The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

swirled and brightened.
    “Amaranth!” she screamed with her mind. Her voice remained a whisper. “Where are you?” Frantically she searched for some contact with her familiar. The door squeaked open. Myri couldn’t allow Yaassima to break her precious contact with Amaranth.
    Amaranth, fight the wound. Fight the magic. You have to live, Amaranth. You have to warn Nimbulan, Myri screamed again with her mind. The pain returned. Not the hot stabbing wound Amaranth suffered, but a dull aching loneliness that threatened to squeeze the life from her.
    Don’t die, Amaranth. Oh, please, don’t die.
     
    “We have no fleet of warships, Your Grace.” Nimbulan said. “But we have an army of wily fishermen who work the mudflats every day of their lives.” Nimbulan retrieved his gold-framed glass from inside his tunic. He walked to the nearest candle on the high table.
    “The tariff on trade was merely an excuse to trigger an invasion,” Quinnault said as he cleared the table of current projects with one sweep of his arm. “The warriors of Rossemeyer thrive on war, not food.” The king summoned a map with a snap of his fingers. Two servants dashed to obey his order.
    “My magicians, your fisherman, and every able-bodied person we can gather will have a long hard day ahead of them, but we have a chance, Your Grace.” Nimbulan breathed deeply, seeking calm. He had a battle to organize, when he’d thought his days as a Battlemage were over.
    He had to stay and fight when he’d rather leave on his quest to rescue his wife.
    When his thoughts fell into order, he continued the breathing exercise—in three counts, hold, out three counts, triggering a light trance for the summons spell. No time to return to the school for magical tools and a treatise on naval warfare. He’d have one of the apprentices bring them from his private study. He couldn’t levitate them through the locked door. Stuuvart, his steward, had a key.
    Nimbulan finished his summons, then marched into the courtyard and the stairs to the top of the palace walls and the roof of the keep. He didn’t bother to pocket his glass. He’d need it often in the coming hours. His head spun with ideas and plans, as it had in the old days when he prepared for battle nearly every week of the campaign season.
    “Merawk!” The sharp cry of a large bird screeched through the glass, piercing Nimbulan’s ears and mind.
    “Mewrare.”
    “That sounds like Amaranth.” Nimbulan ran up the stairwell. As soon as he opened the trapdoor to the watch-tower he looked to the partially cloudy sky for signs of the half-cat, half-falcon he’d last seen in Myri’s arms.
    “Perhaps your wife’s flywacket responded to your seeking vision, coming to you with word of Myrilandel.” Lyman poked his head through the opening right beside him. Nimbulan scanned the bowl of the heavens rather than question how the old man had appeared so suddenly.
    They both searched through a long moment of silence. Only a few fluffy white clouds broke the unending blue sky. Cold and crisp now. Beyond the horizon, a fierce winter storm gathered energy. The tide raced ahead of the storm, swelling the bay so that even the deepest-keeled ship could sail into Coronnan City.
    At last, Nimbulan spotted Amaranth’s silhouette, far out over the Great Bay, black against a white cloud. Wings stretched wide, Amaranth could have been any large black bird outlined against the sky.
    “Merawk,” the flywacket cried. He banked and circled lower.
    Nimbulan triggered his FarSight with a tendril of stored dragon magic. There wasn’t much of it left. He had to conserve it.
    The flywacket’s cat-face came into focus within his glass. Amaranth searched back and forth as he flapped his falcon’s wings, seeking the air currents to keep him aloft. His black fur seemed to absorb light, robbing the clouds of their share of sparkling sunshine.
    “Here, Amaranth. Come to me.” Nimbulan held out his arm as an inviting perch.
    “Merew,” Amaranth acknowledged the command. He stretched out his legs in preparation for landing.
    “He’ll tear your arm to shreds with those talons.” Lyman draped his cloak around Nimbulan’s outstretched arm.
    “No, he won’t. He’s very gentle when he lands,” Nimbulan protested. But he didn’t remove the cloak. His fine linen shirt and sleeveless leather tunic wouldn’t offer much protection if Amaranth didn’t retract his raptor’s talons to normal cat claws in time.
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