Iron Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  If they knew that, then they might know there was an ice dragon, and that was counting on the fact that Therin hadn’t survived. If he had, then it was even more likely that they were aware of the ice dragon.

  Jason stood at the end of the tunnel.

  There was nothing more than a drop-off in front of him.

  An enormous gorge opened up. Far below, he could hear the sound of rushing water, and he imagined that the stream that originated in his mountain emptied out here, though he didn’t know if that was even possible. He did know the stream wrapped around, winding along the back face of the mountain. As it did, it gained additional power, flowing faster and faster before becoming a waterfall down to the base. As far as he knew, that would be where Therin had ended up, and if he had—and if he had survived—then Therin might know what had happened to him, how he had come to be encased in ice.

  Jason looked all around, focusing on the sense of the dragon.

  From here, there was enough of a chill to the air that he didn’t feel as if it were unsafe to summon the dragon. He thought that he could call to it, and in doing so, he could alert the dragon to the fact that he still lived.

  He pulled on power. He called slowly through the dragon pearl, letting that energy increase, growing in intensity. The more he pulled upon that power, the more he felt it flowing through him, and the more certain he was that there was something to it.

  At first, he detected nothing. The energy swirled around him, and Jason was certain something was there for him, but he didn’t know what it was.

  Gradually, that energy began to build, and he realized that it represented the dragon.

  It was getting closer.

  Movement in the sky caught his attention, and it surprised him that the dragon was much closer than he would’ve expected. It was swooping down, darting from high overhead, and it blended in with the gray skies.

  Then the dragon appeared before him.

  “I found one of your hatch mates,” he said.

  The dragon rumbled. “Where?”

  “Up near that city. You should know something, though.”

  “What should I know?”

  “The dragon isn’t anything like you.”

  “How is he?”

  “Much like you took on features of the ice and the mountains, this dragon took on features of this place.”

  “Such as what?”

  “He has taken on characteristics of the metal mined here.”

  He waited for the dragon to respond, and he worried about what response the dragon might have, but there was none.

  “I think you can fit down this tunnel, but it is going to be tight,” Jason said.

  There might be another way for the ice dragon to reach the iron dragon, but it involved taking a pathway that Jason didn’t fully know, and then he would run the risk of getting lost trying to reconnect with the iron dragon.

  “Move back,” the ice dragon said.

  He backed down the tunnel, and within a moment, the ice dragon squeezed into the mouth of the cave. As the dragon’s wings folded, he slid in, reminding Jason of how the iron dragon had slithered across the ground. The ice dragon pushed out with cold and the ground began to crackle, forming a slick surface. The dragon slid, forcing Jason in front of him.

  They moved with increasing speed, and the dragon glided all the way down through the tunnel. It was an interesting technique, and almost more impressive than the way the fire dragon had slid. At least with the ice dragon, there wouldn’t be any long-term effects for anyone to know that they had been here. The ice would melt, and there would be nothing more than water.

  They shot forward, and when they staggered free into the cavernous opening, Jason rolled to his feet, looking all around.

  Where was the iron dragon?

  He found no sign of it.

  10

  The ice dragon was near, and cold glowed from him.

  Jason held out the dragon pearl, drawing upon the power of the dragon, igniting the pearl so the cavern glowed with a soft white light.

  “He was here,” Jason said.

  “Could the others have reached him?”

  “There were Dragon Souls nearby, but we stayed ahead of them. They wouldn’t have been able to catch him.”

  The dragon rumbled and Jason looked around, a growing irritation filling him. Had he made a mistake? It was possible that he could have summoned the ice dragon from in here, and if he had done that, then nothing would have happened to the iron dragon.

  Would there be any way of detecting the heat from the iron dragon?

  It was possible, but perhaps not without a dragon pearl.

  He looked around, staring at the ground, and he found a small nugget of metal.

  When he crouched down in front of it, he realized it reminded him of a dragon pearl.

  The surface was smooth, still warm, and yet as he held it out, it was almost perfectly round, far more round than it should be for anything natural.

  He turned toward the ice dragon. “I think this is a dragon pearl from the iron dragon.”

  “Then something happened.”

  “That’s the only way a dragon pearl would be left?” Jason honestly didn’t know. When he had come across the ice dragon’s pearl, he had thought it had been intentional, but perhaps it had been left accidentally. If so, then this being left behind indicated that something was wrong.

  If that were the case, then Jason would need to focus. It was possible he could use the energy within the dragon pearl, and then maybe they would be able to determine what had happened to the iron dragon.

  He held on to the metal and focused on the heat within it, connecting to that heat which was within himself, and he strained.

  He might not be a full Dragon Soul, and he might only have a partial ability with that power, but he thought he should be able to reach for that heat. He had done so before, and that was when he wasn’t even that familiar with the dragon paired with this pearl.

  No sense of heat responded.

  It was emptiness. Nothing.

  Jason looked around. There were nearly a dozen different tunnels. The iron dragon could have gone through any of them. The Dragon Souls could have summoned the iron dragon, dragging him free, giving the dragon no choice but to follow. They had been lucky to escape, but perhaps they hadn’t really escaped as well as they had thought.

  He breathed out. “Do you have any way of detecting your hatch mates?”

  “He is near,” the ice dragon said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can feel him.”

  “If you can feel him, then tell him it’s all right to return.”

  The ice dragon rumbled.

  There was no response.

  Jason hadn’t really expected there to be, though he had been hopeful that there might be something. The longer he sat there, feeling the iron dragon pearl in his hand, the more he hoped there might be some way of using that power, and yet, he wasn’t at all surprised that there wasn’t.

  He thought about what he knew of the dragons and realized that the connection to the iron dragon would be different. It wasn’t just heat, it was that of molten metal. Jason might have a link to the other type of dragon pearl, but this dragon, and this pearl, was something else.

  He frowned to himself. Perhaps that was the point.

  He couldn’t connect through the iron dragon’s pearl. At least, not in that form.

  He held out the ice dragon pearl. Focusing on the energy within it, he borrowed power from the ice dragon and sent it surging into the pearl. As he did, the power flowed. It went slowly at first and then picked up intensity. It was almost as if the ice dragon had resisted, waiting to see what Jason might do. And all he was doing was sending energy skirting along the various pathways. He wasn’t attempting anything else, and he didn’t have the necessary control to do much else, but he thought that he might be able to hold on to what he could detect. And if he could, then perhaps he could uncover a sense of
the dragon.

  As he pushed outward, the power was uncontrolled. A circle of cold, and yet, he was aware of how it washed through the various tunnels. It radiated away from him, rolling down the tunnels, and as it did, Jason focused on it, feeling that power.

  There was something there.

  He turned, focusing on only one of the tunnels now. He continued to draw cold through the ice dragon, letting that power wash through him, toward the tunnel, and then beyond.

  In doing so, he thought he still felt something. At first, he wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but the more he pushed, the more certain he was that something resisted him.

  He nodded to the tunnel.

  The ice dragon nudged him and Jason climbed onto his back. They jumped and glided into the tunnel.

  Much like before, the ice dragon pushed out with cold and the ground formed a glaze around it that the dragon slid upon. Surprisingly, the dragon managed to slide upward almost as fast as he had slid down the tunnel. They glided, his wings folded in and wrapped around his body and power propelling them forward. Jason continued to hold on to the connection to the dragon pearl, the energy that flowed through him, and as he did, he was increasingly certain that there was something up here. He just had to reach it, though he wasn’t sure if he would be able to do so.

  He focused, sending energy forward, drawing upon the ice dragon.

  When it reached the resistance this time, Jason continued to push.

  It was a strange resistance, and he had no idea what it was, only that it was unpleasant, grating against him, as if it were unnatural.

  He pushed harder, using the power from the ice dragon, and found that wasn’t enough. He had to draw from within himself, and so he focused on some of the heat within him and pushed.

  It was always strange to Jason that he could use the ice dragon pearl by drawing on heat, but for whatever reason, he had managed to do so. He did so again now, letting that power flow outward.

  When it struck the resistance, he continued to push, recognizing that whatever he was feeling was unnatural, and he had to believe that he could overwhelm it. It would take force and strength, and yet he was convinced that he could do so.

  The resistance fell.

  They surged forward even faster.

  Somehow, whatever resistance was out there had restricted them from moving as quickly as they could otherwise, and now that the blockage was gone, the ice dragon practically streaked through the tunnel, like an arrow loosed from a bow.

  And then he saw a darkened shape in the distance.

  He tapped the ice dragon and they started to slow, but not nearly fast enough.

  The shape in front of them was blocking the tunnel, and as they streaked forward, they were going to hit it.

  Jason gripped the neck of the ice dragon. Had he not been experienced with riding on top of the iron dragon, he might not have known how to brace himself against the impact, but having done so, he recognized what he needed to do. Holding on to the ice dragon’s neck, he ignored the impact. When it struck, he rolled forward, tossed free of the ice dragon.

  He struck something hard, metallic.

  The iron dragon.

  He wasn’t glowing, not as he had before.

  But why was he here?

  The ice dragon got to his feet and rumbled, the sound of his irritation filling the inside of the cave, and yet Jason worried about how much notice the ice dragon might draw. It was possible he would be attracting far more attention to them than they wanted.

  The iron dragon stirred.

  Jason backed up against the wall of the cave. He hesitated, not wanting to move too far forward, not wanting to get in the way of the iron dragon if he were somehow controlled by the Dragon Souls, and yet there was no sense of that. The only sense he had was that of heat still radiating off the iron dragon, and yet, he understood that if the iron dragon were to awaken and summon his power, he could blast Jason with his heat.

  It was possible he could do the same thing to the ice dragon.

  It would be a dangerous—and deadly—combination.

  Jason crawled forward, holding on to the dragon pearl.

  When he reached the iron dragon’s head, he frowned, looking him over. The iron dragon had his eyes closed, and though he moved, he didn’t seem to do so with any real intention.

  What had happened here?

  He crawled past the iron dragon, moving down the hallway. He pushed a hint of cold into the dragon pearl, looking around, hesitating as he did, worried that perhaps he might draw too much attention, and he saw a pair of figures lying motionless on the ground.

  Jason approached slowly.

  He held out the dragon pearl, ready to push power through it, and yet he didn’t know if he would be able to overwhelm a Dragon Soul if it came down to it.

  There was still no movement.

  When he reached them, he saw that one had his neck twisted irregularly. He wasn’t getting back up. The other lay with his leg bent, obviously broken from the way the bone jutted through the skin, pressing up against the side of the dragonskin he wore.

  Jason kicked the man.

  There was a groan, but nothing else.

  They were both dressed similarly. They both had dark pants, a dragonskin cloak, and a jacket underneath that matched. One of the men had a medallion attached to his jacket, likely some signifier of rank, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to speak with Therin enough to know what the different ranks of Dragon Souls would be.

  He glanced back at the iron dragon, but the other creature hadn’t woken yet.

  Behind the iron dragon, the ice dragon rumbled.

  “I’m fine. There are two Dragon Souls here, but they’re both incapacitated.”

  The dragon rumbled again.

  “I’m going to search them.”

  “What do you expect to find?”

  “I don’t know. Money?” Jason laughed to himself. Money was basically useless in his village. They operated on trade and bartered what they could. Yet, as he searched through the pockets of the Dragon Soul, he found something even more valuable.

  Dragon pearls.

  The man had three of them, and Jason pocketed them.

  As he did, a different idea came to him.

  The man was roughly his same size. And there might be some benefit in wearing dragonskin rather than his bearskin.

  Before he did so, he decided it would be better to question the ice dragon as to whether the dragon would mind. If he did, then Jason wasn’t about to do so. He didn’t want to anger the ice dragon by putting on a dragonskin jacket.

  Checking to make sure the other man was still down, he hesitated a moment before peeling the cloak off, and then pulled off the man’s jacket. The man moaned as Jason undressed him, but he ignored it. He moved on to his pants, and at least here he was all the more careful, not wanting to cause too much pain. It would be bad enough that the Dragon Soul would wake up without dragon pearls and without his dragonskin clothing and find that he had no power remaining.

  As he pulled the pants off, he glanced down at the man’s boots.

  They were just as fancy, and also made of dragonskin.

  Was everything they wore dragonskin?

  He carried it back to the ice dragon. When he sat it down in front of the ice dragon, the dragon glanced over. “What do you think?”

  “You undressed him?”

  “His clothing. Would you be offended if I wore it?”

  “Why would I mind you wearing it?”

  “It’s dragonskin,” Jason said.

  The ice dragon rumbled, the sound filling the inside of the cave, and he flicked his tail. When he took a deep breath, he looked over at Jason, and then rumbled again.

  “Why would you wear this?”

  “The dragonskin offers some protection from heat. It provides some protection from the cold as well.”

  “I have offered you protection from the cold.”

  “You have,” Jason said, realizing tha
t the ice dragon had provided him far more protection than he had ever realized. “It’s about the heat. I find I have a harder time with it now than I ever did before. And there’s something else.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your dragonskin is impervious to weapons. At least, more so than my bearskin is.”

  Jason didn’t know what he might encounter, but having a dragonskin jacket and cloak might offer more protection than what he had otherwise. He could imagine the benefit it would provide.

  Then again, he didn’t want to upset his companion.

  “You may wear it.”

  Jason tipped his head.

  “I’m going to keep the bearskin jacket,” he said.

  “As you should,” the dragon said.

  Jason quickly changed, pulling off his jacket and pants, and slipped into the dragonskin clothing. It had been many years since he had tried on dragonskin, and he marveled anew at the suppleness of it. It fit remarkably well for clothing that wasn’t made for him, and when he slipped on the cloak, he could feel body heat clinging to him.

  He shifted the contents of his pocket, moving the dragon pearls from one to the other, and then made his way back up to the two fallen men. The now mostly naked man was starting to awaken, and Jason summoned power to the dragon pearl and released it on him. It exploded into him, knocking him out once again.

  He glanced at the dead man and frowned.

  There was a difference between the two. The dead man carried a sword.

  Jason unbuckled that and strapped it to his waist. The sword was only as long as his forearm and felt awkward, but that might be only because he was unaccustomed to wearing a sword.

  He debated a moment, but then stripped the dragonskin off him as well, folding it neatly, and carried it back to the ice dragon.

  “We’ll bring this with us, too.” He wrapped the bundle and tucked it under his arm.

  He moved back to stand in front of the iron dragon.

  The dragon remained unconscious, as if slumbering, and the longer they’d been here, the more Jason began to worry that something worse had happened to him. The Dragon Souls must have summoned him, and yet, now that they were gone, unconscious and dead, the summons should have abated; and yet the dragon still seemed affected.