The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

attack on the clearing last night. She felt as if words would bring the men back with their torches.
    “Think about it while we walk.” He set his jaw firmly. Brevelan’s stubbornness waned in the face of his determination.
    “Come, Puppy.” Brevelan called the wolf to her. Happily, he bounced to her side. As usual, he sat on her foot, leaning his weight into her. She ruffled his ears, cradled his large head in her hands, and briefly nuzzled him. “We have to go see Shayla now,” she explained to him.
    Her reluctance to leave the shelter of her clearing made her pack heavier. “I’m not sure he’s healed enough to make this journey.” Her words came out sharp and ill-tempered. Puppy’s enthusiasm for the journey grated on her nerves.
    Jaylor didn’t reply as he stooped to lift his own pack to his shoulders. His long walking staff was already in his other hand. He fingered the interesting grain of the wood that ran down the length of the staff in a twisting plait.
    “Maybe we should wait another day.” She looked up at him with hope. The set of his jaw told her they couldn’t.
    “Mrrew?” Mica sat in the doorway. Her plaintive voice echoed around the hut that suddenly seemed empty, devoid of life.
    “She’s asking to go with us.” Brevelan smiled for the first time. “She belongs here, more than I do. She was waiting for me when I found the clearing. Now she’s demanding to leave with us.”
    “I can’t keep her from following.” Jaylor stared at the cat.
    “Mrrow!” This time the cat’s voice was emphatic, her eyes very round and humanlike.
    “She won’t be left behind.” Brevelan looked from cat to man. There was a special bond there. Yet she didn’t feel jealousy, not the way she did when Puppy showed a preference for the magician.
    “Mrrow.” Mica rubbed her face against Jaylor’s leg. Her purr was loud, meant to gratify.
    Jaylor bent to scratch her ears. Her fur rippled with different colors in different lights, as did slivers of mica. She was rightly named.
    “It’s a long trip, kitty. Maybe you’d better stay here.”
    “Niow!” Mica protested. This time she reached up with her claws to cling to his shirtsleeve. A quick scramble and she was perched on his shoulder.
    “But, Mica . . .” Jaylor protested. He tried to dislodge the animal.
    “It appears she is coming with us whether we like it or not.” Brevelan smiled in earnest this time.
     
    “How does it feel to be a cat’s scratching post?” Brevelan giggled, just a little, at the sight of tiny Mica kneading Jaylor’s broad shoulder.
    Arching calubra ferns made a shaded aisle of the path. Their feet trod soundlessly on the thick bed of rose-lichen. The elusive scent of aromatic elf-leaves touched their nostrils and disappeared again, like fairies flitting past their senses.
    Mica’s twitching tail brushed a fragrant everblue tree that dipped long needles into their pathway. The pollen filled Brevelan’s nose with its clean fragrance, banishing all other scents.
    “Perhaps your cat would be happier in your arms,” he muttered even as he smiled and reached to pet the now purring Mica.
    “But your shoulders are so much broader and more comfortable. She can see all around and not tire her tiny body.”
    Most of the last several hours they had endured the broken pathway in grim silence. Jaylor pushed the pace with an urgency Brevelan absorbed to lend speed to her own feet. She had used the time to memorize the landmarks of trees and rocks as she picked her way among them. As Shayla had said, there was a path visible, but only when she drew a song through her as if she were seeking a healing path through an ailing body.
    “Jaylor, I have got to stop for a few moments,” Brevelan protested. A steep incline loomed ahead of them. The stitch in her side needed time to unknot before she tackled the slope.
    “Oh, all right.” Jaylor paused beside a rock large enough to sit upon. Brevelan eased onto the worn surface. “We can’t waste time though.”
    “Replenishing my body’s reserves is not a waste of time.” She stared at him until he, too, sat on the rock.
    “Did Mica tell you she prefers my shoulders to yours?” he asked, eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement.
    “Yes, she did.” Brevelan had always listened to the animals. She’d been quite shocked as a small child to learn that others could not hear them.
    “How? How do you hear them?” Jaylor seemed merely curious, not accusing as the man she’d