Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  Marcus longed for the day he and Margit could settle into a little cottage at the University with a dozen children and apprentices. He’d had his fill of journeying.

  “Let’s skirt the camp rather than cross it. That’s a very wide-open space between the officers’ tents and the magicians’ huts.” Robb ran his fingers through his beard in contemplation. A sure sign that he sensed more trouble than he voiced.

  Marcus stumbled on a mud-colored rock that seemed to thrust up at him without warning. He limped for a few paces before the pain in his stubbed toes eased.

  “Stop hunching your shoulders,” Robb ordered. “Soldiers drill and march endlessly. They should have straight spines and firm steps.”

  “They also need uniforms.” Marcus waved away Robb’s objections, replacing them with a delusion of a green-and-gold uniform. His twisted magician’s staff became a pike. “Now come along, Robb. We aren’t getting any closer to the end of our journey standing here.”

  “We’re gathering information,” Robb affirmed, cloaking himself in a similar delusion. “Information is the key to power and . . .”

  “Safety,” Marcus finished. “I heard the same lecture from Jaylor as many times as you did. And as many times before that from Baamin when he was Senior Magician.”

  “I miss the old coot,” Robb replied sadly. “Old Toad Knees will be honored for a long time by all of his apprentices.” They both observed a long moment of silence in memory of their first master.

  “Look for anything out of the ordinary or too ordinary— both could be traps.” Robb pointed to the first line of pickets near the steed paddock.

  “I know, Robb.”

  “Then why did you step in that pile of steed dung?”

  “Camouflage.” Marcus paused to scrape the noisome muck from his boot. The worn soles allowed some of the brown liquid to seep through to his socks.

  “Some of your luck running out?” Robb quipped.

  “Never.”

  “Let’s hope there aren’t any Gnostic Utilitarian spies in the area,” Robb grumbled. “They’ll smell your magic and your boots from half a camp away. Gnuls believe all magic smells like manure—dragon magic or solitary makes no difference to them.”

  “Another lie that has become accepted as fact.” Marcus frowned, no longer willing to keep up the usual banter with his friend. They’d both seen too many atrocities heaped upon innocents because of the unnatural fear of magic spread by the Gnuls. “The sooner we bring the dragons back, the sooner we can help put an end to that all-too-popular cult.” Did every mundane in the country truly believe that only hard labor gave work value? That chores accomplished by magic—like transport and communication as well as healing and soil fertility—were evil and deserving of death? Magic was just as hard for a magician as the work was for a mundane.

  Robb nodded, his frown quite visible beneath the dark bush of his beard.

  They headed boldly through the camp periphery, walking as if they had a purpose. One patrol challenged them. Marcus just shook his head and proceeded. “Orders,” he muttered.

  The guard shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention back to his patrol.

  An invisible line seemed to have been drawn around the magicians’ enclave. No one ventured closer than one hundred paces.

  “Crossing this barrier could be harder than getting through the pass,” Robb muttered.

  “Easier,” Marcus replied. “The spies watching the magicians never look directly at them. My guess is they don’t want to get caught by the evil eye.” He grinned at the superstitious nonsense that clung to magicians’ reputations.

  Despite his bold face, Marcus’ neck itched as if one hundred eyes followed every step he made across the untrampled grass that surrounded the ramshackle wooden buildings in a near perfect circle. Each step seemed to make his thin boots heavier and more cumbersome. Was this merely a delusion to keep out uninvited observers?

  The blue banner with a dragon outlined in silver seemed to be a beacon, drawing them toward the largest of the buildings. A door beneath the banner stood invitingly open.

  Marcus started to step through the doorway without preamble, but Robb held him back.

  “For the sake of the Gnul spies all around us, at least look like you are one of the awestruck masses with a message from the generals and knock.” He rapped the wooden doorjamb with his list and waited.

  “What!” a querulous voice sounded within.

  “Message, sir,” Marcus replied.

  “Leave it and be gone.”

  Marcus and Robb exchanged a questioning look.

  “The message is private and not written,” Marcus improvised. Dared he enter without invitation? Slowly he unreeled a thin tendril of magic, probing the doorway and the darkness just inside. A sharp pain behind his eyes made him wince.

  “He’s armored,” he whispered, quickly withdrawing the probe, hopefully before any witch-sniffers could detect it.

  “What?” a middle-aged man appeared out of the darkness. His red-veined and pointed nose was the first feature Marcus noted. Gray streaked his red-blond hair and beard. Worry lines made deep crevasses around his eyes. His shoulders drooped.

  “Woodpecker?” Marcus asked. He wanted to rush forward and lend his shoulder to support this frail man. A year ago he’d been tall and robust.

  “Who?” the Battlemage peered at the two journeymen, blinking in the fading light as if emerging into bright sunlight.

  “Marcus and Robb. Jaylor sent us,” Marcus said very quietly. No telling who could be listening.

  “Get in here, boys, before someone spots you. Your delusion is very thin. Too thin to fool the witch-sniffers that permeate the army. They’ll report you in a heartbeat without regard to the validity of your errand. Lucky to get out of here without being stoned.” With surprising strength, Woodpecker grabbed each journeyman by the front of their tunics and yanked them inside the narrow entryway.

  A wave of prickly magic set Marcus’ skin itching and crawling. Then, as quickly as it had come, it left, leaving him in a bright room filled with comfortable furniture, carpets, and a glowing brazier.

  “Where are the others?” Robb asked, peering around.

  “In their own huts. My turn to monitor the scrying bowl for activity on the other side of the pass. Now what is so all-fired important that Jaylor could not trust a summons sent through a glass and candle flame?” Woodpecker demanded, wringing his hands and pacing the room. He paused to peer out each of the large unshuttered windows.

  “Well . . . actually . . . Jaylor sent us on a quest into SeLenicca, and I need new boots before we cross the pass.” Marcus found the shimmer of light across the windows that indicated strong magical armor too distorting to stare at for more than a moment.

  “A bed and a meal would be welcome as well,” Robb added.

  “Is that all? Why didn’t you just steal a pair of boots and a bedroll from the pickets that sleep on duty day and night? Why didn’t you transport supplies from the University? Either course would prove safer than coming here.” Woodpecker ceased his pacing and stared at the two journeymen.

  Robb hung his head. Marcus wanted to do the same.

  I am no first-year apprentice to cower before authority, he told himself sternly.

  “To steal essential supplies from one of our own soldiers would be dishonorable. To transport something as trivial as boots a waste of energy. Surely you have the authority to requisition a pair for me from army stores,” Marcus replied.

  “What stores? Fewer than half our supplies reach us. The merchants in Sambol wear our boots, eat our food, and hoard our medicines. If SeLenicca attacks tomorrow, most of our men will desert to the other side just to get a good meal,” Woodpecker grumbled.

  “How could conditions get so bad? Does the king know about this?” Rob asked.

  “Of course the king knows. Of course Jaylor knows, too. But what can they do about it with the Gnuls overriding every decision made? You’d think they want us t
o lose the war and let the sorcerer-king rule us!” Woodpecker threw up his hands at that horrible and contradictory thought.

  “We hope our quest will end the war and end the tyranny of the Gnuls,” Marcus said.

  Woodpecker looked at him curiously. “No, I don’t suppose you can tell me your quest. That goes against the rules. Well, I hope you have better luck than the last spy Jaylor sent across the pass. He came back to us in pieces. Many of them missing.” Woodpecker’s normally pale complexion paled further. He swallowed convulsively.

  Marcus tasted bile. Rumors leaking out of SeLenicca for years had hinted that King Simeon—the sorcerer-king—made human sacrifices to his winged demon-god Simurgh.

  Ignorant Gnuls considered dragons modern incarnations of Simurgh. If only they could experience the glory of shared dragon magic, they’d know how much good the dragons brought to Coronnan. He and Robb had to bring the near invisible creatures back to Coronnan soon.

  “Are the enemy troops massing for an attack?” Robb asked.

  Leave it to him to ask the practical questions.

  “Curiously, no. They’re waiting for something. Something big. Something disastrous for us. Well, come along. I’ll take you to the supply hut. I’ll try to keep the quartermaster from skinning all three of us alive for daring to ask for something. Anything.” Woodpecker strode toward the doorway, still muttering.

  Marcus and Robb followed the Battlemage across the camp. They passed dozens of men on the way. All of them moved quickly away to avoid any contact with the magicians.

  “Fear is a wonderful thing,” Woodpecker continued his litany of complaint. “Fear gives us mages all of the privacy we could want and then some. No one interferes with our work. But they won’t help either. S’murghit! They won’t even feed us. Have to do it all ourselves so they don’t taint their precious mundane lives with magic. If I didn’t know that King Simeon’s rule would be worse than putting up with these lumbird-brained fools, I’d desert to the enemy. Or go outlaw. I’d get more respect in Hanassa!”

  Marcus resisted the urge to make the ancient ward against evil by crossing his wrists and flapping his hands. No one went to Hanassa voluntarily. No one except mercenaries, outlaws, and rogue magicians—all determined to make trouble for the rest of civilization. King Simeon hailed from Hanassa before he’d married SeLenicca’s very young Queen Miranda. And look at the mess he’d made there!

  “Stand aside. I have need of a few things,” Woodpecker demanded of the three armed men at the supply hut.

  “Orders are no one gets anything until the next boatload of supplies comes upriver,” the sergeant sneered. Three gold stripes on the sleeve of his green uniform tunic shone brightly in the freshly ignited rushlights beside the door. His collar and cuffs were threadbare and his left elbow nearly poked through the cloth. But his boots were new and shone with fresh polish.

  Marcus nearly salivated with greed at the thought of the warm and dry feet those boots would give him.

  “You dare give orders to me, Giiorge?” Woodpecker asked. “Didn’t I bind up an ax wound on your left side with barely a scar after you dropped your guard and allowed a wounded enemy to sneak up on you?”

  “Um . . .” Sergeant Giiorge shuffled his feet and blushed.

  “One pair of boots for my journeyman. He might very well be the one to throw the spell that wins the next battle. You and all of your men owe the Battlemages more than your lives.”

  “Two minutes inside. And don’t tell anyone I was the one that let you in.” Sergeant Giiorge unlocked the door and then gestured to his men to move forward two paces, just enough room for Woodpecker to get between him and the door. They kept their backs sternly to the doorway and the activities of the magicians.

  “Not very grateful, if you ask me,” Robb muttered.

  “The best we can hope for,” Woodpecker replied. He brought a ball of witchlight to his hand and scanned the shelves inside the hut. A few uniform tunics, some blankets, and mess kits. Not much left to supply an army.

  “One pair of boots left. Take them and hope they fit.” Woodpecker thrust the solitary pair into Marcus’ hands and sidled out of the hut.

  The moment all three of them were clear of the doorway, Sergeant Giiorge locked it again and resumed his post.

  “Follow me back toward the enclave, then leave as soon as no one is looking,” Woodpecker ordered as they hurried back the way they had come.

  At the edge of the empty circle around the Battlemage’s hut, Marcus and Robb veered off toward a clump of trees beside the paddock. Marcus plunked himself down on the ground beneath the spreading branches of an oak. Pale green swelled the ends of the branches with the promise of new life and plenty of shade come summer. He pulled off both his boots and managed to tug on one of the new ones before a commotion on the other side of the paddock interrupted him.

  “Ah-ha!” exclaimed a deep voice. “We have the boot thieves! Arrest these men.” A burly soldier dressed in a faded green uniform tunic with a single muddy yellow stripe on his sleeves ran toward them brandishing a long dagger and an ax. Three more men with no stripes on their sleeves followed close behind him armed with clubs.

  “Run!” Robb exclaimed. He pulled Marcus to his feet.

  Marcus grabbed the second boot and followed, limping and off balance.

  “Out of the way!” Robb turned to face the enemy, still running backward. He launched a witch bolt that looked like an arrow at the growing number of soldiers in pursuit. Fire fletched and tipped his missile.

  “Theft of a comrade’s equipment is punishable by hanging,” the leader pronounced. His followers screamed more invective.

  Marcus couldn’t understand a word they said, but their auras displayed intense outrage and bloodlust.

  The witch bolt landed directly in front of the leader’s feet. He hopped back, careening into his men. They tumbled backward, like so many stacked game cartes.

  “Lucky shot, Robb,” Marcus panted as they pelted away from camp toward the dubious cover of a shrub-lined creek.

  “Careful aim. I make my own luck.”

  They had just slid into the chill water of the foaming creek and drawn a deep breath when six men crashed through the shrubs a few paces to their right.

  “Keep running!” Robb called, hauling Marcus to his feet.

  “How about another witch bolt while I put on my boot?”

  “No time.”

  “We’re heading the wrong way.” Marcus limped behind Robb as he scrambled up the other side of the shallow ravine. His left sock was soaked and his foot hurt from running across the uneven turf and stones.

  “We’re heading toward safety.”

  “But the pass is back that way.”

  “Later. We’ll go after the dragons later.”

  Marcus dodged a real arrow followed by a knife aimed at his back. “I think my luck just ran out.”

  Chapter 2

  “Three wizards and two Rovers beats your two dragons and three turnips!” Vareena laughed loudly. A deep ripple of mirth warmed her heart. She didn’t laugh often enough. “That’s the first time I have beaten you at cartes, Farrell. Now hand over your treasure.” She peered through the misty light of her witchball at her ghostly companion who faded in and out of her vision.

  “My concentration slips, Eena,” Farrell excused himself. “Since this last fever, I have become quite forgetful.”

  “Very forgetful, indeed,” Vareena said around her smile. “You seem to have forgotten that you bet three acres of land in the Province of Nunio against my two cows and three chickens.” She had no hope of ever claiming her winnings. She and the ghost had played this game before. He always bet the same three acres and she always lost the same two cows and three chickens.

  Although her ghost required food and medications, blankets and shelter from the weather, he had no need of her dowry. Once trapped inside this ancient building, her ghosts never left.

  “Promise me, Vareena, that when I finally pass into th
e void between the planes of existence, you will take the amulet from around my neck and carry it to my family in Nunio.” Farrell paused a long moment, breathing heavily. His hand stole to his throat where he fingered the leather thong that held the silver-encased amethyst. After a moment he shifted his hand from his only treasure to lay it flat upon his chest. He closed his hand in fierce spasm three times, as if clutching the pain of his worn-out heart.

  Vareena saw the pulse in his throat beat more rapidly in an irregular rhythm. She wished she could rest her wrist against his forehead to test for fever. A barrier of stinging energy separated her from each of the ghosts who had found refuge here.

  “Tell my sister’s sons that you are my heir,” Farrell resumed when his breathing and pain eased. “Tell them what happened to me, how you and only you have cared for me these past two years. The amulet is the deed to the land. My nephews will care for you and the land.”

  A moment of hope brightened within Vareena. When this ghost died, her duties here in this abandoned monastery and within the village would ease. She’d be free to do as Farrell asked.

  “I would like that very much, Farrell.”

  “Promise me, Vareena. Promise that you will leave this cursed place and never return.”

  Vareena shifted uncomfortably upon her stool. She did not want to lie to her ghost.

  He reached out to grab her sleeve. As always, the wall of shocking energy repulsed him before he came in contact with any part of her. ’Twas always the same. He was a ghost and she still human. They were destined never to touch until one of them died.

  “Women may not own land.” A safe answer.

  “King Darville changed that law three years ago.”

  Vareena lifted her head in surprise. She shouldn’t be surprised, though. If such a drastic change had taken place, her isolated village near the western border of Coronnan would be the last to hear of it. The women of the village would hear of it later still. The men here did not like change. They did not like her ghosts. They did not like her. They did not like much of anything.