The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

by Irene Radford

  “Lie down and let me look at it first. Two weeks is a long time. I hope I don’t have to treat you for more than just the boil.”

  Karry heaved her bulk facedown on the pallet off to the right. She fumbled with the ties of her gown until she freed her left arm and breast. Her firmly muscled arm showed pale pink in the dim light. An angry red lump the size of Myri’s thumbnail glared at her from beneath the arm near the back. Red streaks were beginning to spread outward in a spiderweb of infection.

  Deftly, Myri prepared what she needed for the simple procedure. She cleaned her knife and the boil. Then a quick slash of her smallest, sharpest knife across the top and a second cut across it.

  Using the side of the knife to press against the eruption, she drained it, catching the pus in a clean cloth, until it bled freely, cleanly red and free of infection.

  Should she add a little of her own healing to keep it healthy? Not a full trance; that would make her lose control and drain her of too much energy. Just a touch to make sure all of the infection was gone.

  “Mbrtt,” Amaranth rubbed against her ankles. (Trust her. Help her with magic.)

  With her familiar leaning against her, she channeled a little energy through her hand and into the open sore.

  “You finished yet?” Karry squirmed restlessly on the pallet. “I’ve got to get back to my customers before they sneak out without paying up. Reckon you’ve earned a good meal and place to rest. Stay here. No one will bother you.”

  “I’m finished, Karry.” Myri applied a quick poultice of warmed herbs and pressed it firmly against the wound to keep it open and draining into the absorbent moss. “You’ll need to keep this compress on for a few hours. Do you have a bandage?”

  “My shift is tight enough to keep it in place.” Karry stood, righting her clothes and checking the poultice. “Stargods help me, I get stouter faster than I can make new clothes.”

  “But you work hard. Your body is healthy.” Otherwise the boil wouldn’t have cleaned up so easily. A frailer person would have been riddled with the poison.

  “Well, the men don’t mind a little extra of me when the need is on them and I’ve got the time. And I’m strong enough to heave barrels around when I need to. Don’t have to depend on a man like most women. The Katareenas have always been independent. ‘Bitches’ some of the men call us when we don’t act meek and helpless. They learn to respect us, though.”

  “Um, Karry, ah . . . I don’t think you should sleep with the men for a while. Not until the wound closes.”

  “You volunteering to take my place, girl? Men get angry when there isn’t a woman around to take care of them. A lot of their wives are carrying too heavy to safely lie with their men this time of year. We had a bountiful Equinox festival last Spring.”

  Televarn’s beautiful body flashed through Myri’s memory. She’d found great pleasure and satisfaction in their lovemaking. None of the men she’d seen in the pub could compare with the handsome Rover. They would be more honest in their faithlessness.

  She couldn’t enjoy quick, temporary joinings. She wanted a husband or nothing.

  “I’m thinking maybe one of them gave you the infection that started the boil. I’ve known men to pass all sorts of ailments on to their women.”

  “Not my men.” Karry threw back her head and laughed. “They’re clean, and I don’t take on strangers. Not that we get many. Moncriith’s the only visitor we get. He wouldn’t let himself pick up some nasty disease.”

  “Moncriith?” Myri stilled, all senses alert. Her balance shifted to her toes automatically, ready to flee.

  “So you know him?” Karry’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “You the witchwoman he’s hunting?”

  Myri grabbed for Amaranth rather than answer. The pesky flywacket eluded her hands. He stared at her, annoyed and indignant, as only a cat can be.

  “Don’t worry about Moncriith. He’s got a honeyed tongue, but folks around here don’t care for him much. He wants them to uproot and follow him to the ends of the Kardia in search of demons. No one in this village has the time or money to leave hearth and home to follow him on some wild lumbird chase. Who cares if magicians are causing all kinds of trouble with the armies up north? Doesn’t mean they have demons living inside them. None of them ever comes here to trouble us. Only magic we ever see is an occasional witchwoman seeking a new home. And maybe a Rover or two. But we ain’t big enough or important enough to warrant much else.”

  “You get Rovers here, too?” Myri gulped, trying hard not to dash out the door and keep running until she . . . until she . . . What? This is the closest place to a home I’ve found. I have to stay a while to know for sure.

  “Oh, don’t worry none about Moncriith. He won’t come again until high summer. By then we’ll figure out a way to hide you or disguise you. If you’re as good a midwife and healer as I think you are, this village needs you. We won’t let some crazy Bloodmage take you. Who’s to say but him if he’s really a priest like he pretends. Yoshi!” She raised her voice on the last word.

  A moon-faced young man with light, almost colorless eyes and dark hair peeked from behind the curtain. “Yes’m?”

  “Yoshi, get Myri something hot to eat and find her an extra blanket and pallet. Give the cat some milk and a little of last night’s fish. They’re staying with me a while.”

  Chapter 20

  Nimbulan shivered slightly as rain once more penetrated his cloak and hood. Tonight he’d beg hospitality in a village. If he found one. For several weeks he’d shied away from other people lest they recognize him. His aimless wandering in a generally southeasterly direction had taken him well beyond the usual battlefields and recruiting regions.

  As if his thoughts of warm huts and cheerful fires with tasty dinners roasting over them had conjured the aroma, he caught the scent of bread baking. The warm yeasty smell roused his stomach and set his mouth watering. Food. Warmth. People to share the food and the fire with. A place to sleep out of the rain. Magic and lords, battles and schools had no place in his life now.

  Following close upon the aroma of baking bread came the clip-clop of steed hooves against the hard-packed dirt road. The light rain was persistent but not intense enough to turn the road to mud. Nimbulan counted the sounds. He heard several steeds plodding along at a slow but steady pace. He guessed they pulled heavy loads rather than bearing riders.

  A whisper of caution wiggled into his mind. He stepped off the road, behind a tree and waited.

  Voices. Gibberish. Either they were farther away than he thought, or the other travelers spoke a foreign tongue. Curiosity vied with caution.

  Down the road, four sledges came into view. Brightly painted cabins perched atop the conveyances. A thin coil of smoke rose from a metal chimney in the last cabin—the source of the baking bread. A team of two small draft steeds, perhaps half the size of the huge sledge steeds used to haul heavy trade loads or army supplies, pulled each of the strange vehicles. Dark-haired men walked beside the teams. None of them carried the long whips customarily used by caravan wranglers. Following the sledges came a host of people, old and young, male and female. All of them dark-haired with olive-toned skin. They wore black accented with bright colors in kerchiefs, vests, sashes, and petticoats. Scrolling embroidery decorated each layer of clothing.

  He’d found a clan of Rovers. Old legends and fearful gossip raced through his memory. Can’t trust a thieving Rover. No one crafts metal better than a Rover. Rovers will steal your children. Wild animals love Rovers and obey with little or no training. Rover women have no morals and will steal your soul. Rover women know tricks that will delight you in bed and leave you smiling for days.

  The old whispers lingered, especially the last one.

  An elderly man lifted his voice in song.

  The lyrics slid over Nimbulan’s understanding. Definitely a foreign language. But the tune made his feet itch to walk in rhythm and harmony with these people.

  The women picked up the chorus, children c
hanted the refrain and men hummed a harmony in three parts, unlike anything Nimbulan had ever heard. The haunting rhythm reached out and grabbed him, setting his feet tapping and begging him to join his voice with the others.

  He resisted, unsure if he should betray his presence yet. Instead he hummed along, letting the music vibrate from the back of his throat down to warm his belly. A hint of magic drifted in that song. The entire clan sang a spell of joy.

  Nimbulan chuckled. Though he didn’t recognize the words, he knew their intent: avoid trouble they didn’t initiate by robbing troublemakers of their anger.

  “You might as well join us, stranger,” the lead wrangler said without stopping the caravan.

  Nimbulan stepped out of the shadows. He knew the song had robbed him of caution and alarm. He didn’t care. “Which way do you travel?” he asked, falling into step beside the man. His face seemed young, though squint lines around his black eyes suggested years and maturity.

  “We travel where the road leads us, unless we find a better direction along the way.” The wrangler whistled sharply at the steeds who had slowed their pace. The animals picked up their feet with brisk purpose immediately.

  “This road looks good to me for now. I’d welcome companionship for a time.” Nimbulan scanned the clan spread out behind him. A vague similarity of the shapes of nose and chin told him they were truly a clan and not a motley gathering of outcasts. Who knew what crimes such a group would be capable of if they were immoral enough for Rovers to throw them out.

  “Rovers are never lonely and rarely alone. Do you have a name, stranger?”

  “Lan,” Nimbulan offered the childhood shortening of his name. Rovers traveled everywhere; they probably had heard of Nimbulan the Battlemage.

  “Lan.” The Rover rolled the name around his tongue as if tasting it. “A good, simple name. Easy to say and remember. You are wise not to reveal your true name.”

  Nimbulan almost checked his stride in shock. A measure of self-preservation kept him beside the shorter, younger man, matching him pace for pace. “I’ve heard of that tradition. Some people believe possession of a true name gives one power over another.”

  “Possession of a true name gives a magician power over another.” The Rover looked him up and down. “If you have magic, you keep it hidden, Lan.”

  For the first time, Nimbulan noticed the embroidery on the man’s vest. Tiny stitches in silver and gold outlined symbols in ancient writing. The spoken language had died out centuries ago. Some magicians still used the pictorial writing to hide spells. Each glyph became a sigil of power.

  “If I had magic, I’d run away from it. Few love magicians in Coronnan these days. They blame . . .” he almost said “us.” “Magicians take the blame for winning and losing battles. Whoever wins, the common soldiers and their families lose.”

  “Aye.” The Rover whistled again to the small steeds.

  “Do you have a name, fellow traveler?” Nimbulan asked.

  A comely woman in her twenties with a babe on her hip moved up beside them before the Rover could speak. An intriguing mole rested near the right corner of her mouth, inviting his gaze to linger on her full lips. She lowered her lashes flirtatiously over luminous dark eyes, watching Nimbulan as she did so. Her breasts nearly spilled out of her bodice when she walked. She’d reversed the lacing so that the garment opened from the top. Probably to nurse the child more easily.

  In most societies, most women laced their bodices from top to bottom to indicate their lack of availability.

  “The children are cold and hungry. Can we stop for a meal and a rest?” she addressed the leader of the clan while smiling speculatively at Nimbulan.

  Nimbulan couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth except to peer longingly at her breasts.

  “Aye,” the Rover chieftain replied. “At the next bend in the road. There is a clean-flowing creek there.” He didn’t look at the woman’s blatant sensuality.

  She twitched her hips in invitation as she moved back to the mass of Rovers behind the sledges. Nimbulan licked his suddenly dry lips. He hadn’t had a woman in many, many moons. Perhaps more than a year. Women robbed a man of the energy needed for magic. Battlemages habitually made use of the occasional camp follower when they required a quick release of pent up frustrations. That kind of woman didn’t expect courtship or lasting relationships. They didn’t demand attention that could be put toward the work of saving an army from defeat.

  He’d never understood Ackerly’s preference for peasant women who clung to him, begging him to return and settle in their villages.

  He wasn’t a Battlemage anymore. If he succeeded in his quest, there would be no more Battlemages. He could take the time and expend the energy to woo a woman, get to know her, take time making love to her. . . .

  “Tell me, leader of this clan of Rovers—I assume you lead, since the woman asked your permission to stop rather than relaying the orders of another—is pursuit of that woman forbidden to me?” Nimbulan continued to watch the woman, hoping he’d read her invitation correctly.

  “Maia’s man died last spring. He made the mistake of seeking shelter from a brief storm beneath a tree. Lightning killed him and the tree. I trust you’ll be smarter.”

  “Is that permission to accept her advances?”

  “She’s free. I trust you are as well, or you wouldn’t be wandering Coronnan alone.” The Rover shrugged.

  “I have no woman to bind me to hearth and home.” An image of Myrilandel’s moon blond hair and lavender-shadowed skin flashed before his mind’s eye. More images of his apprentices tugged his heart back to the river islands and the school.

  “I have never let a woman bind me.” The Rover looked away as if embarrassed. “I find my taste running to fairer women than Maia. My instincts are telling me to spread my seed outside the clan. We become inbred too easily. For that reason, we’ll welcome your seed. Take your pick of those who seek you out.”

  Nimbulan decided not to press the matter. The emotions filling the Rover’s eyes could as easily lash out in punishing anger as they could dissolve into tears.

  “If I am to rove with you for a time, I must know what to call you.”

  “Televarn. I am king of this clan and don’t fear giving my true name to one and all.”

  “Televarn.” Nimbulan tasted the name in open mimicry of the Rover’s reaction to his own name. “An unusual name. Televarn, the one who talks to the Varns—mysterious beings who trade only in diamonds for vast quantities of grain and appear in our ports once a century. They never reveal face or hands or even the shape of their bodies, keeping all veiled and gloved in swaths of rainbow-colored cloths that appear filmy and transparent but hide more than they reveal. You must be a very powerful man if you are privileged to speak to these entities.”

  “I have more power than you can dream of, Lan. You may be a wandering magician, or a man who has lost all to the wars, though you have not the bearing of grief for such a man. I don’t care what you are as long as you tell a good story over the campfire and break none of our laws.”

  “I have only a few beds left.” Ackerly put a sorrowful expression on his face, trying not to look at the few coins the displaced family held out to him. “Alas, many families seek a place of safety for their children. I can only accept those who are truly talented.” He allowed a sigh of regret to leave his lungs. The coins were base. Easily ignored.

  “But . . . but Kalen has very powerful magic. We haven’t had to use firestone to light the rushes since she lost her milk teeth.” The mother, a wasted woman worn out by childbirth and hunger, held out her hand in entreaty. A single gold coin glinted against her palm. Her husband closed his fist around the five base coins, removing them from the bargain.

  “Fire is an early sign of talent. Tell me, what else does the girl do?” Ackerly tried not to lick his lips in anticipation of handling that single piece of gold. He’d acquired twenty new pieces in the weeks since Nimbulan died. He’d made it known throughout the
land that the School for Magicians was offering new apprentices a safe place to learn the one profession that could give a peasant family a guaranteed income and a measure of security against marauders.

  The old monastery was fair to overflowing with adolescents and five more weary Battlemages seeking a quiet retirement from the wars.

  “Show him, Kalen,” the father ordered. He pocketed the lead and copper coins but let his wife keep dangling the gold before Ackerly.

  He had been a merchant in Baria on the north coast until Lord Hanic had burned the town. From the ragged and threadbare state of their once finely tailored clothing, the family had been on the road for some time. The gold was probably the last of their former wealth. They must be desperate to be willing to part with it.

  Kalen shook her head and tried to hide behind her mother’s skirts, being careful not to let any part of her touch the father on the other side of her. Not quite ten, she looked to be a year or more from reaching puberty. If her talent proved true before her body matured, she would be one of the great magicians. Most apprentices didn’t show any sign of talent until they were within a few moons of the change. Only the great ones, the men and women who could tap the ley lines and become as powerful as Nimbulan showed talent earlier.

  Of course some of the great magicians refused to acknowledge their talents until raging growth sent their emotions awry and they couldn’t keep it secret any longer. Minor magicians, like himself, only exhibited talent at or after puberty.

  “What is it that you can show me, Kalen?” Ackerly squatted in front of her, making sure his head was level with her own. No use intimidating her into losing control or hiding her talent altogether. He’d learned that much in his recruiting these past moons.

  From his crouched position he raised his eyes slightly to look the mother directly in the eye, tacitly asking approval to approach the child. So far, the woman had kept her head down, face in shadow.

  As their eyes met, the woman’s mouth opened in a silent gasp. “You?” she asked soundlessly. She moistened her lips with a flick of her tongue. Then she firmed her expression into meek subservience. Whatever flicker of recognition had passed across her face was gone, as quickly as it came.