The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

fell victim to the wild and aggressive humans who hated and feared all they did not understand.
    Shayla nuzzled each of her babies, willing them all to live and grow. She had time to make a decision about the redundant purple-tip. Time to find a way to save both. Time to plot and persuade before dragonkind took drastic action.

Chapter 1
     
    Eighteen Years Later
     
    “D on’t do it, Keegan. Don’t try that spell, boy!” Nimbulan yelled across the din of the battle. He projected his words with magic above the noise of death and destruction.
    Keegan, Nimbulan’s former apprentice, ignored the command, if he heard it at all. On a slight mound, opposite the raging battle from Nimbulan, the young man wove his hands in a stylized, intricate pattern.
    “That spell draws its symmetry from stars that disappear at midnight! Dawn is but a few heartbeats away.” Nimbulan tried once more to warn his opponent. He climbed onto the stump of a tree that had been blasted by magic gone awry during a battle on this same field nearly twenty years before. No one had survived the fires then. Neither would they survive Keegan’s spell.
    False dawn shimmered on the horizon, barely discernible beyond the witchlight that illumined the two armies battling between the mages. If Keegan continued to weave his magic one heartbeat past sunrise, the spell would go rogue with disastrous results.
    Keegan’s chant became a steady, rhythmic incantation. It slid under and around the noise of seasoned troops slashing and hacking at each other. Nimbulan watched as Lord Hanic’s men wielded their weapons in time with the words of the spell chanted by Keegan. The front line of Lord Kammeryl’s troops sagged and gave ground in the same rhythm. Nimbulan thought furiously about how to protect Kammeryl’s men. He had to stop Keegan’s spell before it drew too much power from the sun, rather than a balance of moon and stars.
    All day and most of the night the battle had raged. Keegan’s spell was a desperate attempt to tip the balance.
    Nimbulan ran the words of the spell past his memory. Keegan had said them correctly. The spell would begin as planned. Keegan sought to encase Nimbulan and his army in a stasis field, unable to move or protect themselves. Lord Hanic’s smaller army could then slaughter Lord Kammeryl’s troops at leisure. If the spell worked.
    But the light of the sun was so much stronger than the stars. Keegan’s magic would distort and destroy all of them. “No, Keegan. No,” Nimbulan moaned.
    Perverted by the fading moon and stars, the stasis field would freeze all life within ten leagues, including the grass, air, and river. Nimbulan’s belly chilled at a vision of winds from all of Kardia Hodos rushing to fill the vacuum created by the spell. Tornadoes, dry hurricanes, all manner of catastrophic storms would wreak havoc across half the planet.
    Keegan was too young and too arrogant about his talent to realize the dangers of his actions. He wanted only to win this battle.
    “I can’t let you do it, Keegan,” Nimbulan mumbled as he rammed his staff into the Kardia to steady his own spell. He raised his left hand, palm outward, fingers slightly curved to weave the energy of the Kardia. Trickles of magic power meandered up the twisted grain of wood into his palm. Not enough. The ley lines that fed his magic were empty. He needed fuel for his inborn magic talent.
    Nimbulan snapped his fingers impatiently. A fat green leaf with pink veins appeared in his hands. A leaf of the Tambootie, the tree of magic. He licked the essential oils from the veins and spine as his mind formed words and images of a great wall surrounding Keegan.
    Fire burst upon Nimbulan’s tongue. He chewed the leaf eagerly. Colors sang through his blood and into his eyes. Ugly sounds of battle faded, and the Tambootie took hold of his talent. His raised palm tingled, ready to weave his magic into a protective spell.
    Keegan completed the last hand motions and singsong words. The chant lingered in the air just below hearing level.
    Power began to vibrate within Nimbulan. Time slowed.
    Keegan wound a spell into a tight wad and drew back his arm to hurl his magic outward with all the might of his youthful body.
    Nimbulan’s invisible wall rose out of the depths of the Kardia.
    Keegan’s spell crashed into it. Power erupted. The shield buckled. Sparkling shadows flitted along the wall.
    Thunder rolled. Lightning flashed. Sparks flew in all directions. A crack