The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

to his own father. He wouldn’t. . . .
    But he had.
    “No more false memories!” He held his head in both hands, driving away the guilt and self-doubt the sight of Myrilandel always brought to him.
    He held his breath. If demons took command of his body and mind, he’d lose control of his grand plan for today and tomorrow and a hundred tomorrows. The Stargods had given him a vision. The temple elders were in error.
    His eyes crossed and his vision blurred. He blinked rapidly, clearing them of the poisonous smoke. The dragons in the sky multiplied before his eyes, splitting into dozens of small demons that dove straight for his face, talons extended. The colored spines and wing veins blackened. The smaller demons opened their mouths, fangs dripping poison into his eyes.
    Weird coils of numbness spread from his lungs to his fingers to his knees and back to his heart. Instinctively, he gulped air. More of the poisonous smoke poured into his lungs. The demons of his hallucination tore at his eyes and lungs, rending his flesh into bloody strips. Everywhere they touched him turned to ice.
    He choked and spat. Not enough air! He clawed at his throat and chest to rid him of the things that wrapped cold fingers around his heart and lungs, squeezing. Squeezing the life and the magic from him.
    He drew his pain deeper into his body, letting it sharpen his senses and fuel his inborn magic talent. With a mighty effort he drew a spiral with his finger, starting at his mouth and expanding outward. Glowing lines of red magic followed the path of his finger. He willed the magic to draw the killing smoke from his lungs. Two tiny puffs of gray mist exited his body with his next breath.
    He needed to inhale. Air, more air! The smoke took the air out of his lungs as well.
    Darkness surrounded him. A tunnel of bright light robbed color and definition from his failing sight. He closed his eyes to separate himself from the demons. The world righted. The dragons resumed normal proportions and numbers. Then he knew that Ackerly’s Tambootie smoke had created the demons, not the dragons themselves. Air and smoke exploded into a sunburst, blotting out everything else.

    Nimbulan kept his arm around Myri as he watched Shayla and Rouussin thrust their great wings up and down. They stirred the air. The Tambootie smoke blew back toward Ackerly, dissipated, faded, mixed with clean air from the river and mountains.
    Myri rubbed her eyes, clearing tears away with her sleeve. Nimbulan did the same. Together they scanned the battlefield.
    Chaos reigned below them. Hundreds of inert bodies lay in the trampled grass, sprawled where the smoke had caught them. Only Kammeryl’s army retained their positions, sagging against their pikes and lances, bleary eyed and coughing, but upright. Quinnault’s tenants, pretending to be an army, gradually roused from the choking smoke first. They used pitchfork and shovel handles—now devoid of metal—as braces to hold themselves upright while they coughed their lungs clear. None of the troops, from either army, seemed fit for battle.
    On the hilltop to the south, a ragged line of men was outlined. None moved to help or hinder either side.
    Lord Hanic had arrived, but he held back, waiting for the tide of battle to turn. Waiting to commit his troops only to the winner.
    Nimbulan saw nothing of the Kammeryl d’Astrismos who claimed the crown, or his mounted officers.
    The dying fire on the knoll opposite him demanded his attention. Ackerly lay beside the glowing embers, his hands holding his throat. His aura hovered above him, separated by several arm’s lengths.
    The departing aura proved the man dead. Grief blinded Nimbulan momentarily. Grief for the years of companionship, shared youths, and friendship. He couldn’t let his emotions cloud the debacle forming before him. Ackerly had betrayed him and suffered from his own foolishness. The winds were too capricious to use smoke as a weapon. Too many uncontrollable factors influenced the direction and intensity of smoke.
    The Bloodmage was missing from the knoll. Hastily, Nimbulan searched the field for signs of Moncriith. He supressed the extra heartbeats that bounced in his chest. Moncriith on the loose, possibly crazed by the smoke, was too dangerous. Nimbulan had to account for the Bloodmage.
    Tambootie smoke was debilitating to everyone, magician and mundane. His enemy was out of commission at least temporarily. But where had he gone?
    “Thank you for