The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (12 page)

“Val!” Lillian called from the other end of the caravan. “Val, where are you? I can’t find you.”

Valeria jerked back into her own body and solitary mind with a jolt that made her bones ache and stabbed pain behind her eyes. She blinked rapidly in the too-bright sunlight and fought her roiling stomach for control. Not quite solitary. Lillian was in her head, as she always was, just a thought away. Letting that presence grow soothed her aches and comforted her appetite. But a hunk of jerked meat would certainly taste wonderful right now.

“Ah, there you are, Val.” Lillian bounced toward her, all smiles and bounding energy.

“Lily, we have to talk. Alone. Where Lady Ariiell cannot listen in with either her ears or her mind,” Val said beneath her breath, knowing Lillian would hear no matter how far away.

“Oh?” Lillian paused, hand to her mouth in surprise.

“I need your help. I need you to observe what happens at your end of the caravan.”

“Observe? Oh,
observe
.” She took Valeria’s arm and led her away from the wagons and shouting people who stacked boxes and trunks atop resting sledges preparing for the day’s journey. Their steps took them toward the line of steeds amiably grazing on the meadow grasses a quarter the way around the small lake.

Val noted that the bard stroked the noses of two sledge steeds that listed on one foot, half dozing under his caresses. She checked over her shoulder for Ariiell’s presence. She’d moved her stool closer to the campfire, half turned to keep an eye on the miggenberry bushes. Her aura looked tightly closed, keeping stray magic out, and her own in. Lady Graciella stretched her legs, wandering aimlessly between her litter and the nearest fire while she spooned tiny bites of cereal toward her mouth. If she ate any of it, Val couldn’t tell, as she didn’t seem to swallow.

“We’re safe here,” Val said, tugging on her twin’s arm to keep her from getting closer to the bard. His sea-blue aura tinged with a bit of green didn’t seem to quest outward in search of stray conversations. From this distance she couldn’t tell if any magic hid within the gentle waves of color.

Lillian cast a lingering glance toward the bard.

“You can talk to him while we travel. Ask him to sing to Graciella. Maybe music will ease her craving for rosehips.”

“Oh.” Her face sank into a disappointed frown. “Oh!” She brightened and turned her attention back to Val.

“Now listen carefully. I need you to watch beyond the people and sledges. I need you to note any animals that seem to be following us and alert me the moment you think you see something.”

Valeria flooded her sister’s mind with her earlier encounter with Ariiell and what she had observed while in a near trance.

A half-smile quirked up on Lillian’s face. “What if I ask Skeller to sing something that will entice the enemy out of the shadow, into the light of day? That way we know who and what we are dealing with.”

“No!” Val nearly shouted. “You are not to involve the bard in this. If you see something, let me know and I’ll alert Da. It’s too dangerous to do more.”

“Oh. But we aren’t supposed to contact Da at all on journey, unless what we find endangers all of Coronnan.”

“The cat and the weasel do endanger all of Coronnan. You can’t let your interest in the bard overshadow your interest in your mission.”

“You don’t understand . . .”

“I think I do. Your thoughts are mine and mine are yours. But he comes from elsewhere, his hair is short and loose, his accent more clipped and nasal than ours. We don’t know him. We can’t trust him.”

Valeria watched as the young man lifted his head from the attention of the steeds and stared right at her, as if acknowledging every word she had said.

“We can’t trust anyone then.” Lillian frowned in deep disappointment.

“No one but ourselves. And Lukan. But he hasn’t summoned us in several days. I think . . . I think I should try to reach him tonight.” Val steered her sister back toward camp, keeping a bit of her attention on the bard who watched their every step.

S
KELLER WATCHED the
sisters walk away from him. They stayed at an angle so that the little one could watch him through narrowed eyes. She’d kept her side to him the whole time they talked so that he couldn’t read their lips—a skill common to bards.

Deep dislike and distrust rose in him like burning gall from his empty stomach. As much as he enjoyed Lillian, her sister seemed the exact opposite in disposition.

He stroked the long nose of the adoring steed one more time. “Do you have a name?” he asked the beast idly.

The steed responded with a snort and a nibble on his loose, shoulder-length hair. He’d have to let his muddy brown curls grow if he stayed in Coronnan longer than the length of the journey. He’d like to find a land that did not accept violence as a natural part of every day. That attitude was becoming too common in Amazonia after a millennium of striving for peace and harmony among governments as well as individuals. Heated arguments rarely stood long after a public debate. When violence did erupt, the perpetrators were sentenced to exile in the desert interior of the Mabastion, the Big Continent. When faced with a dire struggle to survive, disputes became trivial.

He’d become a bard as much for the freedom of escaping home and the increasing violence, both political and personal. Confining his hair in the cage of a braid, like the locals, seemed a symbol of all that he’d run away from.

Champion
, came into his head from nowhere, along with an image of a sleek, white, fleet steed rearing proudly to defend his herd of mares.

“Is your name Champion?” Not at all fitting for the steed Garg called Lazy Bones. He ducked out from under the steed’s burly neck and held the chin with both hands so he could look into its eyes. The image in his head was of a smaller-boned animal without this one’s bulk or height at the shoulder. A fleet steed, intelligent and nimble, suitable for riding, not a sledge steed that moved at a plodding gait suitable only for hauling heavy loads and answering to simple directions.

It was also intact, not gelded.

A sense of affirmation flooded him as Champion lifted his head and jerked it down again. Then he began nibbling at the curls atop Skeller’s head, not minding at all that he left it loose.

“You’re impossible.”

“You got that right,” Garg muttered, approaching the herd with steed collars and harnesses. “Dreamy-eyed lout. He’s strong but lazy. Keep singing to him and we might keep him awake long enough to get where we’re going.”

Skeller wanted to ask where they were going but knew that would raise questions. Anyone who attached themselves to a caravan should know the destination ahead of time. His tutors, when he still lived at home and his father had hopes higher for him than becoming a lowly bard, had taught him to approach an issue sideways when he didn’t want to be obvious.

“Do you know anything about the lady in the brightly colored litter? She looks very young.” Not much older than Lillian, but drawn and pale and . . . sad.

“Only that we’re diverting to Castle Saria to deliver her. Normally wouldn’t climb that dangerously narrow ridge to the cliff top. Bloody awful trek it be. To the ugliest and dreariest castle in all of Coronnan. Built right into the mountain face, of rock quarried out of the cliff to make room for it. Heard tell the main gate is only a false front. The living portion is actually in caves deep within the mountain. Impregnable with a view across the sea nigh onto the Big Continent.”

The Big Continent.
Mabastion
. Where Amazonia presided over the largest deep-water harbor on the entire coastline, with good roads deep into the grain fields of the interior. Amazonia where Lokeen looked for a new young wife among the noble daughters of Coronnan.

“And the lady herself?” Skeller prodded. “She’s quite pretty.”

“If you like ’em vague and obedient.”

The way Lokeen liked his mistresses as well as his wife.

“Give me a gal with some meat on her bones and some fire in her eyes. Like that cute little sunrise blonde hired to companion the lady.” Garg nudged Skeller with an elbow and a wink.

“Yes,” Skeller replied. He liked Lillian well enough, happy to have found a voice that could match his in song. “About that girl . . . she seems familiar with country ways and dresses quite plainly for a lady’s companion.” She also claimed to talk to dragons.

The drover shrugged and draped the harness and collar around Champion. “Overheard Lord Jaylor, the head magician, telling caravan master that the two girls companioning the ladies were to be respected and their requests treated as orders from him. Figure they spent some time at the University up in the mountains, away from civilization.”

Skeller wanted to scuttle away from contact with magicians and magic. Until his father’s spymaster brought magic to Amazonia, they’d done well enough without it. Why wait for a servant to fetch a magician to light a candle when he could do the same with flint and steel in a matter of moments?

Champion sidled, nearly pushing Skeller off his feet.

“Easy, Champion. Easy,” Skeller soothed him, half singing the words. “Yes you have to put up with the collar. You have to earn all that expensive grain you gobble down.” He added a few chin scratches. “Is there a raw spot right about . . . ?” Skeller felt for the spot between the shoulder blades that matched the itch in his own. “Here!”

“Well, I’ll be . . .” The drover immediately removed the collar and fished in his belt pouch for a clay pot full of aromatic salve. He rubbed a generous portion into the sore spot.

Champion sighed and let his knees relax, dropping his head back onto Skeller’s shoulder.

“Get off me, you great, heavy brute,” Skeller admonished on a laugh. “No more lullabies for you, Lazy Bones. Bright and lively marching songs only.”

Champion sighed and supported his own weight while the drover made adjustments to the tack so it wouldn’t rub the wrong way.

“Go get you some breakfast, boy. I’ll deal with the team. Champion you called him? Then Champ he be. Appreciate you walkin’ nearby to keep this lazy lout putting one foot in front of the other just to follow you.”

“I will.” But he’d keep the same position in today’s march to watch the lady in the litter.

And her companion Lillian. Maybe over the campfire tonight he could glean a bit more information about the lady headed toward Castle Saria with its protected landings and view across the ocean toward Amazonia.

And maybe a bit more about Lillian. If her sister left her alone long enough.

He’d ask questions about the sister and her lady later. For the moment Lillian’s lady seemed the best candidate for his father’s plots. Plots that must be thwarted.

“Come, my lady, you need to walk about a bit,” Lillian said, offering her arm to Graciella before she could climb into the litter. The drovers hadn’t even harnessed the steeds to the poles yet.

“But we are leaving,” Graciella protested, hands clutching her skirts and one foot lifted to rest on the mounting box.

“Not yet, my lady. See, the lead sledge is delayed.” Lillian pointed toward the head of the caravan where a steed reared and fought the heavy collar meant to ease the load he carried away from his neck and onto his shoulders and back.

“Oh.” Graciella put her right foot back on the ground. “I’m tired. I did not sleep well last night,” she added sullenly.

“You’ll be in the litter all day, dozing. Same as yesterday. You need to stir yourself. Come walk with me. I’ll hold your arm to steady you.” Lillian offered her crooked arm to the lady.

Graciella heaved a great sigh. “If I must. But my Lord Jemmarc would not force me to walk. It might stir the bleeding again.”

“A walk might balance your blood so it is not so thin.” Lillian tugged at her charge to move her away from the impatient drovers and stamping steeds. Even Master Lazy Bones, the steed that loved to rest his head on Skeller’s shoulders, seemed eager to move forward rather than stand still and adore the bard.

She aimed Graciella along the lake edge. A fish jumped toward a flying insect and plopped back into the water. Lillian paused to admire the silvery sheen of the scales in the morning light. Graciella jumped at the noise and edged behind Lillian, away from the water.

“Water frightens you?” she asked, moving again, parallel to the water’s edge, where it lapped the sandy shore in gentle movements.

“Have you ever seen the waves crashing ashore among the rocks and shoals beneath Castle Saria?” Graciella looked a little paler than usual.

Lillian shook her head. “The closest I’ve been to the sea is the bay shore near Coronnan City. A storm was sweeping in from the east and some of those waves were tall and impressive.”

“Not like the ocean meeting sharp rocks, crushing you between the water and the knife-sharp edges that will slice you to ribbons.” Graciella shuddered and took two steps farther away from the water’s edge.

“I promise you, my lady, this little lake is not dangerous. ’Tis not even very deep. You’d have to work at drowning in it.”

Graciella kept shaking her head and aiming their steps up toward the uneven, but solid ground above the sandy shore.

Lily felt the same great weight and trembling within her chest and mind that Graciella did. Her empathy reached out, needing to share the manifestation of the fear if not the cause.

But she had to understand the fear to banish it.

What frightened this girl who’d been removed from the protection of her family home very young and thrust into the role of wife, stepmother, and lady of a great estate? There was something more in her fear than the uncertainty of rapidly changing circumstances.

Lillian wished, not for the first time, for her twin’s talent of reaching into a mind and soothing fears. She had to settle for gentle words to ease this girl’s troubles.

“Did you get caught beneath such a wave?” she asked, barely above a whisper, allowing a bit of awe and fear to tinge her voice.

“No. Not me.”

“But you saw someone?”

“Lord Jemmarc’s son, Lucjemm, told me how in the old days Lord Krej would chain criminals to one of those rocks so tightly their backs bled, and then wait and watch while the tide rushed in. Even without a storm pushing them, the waves were huge. Reaching halfway up the cliff, lashing everything in their path. Drowning anyone caught in the water even with a boat. But he was cruelest when he weakened and loosened the chains, knowing the prisoner had a chance to escape. But if he broke free, the waves would toss him about until the rocks shredded him. . . .” She buried her face in her hands and retreated farther away from the water.

“From what I’ve heard about Lucjemm, he threatened you with that punishment if you did not obey him,” Lillian whispered.

Either Graciella did not hear or ignored her.

A new thought, a horrible one, landed right beside that one. What had Lucjemm demanded of his new stepmother that warranted such punishment if she did not obey?

Lillian fortified herself with a deep lungful of air as she sought to center herself and anchor her awareness in the Kardia. Her senses remained right where they were. Val’s would expand until she merged first with the land then stretched out as far as the stars, possibly allowing her mind to soar with dragons. Steady breathing helped Lillian sort her thoughts even though she didn’t touch a dragon mind.

“Look, my lady, a dwarf flusterfoot plant.” She pointed toward a cluster of broad reddish leaves with strong green spine and veins. “Don’t see them often in the wild. Mama grows them in a corner of her kitchen garden.”

“The greens will be good alongside whatever inedible stew the drovers prepare for our supper,” Graciella said, peering curiously at the plant, her fears momentarily forgotten.

“The roots in the stew as well. Thick chunks will satisfy much better than any meat the cooks might throw in,” Lillian said. She drew her utility knife from her belt pack and began loosening the soil around the leaf crown. The roots would also help thicken Graciella’s blood, balance her from the excess of rosehips. Red meat might help too, but she couldn’t contemplate the loss of a life just to feed the lady when plants did just as well.

“I don’t like flusterfoot roots,” Graciella announced proudly and strode back toward the litter with her head held high, as if born to the semiroyal line she’d married into.

“Don’t you want to save your baby?” Lillian almost shouted at her.

Every word of their conversation seemed to etch into her mind with hot acid.

Maybe Graciella did want to lose her baby, because she didn’t know for certain if her husband Jemmarc or her stepson Lucjemm had fathered it. Maybe reaching for rosehips all day every day was her way of shaking it loose, before it got too close to her heart, too big to discard safely.

“Maybe I should let you continue on this self-destructive course,” she whispered. “But if I do, you’ll likely bleed to death in the process.”

She returned to digging the big red root free of its grip on the soil, whispering apologies to the spirit of the plant for disrupting its growth cycle. “You’re getting flusterfoot tonight and every night, Lady Graciella, until I know for certain you will not die, even if you do lose the baby.”