Mist Dragon, page 26
part #5 of Dragon Misfits Series
They circled a rocky plain with trees all around. The burst of energy he detected was focused downward, toward the ground. As he noticed it, Jason thought he understood.
There was an egg. The size of it was distinct, and had Jason not carried an egg from the forest to Dragon Haven, he might not have truly understood what it was, but he recognized it. More than that, he realized there was a strange power here.
He studied the ground. Why here?
Could this be one that Lorren had placed?
Doubtful. This was still in Lorach. Which meant this would be somewhere Therin had placed an egg.
It was a unique location. A chasm dropped off nearby, and heat and steam drifted up, combining with a faint mist around it. The combination would likely create a powerful dragon. Heat. Water. Mist. Earth. A combination egg.
Jessica and Lorach intended to create a misfit.
Not just any misfit, though. A powerful misfit.
And from what he could tell by the way that they were pushing power into the egg, they knew how to feed it the same way as the misfit egg in the forest had been fed.
Jason could feel energy building. Dozens upon dozens of dragons were pushing power out from them, the drawing sensation growing increasingly intense. All of it was feeding Jessica’s egg.
Jason didn’t need to get close to the dragon egg to know what was happening. He could feel it. Energy came from what they were doing, squeezing power out from them, which meant he was going to have to do something different.
He might have to interrupt what was taking place, but how could he do so?
Energy burst again. This time, something changed. There came a soft rumbling.
For a moment, Jason thought that it came from the earth dragons, but that didn’t seem to be what it was. It was gentle, softer than what he had detected before. It was coming from where they stood, power they were summoning into the egg.
The dragons turned toward him.
Jason pushed, sweeping ice and iron dragon energy through them. The first layer of dragons scattered as the power swept through them, freeing them and letting them race into the sky. Dragon Souls turned toward him, holding dragon pearls. The Dragon Souls were no longer bound to the dragons, but they still had the power that came from the pearls.
Dragon magic assaulted Jason. Had he not created the barrier around himself using the power of illusion, he might’ve been overwhelmed.
They streaked toward the ground, and Jason jumped off of the dragon, heading toward the egg. This was what the blue dragon had warned him about.
Where was that dragon?
He’d been searching. Had he been caught by Lorach?
Jason thougth he would have known, but with Jessica attacking, it was possible he wouldn’t have known. Now he had to get to the egg and keep it from Jessica before Lorren did. He could hide it. Maybe even with the other egg.
He couldn’t get to the egg. The Dragon Souls prevented him. Jason landed nearby, at the edge of a clearing, and tendrils of mist began to streak toward him again.
Jason crackled power from the ice dragon and shot it toward the mist dragon.
Lorren strode toward him. He was dressed in green and black, and the mist swirled around him, making Jason question how much of it was real or illusion.
“There it is,” Lorren said. “This is the egg you’ve been trying to keep from me.”
“We need to help this dragon, not harm it,” Jason said.
Lorren shot him a look. “We? You’re the reason they’re even here. Had it not been for you revealing these dragons, Lorach would never have known. They never would have attempted this sort of power. They would have been content. Instead, you showed them the power of these dragons.”
“I didn’t show them anything. I wanted to free the dragons.”
“Because you are ignorant.”
Could that be the reason that he attacked? He blamed Jason?
A roar erupted, and a dozen dragons dove from the sky, all darting toward Lorren.
He swirled back, enveloped by the mist.
Jason moved forward, getting out of the way, letting the Dragon Souls take on Lorren.
He would protect their dragons later.
For now, he had to deal with the egg.
He hurried forward, trying to reach the chasm, trying to find the egg itself, when he realized he wasn’t alone.
A darkened figure strode toward him, dressed all in black dragonskin, rage flowing from her. Jessica. Her hair flowed with the wind, power exploding from her. She was terrifying.
“You would dare interrupt me?”
“You aren’t going to control this misfit,” he said.
“Misfit?” She sneered at him. “There is nothing misfit about what I have created.” There came another soft rumbling, and she glanced over her shoulder. “And perhaps you can stay here and watch as I gain control over him. Do you realize how hard I’ve looked for a record of where Therin left the eggs?” She sneered at him. “This one finally has potential. The others… Not so much.”
Jason realized what she was saying. She had destroyed other eggs.
All this time and that was what Lorach had been searching for.
Not Dragon Haven. At least, not yet.
She had wanted the eggs.
She had wanted misfits.
She had wanted the power that they could offer her.
“I’m not leaving this dragon I’m not allowing you to harm any more of them. Not any longer.” He flicked his gaze to the sky and the swarm of dragons that flew within it. “This is going to be the end. I’m going to stop you. I’m going to stop Lorach. Whatever it takes.” Rage filled him at how she intended to harm another dragon, to control a misfit.
As that rage hit him, he forced it away.
It was that rage that drove Lorren.
He could not be like him. Jason had to be better.
Lorren had been twisted by anger. He had allowed that to influence how he treated the dragons, and he had allowed that to turn him into something else, someone willing to harm dragons rather than to protect them.
“What do you mean?”
“I know what Lorren did.”
At the mention of his name, her brow darkened.
“He is killing your dragons. He is killing your Dragon Souls. I would—”
Power exploded from her, causing the ground to erupt and flames to streak toward him. He had to hurriedly create a barrier of power around him, and nearly didn’t do it in time. His connection to the ice and iron dragons, along with a hint of the forest dragon, solidified that connection so he could prevent her from harming him any more than she had just done. Even then, he barely withstood what she did.
There was considerable power within her. Energy built up, slamming into him. He needed to separate her from her dragon, but he had no idea if he could. Other dragons started to surround him.
Jason focused on the ice dragon. “Be ready to call lightning,” he whispered.
The ice dragon roared gently.
Jessica turned her attention to him and pressed toward his barrier. “An interesting trick. Do you really think it will hold if I wanted to come through?”
“It will hold long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“Long enough for me to continue to free your dragons. And help this one.”
Jason swept power away, using it against all the dragons around him. He forced it everywhere, sweeping as far as he could, more power building. The more he pushed, the more he could feel it striking through the resistance of those dragons, overwhelming it.
Jason struggled, holding onto power. Dragons took flight, erupting into the sky, the energy around them shifting and fading. Still there were more. Each time he freed another five or six dragons, more pressed forward. He knew there were hundreds of dragons here, but this seemed impossible.
An illusion.
Jason could feel the illusion around him, and he shifted it. What he thought he’d been doing had not been that at all. The dragons he’d freed in the sky had been freed, but once he had landed, Jessica had protected them.
She laughed a dark laugh. “Very good. You see, once you demonstrated what you could do to free them, I needed to find an alternative strategy to ensure they remained under my control.”
Power built around him, more than he thought he could withstand. Jason felt it slamming into him, almost overwhelming the barrier he had placed. There was too much power. It hammered at him. It would eventually overwhelm him.
It was in the way Jessica created her illusion. She could pick at the barrier, drawing upon the dragons. There were too many dragons.
Jason was trapped. He reached for the ice dragon, feeling for power within him, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He could already tell that he didn’t have enough strength, and it took everything within him to withstand the power that was slamming upon him now.
“I might make you watch as I take this dragon,” Jessica said, grinning at him.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the ice dragon. “Call on the lightning,” he said.
The dragon roared, and power built. Energy crackled, and a massive bolt of ice lightning streaked toward him and then outward. When it cleared, Jason expected that some of the dragons would have been scattered, but nothing had changed.
Jessica had used her power to protect not only herself, but the other dragons around her. “Do you really think I would have been unprepared a second time?”
She started toward him and stepped through his barrier. Jason couldn’t stop her.
Suddenly, the ground rumbled.
“You will get to see my new dragon soon.”
The rumbling came again, deeper in timber. Earth dragons, but not the one she had just hatched. Somewhere distantly, one of the dragons shrieked. Then another. Then another.
Lorren hadn’t been close. He’d been battling with the Dragon Souls.
And he must have succeeded.
Now he came. His dragons came. Death came.
Jessica turned, frowning.
“Send them away,” Jason said.
She turned to him. “Why would I do that? I have you held captive here. I’m not going to release—”
“Because Lorren is here. He’s coming for the dragon you just hatched.”
She pressed her mouth into a tight frown. “If he’s here, then he will—”
Another dragon shrieked. This one was louder than before, filling his ears with a painful sound. People—Dragon Souls—began to scream. More and more dragons started to shriek.
Jessica turned away from Jason. Her power over him was gone.
Something was wrong. Jason could feel it, not only from the strange energy in the air, but in the ground beneath them, from the dragons that were out there, shrieking in agony. He could feel it in the dragon magic that flowed, even from his connection to the ice dragon. The strangeness that he detected was terrifying, and it was something he needed to stop.
He reached for the ice dragon, jumping onto his back, and they quickly took flight. They circled over the dragons. He could feel something changing. The air swirled with the strange mist of Lorren’s dragons.
“We have to stop it.”
The ice dragon shot a bolt of ice lightning, solidifying the air. Energy crackled around him, and he froze everything. Something shifted again.
Each time Jason solidified the air, he could feel the trembling of the ground, the way the mist swirled, the mist dragons using that energy to assault the Dragon Soul dragons.
Jessica raged with power. The dragon had disappeared. He could feel her influence, the way she attempted to try to call that dragon, and Jason strained for it, but she intervened.
She was powerful.
And she had connected to the dragon misfit that she had hatched.
It was an incredible display. He could feel energy radiating away from her, drawn from dozens upon dozens, possibly hundreds of dragons. Each time it did, energy exploded but still wasn’t enough. There was something more taking place. Lorren called upon power, a considerable amount of it, and sent it toward her.
Jason didn’t know what he needed to do.
Somehow, he had to help, though who should he help?
Jessica shrieked, and dragons around her screamed.
That answered it.
He tapped the ice dragon on the side. They streaked toward the ground, toward the assault. When he landed, he found Jessica with power flowing from her and swirling around her. The mist shimmered around her as well. The other dragons she had controlled had all disappeared. The Dragon Souls had scrambled, and now the air was filled with dragons. Jason didn’t think it was an illusion. They were retreating.
Jason had heard that sound before. He had felt the agony of dragons shrieking in the throes of death, and he had known the torment those dragons had encountered. Hearing it now, feeling it now, left him trembling with that power, knowing that he needed to do something—anything.
He had to stop this.
Jessica would attack Lorren, trying to claim his dragon misfits, and if she succeeded, she would turn that power upon Jason’s dragon misfits, and even upon Dragon Haven.
If Lorren were to succeed, he would destroy Lorach’s dragons.
Neither option was one he was willing to accept.
Which meant he had to act. Quickly.
It left him with Jessica and Lorren.
This was his opportunity.
Jessica watched him. “Is this your doing?”
“I wouldn’t harm the dragons,” he said.
“To stop Lorach, you would,” she said. Power swirled from her, heading toward him.
The mist interrupted it. Jason added a hint of power, freezing the mist again. Jessica glared at him. The ground rumbled.
She looked down. “You’re with him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not with him. I wouldn’t be with someone like him.”
Not even if it meant stopping her.
With the realization, he knew what he had to do.
He would have to help Jessica if he wanted to stop Lorren.
She flicked her gaze over to the ice dragon. “You are. That’s how you know how to control these dragons. This is not over.”
The dragon hatchling crawled toward her. It was not anything like a dragon he had ever seen. Brown, with heat that radiated from it, and swirls of steam that flew around it. Jason hurriedly pushed power toward the dragon, trying to connect to it, but Jessica was there, intervening.
She glared at him.
“You don’t have to go with her,” Jason said to the dragon, not even sure if it understood him. “You can stay with others like you.”
“You will not keep this dragon,” Jessica said.
She used a swirl of power and grabbed the dragon.
With that, she jumped, bringing the dragon with her. She used incredible power with her jump, heat and energy exploding her into the air. Jason had once done something similar.
With it, she disappeared, joining the Dragon Souls as they retreated.
He could go after her.
She had a misfit, a dragon that would become powerful.
And he had the upper hand here. She was running. She was afraid.
If he stopped Lorach now, all of this would be over.
But it wouldn’t. Not with Lorren still willing to attack.
None of this would be over until he defeated Lorren.
That was what Jason had to do first.
To save the dragons, he would have to stop Lorren for good.
The ground rumbled again.
Jason turned. Lorren was coming.
24
P ressure built all around him and Jason focused on the energy and power that was out there, focusing on the mist swirling near him. He controlled the power coming from the ice dragon, sending it streaking out to solidify the mist. He had to use as much power as he could, trying to interrupt whatever Lorren might do. He had to stop him.
A layer of mist hung around the forest. He borrowed from the power of the ice dragon and solidified the mist. As soon as they did, he exploded it, trying to create steam and clear the air. It did so momentarily, but then the mist solidified again.
“You must do that again,” the ice dragon said.
Jason focused on the ice again, solidifying it, and then added a hint of power to explode it. Distantly, there came a rumbling from the earth dragons.
The ice dragon could neutralize some aspect of the earth dragon magic, but if there were many of them, it might not be enough. He didn’t want to risk the ice dragon the way he had with the iron dragon, when he had nearly died, but there might be something that Jason could try.
“It’s going to be risky,” he said to the ice dragon.
“I am ready,” the ice dragon said.
The mist streamed toward them, but this close to them, the ice dragon radiated cold, and the mist froze. The ground beneath the ice dragon started to crackle, ice rippling across its surface. The ice dragon solidified it. What would’ve happened had the iron dragon done something similar? He might have been able to use his heat in a way to turn the ground to molten rock. They hadn’t tried that, but he wondered if he should have.
The ground rumbled as the earth dragon attempted to slam into the ice. The mist seemed to be denser. Power was building around him.
Lorren was here .
Jason reached for power again, although this time there was resistance, something pushing on him and on the power of the ice dragon. The ground trembled and the ice crackled. When it did, the air shimmered, shifting.
It was illusion.
Rather than fighting, Jason embraced the illusion, the power that came from Lorren, and added his own power to it. He wouldn’t fight it. He would instead call Lorren into it.
“What are you doing?” The ice dragon turned toward him, cold radiating from him.
“I’m trying to summon him here.”
“Is that wise?”
Jason grunted. “Probably not.”
He had to try to get to Lorren. He had to somehow trap him. He had to defeat him.
Jason twisted the illusion, adding the swirling wind, the snow gusting out of the mountains, the cold. He created everything out of the north, solidifying it. There was a resistance, then the illusion crackled around him. Lorren stepped forward. There was a dark grin on his face.
