The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

drifting sleep at the pressure of his hand over her mouth. She nodded briefly to acknowledge her understanding of the need to say nothing. He removed his hand slowly. Reluctantly? Did his fingertips truly caress her cheek and mouth?
    “Our former caravan leader is scouting the perimeter of the camp. I don’t want him to see which way we travel.”
    “The pack beast?” Miranda mouthed the words.
    “Tethered away from the other animals.”
    “Will he protest?” They both grinned at the thought of the trouble the stubborn beast could cause them if he chose.
    “I know a few tricks.”
    Miranda rose from her bedroll, careful not disturb her still sleeping daughter. Gently, she wrapped the baby in the covers and carried her to where Zebbiah indicated the pack beast waited.
    At first she couldn’t see the animal, only smell his dusty hide. Then, in the predawn stillness, she heard the click of teeth snapping at a tuft of grass just ahead of her, on the other side of the scraggly bush of d’vil’s weed. The thorny vines had a tendency to reach out and grab unwary passersby and cling, and twine, and choke, and infect. The stuff grew everywhere that men had not burned it out and poisoned the roots.
    How to get through the bush to the pack beast? Serve the obnoxious creature right for getting caught in the mass. It might starve before they could untwine all the branches and drop them in the campfire.
    A flash of eldritch blue fire brightened the entire sky to the south. Miranda ducked, putting her back between the fire and her baby. She tried to cover her head from the unholy beings that might swoop down on them out of that fire. She tried to make the cross of the Stargods, but found her movements hampered by her burden.
    Jaranda whimpered from being clutched so tightly.
    Miranda settled for flapping her crossed wrists, hoping the antique ward against evil was sufficient protection.
    The camp erupted in screams and flailing limbs. Men ran in opposing directions. Women crashed into each other as they tried to escape the eldritch light.
    The former leader stumbled into their midst thrashing his arms about, his back aglow with blue flames that did not consume his shirt or skin.
    Miranda wanted to run, too. Where? Masses of d’vil’s weed blocked her path. She could escape only into that terrible blueness.
    The Zebbiah was beside her. “Good girl. You didn’t panic.”
    Swallowing the lump in her throat, she glared at him. “Why didn’t you warn me this was but a Rover trick?”
    “Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.” He grinned, flashing his magnificent white teeth. “This way.” He waved toward the pernicious vines that grew thick between them and the pack steed.
    “How?”
    He grinned again and swept the vines aside with one arm. Strangely, they did not cling to his shirt or dig sharp spines into his flesh.
    “Another Rover trick?” She eyed the vines suspiciously.
    “Rover magic.”
    This time she did cross herself, no longer sure she could trust him. Or wanted to.

Chapter 29
     
    “D o you think we should go back to the library and investigate?” Marcus asked Robb and Vareena. They were lounging around the well, listening to the bees feast on the blossoms of hundreds of overgrown herbs and flowers. No other sound penetrated the high walls. Marcus’ fingers itched to get in there and start pulling weeds, pruning, and thinning.
    He decided that when he had a place to call his own, he’d spend lots of time in an herb garden, meditating as he worked.
    Maybe his restlessness pushed him to work among the growing things. Maybe this half-death made him long for contact with living things.
    He needed to confront the ghost, throw the name of Ackerly at it, give it a chance to tell its story. But he also wanted Robb to be the one to find the answers. He deserved that. He’d been right. They had to make their own luck and opportunities.
    The villagers, led by Uustaas, had left them enough food for a week. They didn’t need extra blankets in the warmer weather, and the villagers had no reason to leave their work just to amuse two ghosts and their keeper. Vareena had turned her back to her brother and refused to speak to any who tried to break down her wall of silence.
    When the outsiders had left—most of them with unseemly haste—Marcus had seen tears in her eyes. He wanted to hold her in his arms and chase the tears away with kisses. But the barrier of energy had repulsed him quite