Scrambling out of the water, the dragon pressed a hint of heat through him, blasting the remaining water and turning it into steam.
With his dragonskin clothing, Jason was able to ignore it, though he still felt the effect of the heat as it radiated toward him, emanating from the dragon.
Jason leaned forward, staying atop the iron dragon and breathing in the foulness. With everything he’d gone through, it seemed that searching for this odor was probably the least important thing that he had done. It might be better to simply return to Dragon Haven, or to continue his search for other hatch mates. That had value. Looking for the source of some stench out here in the jungle didn’t seem quite as significant.
Still, curiosity drove him.
“You must find it,” the ice dragon said, borrowing from their connection to share his urgency.
“Why?”
“We must know what this is.”
“If it’s just some rotting jungle animal, it doesn’t really matter. None of us are all that familiar with the way things would decompose in a jungle,” Jason said.
“You need to find the source of this.”
Jason patted the iron dragon, leaning down. “Did you hear that?”
“You heard it. So I heard it.”
“The ice dragon wants us to go and search for the stench. We’ve got to keep looking.”
“It should not be too far,” the dragon said.
“I thought you couldn’t smell anything.”
“I cannot.”
“Then how do you know how far it is?”
“I can feel what you feel.”
Jason smiled. “I’m not really feeling a whole lot right now.” Regardless, he encouraged the dragon to keep moving. They started forward, and rather than plunging through the jungle on his own, or following the iron dragon, Jason stayed seated. They headed forward, following what Jason was able to detect.
The sense of it required that they head along the river.
Jason trailed after it, aware of something there and feeling that he was getting closer to it.
It might only be his imagination, but he didn’t think so. He thought that whatever it was would be getting closer.
The iron dragon continued powering through the jungle. The trees became thicker, the branches around them trying to grab at them, almost as if they intended to snare them. Without the iron dragon, Jason wasn’t sure he would have been able to get through here on his own. As it was they had to pause, the iron dragon surging with a hint of heat every so often in order to blast through the foliage.
“It seems to me that this would be an ideal place for a hatch mate,” Jason said.
“Perhaps,” the iron dragon said.
Jason focused on the ice dragon, and he could feel something from him. There was excitement. But there was also something else. Could it be that the ice dragon was concerned about what they were detecting?
Jason didn’t really know why the ice dragon would be concerned, so he focused on what he could smell. The iron dragon was using him, his connection, and he was holding on to everything he was able to in order to detect what was up there.
They wound through the jungle, and now it was so dense that the iron dragon had taken to weaving back and forth rather than trying to blast straight through it. He was able to find openings to pass through, but even that became increasingly difficult.
The smell was near. The river burbled off to their left, and they trailed along it.
Finally, Jason caught sight of an opening in the trees.
It was a strange sight, especially after working through the jungle, trying to find their way through this dense vegetation, but the smell was stronger here.
Jason tapped on the iron dragon and they lingered for a moment.
Then they plunged forward.
As soon as they did, the odor overwhelmed him. This was what he was smelling.
A pile of leaves at the center of the clearing seemed to be the source.
Jason climbed down from the dragon, heading over toward those leaves. From there, he stepped carefully.
The sense of the ice dragon began to drift toward him, growing increasingly more intense as the ice dragon dropped from the sky, darting toward them. His wings spread out, creating a stirring of wind, and ice darted from him, slamming into Jason and the heat from the iron dragon before dissipating.
“It’s just leaves,” Jason said.
“It is not,” the ice dragon said.
He looked over at the iron dragon, who stared at the pile of leaves for a moment and breathed out a hint of flame. It was a controlled flame, far more skillful than he had used before. As that fire erupted from his nostrils, it layered over the leaves, burning them down. The iron dragon was able to let his power out slowly, burning away one layer of leaves at a time.
A flash of deep green, a vibrancy brighter than anything he had ever seen before, appeared beneath the leaves. The iron dragon continued to breathe out, letting his heat pour over the leaves.
For a moment, Jason had a fear that it was the forest dragon, but then the coloration within it didn’t change. Not the way that the brightness and the color of the forest dragon mirrored its surroundings.
When the leaves were gone, Jason was able to see what was there.
A dead dragon. That was the source of the odor.
2
Jason made his way around the remains of the deep green dragon. It was different in appearance than some of the other dragons he’d seen. At first, he wasn’t sure if this was one of the Dragon Soul dragons, but as he looked at it, he realized there was a feature that looked a bit different. Rather than the spikes and scaled sides of most of the Dragon Soul dragons, this one had what looked to be ropey vines worked around its sides. The color was impossibly deep, vibrant, even in death. Approaching the dragon, he could scarcely get close enough. The stench coming off it was almost more than he could bear.
“He was one of our hatch mates,” the ice dragon said.
“Are you sure?” Jason whispered.
He couldn’t tell why the dragon was gone, only that something had claimed him.
“Yes.”
The iron dragon nudged the fallen dragon, pushing him off to the side. When he did, Jason saw that the dragon’s belly had been split, his intestines spilled out. That was the source of the foulness.
He turned away, gagging, but something within him told him he needed to pay attention to the dragon, he needed to know just what had happened here.
“What do you think did this?” Jason asked.
Images flashed into his mind from both the iron dragon and the ice dragon.
Both of them thought this was the work of the Dragon Souls.
Why, though?
Jason thought the Dragon Souls only would have attacked if they weren’t able to control the dragon. Maybe this was one they weren’t able to gain power over.
He continued making his way around the dragon, and marveled at him. He was thinner than most of the other dragons, but maybe that was death rather than any quality of the dragon himself. It was almost as if he were an entirely different species. Of course, the misfits were all some new dragon species. They were different than the Dragon Soul dragons.
The ice dragon roared and the iron dragon mimicked him, agony and pain rolling through them.
Both of these dragons had fought other dragons, and Jason had seen their torment at the idea that they would have to harm others of their kind, but they had been willing to do it, knowing that in order for the misfits to be safe, they might need to battle with controlled dragons.
It wasn’t something they wanted to do, and he knew they would much rather not. He knew that with everything they had gone through, everything they had suffered through, the misfits would rather work with the dragons rather than continue to fight and attack them.
Still, this was a different sort of agony.
He could hear it in the way they cried out, the vibrancy of their voices as they screamed
to the skies.
The ice dragon began to let out layers of ice, wrapping it around the new dragon. The iron dragon followed, breathing heat and fire, erupting steam all around the fallen jungle dragon.
Jason watched as the combination of the two wrapped around the dragon.
Normally when the fire and ice worked together, the effect was a healing wave. Neither of the dragons expected this to provide any sort of healing, so Jason had no idea what they intended now.
He was surprised when the combined steam caused the dragon to turn to ash.
They continued howling, their voices crying out, something like a song.
It was a painful song, one of mourning, and Jason listened. He felt as if he owed the dragon that much. Even though there wasn’t anything he could do for the dragon, he felt as if he needed to remain there, listening to the sound of the other dragons, listening to the way they suffered.
They’d been searching for hatch mates, and he’d come here, thinking the jungle might be a good place to uncover one, but he’d not expected to come across anything like this. In all of the times they’d searched for hatch mates, and in all of the times they’d found dragons, they’d never come across a dead dragon.
It pained him.
The fallen dragon was unique. Special. The kind of thing that the world might not ever see again.
As he looked at the iron dragon, the ice dragon, and as he thought of the forest dragon, Jason knew all of them were unique.
Not that the other dragons were not. They were. Each dragon was special, and he shared in Sarah’s desire to save them, if they were able to somehow reach Lorach and get to them.
But these misfits, these dragons that had been created by someone who had wanted to use them, needed something else. They needed the attention of Jason, and the other misfits, in order to have the opportunity to thrive.
Jason needed to find them before they were taken.
If the Dragon Souls had come here, Jason had to learn whether they had uncovered any other misfits.
He stood off to the side of the small clearing, watching the ice and iron dragons. As he did, he could feel and hear their ongoing sadness. Jason wanted to do anything he could to help them, but even as he listened, he knew there wasn’t anything he could do for them.
The only thing he could think of doing was finding out if the Dragon Souls were responsible. He couldn’t go and attack them. Not without help. Eventually, he believed they might have to go after the Dragon Souls, especially if they were to free the dragons.
For now, he had to think of a different approach.
Could he get help? The only person who might be able to help would be David, but David had proven unwilling to offer the kind of assistance that Jason thought they needed.
He turned to the dragons, watching.
They sat in the clearing where the jungle dragon had been found, the body having been completely burned away now, leaving nothing but ash. That ash drifted off into the jungle, joining the rest of the vegetation.
There was something quite beautiful in the way the dragons had dispersed the jungle dragon’s body into the rest of the jungle. If something were to happen to one of the other dragons, Jason thought he would have to do something similar, though he didn’t know if he would be able to do so.
After a while, they stopped their song. It seemed to Jason that was exactly what it was—a song. It was a strange song, one of sadness and sorrow, but it also seemed to be one of anger and rage and all the vibrancy of the dragons. It was the kind of song that filled him with a sense of power and a chorus of energy that exploded everywhere around him.
He embraced that sound. He embraced the song of the dragon, and when it faded, he turned to the iron dragon. “I need you to take me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“To find information.”
“About what happened here?”
“Yes.”
“I will go,” the ice dragon said.
“You can come, but I want you to stay overhead. I don’t want you to get involved just yet. You need to remain in the clouds, near the cold, where it is safe for you. If we need you…”
He didn’t need to say anything more to the ice dragon. He could feel the desire and that burning energy within him, that sense of power that radiated out from him, telling him that the ice dragon was willing to do whatever it would take in order to help.
When it came to one of the hatch mates, both of these dragons were willing to do whatever it would take.
Would the forest dragon?
Perhaps the forest dragon would, though he didn’t know.
Perhaps that was where he needed to go next.
If he could get her assistance, and if they could go to her to see whether there was anything she might be able to do, he would have even more strength. Three dragons fighting on his side, each with unique power, would offer something more than Lorach would be able to counter.
Of course, Lorach had hundreds of dragons, and all of them had been controlled—trained. Combatting that would involve finding a different sort of strength. Either that, or it would involve Jason discovering a way to heal the dragons of Lorach. He’d been able to do so in the past, but the dragons he’d freed had remained distant.
If he could gather those dragons, and perhaps call to them, he might be able to help, to save them, and do something more.
The iron dragon lowered his head and Jason climbed on. Heat began to build, starting rhythmically from his head and neck, working along his length, and the iron dragon took to the sky. The way he flew was powerful, the heat and energy surging along his scales, molten metal flowing, bursting them into the air.
Jason clung to the dragon’s back, maintaining his connection to the dragon. He could feel the heat, but there was something within him that allowed him the ability to withstand it. It was more than just the dragonskin he wore. It was more than just his connection to the dragon.
They flew, streaking toward Lorach.
They stayed low, hovering just above the ground, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, and as they neared, the iron dragon headed down and landed.
Jason climbed off.
The capital city was in the distance, though he couldn’t see it. Somewhere out there was the sense of the dragons, though he couldn’t see them, either. He didn’t dare get too close. Not quite yet.
He thought about what he had experienced when he had been here before, how he had detected the sense of David and the dragon he’d flown on.
That was what he needed to try to find now.
Jason had no idea whether he would even be able to reach that dragon, but if there was some way to stretch his awareness across the distance, he had to try. He needed to call out to David and find him.
Picking up on a single dragon was easy when he had a bond to them, but in the case of the blue dragon he’d seen with David, Jason didn’t have a bond. He was just one more dragon.
He thought about what he’d detected when he’d tried to test for injury to the dragon, and whether there was anything within the dragon that he might have needed to heal, and he realized doing so had connected them a little bit.
It wasn’t the same as what Jason shared with the other dragons, and he certainly didn’t have the same bond as with the ice or iron dragon. It wasn’t even the strange connection that linked him to the forest dragon. What he detected was something else.
It was a familiarity. Within that familiarity, he thought he might be able to better understand how to reach the dragon.
Somewhere deep within him, he could feel that familiarity, and he recognized just what he had done before. There was something he could do now.
He pushed outward.
It was a soft touch. Jason didn’t want to use too much energy, and he certainly didn’t want to do anything that would anger David. The Auran had been a friend to him, as much as someone from Lorach could be a friend. He hadn’t attacked, and he’d shown a willingness to work with the drag
ons, something also unusual for the people of Lorach. Jason had to believe that David would eventually come around to his side, and that they would be able to work together.
He continued to send a hint of pressure through the connection.
He used a little bit, nothing more than that, just enough that the dragon would be aware of him. As he continued to push on it, Jason had to question whether or not he was being too subtle.
Still, if he used too much, there was the possibility that other Dragon Souls within Lorach might recognize what he did and that he was there. It was safer to use this subtle connection. Safer not to try to push too much outward, and safer not to try to overwhelm the dragon.
He didn’t want to overwhelm the dragon.
He leaned on the iron dragon, resting his iron glove on him. Heat radiated from the dragon, flowing into Jason, and the day gradually began to fade.
He was tired. The time in the jungle had gone slowly, and with the sadness he’d experienced, the loss of a dragon he had never known and would never get to know, he felt as if he wanted nothing more than to return to Dragon Haven and rest.
Pressure pushed on him.
Jason straightened.
At first, he was concerned that the pressure he detected came from one of the other Dragon Souls, but there was that spark of familiarity between him and that pressure. It came from David.
It came from a connection.
He waited. Slowly, a darkened shape appeared overhead.
Jason acted, casting an illusion around him, turning them into little more than trees. The nature of the illusion he was able to hold on to was much greater now than it once had been, though he still needed to work with the forest dragon to hone that ability. As he held on to that illusion, he could see it forming around him, the shimmering, and from above, through the ice dragon’s eyes, he recognized the tall trees he had created.
Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Page 2
