The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

by Irene Radford

  But Nimbulan’s magic was now embedded in the staff, not his body.

  Slowly he stood up, using the staff to brace his painful knee.

  “I’m getting too old for this kind of adventure,” he muttered as his back resisted straightening and his shoulder revealed another wrenching injury.

  He limped in the direction Scarface had taken. He needed help finding Myri and getting out of here. The magician mercenaries seemed his only chance.

  “There, grab that man! He was with the magician we seek,” Moncriith commanded ahead of Nimbulan and to the left.

  Nimbulan swallowed back his instinct to run in the opposite direction. He couldn’t. He needed Scarface. The man had befriended him with cooperation and an important lesson in magic. Battlemages weren’t known for sharing anything magic. If Scarface could gather dragon magic, he’d make a valuable contribution to the Commune.

  If they could escape the city. If they found Myri.

  He limped forward as quietly as he could. One hundred paces from his hiding place, he encountered the backs of the men from the wineshop. They stood in a half ring around Moncriith. Rollett stood in the exact center of the lineup. Backed up against the wall of a small building, Scarface and one of his compatriots defended themselves with their staffs. They batted off the fireballs and truth spells Moncriith flung at them.

  Nimbulan ducked one of the repelled balls. He almost smiled at the image of turning this bloodsport into a game. He presumed the magicians had also embedded their talents into their staffs. How else could their tools combat Moncriith’s magic so accurately?

  A crowd of noisy gawpers drifted closer. Nimbulan needed to get his new friends and Rollett free before the locals realized the reward attached to his capture. He had no doubts any of them would gladly sell him, alive or dead, to the Kaalipha.

  Nimbulan tapped Rollett on the shoulder. He took one step to his left. Nimbulan slipped into place beside him, directly behind Moncriith. The Bloodmage didn’t take his attention off Scarface and his comrade.

  From this new vantage point, Nimbulan surveyed the faces of the mercenaries standing shoulder to shoulder in a near perfect half circle. Their faces remained blank and unresponsive. A few revealed muscle twitches of resistance in their shoulders and fingers. Nimbulan didn’t need his talent to recognize their reluctance to remain in thrall to Moncriith any longer than necessary.

  Despite the danger, Nimbulan felt a small smile flicker across his cheeks. Without bothering to weigh the consequences, he hefted his staff in both hands and swung with all his strength at the back of Moncriith’s head.

  The Bloodmage crumpled to the dirt. The mercenaries raised their swords over their heads as one.

  Rollett’s blade pressed sharply into Nimbulan’s spine.

  Chapter 24

  “Swear loyalty to our new captain!” Scarface shouted to the assembled mercenaries as he lifted his sword to join the others in salute to Nimbulan.

  “What?” Nimbulan looked right and left in amazement. He’d been prepared to flee or defend himself against the trained warriors. Instead they looked to him for leadership.

  “Moncriith defeated our old captain. You defeated Moncriith and broke his spell over the men. Therefore you are our new captain,” Scarface said with a wide grin. He prodded the Bloodmage with his toe.

  Moncriith groaned and tried to raise his head, but he collapsed onto the ground again with a sickening splat that meant a broken nose. Blood gushed over his face.

  All traces of blank enthrallment had left the men’s faces, including Rollett’s. The dark-haired young man grinned.

  “Before you wake that piece of bloody garbage,” Rollett said, holding Scarface back from kicking Moncriith again. “We need a plan. He can get us into the palace. He has the ear of the Kaalipha. He can get us all past the guards and their wands without a search.”

  “He’ll have to think he’s taking Nimbulan to Yaassima for justice,” Scarface added. “You willing to risk that, Captain?” He looked at Nimbulan, eyes wide with speculation.

  “I’ll have to. I have to rescue my wife and the children. I presume Powwell and Kalen are with her. She wouldn’t willingly separate from them.”

  “After that, these men and I will decide what to do with our lives. There’s always the invasion of Coronnan. You can take on our sponsorship, Nimbulan, and collect the money from SeLenicca’s recruiting agents. They leave at dawn and plan to launch the first strike within a week.”

  “No.” Nimbulan cast about for ideas. He had to either stop that invasion or get word to Quinnault fast. What had the boy done to precipitate a major invasion in only a few days?

  But he couldn’t leave without Myri.

  “Quickly, Moncriith is coming around,” Rollett ordered as if he were the new mercenary captain. “Scarface and Nimbulan, on the ground. The rest of you, put those blank looks back into your eyes.”

  “Some of you will have to secure the gate so that we can escape later. Drift away now, before Moncriith knows you are gone,” Nimbulan added.

  “If we all work together, with magic and mundane weapons, we have a chance. But we won’t be able to hold the gate long,” Scarface replied.

  “Then take a moment to reabsorb your magic.” Nimbulan held his staff upright in front of him while he anxiously took the usual three deep breaths. He’d been without his talent too long. He felt diminished, half a man. He lost sight of his quest to free Myri while he reached to restore the lost talent.

  The staff shimmered in the moonlight. A pulsing double aura spread outward from it. Deep in the core of the wood grain lay a throbbing blue light, dimmer than what he remembered it should be.

  He willed the blue light to return to his heart where it belonged. Slowly, too slowly, the blue crept out of the staff into his hands. It found his veins and merged with the blood flow returning to his heart.

  A sense of completeness pushed up his arms like the taste of cool water after a long day in the hot sun. His fingers tingled with renewed sensitivity. The ache in his wrenched shoulder and scraped knee faded. His heart beat faster, truer, more powerfully. Awareness of every cell in his body returned.

  The beacon of light settled into place with a satisfied wiggle that felt like a sigh of relief.

  Scarface pointed to Nimbulan’s left. “There’s a commotion at the gate. Maybe something we can take advantage of.”

  Two men faded into the shadows in the direction of the gate. Nimbulan had no doubt they’d return shortly with a report. He and Scarface stretched out on the ground as if Moncriith had felled them with his last spell.

  Almost as if cued by their preparations, Moncriith raised himself up on one elbow and shook his head clear.

  Nimbulan watched him through half-closed eyes. As the Bloodmage rolled and heaved his body upward, the prominence of his bones was sharply outlined beneath his bright red robe. For all the breadth of his shoulders and squareness of his shape, the man was not well fed. Or something ate away at his innards. Disease or fanaticism?

  “Bind those two with magic and mundane means. We will take them to the Kaalipha for judgment,” Moncriith grunted before he was fully erect.

  “There is a disturbance at the gate, Captain,” one of the mercenaries said in a monotone as he slipped back into line. “There is information to be gained, sir.”

  Moncriith looked into the eyes of each of the men who surrounded him, then back to the inert bodies of Nimbulan and Scarface. “Bind them and bring them along. I would know who disturbs the Kaalipha’s peace.” He shuffled off in the direction of the gate, confident that his men would follow. He shook his head repeatedly, as if trying to clear his muddled thoughts.

  By the time they reached the solitary portal into or out of Hanassa, Moncriith had regained much of his poise and his habitual confident stride.

  Nimbulan kept his head down. Impatiently, he tested the ropes Rollett had placed around his wrists. They slipped easily over his hands. He pushed them back up again before Moncri
ith could turn and test them.

  When a milling crowd around the gate came into view, Moncriith halted his men. They stopped moving in unison, continuing to stare straight ahead without expression. Nimbulan had no doubt they saw everything.

  A troop of twenty palace guards stood squarely in front of the gate, swords drawn, wands aimed at the crowd. Behind them, several figures crouched by the slapping rock.

  “Hey, butt-licker, them wands don’t work without the slapping rock. Can you defend yourself without them?” a slightly built man taunted from the depths of the crowd.

  “Get some good use outta that there rod. Ram it up the Kaalipha’s butt instead o’ ours,” a drunken woman yelled. he threw an overripe fruit at the rigid guards. They didn’t flinch.

  “Ain’t seen you fight with those swords before.” A half-dressed woman swiveled her hips and bent forward so the guards could see the fullness of her breasts. “They’re stiffer than the ones you usually wield on the Kaalipha’s orders.”

  The guards didn’t move. Their sword tips remained at the ready.

  The crowd oozed forward one step.

  Someone else lobbed a sulfurous smelling egg at the unmoving wall of guards. The bloody yolk splattered against one man’s clean, black uniform. He didn’t flinch.

  The milling people pressed closer yet to the lethal sword tips and hated wands.

  “Do my eyes betray me, or are they in some kind of trance?” Nimbulan whispered to Scarface.

  “I believe they are being controlled by a magician. They are well disciplined and very loyal, but I’ve never seen them so unresponsive before,” the mercenary magician replied.

  Moncriith whipped his head around, silencing them with a glare.

  “I’d like a closer look at the slapping rock and what those people are doing to it,” Nimbulan whispered.

  Rollett surreptitiously nudged Nimbulan with his confiscated staff. The journeyman grounded the butt of the staff and leaned it against Nimbulan’s hands, without shifting his gaze or moving his body. In full contact with the staff and the Kardia, Nimbulan called his TrueSight up from the depths of the little bit of dragon magic left within him.

  The shape of the slapping rock jumped into his vision in precise detail. The brown lump, so unusual in this black and gray landscape, lay on its side, revealing a deep hollow place inside it. A tangle of hair-fine tentacles grew from the middle of the rock. But it wasn’t a true rock.

  What kind of strange creature is this rock? Surely it must be alive in some manner. No natural mineral grew appendages. The wands responded to the sounds it made, like dogs trained to a whistle.

  “Look at the girl crouched beside the rock.” Scarface pointed to the figure closest to the creature. His tones couldn’t reach much beyond Nimbulan’s sensitive ear. “That’s Yaala, Yaassima’s daughter. Everyone thought she was dead after the Kaalipha killed her consort—the girl’s father—when she tired of him. Made the girl watch. When Yaala refused to wash herself in her father’s blood, Yaassima threw a fit and condemned her, too. Said she didn’t have enough of the dragon in her. I wonder how she managed to stay alive. She seems to be doing the chore of the Engineer, the only one Yaassima trusts to work on the wands and the slapping rocks. Maybe she’s been hiding in the pit.”

  Nimbulan’s blood froze in his veins. Myri had a lot of dragon spirit within her. What did the Kaalipha have planned for his wife?

  The young woman removed one of the long red appendages inside the “rock.” She pulled an identical snakelike piece from inside her tunic and placed it where the discarded one had been.

  “Wh . . . what is the pit?” Nimbulan kept his eyes on the young woman and the other person in ragged and filthy clothes who handed her metal tools upon command. Something seemed familiar about the shape of his skull and the way he braced his legs . . .

  “The pit is the heart of the volcano. Yaala is the only person other than the Engineer I’ve ever seen leave it and live.”

  “What about the young man beside her?”

  Scarface shrugged. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  Just then, the young man turned his head to scan the crowd. His eyes lingered on Nimbulan, then opened wide in recognition.

  “Powwell!” Nimbulan breathed the name, barely loud enough to hear. “My foster son. He must have come here with Myrilandel and . . . and Kalen. I’ve got to rescue all of them.” His heart turned over at the sickly pallor of the boy’s skin, the shoulders bowed in defeat.

  The young woman, Yaala, rolled the rock back into place. She stood and dusted the knees of her trews. All of the guards relaxed from their enchanted vigilance. Six of them broke away from the half circle and prodded Yaala and Powwell in the back with the wands. Reluctantly they trudged back toward the palace and the pit.

  Nimbulan took one step as if to follow.

  “If you go after him into the pit, you’ll die, too,” Scarface said.

  Myri carefully untangled her legs from her sheets. She moved slowly so the soft mattress wouldn’t shift and awaken Kalen who snored softly beside her. Baby Amaranth cooed and blew bubbles. Myri lifted her from her cradle, automatically checking her diaper. Nearly dry for once.

  Maia shifted on her straw pallet at the foot of the bed but didn’t awaken. She slept with her arms pressed tightly against her breasts. The front of her shift was wet and smelled of sour milk.

  Myri’s empathic talent shared the aching pressure of too much milk with no child to suckle. She hugged her own baby tightly, cherishing Amaranth’s life. Maia had only memories of the children she had lost.

  Myri left the bedchamber rather than think about Maia’s loss. The door to Yaassima’s room remained firmly closed.

  Singing softly to Amaranth, Myri wove her way around the heavy furniture Yaassima favored to the window in the common room. Dull light glowed behind the ceiling panels, never totally extinguished. Tonight, they didn’t seem to give off as much of a glow as usual.

  As she did so many nights, Myri stared out at the dark sky above the bowl of the crater, longing to fly to freedom. If she transformed into her dragon form, would the necklace choke her to death before it destroyed her brain, or would she break free of Yaassima’s bondage?

  She blinked back the moisture that filled her eyes. For the sake of the baby in her arms, she didn’t dare transform. But she had to put her half-formed escape plans into action tonight. Kalen had fallen prey to the vices of lies and deceit so prevalent in the city. The girl had to be taken away from here now or she’d be lost forever. Powwell, too, was in terrible peril in the pit. Yaassima’s demands for the baby chilled Myri to the bone.

  How to subdue Yaassima long enough to steal the trigger for her necklace? The questions spun around and around her brain, a lot like the dancing harlots in the streets below.

  No one in the city seemed to sleep tonight. Crowds of people gathered around pubs and wineshops, or danced serpentine patterns around the city, shouting and singing with a kind of desperation Myri couldn’t understand. She’d heard Nastfa and Golin say that this kind of revelry only happened the night before large companies of mercenaries left the city on campaign. Tomorrow Hanassa would be nearly deserted. Fewer crowds for her to hide among.

  Myri had caught an emotion of regret from Nastfa. He needed to leave the city, but not with the mercenaries. His roots and his heart belonged elsewhere. His need to be gone was reaching the point of desperation.

  Would Moncriith leave with the soldiers? Now that he knew Myri resided in Hanassa, he might elect to stay and seek a way to destroy her. He’d hounded her for as long as she could remember, driving her from village to village. His preferred method of execution of witches was burning.

  Why did villagers always believe his sermons against the demons only he could see and not the healing and helping she gave them?

  Only the nameless fishing village near her clearing had resisted Moncriith. She missed her friends there. She missed her home nearly as much as Nastfa did.

 
“I want to go home,” she sobbed.

  First she had to get herself and her children out of the palace. Then out of Hanassa without Moncriith or Yaassima seeing her.

  A disguise for herself and the children as mercenaries perhaps. Could they walk out with the armies?

  Suddenly the silver cord of magic that connected her to Nimbulan glowed brighter with a more rapid pulse. She looked from the cord tugging at her heart out the window to the closest knot of men, near the gate.

  One figure stood out among them. He stood tall and proud, a long twisted staff in his left hand, a faint blue aura gave him an air of command. She didn’t need to follow the cord to know her husband.

  I come, beloved, he called to her with his mind.

  Your daughter and I await you! she nearly shouted back to her husband in triumph. Be very careful, Lan. Yaassima binds me with magic and mundane traps.

  Nothing will separate us once I reach you. Not even the terrible Kaalipha of Hanassa, Nimbulan replied.

  She breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction. She had known he would come for her eventually. The silver cord wouldn’t let them remain separated too long. She was so relieved at his appearance she couldn’t resent his delay.

  He’d need help getting them out of the palace. She thought she could trust Nastfa and Golin. How far would they go in their revenge against Yaassima? Or would their own fears restore their grudging loyalty to her?

  Her mind refused to think beyond holding Nimbulan in her arms again. She drank in the sight of him. The men around him began to take on individual characteristics in the wild torchlight that filled the city tonight. That could be Rollett standing to Nimbulan’s left and slightly behind him. Another teenager and a middle-aged man also stood nearby. Then her gaze lingered on the back of the man that seemed to be in front of the group. He turned his face to glare at Nimbulan.