The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

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 after 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