The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

horizon.
    Dark clouds boiled on the horizon, where the Bay met the open sea. Tonight the rains would soak their small garden and nourish the seeds and roots they planted.
    The hair on her arms and the back of her neck bristled. Her sense of safety and privacy vanished. She whipped her head back and forth, sniffing the air for the “difference.”
    “We aren’t alone,” Nimbulan whispered.
    “We must be. The barrier remains intact,” she answered.
    “Is someone coming near?” He rose slowly to his knees, still protecting the vulnerable area around his wound. He raised his left hand, palm outward, fingers slightly curled and rotated it.
    “I sense weariness and fear. One stumbles and . . . and I share pain with her. Almost too tired to feel the pain. Another helps. But he is tired, too.” Awareness of the two lives invaded her empathy.
    “They need you. Nimbulan struggled to his feet. Once upright he walked over to the nearest barrier and touched it with the flat of his palm.
    The barrier swirled into a dozen visible colors, extending outward from his hand. The trees outside the clearing seemed to lurch and right themselves slightly to the left of where they had been.
    Myri closed her eyes. The world returned to the same place as before. She opened them again and the trees continued to shift until an arch opened in the barrier, outlined by a narrow band of the swirling colors. On the other side of the barrier stood two children, a boy and a girl with identical mud-brown hair tinged with red and sprays of freckles across their noses. They both stared at Nimbulan with wide gray eyes.

Chapter 27
     
    M oncriith dragged at the leash of a baying dog. The stupid creature couldn’t track its own shit, let alone an elusive witchwoman and two grubby children determined to elude their fate.
    He was close to Myrilandel. He knew it, could smell the demon magic in the air. The villagers had said she was nearby.
    Where else would those two cursed children run but to the witchwoman? She was the only one in these parts who would give shelter to the brats.
    Except possibly the Rover chieftain. He sought Myrilandel, too. Moncriith had to find the witch before the Rover whisked her into Hanassa or some other impossible place.
    “Sieur, we’ve passed that split tree with the boulder growing out of the center three times.” The sergeant assigned to Moncriith wiped his brow with his sleeve as he stared at the tree in question.
    The other soldiers huddled together behind their sergeant, shoulders tensed as if trying to make themselves invisible by reducing their size.
    “Fools! Of course we’re going in circles. The witchwoman has laid a dozen false trails. We have to branch out and look for signs of passage beyond this circle.” Moncriith pushed his own growing anxiety aside with his forceful tones. He knew the eerie feeling permeating these woods was a cloaking spell. No one would venture closer to the witch’s dwelling because of the growing sense of unease generated by her evil.
    Magretha had generated the same miasma of impending doom in the woods surrounding her house. A house where she had seduced young men with promises of great magic and never-ending sex.
    Moncriith had been naive enough to believe himself the first and only young lad to share her bed.
    Magretha had been as false as her foster daughter.
    Flushed with lust and newly awakened power, Moncriith had believed Magretha and pledged her his love. His parents had encouraged the match, even though Magretha at thirty—a very beautiful thirty—was fifteen years older and fifteen years more experienced than Moncriith. A magician in the family, particularly one powerful enough to become a Battlemage, offered a chance for a steady income and a way out of the constant grind of hunger and hard work. The entire village hoped Moncriith would be powerful enough to protect them from the marauding armies that had plagued Coronnan for two or more generations.
    But Magretha had betrayed Moncriith. She had seduced his father and two of the village elders, as she seduced every man who crossed her path. Moncriith had discovered her lying in his father’s arms, both naked, in the throes of passion. While he stood in the woods, aghast and ashamed, the two village elders joined him, awaiting their turn with Magretha. Their lewd jokes had roused Moncriith’s youthful anger and righteous outrage. Moncriith unleashed his newfound and uncontrolled magic. He sent a firebomb