The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

Chapter 1
     
    “T he only way to catch dragons is to hunt ’em when they’re young. Still silvery, you know,” said a one-eyed derelict.
    A half dozen heads nodded in the dim, cavelike pub.
    Jaylor sucked in his breath, as shock drained what little energy he had left from his thin spell of delusion. Didn’t these people know that dragons provided everything that was good and safe and free in Coronnan?
    He’d encountered suspicion and distrust of dragons before. But never out and out hatred. The University of Magicians needed to know about this strange little village.
    “Yeah, if you wait ’til dragons’re growed, there ain’t no way you can see a s’murghin’ one of them.” The middle-aged man next to Jaylor smelled of stale fish and salt brine. “About ten years ago we had to root out a whole nest of the blasted monsters. They was eatin’ all our fish.”
    Green smoke from the crude hearth burned Jaylor’s eyes. He kept them half closed, avoiding direct eye contact with the half-drunken men who shared his table in this cave that served as the tavern. As long as these local gossips viewed his body and not his eyes, they would see only a long lost friend. A different friend to each man.
    “Lord Krej has the right of it. Told us we didn’t have t’ provide nothin’ for dragons. They can feed elsewhere. Can’t afford a tithe to the dragons and another tithe to lord, too.” The derelict’s one eye glittered and probed from the depths of his grizzled and wrinkled mask of a face. Jaylor looked away nervously.
    “We can’t afford to anger the dragons though. The witchwoman’s in league with them,” another man added. He was covered in wood dust and wore an apron with more pockets than Jaylor bothered to count.
    “Netted a big male in the nets last time we hunted. Couldn’t kill him, but after he escaped he never came back.” The fisherman leaned across the table toward the carpenter. “The old witchwoman deserted us then, and we did fine without one for nigh on ten years. Then last summer a new one shows up, and the dragons came back. I say we burn ’em both out.”
    “Without a witchwoman we have to depend on University healers. Who among us can afford a healer? If we could even get one to leave the comfort of Lord Krej’s castle to come all the way down here,” the carpenter argued.
    Shouts of agreement and argument rose around Jaylor. The noise covered his recitation of a strengthening spell.
    “Young’uns are cunning hunters. Only feed at night.” Old One-eye continued to stare at Jaylor’s unkempt appearance.
    Nervously the young magician finger-combed his unfamiliar growth of new beard and long hair. It was so unlike his habitually clean face and fashionably restrained queue, he wondered if he’d ever get used to it.
    He halted the gesture in mid-comb, afraid to call attention to his discomfort. He wished he could see the old man’s aura, but the delusion blocked his inner sight.
    He turned his combing gesture into a signal to the man tending the cask of ale. Somewhere across the bleak cave, the barkeep caught his gesture for more ale.
    Awful stuff. It tasted more like . . . Jaylor decided he didn’t want to think about what it really tasted like. It slaked the thirst of weeks on the road. That was all he asked.
    “Young dragons’re the same color as moonlight, slip in and out of shadows like a dream. Make a more interesting hunt that way.” Old One-eye’s intense stare drew Jaylor’s gaze once again. The spell of delusion slipped a little more.
    Stargods, he was tired. Carefully, he reinforced the spell. Just a little longer. He had to keep these provincials believing he was a local just a little longer, until he had the information he needed. Then he could slip away and rest his depleted body in preparation for the next stage of his quest.
    “Sometimes you have to go after dragons at the source. Clear out all the juveniles and sucklings in the nest and the ma goes away, too.” One-eye continued rubbing his grizzled jaw with a scarred hand. Jaylor’s own chin itched in sympathy. He resisted running his fingers through the new growth again. “If you let ’em get too big, they’ll rob the whole province.”
    “Worse than Rovers stealin’ our young’uns.”
    Jaylor sat up straight and listened closer. There hadn’t been Rovers in Coronnan in, oh, three hundred years. At least. Not since the magic border had been established. So, why were these people familiar