The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

Nimbulan took two steps closer to the bubble of blue light, trying to see around Moncriith and the healers.
    Not a bubble, an aura. He saw two forms within the glowing layers of energy. A kneeling woman lay collapsed over a supine male, her hands locked onto his upper arm at the source of the blue light.
    “My mission is to halt the encroachment of demons into the very heart of Coronnan. My followers are prepared to take this witchwoman by force, if necessary. My people are fresh. Yours are battle-weary, Nimbulan. Will you throw them against my people for the sake of one demon-possessed witch?” Moncriith raised his voice again to preaching tones.
    The thought of another battle exhausted Nimbulan. When would it stop?
    When the harmony of dancing lords is no longer disrupted by self-serving magicians, he thought. Moncriith was the one breaking the harmony this time. Where were the Bloodmage’s followers? Surely not in the hospital tent.
    “You dare condemn any healer? You who take lives to fuel your magic, dare condemn healers! Do your followers know how you fuel your magic?” Nimbulan aimed his words at the wounded more than at Moncriith.
    A wavering in the blue aura diverted Nimbulan’s attention. Something important was transpiring and he needed to investigate and study the phenomenon. He needed Ackerly at his back, protecting him, warning him of intruders.
    “I don’t hide what I am behind platitudes. I draw blood only from myself and my enemies. I never feed upon innocent lives like you do!” An odd light gleamed in Moncriith’s eyes as he turned his full attention on Nimbulan.
    Fear of Moncriith’s fanaticism swelled within him. This one man might charm half of Coronnan to his distorted view of magic.
    “Healers serve all who come to them in need. No matter which lord they serve.” Nimbulan fought the urge to back away from Moncriith’s fervent appeal.
    “Every true healer in Coronnan is occupied solely with the armies, Nimbulan. The common people have no one to turn to but demon-possessed witchwomen. Your healers do nothing but patch up and mend enslaved soldiers so that Battlemages, like yourself, can throw the men back into the wars. Endless wars. Needless wars.”
    Nimbulan’s vision of magicians manipulating lords flashed before him again.
    “Without healers, the death and carnage would be much worse.” Nimbulan ignored the idea that soldiers were slaves to the lords who recruited them—sometimes by force. “Men will fight with or without magicians to back them up. You threaten to renew the battle over one witchwoman. You are no different from any other Battlemage, Moncriith,” he said, half believing his own words. The other half lingered in the void with the vision of symmetry and peace—magicians standing away from the balanced, political dance of the lords.
    “With every true healer employed by the armies, you condemn the innocents of Coronnan to the mercy of demonic powers wielded by witchwomen,” Moncriith said. “Dangerous powers that risk the immortal souls of all of us. The witchwoman here, Myrilandel by name, a demon by birth, leads her sisters in this evil work. Only I can protect you, the men of Coronnan, from her.”
    For the first time, Nimbulan caught a glimpse of the woman at the core of the blue light. The power she wielded reached out to touch his own, begging him to add his strength to her spell.
    He coiled all traces of magic deep within him lest she taint it, or learn from it.
    Suddenly he realized the truth of Kammeryl’s accusation that magicians would never work together.
    “There are no such things as demons. They are the product of your overvivid imagination.” Nimbulan latched onto Moncriith’s latest argument. All his other defenses of his profession and colleagues were shaken to the core by the events of the last few hours.
    “You close your eyes to the evidence of demons because you have been bewitched by her. I see how your eyes linger on her false beauty. I see how your aura reaches out to join hers. If you, Nimbulan, and your ilk could do aught but lead innocent men into battle, you would oust the demons and keep them from destroying souls. You, Nimbulan. You are responsible for this carnage and the perversion of magic.”
     
    Myri awoke from her trance instantly alert to danger from Moncriith. No fire menaced her, and she lay on a soft mattress, not a pyre. She couldn’t relax beneath the warm furs that kept off most of the chill wind leaking