The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

easier than trying to survive in Hanassa. Longing for Nimbulan and his friends in the Commune welled up in his throat, threatening to choke him.
    He swallowed the emotion. Any emotion was dangerous right now. He needed to maintain tight control of himself if he hoped to survive tonight.
    Once inside the hall, he remained close to the wall. Only his eyes moved. He peered into every crevice, nook, and shadow.
    The hideous stone altar, with its hand and foot manacles at each corner, rested flush with the floor now. Piedro didn’t know how to make it rise from its sunken position. The secret had died with Yaassima. The new Kaaliph still executed people, but the bloodletting lacked the aura of a religious ritual without the altar.
    If Piedro met an ignominious end in the near future, the worship of Simurgh might very well die with him.
    The tapestry behind the dais to Rollett’s left hung limp and tattered. Not enough of the peaceful alpine meadow with a waterfall scene remained to conceal an armed guard.
    The room seemed empty except for Rollett’s raiders.
    He signaled quiet to the seven men as he stepped from the shadows. Keeping his back to the walls, he circled the room to the far side where a smaller door lay hidden behind another tapestry—this one portrayed an orgy in vivid and obscene detail.
    All of his men waited for him to lead the way. Rollett paused and listened again. The interior corridor remained quiet and empty. He probed it with every mundane and magic sense available to him. But he didn’t trust those senses tonight. They should have roused at least ten guards by this time. None of them patrolled their usual routes or slept in their usual hiding places.
    Piedro had set a trap. Where?
    If his men didn’t need fresh food so desperately, he’d abandon the raid right here and now. By tomorrow night the new shipment would be moved somewhere more secure deep in the labyrinth of these caves. Rollett had yet to find that location. They had to steal the food tonight or not at all.
    Rollett pointed to his eyes and ears, warning his men to be extra alert. Then he gestured for them to follow him silently.
    The corridor sloped gently downward before curving to the right. Three smaller passageways opened on the left before they reached a major junction. The right-hand passageway sloped downward. The left continued straight ahead, level and wide open. From experience, they knew the easy path terminated in a dead end. He’d never explored to the right. The memory of the scent of fresh food drove him up the slope to the center.
    Rollett’s mouth began to salivate. He needed to run ahead and grab a handful of fruit and nuts. He could devour an entire ham by himself. Caution made him proceed slowly.
    As he approached the last twist in the corridor, he held up his hand to halt the men. Once more he listened with every sense available to him. Quiet. Too quiet.
    He waited through one hundred heartbeats. Still nothing. He listened for another one hundred heartbeats.
    This time he heard what had been missing in the rest of the palace complex, the sound of soft uneven breathing. Several men waited just inside the open door of the storeroom.
    Rollett held his breath. Did he dare go through with the raid? His stomach growled. They needed the food stored here.
    But something more was wrong than just the presence of the guards lying in wait. The storeroom smelled wrong. It smelled empty of food.
    The man just behind him shifted his posture forward. Rollett put out his hand to restrain him. Too late.
    “Food!” The three men behind him broke into a howling run, clubs raised.
    “Wait,” Rollett ordered. They ignored him, too desperate to listen to anything.
    He had no choice. He had to follow them into the trap, defend them any way he could. Staff raised, senses alert, he charged after his men. The remaining men in his gang unleashed daggers and boot knives as they, too, joined the fray.
    Lights flashed inside the storeroom, blinding the raiders. Rollett resisted the urge to cover his eyes with his hands. He had other senses to compensate for the dazzle blindness. His men didn’t have that advantage.
    Even before his vision recovered, Rollett knew the battle was hopeless. He heard the screams of dying men as he blocked a sword slash with his staff. The metal bounced off the hardened and twisted wood.
    Shadows took on substance before Rollett’s eyes. He flipped his staff end over end, catching the attacking guard