SOLVED. YA fantasy trilogy with sea otters [s]

[ambyr]

Well, last time posting helped jog my memory, so I figure I'd try it again.

There was a series of YA books (I think a trilogy) that I read some time in the 1995-1998 range. There was magic, there was great evil, there were kingdoms and politics and a whole bunch of fairly generic stuff that I barely remember--and then there were the sea otters. I don't remember if they spoke per se or not (possibly they were telepathic?), but they had human-level intelligence and their own community, and the human protagonist took shelter with them for quite a while, maybe an entire book? I think one of the covers had a sea otter on it, too.

Ring any bells?

[Michelle Mulford]

Nightpool by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. The trilogy is called the Dragonbards.

Thanks for bringing these books up; I love them, and looking them up on Amazon shows that they are now available on Kindle for cheap!

[ambyr]

Yes! That's it! Thank you!