Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,11

the iron dragon said.

Jason smiled to himself. The iron dragon allowed him to reach for that connection and borrow it, surging through it, but he still enjoyed the idea that he could taunt Jason about the lack of ability on his part.

“There is something down there,” Jason said.

“There is something,” the dragon said.

As Jason stared, he tried to determine if what he detected was anything useful, but he wasn’t able to tell. As he stared into the distance, looking from this vantage, he searched for movement.

They had taken to hunting in this way.

When they left Dragon Haven, they searched for Dragon Soul dragons, and he was prepared for the possibility that he might need to add ice and iron together, healing those dragons, but partly that was a matter of searching for movement, something that would give him a way of finding the dragons that had to exist down there. Jason hadn’t seen anything yet.

“Why do you think they’ve been trailing along that border?”

The iron dragon was troubled, and Jason could feel it through their connection. He had shared with the iron dragon, along with the ice and forest dragon, what Sarah had shared with him.

None of them had known quite why the Dragon Souls would have been searching along the border. None of them had any idea whether there was anything there that they needed to be concerned about, or whether there was anything that Lorach would have discovered.

“I cannot tell.”

Jason looked with the iron dragon, straining for whatever reason the Dragon Souls might have for being out here, but even as he stared, he could come up with nothing. There was no answer, no sign of what they were after, just the presence of the Dragon Souls.

The iron dragon turned, shifting course, when a flurry of winged movement caught both his and Jason’s attention at the same time. It was like a flurry of birds in the distance, though Jason knew that was not the case. No birds moved like that. No birds radiated the energy that these did. No birds circled the way these did.

Dragons.

There had to be nearly a dozen of them.

He focused on the sense of the dragons, pushing out with a connection to the ice and iron dragons, radiating that power out from him. He tapped on the iron dragon’s side, motioning for him to turn.

“Are you sure?” the iron dragon asked.

“You don’t think we can handle a dozen Dragon Souls?”

“I can,” the iron dragon roared.

There was a hint of the anger and rage that still boiled within the iron dragon, anger at his initial captivity upon his hatching. Jason tried to soothe him, but there wasn’t much he could do to soothe the iron dragon when it came to his past. The iron dragon had experienced far more than Jason could fully understand, and there was a limit to just what he might be able to do to counter the dragon’s feelings about his initial captivity.

All he could do was ensure it didn’t happen again. By protecting the iron dragon, working with him, and helping to stop the Dragon Souls from attacking, Jason did everything that he could to offer the iron dragon what he needed.

He started to push, using the power of the ice and the iron dragons, but he met resistance. He summoned more power, but the dozen dragons loomed nearer.

He tapped on the iron dragon’s side and they streaked higher into the sky, heading up and up. As they went, he felt the others following. They trailed after them, now chasing him.

Jason continued to push, using the connection to the ice and the iron dragons, letting power flow. He used a burst of energy, a surge of power that exploded out from him, trying to overcome the resistance he detected.

When he had battled with the dragons before, Jason had managed to overwhelm the resistance to him. This was something else. This was a different kind of resistance, a different kind of strength, and Jason couldn’t overwhelm it.

Here he’d believed he was strong enough to do so.

Too arrogant.

That was his fault. Especially when it came to the dragons these days.

He had to find some way to stop the Dragon Souls. They were preventing him from healing these dragons.

He twisted, turning to look behind him, but he couldn’t see anything that clearly. As he strained into the distance, he didn’t make out anything that suggested the Dragon Souls were doing anything unique. The only thing he could feel was the power radiating