they could easily walk straight into a trap.
...
Or, well, leave the Captain behind. At the very least, there were a few knights that weren't as aggressively altruistic (if it could be even called that), which... Well, it meant that he was one of the ones left to handle some of the enemies that had slipped through their wide sweep. Somehow.

Fun.

"Captain, leave the archer to me," the mage stated, pointing his dagger at the man's throat. "I haven't as much of a need to close the distance, after all."

Chanting rapidly under his breath, Tiral glared at the enemy at the stairs before letting his magic fly loose. It appeared as a beast of some sort formed from ice, bounding at the enemy and closing the distance with each passing moment. While it hadn't a mind of its own, all Tiral needed it to do was track the enemy. The small patches of ice the construct made would at least give a path to track the man if he decided to flee. If he didn't, well... Encasing a body part in ice usually did a good enough job on its own.

As the magic chased his target, though, Tiral began to create a barrier, this time to deflect any arrows aimed at himself or the Captain. It was built around the notes he had retrieved from the Court Mage's records earlier, but it was far from perfect. All he could manage right now was nothing more than a small screen of ice that would attempt to disperse a blow cast at one or the other, but not both. For the sake of protection, it was near the Captain, but... At best, it'd only stop a single arrow, and at worst he would be the target instead.

Goddesses help him if that ended up the case.