The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

the water deep enough to drown the men. The storm that pushed the tide intensified the swells.
    The witchfire continued to burn underwater. The few men who managed to shed shields and swords and all-concealing robes couldn’t shed the flames that burned clear to the bone.
    Nimbulan bit his lip, suppressing his own agony as many men died. Each death diminished him as a man because he was the instrument of their destruction. He’d organized similar scenes too often. There had to be a better way.
    Once again he had proved himself the best Battlemage in all of Coronnan. Hundreds of men died at his command.
    Enemies, he told himself.
    (Men,) a voice in the back of his head reminded him.
    “Never again,” he vowed. “I will not do this again. Somehow we must find peace from invasion as we found an end to the Great Wars of Disruption. I have to make Battlemages obsolete.”
    (You need Myrilandel to complete yourself and your work.)
     
    Myri trudged into the Hall of Justice on the ground floor of Yaassima’s palace. She stifled a yawn behind her hand. True sleepiness, not a stupor induced by drugs this time. She tucked away the tiny vial of powder she’d stolen from Haanna, Yaassima’s maid, before the woman could sprinkle it over Myri’s supper. She had substituted plain salt for the drugs. Her meal had tasted vile with too much salt, and she’d been thirsty all night. But her mind was clear of the drugs.
    Myri’s arms felt strangely empty without Baby Amaranth. She’d placed the sleeping infant into a back cradle while she and Kalen answered the peremptory summons of the Justice Bell. She would never leave Amaranth alone with Maia, who now slept on a pallet at the foot of Myri’s bed.
    The Rover woman had not roused in answer to the loud bell. She and Myri hadn’t exchanged a single word since her arrival.
    A sense of dread pushed away the last of Myri’s predawn sleepiness. A crowd of men in various states of undress huddled near the doorway, awaiting Kaalipha Yaassima. Their unease became Myri’s as she absorbed their fears.
    She recognized some of the elite guard who owed loyalty only to Yaassima. The Kaalipha tended to overlook infractions of her arbitrary rules among these guards. The same action from someone else brought swift execution.
    Myri’s attention centered on a slouched figure in the center of the group. A man on either side seemed to be holding him up by the arms. His head bent nearly to his waist, hiding his face. Myri knew the pain in his belly where he’d been punched with a fist or the butt end of a spear.
    Behind her, Kalen gasped and clung for balance to a tapestry wall covering. “Powwell.” She mouthed the name.
    Myri snapped her attention back to the prisoner. Other than the auburn-tinged hair, she had no clues to the man’s identity. Too much of her talent was bound up in her baby to extend beyond basic emotions broadcast by others. She trusted Kalen’s instincts.
    She had all her children in view. Now all she had to do was lead them out of Hanassa. Getting Powwell safely away from Yaassima would be the hard part.
    ‘What crime did this boy commit?” Yaassima appeared on the dais without warning. She hadn’t been there a heartbeat ago. Where did she come from?
    The Kaalipha clapped her hands. The torches dimmed. Panels in the ceiling came to life, replacing the flickering green flames with a brighter, more golden glow.
    “How’d she do that?” Kalen asked, eyes wide.
    “I don’t know, and she won’t tell,” Myri replied, keeping her eyes on Powwell. Other than the ache in his belly he seemed healthy and fit.
    Where were the exits? She marked each visible portal into the Justice Hall.
    “Tell the man’s crime so that I can dispense swift justice.” Yaassima’s voice swelled to fill the room over and above the babble of fearful men.
    “Kaalipha.” A man stepped forward and knelt, touching his forehead to the floor.
    Myri recognized him as Nastfa, the guard who had carried her to Yaassima’s suite that first day in Hanassa. He wore black trews less ragged than some inhabitants of Hanassa, and an almost clean linen shirt. If he dared speak, he must have some authority over the men assembled behind them. Myri already knew that Yaassima trusted him more than most of the elite corps that always surrounded her. Some of them were fully clothed, as if they had just come from guard duty. The others wore bits and pieces of hastily donned uniforms.
    “Speak, Nastfa.”