Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  “Thank you again. And courage, Ackerly. One day our other talents will be appreciated more than our failure to be great magicians.”

  “Where are you headed? Maybe I can send more provisions later.”

  “Money will be appreciated. We need winter clothes and shelter, things that are not easily bargained for or given in hospitality.”

  Ackerly squirmed at the mention of money. Moncriith smiled inwardly. He’d found this man’s weakness.

  “We head east. The source of evil that corrupts Coronnan lies in that direction. I will root out demons and their minions where they are born. I have heard reports of dragons flying over the eastern edge of the Southern Mountains. When I have seen to their destruction, I will be back.”

  * * *

  Nimbulan raised his boots awkwardly out of the dirty water that always seemed to reside in the bottoms of boats. He and Quinnault de Tanos had just dumped the collection of rainwater out of the boat and set off on the final leg of their quick trip to the islands. Traveling downstream from the army camp with a swift current, they had been gone less than an hour. Walking, or riding fleet steeds would have compounded the time by four. Heavy, cloying mud clogged every track.

  He rested his feet on the rocking sides of the rowboat, out of the water. At least the rain had eased from last night. They’d only had to empty the boat twice since leaving camp.

  But debris from the storm moved down the river at the whim of nature, dark splotches of black-gray against the brownish gray river, beneath the yellow-gray of the misty sunrise. The dull light blurred outlines, magnifying the size of obstacles. Branches and tree trunks looked dangerous, even compensating for the distortions of light.

  Quinnault de Tanos stretched his back and arm muscles against the oars. “The current is swift today. We’ll reach the island soon, and you’ll be back in your tent by sunset.” He chuckled and continued to speed the craft toward the Great Bay, much too quickly for Nimbulan’s stomach.

  “I’ll feel safer if you steer away from that bobbing log.” Nimbulan pointed at a floating tree with many of its raggedly broken limbs pointing directly at their fragile hull. “We could have waited another day for better weather and calmer water for this visit to your islands,” he added.

  If they’d waited, Nimbulan would have had a chance to visit with the pretty little witchwoman. His mind lingered on his plans for training the girl rather than on the boat.

  “The sooner you start your experiments and gather recruits, the faster we can end the wars.” De Tanos grunted and put more effort into his rowing.

  “Who are you, Quinnault de Tanos? You are an enigma among your peers.”

  “I am the youngest son of a lord who never planned to accede to the title or the responsibilities of clan leadership. I had three brothers and two sisters. The wars and the plagues that follow battle took them all much too soon. Now I am the last of my immediate family. I can’t go back to the priesthood. My people depend on me as their lord. I want my sons and daughters, when I have the time to marry and beget them, to have the choice I was denied.”

  “Magicians rarely have children of their own. But I have apprentices. Those boys and girls come to me as children, between the ages of ten and twelve usually. I feel like I am as much a father to them as their blood parents. I want choices for them as well. I want them to be allowed to use magic for peace and prosperity.”

  “Then we are allies on the same quest.” Quinnault smiled at Nimbulan as he neatly fended off a tangle of vines and leaves with one oar.

  “How far has this quest taken you, Quinnault de Tanos? You have been called ‘the Peacemaker’ for at least three years now.”

  “I have commitments from four other lords to refuse to join Kammeryl, Hanic, or Sauria in battle if—and it’s a big if—I can keep those lords from attacking them in retaliation for that refusal.”

  “What about Baathalzan?” Nimbulan asked about his cousin, the lord of his home province.

  “He refuses to talk to anyone. Can you persuade him?”

  “Not likely. He fears his relatives will take his title and lands more than the other lords. My cousin is not a decisive leader. But five of thirteen lords is a good start. They command a lot of land and a fair number of troops. Banded together, they could mount a serious defense. Why have you not led them in that direction, Quinnault?”

  “They want to make me king.”

  “And you fear that responsibility?”

  “I am barely comfortable as lord of my own clan. I would make a very poor and weak king. Coronnan needs a better man than I. All I really want is to be a priest.”

  Silence hovered between them, like a living being, begging to be pushed aside. But neither had anything to say.

  “Is this abandoned building large enough for a women’s quarters? Almost as many girls seek apprenticeships in magic as boys,” Nimbulan asked finally. Myrilandel must have a place there. He couldn’t let her enormous talent go to waste.

  “I think so. I haven’t thoroughly inspected the building in several years. How many people are you planning on housing?”

  “About a dozen to start. I’ll bring in others as the need arises. At the moment, Ackerly and I are the only trained magicians I can trust.” Keegan had run away and betrayed him.

  An eddy caught the little craft and swung the bobbing tree dangerously close. De Tanos shifted the oars in a rapid maneuver Nimbulan couldn’t interpret. The boat stabilized and nosed away from the entrapping branches.

  “You’ve spent a lot of time on the water,” Nimbulan said with a grunt as he pushed the tree farther away from them with his staff.

  “I had my first boat almost before I could walk. Boats are necessary to people who live on islands. Boats are our livelihood. We don’t have much arable land in the islands. We make our living by fishing and by transporting people and goods up and down this river. That livelihood has been seriously disrupted by these wars. I’m more comfortable with all kinds of watercraft than with steeds.” De Tanos looked over his shoulder at the steep riverbank a quarter mile away. Waves lapped the red clay cliff with a ferocity reminiscent of the Great Bay.

  “Neither you nor your father maintains an army.” Nimbulan changed the subject rather than think about the wind-whipped water all around him and the next log aiming for their hull. “Yet your manors haven’t been overrun. Unusual in these troubled times.”

  “The river provides a natural moat. We withstood a siege last spring, mainly because my people retreated to the islands with every boat within ten leagues. They supplied the mainland manor in secret at night through the river gate. Lord Sauria bombarded us with boulders and nearly breached the walls in several places. He did overrun the stables and steal my best breeding steeds. We almost surrendered before he decided my small holdings couldn’t give him the strategic advantage he sought. He threw away access to the Great Bay because he didn’t plan ahead and bring his own boats.”

  “You’ve had to fortify your estates, then? Sauria is persistent. He’ll return in the spring, with boats.”

  “Yes.” De Tanos gritted his teeth and fought the oars once more as a snarl of tree roots and stumps loomed directly ahead of them. “I am making plans for that. Not a chore I like.”

  “How much farther?” Nimbulan dropped his feet back to the hull for better balance. He didn’t like the way the current swept more and more debris up against that stump.

  “We’ll get around that menace.” De Tanos put more effort into the oars.

  Nimbulan crossed himself in prayer twice, the second time for the lord whose attention remained riveted on the snag that loomed closer, seeming to fill the entire river.

  Wind gusts stirred the current into choppy circles. The boat aimed for the wall of debris.

  “I haven’t recovered enough magic to help much, but I might be able to send the wind elsewhere and divert the current around that snag.” The stump and its collection of flotsam seemed too firmly anchored to budge with his exhausted talen
t.

  “Tampering with the weather is forbidden. We can’t upset the balance.” Strain showed in Quinnault’s neck and shoulders.

  Nimbulan ducked as a huge branch bobbed up out of the water, aiming directly for his head. A wall of water followed the branch.

  “I can’t swim!”

  Chapter 6

  Myri crept beneath the outer wall of her tent as a sleepy bird chirped a question at the first signs of light in the sky. She stopped to listen for the waking chorus of birds. Notes of a wordless song sprang to her lips. A smile stretched her weary cheek muscles. Every part of her body was tired. But she shouldn’t linger, even to greet the rising sun with the birds.

  Standing hunted-still, she tried blending into the muddy colored canvas walls. Her cloak should be the same color as the tent, effectively masking her presence.

  Not much of a sunrise. The gradual spreading of light only hinted at the presence of a sun behind the clouds. Good. She’d cast no betraying shadow when she moved.

  The guards at the front of the tent paced back and forth. She had heard Nimbulan give orders last night that she be kept secure inside the tent. Escaping them would be a merry game.

  She had considered crawling beneath the tent around midnight. Muffled voices had betrayed the presence of Nimbulan’s assistant and Moncriith. From the secure confines of the tent she had listened to Moncriith’s plans. He was headed east. The same direction the voices urged her to flee. Therefore, she would wait until he was well gone. She would rather follow behind him than have to watch her back in constant fear of him catching up with her.

  Pickets patrolled the edges of camp. Their shoulders sagged wearily. Men in bedrolls on the wet ground stirred and yawned. Some pulled their blankets higher while others sat and stretched. By the dim glow of false dawn, she scouted her escape route around them, picking out hiding places along the way. The back of a tent to her right, a stack of weapons beyond. She tugged the hood of her cloak lower over her face and moved toward the perimeter of the camp. She’d played this game before. But then she’d had trees to climb and no one ever thought to look up. They always looked straight ahead or down.

  Amaranth mewed a protest at being carried beneath the folds of her cloak.

  “Sorry,” she whispered to him. “We have to stay hidden until we’re beyond camp. Besides, you don’t like wet on your feet.”

  The black flywacket settled into her supporting arm. His tail twitched, showing his reluctant acceptance of her wishes.

  “Food first.” Myri followed her nose to the cooking fires, slipping in and out of shadows, making faces at the men who passed her by without seeing her.

  A sleepy-eyed cook stirred a gruel in a huge cauldron over a firepit carefully tended by a dozing teenager. They were protected from the rain by a red, green, and white striped awning. No canvas sides or shadows for Myri to hide within. Besides, she couldn’t carry hot gruel. She needed jerked meat, journey bread, and dried fruit.

  Carefully she scanned the camp for signs of a storage tent or covered sledge. Surely, the cook would need easy access to his supplies.

  Ah. There, on the other side of the cooking pavilion—a low, square tent with alert guards front and back. No slackness showed in the fabric walls. Could she creep under the tent without rippling the canvas and signaling unlawful entry to the guards?

  She skirted the cooking area with all the stealth she’d learned in the woodlands as a child. The far side of the awning offered a little concealment in the form of a sledge piled high with pots and other utensils. The harness end rested atop double crates for easier hitching to a steed. The triangular space beneath made a nice dark cave to hide in. A gust of wind, laden with fresh rain, diverted the guard’s attention long enough for her to slip beneath the vehicle.

  “Stay here,” Myri whispered to Amaranth as she shoved his muscular cat body into the shadow of the crates. Gently she slit the canvas wall of the tent with her belt knife. A moment later she crawled on her belly through the small opening.

  She froze, waiting anxiously for the guards to betray their exact location. They were as loud and obvious as children thrashing through saber ferns. Slowly, very slowly, not making a sound, she stood, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Sharp-cornered boxes emerged from the shadows to her right. Lumpy sacks to her left. Grain? By feel, she found a corner of one of the sacks. She held her pouch beneath the corner as she slit it. Slowly the cereal siphoned into her container.

  “What are you doing in here, soldier?” a male voice challenged Myri from the front of the tent. “There’s plenty to eat outside for honest men. You planning on deserting?”

  No time to argue. No time to search for more food. Myri dove for the opening. A hand grasped her ankle as she slithered toward the shadows beneath the sledge. She kicked back with her free foot.

  “S’murghit, you little demon get!” the man grunted and let go.

  Come! she commanded Amaranth, not daring spoken words. She crawled from the cover of the sledge and began running. Amaranth burst from his hiding place in a flurry of glistening black wings.

  “A dragon. The dragon came back!” a guard cried.

  “After them. The magicians will pay plenty for a real dragon.”

  “That’s not a dragon. Too small. Maybe a flywacket.”

  “They’ll pay more for one of those!”

  Myri escaped while the men argued. Her heart beat loud and fast. The rolling hills and grasslands promised no concealment. Nothing to climb. Nowhere to hide. This wasn’t a game anymore. Myri willed her cloak to blend in with the morning mist. She locked her muscles.

  Movement would betray her. She had no choice but to run. If she didn’t, Nimbulan would keep her prisoner, make her a slave to the hospital. She had delivered her message and done what she could for the wounded. Now she must continue her own quest for a home—a safe haven.

  Help me, please! she pleaded with the mysterious voices.

  No answer.

  She prayed she hadn’t offended them by diverting her path to help a few of the wounded.

  Amaranth circled above her, mewling his concern.

  “Stop! Thief!” Heavy feet pounded the ground behind her.

  “Who cares about the thief. Catch the flywacket,” one of the guards yelled.

  She ran, clutching the precious pouch of grains to her breast. She wished she could spread her arms and fly like Amaranth. But she had to protect the food. Above her, Amaranth flew higher into the clouds and safety.

  Please, save me from the magicians who would enslave me, and Moncriith who would burn me. I’m going east now, as you commanded.

  No answer.

  “Where’s the blasted flywacket?”

  “Can’t see it. But it will follow the thief. Catch him, catch the flywacket.” Her pursuers came closer.

  She ran faster. Up to the first ridge. Down the steep escarpment on the other side. Her bare feet slipped on the wet grass. The men slipped, too. First one man fell, knocking into another, then a third. Together all three guards tumbled down the long hillside.

  Myri collected her wits and balance before the others. She ran. She dodged hummocks that appeared in her path, jumped across a stream, and rolled behind a boulder that spread across the hillside with a tumble of other rocks.

  “Hey, where’d she go? No one could just disappear like that,” the youngest of the men asked.

  “She’s a witchwoman. What do you expect?”

  “That flying thing was probably just a crow,” said the tallest of the men as he stood, brushing himself off.

  “Them nasty birds are a nuisance, always snatching at any food left untended,” replied another.

  “Think we could catch a crow and dress it up to look like a flywacket?” asked the third.

  The men wandered around the hillside more slowly, reluctant to move too far from camp. They looked directly at Myri and didn’t see her. As soon as they turned their backs to retreat to the protection of their fellows, Myri ran on.r />
  Uphill again, over the second ridge, and onto the third. A trade road wandered through the next valley. Where there was a road, there would also be villages.

  Two armies had marched through here a few days ago. The warlords probably recruited men as they traveled. Any village on this road would have been deprived of all its men. The few people who remained might welcome her where they would shun more soldiers.

  She slowed her pace and steadied her breathing.

  Amaranth, where are you? A dark shadow within a shadow circled above her head.

  “We’re safe now, Amaranth. Come. Come to me.” She patted her shoulder in invitation.

  The shadow dropped lower, took on form and resolved into a flying creature. The sunlight rippled purple lights along his black fur and wing feathers.

  Myri held out her arm. Amaranth dropped lower, wings raised, claws extended. Fanning the air with backward sweeps he slowed and landed lightly on his accustomed perch. Quickly he folded his wings beneath their protective flaps and wrapped his tail around Myri’s neck for balance.

  “Ready?”

  (Yes.)

  Myri marched around the next bend in the trade road and into a quiet village.

  A woman emerged from the first hut carrying a bucket. Another woman stepped from the next home with a basket for gathering eggs. Together they turned and watched Myri’s approach.

  “Have you shelter for a weary traveler?” Myri asked with ritual humility.

  “Ye’re out a might early. Or you been traveling all night?” the Bucket Woman asked. “ ’Taint right for a woman to be traveling alone at night—or any other time.”

  “Makes no difference. We owe her hospitality, like any other traveler,” Basket Woman replied.

  “She could be a spy for the army. They’ll steal what little we have left. We won’t survive the winter if they claim our harvest.”

  “If you can call it a harvest,” Basket Woman snorted.

  “I have a little grain to share.” Myri offered her half-full pouch.