The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

“And you liked greens back at the school well enough to ask for more.”
    “But your ma boiled them in soup stock and dressed them in vinegar and spices. Myri wants us to eat this stuff raw! A man needs his food cooked.”
    “A man needs nutrition any way he can get it. We’ll eat the greens raw.” Nimbulan tried to look sternly at Powwell. Memories of his own childhood view of good food and “women’s food” tickled deep inside him. He wanted to bellow with laughter and good will.
    His good humor continued through the improvised meal. He and Powwell ate ravenously. Myri and Kalen only picked at their food. “Why don’t you and Kalen watch for a while, Myri?” Nimbulan suggested. “Perhaps you can learn something to make the task easier.”
    “I feel like I should remember how to do it.” Myri turned haunted eyes up to him. “I want to remember how to do it, just like I want to remember how to fly. When I don’t want my past to touch me, events and people parade before my mind’s eye with annoying regularity. When I need to remember, I can’t find any part of myself in the past.”
    “Don’t push it, Myri. Memory is like quicksilver. It looks tangible until you touch it. Then it spurts away, breaking into hundreds of sparkling, unrelated entities,” he soothed.
    (You must remember, my child,) Shayla said. (Without you, all our efforts are for nothing.)
    Suddenly, the dragon reared her steedlike muzzle in alarm. Steam seeped out of her nostrils. Her eyes shifted rapidly from nearly colorless to a wild array of primary colors, never lingering on one for more than two heartbeats. With a loud blast of sound, almost above human hearing, she burst upward into flight.

Chapter 29
     
    A t last the trail dog put his nose to the Kardia and yelped with excitement. Moncriith breathed a sigh of relief. Myrilandel and the children had tried to fool him by walking down the center of a stream, but the dogs had found where they left the water. The dog dragged him through a brambleberry thicket. Thorns snagged and tore his new red robe—bright red, closer to the color worn by priests than of old blood.
    “ Simurgh take you to all the living hells!” he yelled at the dog as his cuff clung to yet another bush. This one was sticky and tried to wrap itself around his arm.
    He stumbled and ran, desperately clinging to the animal’s leash. A long branch of the clinging shrub detached itself from the main trunk with a sickening slurpy sound.
    The dog yelped again and dashed forward.
    They were close. Moncriith sensed Myrilandel’s presence just ahead. The witchwoman wasn’t alone. The evil magic he smelled grew to enormous proportions. She must be hiding in the demon lair! Not far now. After all these years of tracking demons, he would finally rid Coronnan of all of them at once.
    A doubt wiggled into his mind. How would he handle several large demons at once? Did he truly know the strength of a demon? He buried his misgivings where he’d hidden his memories of Magretha and his father. The Stargods had chosen him to rid Coronnan of the demons. The Stargods would not, could not fail him now. Not when he was so close.
    The dog stopped running so abruptly Moncriith nearly tripped over him. Frantically the animal dug at a hole in the ground. Dirt flew behind him, pelting Moncriith with large clods and small rocks.
    “ S’murghin’ useless beast. First you can’t find a scent at all, and now you track a path even a striped lapin couldn’t follow into a mole hole!”
    More frantic yelps from the other four dogs sounded in the near distance. They, too, had caught an elusive scent and converged on the same mole hole.
    Moncriith dropped the leash from his sweating palm in disgust. Five dogs digging in one tiny hole in the center of a tangle of brambleberry vines would lead his quest nowhere.
    He thrashed his way clear of the thorny vines that reached out and grabbed him as he passed. “What is wrong with your dogs?” he asked the nearest guard.
    The young man blushed and stammered, unable to meet Moncriith’s gaze.
    “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with them!” Moncriith shouted. Heat flooded his face and sent twitches through his hands. “Your dogs . . .”
    The forest stilled. No bird song lightened the heavy air. The tiny rustlings in the underbrush ceased. A pricking sensation sent the fine hairs on the back of Moncriith’s neck standing on end.
    “What?” Moncriith searched the forest for the source of