The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

now. Someone fetch the women. We will watch the sport together.”
    Golin bent to retrieve the tattered remnants of his clothes and his dignity.
    “No, Golin. No clothes for you. I need to know that you suffer torment and understand why you must endure.” She rubbed him with her dangerous hand. He didn’t fill it.
    Yaassima laughed.
    “He’s so scared he’ll be lucky to get it up again,” Kalen muttered.
    “Precisely,” Yaassima replied. “Come, Myri. You might enjoy this. You haven’t been with a man for many moons. Choose a partner, or several, whatever you desire. If you like, I can provide the means for you to play at being raped.” Her tone told everyone in the room this was an order rather than a suggestion.
    Yaassima clapped her hands. The floor groaned and shuddered. Slowly, the huge altar stone rose from its subterranean hiding place. Stone scraped on stone until the long slab of granite stood a little higher than Yaassima’s waist. A metal stake poked up from each of the four corners. Manacles for wrists and ankles dangled from each spike.
    Yaassima’s victim would rest in the place of sacrifice formerly reserved for offerings to Simurgh. Did Yaassima subject her own daughter to this humiliating torture before murdering her?
     
    “The tide is nearly out,” King Quinnault shouted with glee as he bounded up the steps to Nimbulan’s post on the battlements. Quinnault cradled his right arm in his left, rubbing the bicep and shoulder.
    Nimbulan raised his head from his crossed arms upon the wall. He blinked grit from his eyes. His deep concentration on the individual ships within the battle had also kept him from noticing the world beyond the tangling fishnets, broken hulls, his aching body, and the death of too many men. He had supervised the entire battle and left the throwing of magic to others. Still the exhaustion of maintaining communications dragged him close to unconsciousness.
    A gentle tug on his back, a lower pitch to the humming in his ears, a sense of weight in his knees, all told him of the shift in the forces of moon and water.
    He sensed no trace of the special stillness in the air that heralded dawn. He longed for the red-gold sunshine to bake the ache from his joints. His eyes were tired of straining through the green light of torches and witchfire.
    “You saved Coronnan this night, Magician Nimbulan.” Quinnault bowed deeply in respect, still holding his arm close to his body.
    “Thanks should go to you and your comrades, Your Grace,” Nimbulan replied as he surveyed the wreckage of the Rossemeyerian armada. “Are you hurt?” He reached a hand to touch the injury. Quinnault shied away from him.
    “I twisted or pulled something out of place.” He shrugged and winced painfully.
    “More than a muscle strain, Your Grace.” Nimbulan probed the tender spot with insistent fingers.
    “Some flying debris broke through the magical armor and bruised it. Then I had to grab the oars in a hurry when Leauman, my boatman, ducked too hastily. The strain pulled something,” Quinnault said through gritted teeth.
    “I don’t think you dislocated anything. Maybe a bruise to the bone. We’ll get a healer to look at it. I wish you hadn’t endangered yourself out on the Bay tonight. If you had been killed, Coronnan would be in dire straits, victory or no. You have no heir to succeed you.”
    Quinnault dismissed Nimbulan’s concern with a wave at the destruction out in the Bay. “My people needed to see me leading the charge. They fought harder alongside me than they would have if I’d been safely protected by stone walls—remind me later to reinforce that lesson with Konnaught. I’m tried of his scowls of disapproval.”
    “Lord Konnaught should have been exiled upon his father’s death,” Nimbulan grumbled.
    “He deserves the chance to grow into his rightful inheritance. I’d rather teach him to nurture the land and the people than punish him for his father’s tyranny,” Quinnault replied.
    The king stared out at the wreckage strewn across the moonlit bay before continuing. “We won’t be bothered by Rossemeyer again for a while. Ambassador General Jhorge-Rosse must now respect me as a warrior as well as a peacemaker. We’ll present a new treaty to him after we’ve slept.” He yawned hugely, then seemed to shake off his fatigue.
    “We should let him cool his heels for a day or two,” Nimbulan said. A day or two while he and his exhausted magicians slept and ate