Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,12

off the Dragon Souls, the energy that existed as they were holding onto the power that kept him from healing the dragons.

How many Dragon Souls would it require to do that?

Jason didn’t know, though he had some experience with the Dragon Souls pushing against him.

Jason braced himself.

The dozen dragons were getting close enough that they would begin to attack. Stranger, several of the dragons seemed to be carrying something with their forelegs. Long lengths of gleaming pale white bone.

Dragon bone?

Something struck the iron dragon. The dragon roared, power building from within him. His sides began to glow with the molten metal kind of heat, and he surged even faster.

Another burst of power struck, blasting into the dragon.

Jason focused on the ice dragon flying high overhead.

“We’re going to need your help,” he said.

He stared at the nearest of the dragons, focusing on him. A burst of power erupted from the sky. Ice lightning streaked down, crashing into the dragon—and the Dragon Soul riding him. The power from the ice dragon erupted over him, bursting with the kind of power that exploded. The dragon roared and another burst of ice lightning struck, this one slamming into the dragon again.

Jason hurriedly added a healing type of power, washing iron and ice dragon energy together, sweeping it through that dragon.

There was resistance, but as he continued to push, he overwhelmed it.

The healing washed over the dragon—and he roared, shaking. The bone the dragon had been holding fell to the ground as five riders were thrown free.

Five?

That was too many. Far more than they ever would have sent before.

At least Jason understood how the Dragon Souls had managed to prevent him from overpowering them. If they all had a dragon pearl, all of them drawing upon the energy of the dragon—

Jason was thrown forward, almost off the dragon itself.

He gripped the iron dragon, slamming his iron glove down, forming a connection between himself and the dragon. By doing so, he maintained his grip on the dragon, though he wondered if he would be able to hold for much longer. He tried, struggling to right himself, but wasn’t able to get himself back on top of the dragon.

Jason tried to move, shifting in a way that would allow him to slide back onto the dragon, but even as he tried, he couldn’t find a way to turn. He borrowed from the iron dragon’s energy and burst it through him, shifting in a way that allowed him to reposition himself.

When he shimmied up the side of the dragon, he lay there for a moment.

They soared through the sky, eleven dragons still chasing them. If there were even three Dragon Souls on each one, that might be more than they would be able to overpower. Jason clung to the dragon and twisted so he could look down, trying to see whether there was anything he might be able to make out, but he still couldn’t see anything very clearly in the distance. He held on, gripping tightly, holding onto the energy within the iron dragon.

He focused on the nearest of the enslaved dragons.

He sent that image through to the ice dragon. A burst of lightning shot down.

That’s not ice lightning.

Thunder rumbled distantly, and Jason looked up.

The storm dragon had come.

While the storm dragon had helped him before, Jason had no idea why the dragon had come now or what he had done to summon that assistance. Only that the dragon had responded.

Lightning from the storm dragon struck the enslaved dragon and Jason followed it with a healing wave of ice and iron dragon energy. As that washed over the targeted dragon, he could feel it fighting the influence of the Dragon Souls. It shook, sending four Dragon Souls free. Much like the last dragon, this one released what he carried, dropping the bone.

The Dragon Souls fell, screaming as they did.

That left ten dragons.

If the ice and the iron dragon along with the storm dragon were there, then they could succeed. All it would take would be for them to continue to push, to hold onto the power within them, to find some way to use that energy—

Another attack struck, and Jason was thrown off the iron dragon.

He fell.

For a moment, panic flooded through him, but it was quickly replaced with an understanding of what he needed to do.

Jason wasn’t helpless.

There was a time when he would have feared falling like this, a time when he would have believed he would’ve died, but now he understood he had power