Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,51

fighting what he did. Jason pushed again, sending more power out.

“I thought you could help these dragons?” the dragon queen said, shifting on the ice dragon’s back.

“I can, but with this many Dragon Souls pushing against me, it gets more difficult.”

“I’m going to help.”

“No—”

Jason didn’t have an opportunity to finish. She started to use her power.

He worried she was going to use it against the dragons, but that wasn’t what she did. Instead, she focused her energy on the Dragon Souls.

She used a pulse of earth and sent one flying off the dragon.

That blast struck one of the Dragon Souls, sending them down to the ground, and suddenly the resistance began to ease.

“Do that again,” Jason said.

She looked back at him but then turned her attention in front of her again, and another blast of earth exploded from her. The dragon turned, avoiding the attack.

She quickly sent another burst. This one connected.

He pushed again.

The resistance was less now that there were fewer Dragon Souls pushing against him. The more she knocked off, the easier it was. Jason radiated the energy out, letting it sweep away from him. More and more power continued to burst away from him, striking the dragon.

Then he shattered the resistance.

The dragon roared.

Jason added a hint of the forest dragon power. Illusion.

By holding onto that, he eased the dragon’s recovery so that it didn’t drop from the sky too precipitously. He held onto that energy and the dragon shook, still roaring as the other Dragon Souls tried to hold onto his back.

Jason sent more and more energy out from him. The dragon was safe.

But they were not. They were surrounded.

The ice dragon shook. Icicles went streaking.

Three Dragon Souls were hit by icicles and fell.

Jason turned to the nearest dragon with one less Dragon Soul.

He targeted that one, using the ice dragon, and blasted power at the Dragon Soul on the dragon’s back. Jason continued to push power out, intending to attack as much as he could. He pushed more and more power out from him, exploding energy away, and he could feel that power bursting, the way that energy continued to build, and he could feel it exploding.

It struck the Dragon Soul. Jason held onto the power within him and turned it to the next Dragon Soul on the dragon’s back. As he did, the ice power struck, slamming into the Dragon Soul.

The dragon queen slammed earth power away from her.

That energy struck the other dragon.

Dragons all around him began to attack, pushing energy out to try to collapse it on Jason. When he fought back, there was resistance, but it shattered. The dragon queen helped. She continued to attack the Dragon Souls, not targeting the dragons, and together they managed to push back the attack.

He strained against what the Dragon Souls were doing. One by one, Jason and the dragon queen attacked, freeing the dragons from the Dragon Soul influence.

Still, power continued to build around him.

Something was wrong.

He turned, tapping on the ice dragon’s side.

“We need to go,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” the dragon queen asked.

Jason looked down below but didn’t see anything. “I don’t really know. I can feel something off, though I can’t tell what it is. There is some sense of energy that continues to squeeze, and it is trying to—”

He didn’t have the chance to finish. The power he detected slammed into him again, and he nearly fell. Had he not been holding onto the dragon’s spikes, he might have been thrown free. Jason didn’t see the source of the attack.

“Up,” he said.

The ice dragon streaked upward.

The power of the dragon brought them up into the clouds, and then through. The energy of the upper atmosphere began to swirl again and Jason felt the cold, the bitter biting energy of it, and drew on it.

Up here, he could feel that cold, and he could feel the way that the ice and the storm swirled, and he recognized how that power existed. He recognized its influence upon him. He recognized that there was some aspect to it that tried to press in upon him. Not only that, but there was some aspect to it that tried to flow through him.

It was more than just his connection to the ice dragon.

It was his connection to the northern mountains.

There was that familiarity. It was an energy that existed there, an energy that flowed within him, an energy that struck him. By holding onto all of that, Jason recognized that there was some aspect to it that