Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  I need him, Amaranth. Just as I am incomplete without you and the dragons. I must go with him. We must take this new magic back to the other magicians. This is what the dragons planned for us all those years ago. I have to leave my home.

  (You will come back.)

  Yes, Amaranth. I will come back. We will all come back when we have completed our task. She held out her arm as a new perch for her familiar. The flywacket spread his wings just enough to glide down to her. He retracted his talons at the last moment and landed softly upon her forearm, then siddled up to her shoulder. He wrapped his fluffy tail around her neck for balance and nuzzled her cheek. His purr sent warm comfort through her entire being.

  “We’re here!” Powwell called just ahead.

  “I can see the roof,” Kalen added.

  “I’m hungry,” said Powwell.

  “You’re always hungry.” Kalen punched him in the arm.

  Myri looked up at the overcast sky. “There will be rain soon. I can smell it on the wind. We’d best hurry.”

  (You are needed,) dragon voices invaded her head. She wrapped her hand around Amaranth’s muscular body, strengthening her contact to him. Beside her, Nimbulan stilled, waiting for the rest of the dragon’s message.

  (Fishermen in trouble.)

  “Will the villagers accept my help or betray me?” she asked the sky. She couldn’t see any dragon outline against the rapidly gathering clouds. Spring often brought sudden storms—short in duration but violent while they lasted.

  A sense of urgency pushed aside her doubts and fears. Men were in trouble. Her feet needed to fly down the steep path to the village right now. Without delay.

  What stores of herbs and poultices did she have in the hut? Her mind raced to the few remedies she had left. She lingered over the list, overruling her anxious feet. Was she strong enough to help? Her healing spells for Nimbulan had drained her badly.

  “I’ll take care of you afterward, Myri. I heard the command as clearly as you did. Go. I’ll gather some herbs and the leftover bandages. Don’t worry. I’ll come as fast as I can,” he said, urging her forward. “Remember what I taught you about the ley lines. Stand close to the Equinox Pylon where the lines cross and use the strength of the lines to fuel your healing.”

  “Follow me, Amaranth.” She urged him off her shoulder so that he could fly and not hinder her own run to the village.

  (Go. Now. You cannot be late.)

  Amaranth launched himself upward, pushing his wings downward with powerful strokes. (We come,) he announced.

  The wind whispered of small boats swamped by waves and hungry rocks reaching to slash and impale new victims.

  Chapter 30

  Myri’s bare feet found the path into the village without really knowing where she ran. Her mind was with the gale that whipped the waves to a crashing froth. The uncaring air was too busy shifting from here to there to pay attention to the men who were in trouble. Myri found no trace of their life energies. She lifted her arms, letting the wind catch her sleeves. The sensation of almost flight gave her greater speed.

  A week ago, when she and Nimbulan were drained of all strength, this same journey in reverse had taken days. Now with her health restored, and the urgency of the dragons pushing her forward, she ran the distance in less than an hour.

  Her magic tether to Nimbulan’s heart stretched but did not break. For the first time in nearly a week, she was separated from him by more than a few arm’s lengths. Loneliness assailed her already.

  Her talent pulled her forward. She had to run with it.

  The dozen cottages huddled together on the edge of the bluff above a narrow gravel beach looked smaller, shabbier, abandoned since she’d left here a week ago.

  She looked out over the bay for physical signs of the men in trouble. Rain squalls and low clouds obscured her view of the waters beyond the cove. Waves rose too high, too fast to reveal what might hide in the troughs. Only small boats with crews of three or four could maneuver through the Dragon’s Teeth, the jagged outcropping from the bay floor that changed currents at will and disguised depths.

  Myri headed for the dark and smoky pub. All of the villagers would gather there to organize a rescue or mourn the dead.

  Tension hung with the gloomy smoke and the silence in the crowded pub. Doors closed against the storm intensified the stale and murky air. A few men sipped at mugs of ale. Anxious women stared into their cups lest they catch the eye and the worry of another. No stories of daring deeds and monster fish trapped in the nets passed around the cave. No lewd jokes or grumbling of what might have been.

  Yoshi, the simple boy, poked sticks into the central fire, silently watching the glowing embers. He was big and strong, in his early twenties, but his mind had never grown after a bout of brain fever when he was ten. The same fever that nearly claimed him last winter. He took orders well, but had few thoughts of his own. He didn’t look up at Myri’s entrance. A sure sign of his preoccupation.

  “Who is missing?” Myri asked as she stood on the threshold. The anxiety of the men and women invaded her heart. She scanned the group, counting heads, lumping family groups together.

  “Rory’s boat of four,” Karry replied. “Kelly has three in his.” Years of pitching her voice to be heard over a noisy throng made her near whisper seem a shout.

  Amaranth crept between Myri’s feet to curl up by the fire. His purpley-black fur absorbed the meager light of the central hearth, draining it from the rest of the cave. A grizzled old man shifted his stool away from proximity with the flywacket. He crossed himself in the manner of the Stargods, then surreptitiously placed his left wrist over his right and flapped his hands.

  Yoshi didn’t know enough to be afraid of the witchwoman’s familiar and reached out a hand to caress the cat. Amaranth nuzzled his outstretched palm, but didn’t purr. “Rory be smart,” Yoshi told Amaranth. “He’ll not try for home in this weather. Knows the Dragon’s Teeth won’t let him land till the wind slacks and the tide changes.”

  Karry poured another round of ale from pitchers. Her smile trembled, then reasserted itself, too wide, too fixed.

  “Something’s wrong.” Myri leaned out the door, hesitant to throw herself into the business of rescuing the men, needing to help and obey the compulsion within her to heal. The rising storm and tricky currents threatened her life more than the drain of a normal healing.

  “They’re coming through now!” Nimbulan shouted as he ran down the cliff path.

  “Get ropes and blankets,” Karry ordered the men. “Yoshi, build up the fire and find bandages!” Turning to Myri, she whispered, “Who’s he?”

  “My friend.” Myri smiled her love for Nimbulan, then turned and raced for the steps cut into the bluff leading to the beach and the jagged rocks that had claimed more than one life. Karry would organize the villagers here in the pub, but they wouldn’t hasten to venture forth into the crashing waves. Could any of them swim? Probably not.

  She met cold, wet gravel at the base of the bluff with her bare feet. Spring was barely here. The storm could still contain a last blast of winter. Myri acknowledged the season with a regretful wish for her clogs and woolen socks. But foot coverings would hinger her movements. She needed freedom to rescue the men in the bobbing boat just visible in the trough between two waves. One boat, riding low, not two.

  Would they find safety or death in their mad attempt to return home?

  She peered through the thickening cloud layer that blended with the sea. Sheets of rain brought the horizon closer. The fury of the sea seemed to push the speck of black that was the boat farther away from the shore.

  An opening between waves revealed the much closer outline of the boat, overcrowded with seven men. Too close to the Dragon’s Teeth. The stern sank lower yet and the bow tilted in the wind.

  Nimbulan appeared at her side. His arm clasped her waist and brought her close to him. The warmth of his body brought a moment’s relief from the chill rain. “You can’t be thinking of going a
fter them.”

  “I must. They’ll die. I’ll follow them into the void if they die before I help them.” She closed her eyes against the vision of death that awaited in the waves among the Dragon’s Teeth.

  “Then let me help the only way I can. I can’t swim.” He looked regretfully toward the boat. “I’ll send a rope to them by magic. They can lash the rope to the bow and we can all pull them in.” He indicated the men standing hesitantly on the edge of the cliff. Powwell and Kalen stood in front of the villagers, ready to jump to Nimbulan’s and Myri’s orders.

  Powwell raced down the path to join them.

  “The rope will get tangled in the rocks,” Myri protested, eyeing the narrow channel between them.

  “Maybe I can levitate the boat enough to clear the worst of them.”

  “Do you have the strength to work?” she shouted above the wind. “Can you and Powwell combine to keep the spell going?”

  Nimbulan shrugged. “Like you, we have to try.”

  She watched them take the regulation three breaths. Nimbulan’s eyes went blank and rolled slightly upward. Then he raised his hand high over his head. The rope held by the men on the cliff uncoiled and spun outward, toward the foundering boat.

  Myri followed the progress of the rope end with her own talent, willing the fishermen to lash it tight to the prow of the overcrowded vessel. When she sensed the rope in place, she waved her arms to the men who had drifted down the path to the gravel beach. As if with one mind, they pulled, leaning all of their weight into bringing the boat ashore.

  She shifted her mind back to the men in the boat. A tall wave washed over them. They clung to the sides precariously. A huge spire of rock loomed directly ahead of them.

  “Quickly, Lan, lift them high and to the right!”

  He closed his eyes in fierce concentration. Half of Myri’s concentration remained with him. The other half monitored the panicky fishermen.

  Were the dragons flying nearby, giving the magic power Nimbulan and Powell needed to sustain the spell?

  She watched the fishing boat edge past the pinnacle of rock. Their tremendous relief came to her in a rush.

  Nimbulan was tiring. Strain whitened the little wrinkles around his eyes. He couldn’t sustain the levitation much longer and Powwell was far too inexperienced to take over the spell.

  The next massive wave dashed against the boat, carrying it away from Nimbulan’s waning spell directly into the rock. He sank to his knees in exhaustion, clutching his arms across the wound in his belly.

  Seven men went under. Their cries of despair stabbed at her heart. Her mind shared the shock of cold, the gulping of too much salt water, the lack of air, the weight against tired limbs and the first hungry bites of the Dragon’s Teeth.

  Myri shed her bodice and skirt as she dove into an oncoming wave, reaching out in long strokes to carry her toward the drowning men.

  Another giant wave rose between Myri and sight of the men. Achingly cold water enfolded her, numbing her limbs and her mind.

  The men’s fear pulled her forward.

  Nimbulan’s heart leaped to his throat as Myri dove into the roaring waves. Her slender body, clad only in her shift, took on the sleek form of some water-born creature. She seemed to expand, turn silvery, tinged with purple. The waves parted for her graceful undulating movements. For a moment he lost sight of her. How could anyone—anything—survive the swirling currents that smashed up against the jagged rocks?

  He despaired of ever seeing her again, feeling her quiet presence at his side as he woke in the middle of the night, hearing her gentle laughter at his awful jokes, finding the right rhyme to accompany his spells. His world emptied of all emotion. He couldn’t give way to grief now. He had to be ready to help her at the first sign of trouble.

  If he ever saw her again.

  There, nearly invisible against the rising blackness of water, he caught sight of a darting form in the water. A white blob of a face appeared at the wave’s crest, gasping and choking. Myri’s long white arm that looked amazingly like a silvery wing, reached out to curl around the man’s neck. The man fought her grasp briefly, then collapsed into the water’s embrace.

  Moments later, Myri dragged the man up the gravelly shore. Her body once more the same as he had watched dive into the waves; a slender woman wearing a drenched shift that might as well have been as transparent as a dragon wing. Tiny rocks cut into her bare feet. The greedy sea absorbed the thin rivulets of red, sucking them away.

  He ran to her, catching her in his arms as her knees crumpled. He clutched her close against his chest, pushing his remaining warmth and strength into her. Others pulled the choking man to safety.

  “The others,” Myri said as she turned within his embrace. “I must save the others.”

  “Take some deep breaths. Clear your lungs,” he ordered.

  “I’ll be all right as long as I know you are safe here, on shore. In the water, it’s . . . I’m . . . I can’t explain. It’s like I become the water. The dragons are with me, telling me what to do, how to avoid the rocks and changing currents. I wonder if I am part dragon the way I understand them.”

  “Merlep mew!” Amaranth screeched as he plunged into the next wave, his wings tight against his body, claws extended.

  The sight of his diving body triggered a memory in Nimbulan. He saw again the black creature flying into the column of flame that guarded the abandoned monastery.

  Stargods! Amaranth had joined with the guardian spirit to test Nimbulan and Quinnault. Amaranth? Why hadn’t he been with Myri?

  The spirit had disappeared. Briefly, he wondered if Amaranth was the guardian or had absorbed it.

  “I have to go. Amaranth can’t keep him above water for long.” Myri twisted from Nimbulan’s arms and dove into the next huge wave.

  In the trough, between crests, the white blob of another face showed briefly. The dark speck that might be Amaranth swam beside the man, front talons and mouth clamped into the collar of his shirt.

  Before Nimbulan’s eyes, the flywacket grew and faded into transparency. His wings stretched out and out and out, to become life-saving floats.

  A dozen terrifying heartbeats later, Myri reached the unconscious fisherman and began the exhausting process of dragging him back to shore.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, blinding Nimbulan for an eye blink. When he looked back to find Myri, he couldn’t distinguish her from Amaranth. They both seemed half dragon in the weird light. Then Amaranth retracted the spectacular transparent wings and dove into the next wave, once more a black flywacket.

  Myri remained silvery and unnaturally buoyant until she reached shallow water. When she stood up, dragging the half-drowned fisherman, she was fully human once more.

  Nimbulan shook his head free of the hallucinations and dashed to help her bring the fisherman ashore.

  Three more times Myri and Amaranth pulled men from the jaws of the Dragon’s Teeth. Three more times, Nimbulan watched helplessly as they performed impossible feats of strength and agility within the crushing currents. Each time they dove, he was certain he’d lost them forever. The emptiness of his life without the witchwoman and her familiar nearly choked him.

  The fifth time Myri dragged a fisherman onto the beach Amaranth crawled out with her, bedraggled, exhausted, miserable. They both collapsed against the sharp gravel, in danger of drowning in two inches of water that swirled about their faces. Nimbulan scooped up the flywacket, who now looked like an ordinary half-drowned cat, with one arm while he grabbed Myri around her waist. He tried lifting her clear of the water. Burning pain slashed across his partially healed wound.

  Yoshi and Powwell dashed to grab Myri as Nimbulan lost his grasp of her.

  “No more, Myri. Don’t go into the water anymore.” Yoshi said as he carried her to safety.

  Powwell tucked a blanket around her. He looked back to Nimbulan. Awe and concern flashed across his eyes in rapid succession.

  “Two more. There are two more men
out there!” Myri cried.

  “You can’t save the last two,” Nimbulan said as he cradled Amaranth against his chest. Kalen threw another blanket over them both.

  Myri struggled briefly against Yoshi’s tight hold of her, then collapsed, a limp, dead weight.

  “They’re dead. It’s too late,” she said, looking regretfully back to the angry waves.

  “You did what you could. You saved five men who would have died without you.” Nimbulan brushed wet hair out of her eyes with his fingers. Briefly he regretted Yoshi easily managing her weight. Then common sense asserted itself. He was in no shape to carry her. He’d be lucky to make it up the cliff path without help.

  “Five. Only five.” Myri moaned her grief.

  Villagers rushed forward with blankets and chattering concern. Nimbulan allowed a stout woman to take Amaranth. She wrapped the cat in the folds of rough wool, rubbing his fur dry, pushing her face close to the animal’s while she cooed praise and comfort.

  Yoshi set Myri back on her feet as Kalen and Powwell draped a second blanket around her shoulders. All three of them rubbed the coarse weave against her arms, back, and legs to stimulate her body’s natural heat.

  Another woman gave Nimbulan a dry blanket and ushered all of them toward the warmth and shelter of the pub. The smell of hot soup and cider drew him to the pool of light spilling out from the doorway.

  “Thank you.” Myri kissed his cheek, then rested her head limply against his shoulder. “Knowing you were waiting for me, helping me, almost protecting me, made the job less frightening. I’ve never had anyone wait for me like that.” She looked up as if scanning the ceiling of the pub for evidence of the dragons. They had helped her, too, she had said.

  “I will always be here to help you, Myri.” He paused at the doorway to the pub. Both of their stomachs raised loud grumbles at the onslaught of the enticing smells and promise of protection from the storm inside the pub.

  Gently they laughed, pressing their foreheads together in wonderfully private intimacy.