Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  “I can’t run away from these men. They need me!”

  Normally one healing spell dragged her spirit so low she needed a full day of rest and solitude to recover. Below her lay thousands of men needing her.

  The drum continued to pound in her ears. No more men. No more men.

  She had to save some of them. Some of them at least had to return to the villages.

  No more men.

  Healing drained the very life out of her, pouring it into her patients.

  “I have to heal them. I have to try. What good am I if I don’t give my talent to those who need me?”

  (You will die.)

  “Then I will die now rather than later. I have to do this.”

  Chapter 3

  Myri pushed through the mist and the smoke hovering over the battlefield toward the core of pain that called to her. The intense suffering ahead made her talent reach out in healing comfort without conscious thought or preparation. She reeled the tendrils of power back within herself.

  Screams pierced her heart. The stench of blood and fear embraced her and drew her deeper into the aura of pain and agony. And yet more pain and horror.

  (Resist their call. Conserve your strength. Leave now before their pain swallows you whole. We will protect you, give you a home. You must come east now.)

  “I can’t leave them. They need me.” She moved swiftly through the ranks of dead and dying. Her passing touch would only numb the injuries for a little, not truly cure. She would be drained before she reached those she could save.

  Outside the hospital pavilion a young trooper stared at row after row of wounded men awaiting the attention of the healers. Myri grabbed his sleeve, yanking him away from the paralysis of bewilderment. His close-cropped hair that would fit neatly under a helmet identified him as a common soldier, not an officer or noble. He needed something to do.

  “Hot water, lots of hot water. And bandages. Set your comrades to tearing up cloth—clean shirts and undergarments,” she ordered him.

  Desperate to relieve the pain all around her, Myri slapped the young man’s face. “Do it. Now!” He shook himself free of whatever trance his mind had settled into.

  “Yes, ma’am.” His hand moved upward. Almost a salute, not quite a tug of his forelock. “Lots of hot water and bandages,” he repeated.

  “And get some of your friends to start washing these men. I can’t heal them if I can’t find their wounds beneath the mud and the blood.” The patients would feel better for the attention until she had time to deal with them.

  The young man dashed off.

  “Younger than I am,” Myri whispered. “But I can’t call him a boy. Not after what he’s lived through in this battle.” She moved into the tent.

  Three gray-clad healers, two men and a woman, moved among the moaning men. The woman wore an apron to protect her healer’s robe from dried blood and gore. She’d pushed the loose sleeves of her robe to her shoulders and secured them with black ribbons.

  Fatigue lined the faces of all three healers. They wore their hair cut short for convenience. Sweat dulled their faces and hair colors to a uniform dark gray. Clearly the healers had worked since the battle began. How long?

  Myri began her work in the corner farthest from the healers. What use her defying the guiding voices if she were evicted as an untrained meddler before she began? Magretha had fostered her to an acknowledged magician, she might be one of these healers. But without that formal training she might resign herself to always being a mere witchwoman—maligned and feared by superstitious mundanes, regarded as incompetent by the trained healers.

  A head wound on her left needed little more than a touch to remove the pressure and wake the man from deep unconsciousness. She sent him on his way with a fierce headache and orders to remain quiet a day or two.

  She treated broken legs, gashes, and other nonmortal wounds. Those patients walked away and freed space for some of those waiting outside. Myri pulled a handful of dried nuts and berries from her pack to restore the energy she’d spent. Her stomach wouldn’t tolerate the taste of meat in this bloody environment. She craved the nutrients in meat, though. If only she had some cheese.

  Behind her, Amaranth prowled the shadows, seeking those who needed Myri the most.

  His plaintive mew called her to the center of the tent.

  Already two of the healers and a red-robed magician—she guessed he was a priest from the color he wore—stood over an unconscious man with his right arm dangling from a sliver of bone and tendril of white ligament. Magic hovered in the air around the healers who worked to save a life. Still the soldier’s lifeblood pumped out of him.

  Heedless of the censure that might come from the priest, Myri obeyed the persistent demands of her talent.

  A Song of sweet healing sprang to her lips as a bundle of special herbs and moss came to her hand from her pack. She shouldered aside the older of the gray healers who stood helplessly at the patient’s head.

  Breathe in, hold, breathe out, hold. Her head cleared and magic simmered within her. A second deep breath and hold. Power tingled in her fingertips, focused and ready to fulfill its promise of healing.

  “Hold his arm in place,” she whispered to the female healer. She nodded, too tired and numb to do anything but obey.

  “Magic isn’t enough for a wound this severe,” the elder of the two male healers countermanded. “The only way to save the arm is to stitch the blood vessels and the layers of muscle. But ’twill take too much time. We must amputate and cauterize to stop the bleeding.”

  “Please, let me try,” Myri begged even as she made a poultice of her herbs in a bucket of clean water at the patient’s feet.

  “Ye’ll not save him. I sense his spirit passing into the void already,” the priest grabbed her hands in his own. Gnarled, scarred hands, meticulously clean, even under the neatly trimmed fingernails. A crescent scar that could have come from human teeth stood out from the knife-straight markings at the base of his right thumb.

  “I can’t allow you to interfere with the man’s passing into his next existence.” His voice was soft, caring. An unwary person could fall under the spell of that voice.

  But Myri was wary. She noted the patches and threadbare spots where his elbows stuck through the faded red robe. She looked up into the priest’s face, knowing she would encounter hate and fear in his black eyes. She’d seen that robe before. She had inflicted that scar on his thumb when he’d tried to interfere with her first serious healing—before she knew enough to fear him.

  “Moncriith,” she whispered. Not a priest. A Bloodmage who fueled his powers with blood and pain while he preached against demons only he could see. If he were here, then his followers wouldn’t be far away. How many hundreds awaited his orders to burn those who interfered with the Bloodmage’s wishes?

  “Witchwoman Myrilandel.” He jerked his hands away from her.

  “Let me save this man. Please.” She pressed her hands tighter against the severed arm, willing the blood vessels to mend and join before Moncriith could stop her. His campaign against witchwomen as the tools of demons was well known in every village where she and Magretha had sought sanctuary. Hundreds of women wandered Coronnan, homeless and maligned because Moncriith had labeled them witchwomen—whether they had magical talent or not.

  “Because of you, a man walks soulless through life,” Moncriith intoned. He lifted his hands in an appeal to the Stargods as he raised his voice to carry throughout the hospital tent. “Five years ago, you interfered with a man’s destined passage into his next existence with your demon-spawn spells.”

  Off to the side, a soldier touched head, heart, and both shoulders, the Stargods’ ward against evil. Then he crossed his wrists and fluttered his hands in a more ancient sign. Amaranth butted his head into the man’s leg and purred reassurance. The soldier jumped away from the cat as if burned.

  “Because you refused to use your magic to heal a simple cut, the man nearly lost his life,” Myri remind
ed Moncriith. “Jessup would have died prematurely. His pregnant widow and two tiny children couldn’t fell timber to earn a living and keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Because I saved Jessup, the family thrives once more.”

  Myri continued her binding spell, praying she wouldn’t have to go into a deep trance to restore her patient’s vitality. Already Moncriith’s fervor laid a taint of guilt upon her, weakening her power and control over the healing.

  What did he see in her and other women that was so very evil? He never singled out the wives of powerful men, nor did he accuse men—only women who lived alone, without the protection of husband, father, or son.

  “The timberman you cured limps painfully, clear evidence that he left his soul in the void when you dragged him back to this existence. Another soulless demon to aid you in your evil practices.” Moncriith’s voice took on tremors of righteousness.

  Silence spread through the hospital tent. Even the screams of the dying fell off.

  Myri ducked her head so the men wouldn’t see her tears of doubt. Her talent sprang from deep inside her without her conscious control. Did it come from demons?

  She had no arguments against Moncriith’s accusations.

  The three healers gazed suspiciously at Myri and Amaranth, who now circled the wounded man’s pallet. Blue light glowed beneath her hands where the lifeless arm sought to rejoin with the body.

  She had to stop Moncriith’s interference before the blue light totally engulfed her mind and body.

  “This witchwoman is possessed by demons. Burn her before she condemns this brave soldier to a soulless life!” Moncriith implored, reaching eager hands for Myri’s shoulders. He jerked back, repelled by the barrier her talent erected even as it dragged her deeper into a trance.

  Beneath her fingers, life pulsed into the dangling arm. The soldier moaned and clenched his fist. Then he fell back into unconsciousness.

  “Stargods!” Men whispered around the tent. More wards against evil, modern and ancient.

  The healers cleared the hovering crowd away to inspect Myri’s work. Gently, the quiet woman who held the injured limb in place lifted her fingers from the injury. She saw with her eyes what Myri knew in her mind. Muscles mended and bones knitted. The bleeding had stopped.

  “ ’Tis a miracle from the Stargods,” the healer whispered.

  “Or a trick of Simurgh, king of all demons,” Moncriith countered.

  Myri took a deep breath, trying desperately to stay alert. If she lost consciousness and fell into a full trance, as her magic demanded, Moncriith would have her removed and condemned. He’d done it before. Only Magretha’s good reputation in the village had saved her. But Magretha had died nearly two years ago.

  Power flowed out of her. Her shaking joints became too heavy to support her body. She sagged to the floor, still holding the wounded arm in place. She tried to remove herself and her talent from the healing. Like a living being the spell enveloped her and fed from her strength.

  “Look at the blackness in her aura!” Moncriith beseeched those around her. “Demons possess her. She taints us all with demons. Better to die blessed than live possessed!”

  “I know nothing of demons,” Myri whispered through numb lips as the void took her.

  Nimbulan listened to the wind whipping around his pavilion. Saturated canvas walls bulged inward and sighed slackly with each blow. The candle flames of a dozen lanterns placed around the tent bowed almost flat within mica shields and then wavered upright again in rhythm with the howling of the skies.

  Lord Kammeryl d’Astrismos and Lord Quinnault de Tanos argued almost as intensely inside. They paced and sat and shouted at each other while Nimbulan watched and ate his meal in near silence.

  Nimbulan hunched his shoulders against the chill wind that crept along the carpeted tent floor. His woolen dressing gown, quilted with layers of silk, wasn’t adequate to warm him after the hours of magic battle. The first of the autumn storms had held off just long enough for Kammeryl and his enemy to finish the battle. Now the armies could hole up, rest, and resupply during the winter.

  The brazier at Nimbulan’s feet helped ward off the chill a little. Four hours of sleep and half a meal had barely restored his strength. But the two lords had awakened him to give them counsel almost as soon as his complaining stomach had roused him from deepest sleep. He left Rollett, Jaanus, and Gilby, his senior apprentices asleep in the back portion of the pavilion. They needed rest more than he did. He didn’t know where Maalin and Bessel were. Maybe they slept in Ackerly’s tent, adjacent to the large pavilion.

  He fished another stringy piece of beef from the salty broth as he watched the warlord and the Peacemaker. The boys needed to eat, too. But they needed sleep more . . . unlike his years as Druulin’s apprentice and journeyman when there was never enough food to fuel growing bodies.

  “You must seek peace now, Lord Kammeryl. The weather has turned against you,” Quinnault de Tanos said quietly. He sipped lightly at a mug of spiced wine.

  Nimbulan looked for clues to Quinnault’s mood and thoughts from the shift of his eyes and the bunching of muscles in his shoulders. His aura, his mind, and his face remained carefully schooled. Even the Peacemaker’s grip on the cup handle remained steady and relaxed.

  “Why should I sue for peace?” Kammeryl roared in his midrange of shouts. The hearty leader had a variety of bellowing tones and no soft ones. His aura showed a balance of colors as he paced the circumference of Nimbulan’s tent. “ ’Tis not me who started this feud with the Baron of Hanic. His grandfather kidnapped and raped my grandmother fifty years ago. I’ll not have Hanic bastards set themselves up as rivals to my crown, when I am king. I’ll be ready to pursue the fight at the first break in the storm.”

  “Fifty years is a long time. Wounds of honor should heal when the participants die a natural death.” De Tanos raised one eyebrow and cocked his head. For a moment, the shadows from the dancing firelight cast a different image on Quinnault’s bone structure. Something large and elongated, not quite human.

  A whiff of Tambootie lingered in the air. The sweet smell of Tambootie flowers in spring rather than the sharply musky odor of the oily leaves and aromatic bark.

  An eerie chill passed over Nimbulan. He resisted the urge to cross himself in the ward against evil—against the unwarranted smell of Tambootie out of season or the bizarre shadows he didn’t know. Instead, he turned his left palm upward, opening it to any stray power. An itch, unlike any known magic, irritated his palm. He twisted his wrist, seeking the source. The strange sensation evaporated.

  “The bastards my grandmother bore Hanic now rule that clan and claim my lands.” Kammeryl’s roar rattled the cups on the wobbling camp table as he restated the ancient grievance.

  “Bastards? More than one? Perhaps ’twas not a kidnap, but an elopement,” de Tanos said quietly. Too quietly. The tug of a grin banished the mask of shadows. Nimbulan returned the grin. ’Twouldn’t be the first or last time a noble bride foresook a political marriage for love. Quinnault sucked at his cheeks to control the smile. The mask of shadows returned.

  Without the Tambootie in his system Nimbulan couldn’t penetrate the secrets behind those shadows. But he’d had too much already. He didn’t want to grow dependent upon the weed.

  The void stripped away lies and delusions to lay bare a soul in the same manner. Nimbulan reviewed the vision of lords dancing in harmony he had experienced in the void. Had he seen the essence of de Tanos in the patterns and not recognized it? He shook his head clear of the puzzling vision. He had to concentrate on the present.

  “You dishonor the memory of my grandmother, a queen descended from the Stargods!” Kammeryl’s scream of rage drowned out the wind.

  “The land you fought over yesterday was your grandmother’s dowry. She bequeathed it to her son by Hanic, a symbol of her need to protect the boy. Her son by d’Astrismos claimed it by right of her lawful first marriage to your grandfather. Isn’t it time you and yo
ur cousin sat down together and settled the issue?” Quinnault set aside his mug of wine. No grimace of distaste touched his face. Yet Nimbulan sensed the drink had gone sour. The drink or Kammeryl’s company?

  “The time is ripe, my lord,” Nimbulan jumped into the conversation. The bread was gone, as well as the broth and the yampion pie. The sweetness lingered on his tongue. He craved more of the thick tuber baked in cream and eggs, laced liberally with sugar—a favorite treat that Druulin had always reserved for himself.

  Nimbulan needed more fuel for his body. The two lords wouldn’t give him enough peace to fetch more until they settled the argument or took it elsewhere.

  “Consider,” Nimbulan continued. He raised his hand, palm outward, as he talked. “Hanic retreated in disarray. His army is broken, at great cost. He has no resources left to defend his stronghold. A blood oath from you not to pursue and destroy him in his moment of weakness would require a concession from him. What has he left to give you but the deed to the disputed land, signed in blood? He might also renounce all claim to the kingship and put you one step closer to ending this war forever.” He finished his wine. It had indeed gone sour.

  “Another magician already whispers in Hanic’s ear of a way to wrest victory from this defeat,” Kammeryl protested. “I’ll not appear weak by offering peace when I can destroy Hanic and have all of his estates.”

  “Hanic retreated. Certainly that entitles you to claim victory. But at what cost? Your army is reduced to two battalions.” Quinnault kicked his camp stool out from under him and began to pace. “This victory shed more blood than the last three battles combined. The healers are worn to the bone and have called in a local witchwoman to assist them—I shudder to think what her untrained talent will do to our patients. Did the dead and wounded win anything? What about the people who huddle in their ravaged homes wondering if they will have anything left to survive the winter with after two armies foraged through here for supplies? And let us not forget the taxes they owe you for a new pledge of loyalty.