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

by D. K. Holmberg

  Power surged from somewhere overhead.

  The ice dragon recognized what was needed. And he gave his power willingly.

  It washed out from Jason and into David. The power continued to roll through the man, and David sucked in a sharp breath.

  Jason crawled away, reaching the iron dragon. He rested on his side, holding the ice dragon pearl up against it. Would it even work on a dragon like this?

  The ice dragon didn’t give him an opportunity to think about it too much. He sent power shooting through him in another sheet of ice lightning, and it arced from the sky and down into the dragon pearl and then outward into the iron dragon.

  It flowed through him, melting into the dragon.

  It was different than what the ice dragon had done for David, but it was enough that the iron dragon began to rumble.

  Jason sighed with relief. He was going to save the iron dragon. And David.

  He rested on the iron dragon’s side, barely able to move.

  Laughter behind him caught his attention, and Jason lifted his weary head.

  Therin strode toward him. He was dressed in dragonskin, a pin on his cloak similar to the one Jason wore on his stolen dragonskin. The beard he’d sported when he had visited the village was shaved, giving him a sharp and angular jaw, and color rose within his high cheekbones.

  “Look at you. Everything you’ve done, and now you dress like us? I could have brought you back to Lorach. Had you only wanted to, you could have been celebrated.”

  Jason didn’t have the strength within him to argue.

  “And now you’ve brought me this dragon.” His gaze flicked high overhead. “And the ice dragon. You didn’t think I would find him, but I knew. I was always going to return. He is quite a bit more than I ever would’ve imagined.” He crouched down and looked Jason in the eye. “When word came to me of the dragon in Varmin, I didn’t think it would be real, and yet more and more rumors continued to roll out of there. And then the Auran thought to get involved. It was a mistake, and it’s one I will rectify now.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jason asked, his voice weak. He barely had the strength to keep his head up.

  “Why do you even care?”

  “Leave the dragons. They can’t be used by you.”

  “All dragons can be trained.”

  Jason held his head up, sucking in a deep breath. He was tired. So tired. “Not these. I made it so that they can’t. Try your red dragon. You can’t train him anymore, either.”

  “The red dragon died,” Therin said.

  Jason’s heart sunk. He was responsible for it. He was the one who had torn away whatever he’d detected. Because of him, the red dragon had plummeted to his death.

  Wouldn’t it have been better to allow the dragon to live, regardless of how Therin might have used it?

  Perhaps it didn’t matter. Not anymore. All that mattered was that he was here.

  Maybe he could use whatever of his power was remaining to stop Therin. Perhaps he could remove him as a threat, and in doing so, he might be able to delay what was coming.

  And he had freed some of the dragons. More than anything else, Jason understood that was beneficial. He had done something that others had not, had fixed a wrong.

  Therin started toward David, unsheathing his sword.

  Jason held out the dragon pearl, and he pushed power through himself.

  When it struck Therin, he jerked upright. He turned toward Jason. “You would rather have me finish with you first? Fine. I will do that. But you should know I will not take pity on you. You have destroyed plans years in the making and very nearly disrupted everything that we have worked for.”

  “I’m going to keep disrupting it.” He drew on more power, letting it out toward Therin.

  It washed over him harmlessly.

  Therin stood there, heat radiating from him. He was calling on the power of his own dragon pearl.

  Jason wasn’t going to be able to overwhelm him.

  Therin had knowledge, and not only that, he had more power than Jason possessed. He was able to outmaneuver him, and he had far more experience than Jason.

  Jason tried again, using the cold, drawing through the ice dragon pearl, but nothing happened. There was power, but it didn’t do anything to Therin.

  “You could have been useful,” Therin said.

  “I don’t want to be useful to you.”

  “And now you’re wasting your opportunity.”

  “I’m not wasting anything. I’m doing what needs to be done.”

  “By dying?”

  Therin approached, and Jason shifted. Pain tore through him. His leg throbbed and he could not even move.

  He had spent so much time and energy ensuring that the others were healed, he hadn’t paid any attention to trying to restore himself. And that was a mistake. He should have tried to help himself, to use whatever power he could summon and find some way of healing his leg before it got to this point, but now there was nothing left.

  And the worst part of it was that Therin seemed to know. He watched Jason, smiling, and power emanated from him, trickling away from him, but nothing more than that. It was almost as if he were playing with Jason. Toying with him.

  “How do you want to suffer?”

  “You won’t be able to use the dragons. I’ve protected them.”

  “You might have thought you protected them, but you know so little. We have centuries of experience with dragons. Anything you think that you have done will fail. The dragons will be mine.”

  Anger filled Jason. “They aren’t yours to claim.”

  Therin leaned close, laughing darkly. “If only that were true.”

  Power built from him. Jason reached into his pocket, fumbling for one of the dragon pearls, and came across the iron dragon pearl. The iron dragon was resting, healed, but would there be enough power within him?

  The kind of power that came from the iron dragon was different than what came from the ice dragon, and yet, Jason didn’t know how much energy the iron dragon had used for his evasive flight pattern. It was possible the crash had taken too much out of the iron dragon.

  What choice did he have but to try?

  Jason clutched the pearl and focused.

  In this case, he focused on his anger at what Therin promised to do to the dragons. He focused on the way that Therin intended to use them, and he focused on the power he knew was within himself.

  There was an anger within him.

  It had always been there, and yet he never let it out. He kept it confined. Living in the village, powerless as he often was, there was no way to unleash that rage. And having been around the iron dragon, having known what it had experienced, Jason recognized it.

  It wasn’t the same as the ice dragon. That was a sense of home. This was a sense of rage at what he’d gone through, anger at what others had done to him. And because of that anger, Jason knew that he could pull upon it.

  The iron dragon started to glow softly.

  It diverted enough of Therin’s attention that Jason pulled on power, summoning it through the iron dragon.

  As he did, he forced that power from him. It exploded through the dragon pearl and slammed into Therin.

  It sent Therin flying. He crashed on the far side of the clearing.

  Jason watched, but he didn’t get up.

  He breathed out heavily. “Thank you.”

  The dragon rumbled softly.

  He tried to move his leg, but he couldn’t.

  “Is there any way for me to heal myself?”

  A surprising voice answered.

  “You would have to draw power through the pearl and into yourself. You can use it that way.”

  “David?”

  David stood several yards away. His hands were clasped in front of him and he swayed as if unsteady. A gash on his face that Jason hadn’t noticed before had started to heal.

  “Try to draw that power through you. I would offer, but I don’t know that you would tru
st me.”

  At this point, Jason wasn’t sure who to trust, and David was as good as anyone. David had been a part of this.

  Jason focused on the energy of the cold. He thought of the experience he had with the ice dragon. He thought of his home.

  He drew that power through him.

  He gasped.

  The cold was overwhelming, almost more than he could handle.

  It forced him to spasm, and his entire body straightened as he struggled against the power passing through him.

  Jason cried out. The only thing that he could think of was to try to hold on. Pain surged through him. It was cold and hot at the same time.

  And then it retreated. As it did, the pain within him began to draw away.

  He let out a shaky breath, and he looked up to see David watching him.

  David nodded. “How do you feel?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “I’m sure you have. It’s surprisingly painful for something with such healing power.”

  “I didn’t realize it hurt like that.”

  Jason tested his leg. It didn’t hurt as it had before.

  He leaned forward, getting to his knees, and took a deep breath. Could it be that he would actually survive this?

  With the thought, there was a burst of energy near him.

  Jason looked up.

  Therin stood.

  David turned toward Therin, raising his hand, but with a burst of power, Therin sent David flying away.

  Therin smiled at Jason. “One of the advantages of dragonskin is that it absorbs most impacts. I must admit I am surprised that you were able to summon so much power. What was that? The ice dragon? I can only imagine how useful he will be once we tame him.”

  “Not the ice dragon.”

  He pulled on the anger flowing through him at the way that Therin had attacked David. The way that Therin attacked him. There had to be something within the power he could summon, some way to use it to overwhelm Therin.

  “It doesn’t matter what it is. All that matters is that you will—”

  Jason didn’t give him a chance to finish. He pushed all that anger, letting it flow through him, and drew through the iron dragon. There came a blast of orange heat, and it exploded through Jason and into the pearl, slamming into Therin.

  Therin braced himself, and he managed to hold out, letting the power part around him. Jason pushed more and more through him, letting all that power flow, and yet there was nothing he could do to injure Therin.

  Therin was far too powerful for him.

  “I need your help,” he said to the iron dragon.

  The iron dragon stirred, but he hadn’t fully recovered. He tried to move but all that happened was that his body writhed, heat rolling down his torso.

  Therin started forward. “You don’t understand yet, do you? You think you would work with the dragons, and that is your mistake. The dragons are to be trained. Used. They are not to be your friends. And yet, you still don’t understand. I will ensure that you do. In time, you will understand plenty about the power of the dragons.” He reached Jason, pressing heat out. It wrapped around him, circling, a spiral of it. It wasn’t painful, not the way it once would have been, and he suspected that had to do with the dragonskin. There was still the energy of it, and he could feel it washing over him, and regardless of what he wanted to do, he tried to resist, but there was nothing that he could do.

  The heat began to compress, squeezing in upon him.

  Therin took a step toward him, watching as he did. He smiled. It was a dark and angry expression, and Jason trembled.

  “You have made a mistake in thinking you could take on the Dragon Souls. Pride will be your downfall.”

  There had to be some way to overwhelm this power.

  He had other dragon pearls. He thought about mixing fire and ice, exploding it. It had worked on the wall between the cells. It had to work on Therin, and all Jason had to do was bring that power together.

  He couldn’t reach into his pockets. His hands were squeezed by the heat.

  Therin neared him.

  He dipped his hand through the heat barrier, grabbing for the dragon pearls. He took everything Jason had. The ones he’d taken from the fallen Dragon Souls, the ice dragon pearl. The only one he didn’t take was the one clutched in his hand.

  Heat rolled through Jason, and he squeezed the dragon pearl.

  He tried to summon anger, but fear was the only emotion he knew right now. He wanted to run. He wanted to be anywhere but here, and yet he couldn’t do anything. He could barely even breathe.

  Therin smiled at him.

  “You thought to claim from the Dragon Souls. That was another mistake. With these, I can track the dragons you twisted.”

  Jason strained, trying to take a deep breath, but his breath didn’t fill him as it had before.

  He let out a cry of frustration.

  The iron dragon stirred.

  “Help me,” he cried out.

  The iron dragon rolled and sent a hint of power, but it came slowly.

  Therin reached for Jason’s hand. Jason cried again, trying to fight.

  When Therin pulled his hand up, he started to peel back his fingers.

  He wasn’t going to get the iron dragon pearl. Of all of them, Jason feared what might happen to the iron dragon most. The ice dragon had some resistance, and with the chill he possessed, he suspected he could use it to overwhelm the influence of the Dragon Souls. And there was something within the ice dragon himself that seemed to have an innate resistance. The iron dragon was different. He’d been tormented. Held captive. And anything the Dragon Souls might do to him would only make that worse.

  Somehow, he had to fight.

  He squeezed on the dragon pearl, pushing power through it, letting his anger fill him. Something within the dragon pearl began to change.

  Heat flared in his hand, and the metal, if that was what it was, began to roll over his hand. When Therin pried his fingers open, it seemed as if he had dipped his hand into molten metal.

  Therin stared at it. “What is that?”

  Strangely, the molten metal seemed to connect Jason to the iron dragon’s power more effectively. He called upon it, letting anger fill him, but even that wasn’t necessary. He was able to connect to the iron dragon, and he used that power and pushed it outward, exploding it into Therin’s chest.

  He went tumbling away.

  The heat that wrapped around him and constricted him dissipated.

  Jason glanced over at the iron dragon before running toward Therin. He held out his metal hand, forcing it toward Therin, and when he got to him, he pushed power out once again. He let the power of the iron dragon flow through him, and it slammed into Therin.

  Therin staggered back.

  Jason called upon it again, using more power, but this time Therin was ready. He wrapped some sort of protection around himself so that when Jason’s power struck, nothing happened.

  “Interesting trick,” Therin said.

  Therin twisted the dragon pearls that he’d claimed.

  One of them was the ice dragon pearl, and it flashed, glimmering, and Jason lunged for it. He wasn’t about to let Therin take that dragon pearl with him.

  Therin darted back, dancing away.

  Jason staggered forward, trying to reach him, and he managed to swat Therin’s hand, knocking down the dragon pearls he was holding.

  Therin laughed.

  “Do you think I need those?”

  He raised his hands and then brought them down. He slammed into Jason, knocking him to the ground. He crouched on hands and knees, trying to crawl forward, and yet there was nothing that he could do. Whatever Therin had done to him prevented him from moving. He tried again, attempting to crawl toward him, trying to find some way to knock him down, but he was unsuccessful.

  More and more power began to press down upon him. He was crushed. His arms and legs slipped out from under him. He lay on the hard-packed ground, his face pu
shed into the earth.

  Therin stood near him. “You will suffer.”

  And then a strange sound occurred.

  It sounded almost as if it were raining, but the sky was still blue. More and more of the things that sounded like raindrops began to shoot down, and Jason was able to twist his head off to the side just enough to see that spikes of ice were raining down around them. Therin shifted the focus of his heat upward, trying to melt the ice, but the ice dragon continued his attack, raining shards of ice, shooting them toward the ground. The heat managed to liquefy most of them, but not all. Therin was struck in the chest by one, and he dropped to his knee.

  At that moment, the iron dragon swung his tail.

  Jason thought that he might carve through Therin, but Therin shifted some hint of power, and it managed to catch the tail, preventing the Dragon Soul from being cut in half.

  Jason sat up. The pressure on him had released, and he looked around.

  The ice dragon hovered, shooting icicles at Therin. The iron dragon was on his legs, unsteady but swinging his sharp tail, the entire length of his body glowing with orange light. And other shapes appeared in the sky. Shadowed forms of dragons. A dozen of them. Maybe more. All of them attacking Therin, using their energy as they did.

  Therin shot Jason a look, and then he twisted his hands in a strange pattern. A burst of flame shot from the ground, and then he was gone.

  Jason sagged back, leaning on his hands and knees, and stared up at the sky.

  The dragons had saved him.

  21

  He rested with his back against the iron dragon, who radiated a comfortable warmth. He glowed softly, though not with the same intensity as he did when he was attacking. The ice dragon had departed, though he was nearby. Jason could feel his energy, and every so often, the ice dragon sent a wave of healing washing through him. It helped to restore him, to strengthen him, and he couldn’t help but feel thankful for it.

  David sat cross-legged not far from him. He stared into the distance. He muttered under his breath, and Jason wondered who he was talking to, though it might just be himself.

  “He escaped,” Henry said. His arms were crossed in front of him and he had an angry tilt to his jaw. Blood had crusted on the side of his cheek, but whatever injury he’d sustained had been healed.