Ice Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Why does he think he can find dragons here?” Jason asked.

  “There have been theories that dragons take on the traits of where they’re reared.”

  “Rumors,” Henry muttered.

  “Theories,” Sarah said, shooting a look at him. “We don’t know if Therin believes those theories, but if anyone would, it would be him.”

  “But the dragons I’ve seen are all similar,” Jason said.

  “That’s why they’re rumors,” Henry said.

  Sarah shot him another look. “The dragons hatch their own. We don’t know what would happen if a dragon egg were separated from other dragons—and somehow coaxed to hatch.”

  Henry glanced up at the ceiling of the cave. “We know they shouldn’t be able to hatch.”

  “This would say otherwise,” Sarah said.

  “Fine. Either way, we won’t be able to stay here for long,” Henry said.

  “We just need to keep away from them,” Sarah said.

  “If they discover this cavern, they’ll find the shell.”

  “Why does the shell matter?” Jason asked.

  “The shell allows them to track the dragon. So with that, they would be able to follow it, and if they find it, then…”

  Henry didn’t need to finish. Jason thought he understood. If they found the dragon, and if it did have an affinity for these lands and for the snow, then his people wouldn’t be safe anymore.

  “Then we need to track it.”

  “In that?” Henry asked, looking out toward the swirling snow that created a whiteout. Henry pulled his cloak more tightly around his shoulders.

  Jason stared past him. “I’ve seen worse.”

  The other man grunted. “I’m not sure that—”

  Another burst of power exploded from outside. Snow suddenly swirled, kicked up by the force of the blast. Some came down the entrance to the cave, clinging to Jason’s face.

  Henry leaned forward, sniffing at the air. “Let’s move,” he said.

  William pushed up against Jason and they made their way along the edge of the stream. As Jason reached the mouth of the cave, William cried out.

  He turned but wasn’t fast enough; William plunged into the water.

  He splashed and kicked and Jason grabbed him, helping pull him free.

  William was soaked.

  He glanced at the others. “He can’t go out there like that,” Jason said.

  “I’m not sure there’s much of an option,” Henry said.

  “You have the dragon pearl. Use it to help dry him.”

  Henry glanced down toward his hands. “That wouldn’t work quickly enough.”

  “We can’t bring him out there soaked. With the wind being what it is, and the snow like that, he will freeze to death in minutes.”

  Henry gritted his teeth.

  “Move,” he said to Jason.

  Jason squeezed past and the other man grabbed William, pulling him back into the cave, and he pressed his hands up against William’s chest. Heat began to build. It seemed almost as if William were glowing. The other man gasped and steam rose, faster and faster, swirling in the air, making it difficult for Jason to see anything else.

  When it was done, William let out a shaky breath. “That was interesting.”

  “Can we go now?” Henry asked.

  “I found something,” William said.

  “What did you find?”

  “This,” William said.

  He opened his hand, and it looked to Jason like nothing more than an ice ball, but Henry leaned close to it, blocking it, holding it for a moment. He tipped it up to the light, such as it was.

  Jason had seen something like it before. He remembered finding a similar stone, one that had seemed impossibly cold. This could be its twin.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “No. That’s why I grabbed it.”

  “Where was it?”

  “I saw it when I fell into the stream.”

  “You saw it?” Jason asked.

  “Well, when I was trying to get out, it sort of flashed in front of me.”

  “I think it’s a dragon pearl,” Henry said.

  Sarah leaned toward it, frowning as she reached for it. “It looks nothing like the dragon pearls we know in Dragon Haven.”

  “That, I think, is the point.”

  “We need to study it.”

  Henry’s eyes began to widen. “I can’t hold on to it for long.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s too cold.”

  Jason held his hand out. “Let me take it. I can deal with cold.”

  “This is not just cold. It’s cold.”

  Jason held his hand up, waiting, and as heat continued to build, rising around them, he didn’t think they had much time before the Dragon Souls reached them. “Let me take it. We can study it when we figure this out.”

  Henry breathed out a frustrated sigh and handed the dragon pearl to Jason. He glanced at it, noticing how smooth it was and the way it seemed to have flickers of color in it. It surprised him that William would have been able to find it at the bottom of the stream. Something like this would look like nothing more than a rock. It would be easy enough to lose it out here. In fact, he had lost one out here. Maybe even this one.

  He stuffed it into his pocket. It was cold, but it wasn’t any colder than so many other things he’d experienced living out here.

  “How did you find it?” Jason asked.

  “I told you I was lucky,” William said, grinning.

  Another surge of heat came and Henry grabbed them, dragging them away from the stream. He turned to Sarah. “We need to track the dragon. Can you do it?”

  “I think so. I’m going to try to focus on heat and use that to connect to the dragon pearl. It should work, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I’ve never tracked another kind of dragon before, so I don’t know if it will.”

  The remnants of the shell glowed, casting a shimmery light.

  If the Dragon Souls got too close, that shimmery light was going to be visible, and it would reveal their presence to the others. Sarah continued to hold on to the pearl and the shell, and closed her eyes.

  “There’s a tracing of power. I think I can follow it, but it’s faint.”

  “Which way?”

  “That way.” She pointed. It seemed to Jason that she indicated upslope, and they started moving.

  Every so often, they would pause and she would connect to the dragon pearl again and the egg would begin to shimmer, colors flickering off it, and then it would die back down, leaving nothing more than a faint remnant of light. Each time she did, she again pointed up the slope.

  They seemed to be heading directly up the mountainside. If that were the case, and if they were heading toward the village, he worried it meant that the dragon had gone that way.

  The wind picked up, painful as it whipped past them, tearing at his clothing. He pulled his hood up, using it to keep the wind from battering his face. He glanced over at William as he hunched forward, as if trying to mask himself from the wind.

  How long would he be able to hold out? It was possible that William still was damp underneath his clothes, and if so, then he wouldn’t last nearly as long as the rest of them. Would the dragon respond if Henry needed to call it? If not, they would be stranded here, trapped by the Dragon Souls.

  Jason didn’t know if he’d be able to make it up the side of the mountain anyway. This was the kind of weather in which he would never have traveled. This was dangerous, with the snow making it difficult to know where he was going and the treacherous wind threatening to toss him backward. It was the kind of snow and wind that killed people.

  Sarah stopped again, and once again the crystal began to glow.

  “I think it’s—”

  A sense of heat exploded.

  It was near. Far too close to them, so that he worried the Dragon Souls had already reached them.

  Henry glanced at her. “Kee
p going. We can’t rest.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to see if I can delay them.”

  “Delay?”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  Jason glanced from Sarah to Henry. “I’m going with you,” he said.

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I know these lands better than you do.”

  “I thought you said there was no knowing these lands.”

  “It’s not so much knowing the land as it is knowing how to navigate in the cold and the snow.”

  “Do I look soft to you?”

  “You look like a man who was a Dragon Soul. You look like a man who might have familiarity with extreme weather, but this isn’t your place. It’s mine.”

  Henry held his gaze before nodding slightly and turning to Sarah. “Keep tracking the dragon. If you reach a village, wait on the outskirts.”

  The egg glowed again, the light soft and flickering in the cold. Sarah and William continued upward. Henry and Jason waited, watching as they disappeared.

  “What do you propose?” Henry asked him.

  Jason frowned. “Do you think that dragon pearl of yours could create an avalanche?”

  “An avalanche?” Henry arched a brow at him, holding out the pearl, and heat radiated from it. It was pleasant, but all it did was melt some of the snow that whipped down, landing in Henry’s palm. “I’m not sure I have enough control to create an avalanche.”

  “All you need to do is disrupt the snow. Do that, and we might be able to send the Dragon Souls further downslope.”

  “All that does is delay them. We need to do more than just delay.”

  Jason understood. If they continued to push back the Dragon Souls, they would run into the same issue again and again, and eventually, the Dragon Souls would be successful.

  Somehow, they had to stop them. They had to prevent Therin from reaching them, and they had to either convince them that there was no dragon or…

  “We have to kill it,” he said.

  “We have to what?”

  “We have to make it look like the dragon was killed.”

  “I don’t like that idea.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you like it or not. All that matters is that Therin believes it.”

  “I’m not sure this will work,” Henry said.

  “Why, because we haven’t found the dragon yet?”

  “That, and the entire idea is contingent on the fact that we can convince Therin of something that isn’t true. He’s incredibly smart, and if he thinks he succeeded in bringing about an ice dragon, he’s going to try again.”

  Jason pressed his lips together against the wind and looked around. The light was fading and soon it would be completely dark. It would be difficult for them to keep moving and have any hope of finding anything or anyone. “We have to try.”

  Henry scratched his chin before nodding. He held the dragon pearl up, and as he did, the sense of heat continued to build from it, radiating away, and something about it changed. The color began to shift, pulsating slightly, and Henry pointed.

  “What did you do?”

  “I asked the dragon pearl to help guide us to the others.”

  “The others?”

  “The Dragon Souls will have dragon pearls with them. Using it like this, I can track the others.”

  “And they could track you.”

  “They could if they thought I had a dragon pearl.”

  An explosion thundered near them, and Henry was knocked off his feet.

  Jason reached for him, but the snow began to shift under his boots. He scrambled, trying to get up, but wasn’t fast enough. The snow cascaded down the side of the mountain, flowing forward. He searched for Henry, but there was no sign of the man.

  Here they had wanted to be the ones to cause an avalanche. The Dragon Souls had beaten them to it.

  Jason dug his heels in, trying to stop his descent. If he didn’t control it, he would end up falling down the side of the mountain. The farther he went, the more the snow pulled at him. He grabbed at it, trying to lock himself in place.

  If only there was some way to freeze himself.

  He reached around, trying to shift his hands, and grabbed on to something.

  He stopped moving.

  It took a moment to realize that it was a hunk of ice.

  Jason pulled himself forward, keeping himself from sliding, and looked around.

  How far had he fallen?

  He didn’t think he’d slipped all that far, certainly not so far that he wouldn’t be able to reach Henry, but now he was out here alone.

  There was nothing but darkness around him. With the wind and the snow and the cold, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to find anything.

  Heat exploded nearby. Was that the Dragon Souls, or was it Henry?

  Jason didn’t know, and because he didn’t know, he hesitated to go after it.

  Instead, he got to his feet and started climbing.

  His boots sunk in with each step, the same as they had before, and he wished he had some way of floating above the snow as the Dragon Souls did.

  Even if he didn’t have some way of gliding above the snow, it would be easier if he could solidify the surface so it didn’t allow him to sink. The more he went, the harder it was to keep his footing.

  Jason continued to climb, thinking about his people. He thought about William, Sarah, and even Henry. All of them needed this to end. More than that, he needed to figure out what was going to take place so that he could keep the people of his village safe.

  There was another sense of heat, and Jason looked into the night but didn’t see anything. He scanned, searching for movement, but in the darkness it was difficult to make anything out. His dragon sight wasn’t helpful at all.

  That, most of all, troubled him. If they all wore dragonskin, then he wouldn’t be able to see them.

  But they weren’t wearing dragonskin. Sarah and William weren’t wearing dragonskin. If nothing else, he should be able to see them if he were able to get closer to them. Henry was going to be harder to spot.

  Jason looked down, trying to catch himself, and when he glanced back up, a figure loomed in front of him.

  He dropped in the snow, holding himself down.

  The figure continued to loom closer.

  There was no sense of heat.

  He didn’t see anything with his dragon sight.

  That meant it was one of the Dragon Souls—or Henry.

  Then again, if it were Henry, wouldn’t he say something?

  Jason had a sense that he would be able to find him, but it depended upon Henry knowing he was there.

  He didn’t want to move. He feared doing anything other than what he was already doing, and that was hiding, lying here on the snow, ready for the possibility that he would need to try and fight.

  He moved one hand, getting it closer to his waist where his knife hid under his jacket, and as he did, he felt the strange icy dragon pearl.

  His fingers brushed along the surface, and cold burst through him.

  In the time he had carried it, there had been no sense of cold, and it was strange it would suddenly feel cold now. Then again, maybe it was because he was lying in the snow, not moving, not exerting any energy. He was at the mercy of the wind and the snow and the environment. Everything around him was a potential threat.

  He moved his hand past it, but the sense of the figure nearby loomed even closer.

  Jason tensed.

  As he tried to reach for his knife, something grabbed him, pulling him to his feet.

  “Imagine finding you here.”

  Jason turned his head and came face-to-face with Therin.

  23

  His breath quickened and a cold sweat worked over him. It was dangerous to sweat that way out in this environment, and he tried to control his breathing, to steady his beating heart. He wanted nothing more than to get away from Therin, but the other man held him in the air easily.
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  Control your emotions during the hunt. You can. The creatures you hunt can’t.

  As he’d told Henry, this was his home. Not Therin’s.

  He had the advantage. He had to use it.

  “You would have been useful,” Therin said. “And yet, you chose to side with the others. It’s a mistake, but unfortunately, it’s one you won’t have an opportunity to correct.”

  “You won’t find the dragon.”

  Therin released him, tossing him back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out something. It didn’t take long for Jason to realize that he held a dragon pearl in both hands. “And if you think you protect a dragon, you will fail.”

  “I won’t fail in these lands.”

  Therin studied him. “Aren’t you the one who said your father died because of the dragons?”

  “You tried to tell me the dragons weren’t responsible. I seem to remember you telling me the one who controlled them was responsible. The Dragon Souls were responsible.”

  “If a dragon killed your father, it’s likely he got in the way.”

  “The dragons shouldn’t have even been here,” Jason said. “They don’t tolerate the cold.”

  “Is that what Henry told you?” Jason nodded. “He’s right, at least somewhat. The dragons don’t particularly care for the cold, though they can tolerate it for a little while. If the dragons were here, it was likely they were here on a mission for… me.”

  Jason stared at Therin for a moment. Everything began to tumble together.

  “It’s your fault,” he said.

  “My fault for what?”

  “My father.”

  Therin frowned at him. “I’m afraid you give me far too much credit. Not that I would deny getting rid of some villager if it were necessary, but—”

  “You were trying to place eggs. He must’ve come across you.” Or Tessa, but Jason left her out of it for now. Would Therin reveal her role?

  Therin watched him. “When did he die?”

  “Over a year ago,” he said.

  Therin stared at him. “Is that right?” He cocked his head to the side and scratched his chin as if he were trying to think. “I don’t really recall. All I know is that these lands will one day house dragons. The kingdom and all of Lorach will be expanded. And eventually the dragons Dragon Haven tries to hide from us will no longer remain hidden. The rebellion will finally fail.”