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

by D. K. Holmberg

Jason looked at the stream burbling near him.

  There was one thing he could do, but he didn’t know if the dragon’s protections extended that far.

  He glanced over at the dragon. “Help me.”

  With that, he raced forward, slamming into Therin.

  The other man was strong, but the sudden movement startled him, and Jason drove him into the stream.

  This time, he was ready for the cold, and surprisingly, it didn’t affect him quite the same way it had the first time. He sat on top of Therin, riding him as the water flowed past, letting the stream carry him. He remained holding him. Therin tried to fight, pushing outward with heat and the power of the dragon pearls, but Jason ignored it, pushing outward with his dragon pearl. He wrapped Therin in the strange white light, and slowly, ice crystallized around Therin. The power of the stream and the cold within it gave him more connection.

  After a few moments, Therin stopped moving.

  The light glowing from his hands began to dim before going out entirely.

  Jason held on, forcing the other man down, squeezing him into the stream, and tried to push more and more power around him, creating a larger ice ball around Therin.

  That connection began to wane, and he started to feel the cold.

  He shivered.

  As he did, something grabbed him and pulled him free of the stream.

  Jason lay on the shoreline, looking up. Everything still seemed to have that soft glow about it, although the snowflakes no longer had the sharp, needle-like quality to them. He was so cold it took his breath away, making everything difficult.

  He looked up. The dragon was there, meeting his eyes with its silver ones.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The dragon rumbled, and he wasn’t sure if there were any words in it. He couldn’t tell, and then the cold began to sweep through him, and he shivered.

  The dragon grabbed him and started to slide along the surface of the snow.

  At some point, Jason blacked out.

  25

  Heat built. It swirled around him, and Jason tried to blink open his eyes, but he wasn’t able to see anything. It took a moment to realize why that was. There was heat, but his eyelids were frozen shut.

  “I think he’s coming around,” a voice said, though distantly.

  “Keep working on it.” This one clearly came from Henry; Jason recognized the rough gravel to his voice.

  “I’m here,” Jason said.

  He took a deep breath and tried to move his arms, found that they did work, and brought them up to his eyes, wiping them across his face.

  Icicles crackled off his eyelids and he blinked them open. A warm orange light glowed around him.

  He sat up and realized he was back within the cave. His breath caught as he looked around, worried that the ice dragon might be here and that they might still be under attack, but he saw only Sarah and William and Henry.

  The ice dragon was gone.

  “How are you here?” Jason asked.

  William laughed. “Here I thought I was lucky. From what Henry says, you shouldn’t be alive.”

  Henry glanced over at him. He was standing near the edge of the cave, looking down. “He shouldn’t be. With exposure like that, you should have died.”

  Jason breathed out, looking around the cave. “How did you find me?”

  “We were tracking the dragon egg and the dragon, and it brought us up, but then it brought us back down and around.” Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know if there even was a dragon.”

  Henry locked eyes with him. “What happened?”

  “Therin.”

  “I know Therin. What happened with Therin?”

  Jason took a deep breath, drawing himself up, and looked around the cavern. The others were crouching near him, and only Henry stood. Jason resisted the urge to look toward the water, not wanting the others to know that was where the ice dragon had emerged. He wasn’t sure why he hid that from them, and yet, perhaps he shouldn’t.

  Then again, the ice dragon was still young, developing, and he wasn’t sure what they would do if they learned of it.

  Probably nothing, but there was still the possibility they would try to do the same thing that Therin had done, and they might want to try to control it, to use it in their attack against Lorach.

  He didn’t want that for the dragon. He wanted the dragon to have the opportunity to grow, to decide what it wanted, and it wasn’t going to be able to do that with others wanting to use it.

  “He found me. After the attack, he came upon me, and he tried to drag me with him. He threatened my village.”

  “How are you here?” Henry asked.

  Jason got to his knees, looking around. His jacket was still frozen, and it was a marvel that he lived. One glove was on, the other off, and he gripped the dragon pearl in his hand. It surprised him that he still held on to it, but it was probably because of the dragon pearl that he even lived.

  “I… I convinced him he would find the dragon in here.”

  “How?” Henry asked.

  “I told him we found the egg.”

  Henry grunted. “I’m no longer convinced it was the egg.”

  Jason looked down. “It’s probably just from the ceiling of the cave.”

  Sarah sighed. “That’s what we think, too. That’s probably why the spell brought us back here. I thought maybe it was an egg, because it was so different, and because I was using the dragon pearl to track, but…”

  “I’m glad you found me,” he said.

  “It’s good we came back here,” Sarah said.

  “What happened with Therin?” Henry asked.

  Jason looked toward the stream. As he did, there was no sign of movement—and no sign of the dragon. Was it gone? It was possible it followed the flow of the stream, but it was also possible that it was lying there, hiding.

  “When he brought me here, I pushed him into the stream.”

  “You what?” William asked.

  Jason nodded. “I pushed him into the stream. I held him down. He tried to use his dragon pearls for heat, but he wasn’t strong enough to overpower the cold of this place.”

  “It would take considerable energy to do so. It would likely drain the dragon of its own energy, and even that might not be enough,” Henry said.

  At least that explained why he’d managed to survive.

  “I don’t think the dragon pearl was enough. He stopped moving, and floated downstream.”

  “He’s probably not gone,” Henry said.

  With Therin’s connection to the dragon pearls and the dragons, it was possible that, even frozen as he was, he might be able to thaw himself. The farther he went downstream, Jason had to hope the other man would have time to figure things out. At least this way, Therin wasn’t going to pose a threat for a little while.

  Jason looked at the others. He needed to tell them about the dragon, didn’t he?

  And yet, he wasn’t sure he could.

  “He’s probably not gone,” Jason agreed. “What about the other Dragon Souls?”

  “The rest of the Dragon Souls have been removed. One of them got away, but we haven’t seen any evidence of them.”

  “He fell into the stream, too,” Jason said.

  “You knocked two Dragon Souls into the stream?” William asked.

  “The first one was accidental, and it gave me the idea of what to do with Therin.”

  William laughed. “Like I said, I’m supposed to be lucky.”

  Henry looked up at the top of the cave before turning his attention to Jason.

  “What now?” William asked.

  “Now we sit out the storm. In the morning, we will summon the dragon, and then we return to Dragon Haven,” Henry said.

  “I’m not going with you,” Jason said.

  “You’re not?” William turned toward him. “I can’t return to my town. Not with Gary after me. Well, and because I know there are dragons.” He grinned, but there was a pained look in his eyes. Wi
lliam wouldn’t return, but Jason wondered if he wanted to. “It would be a lot better to have you with us.”

  Sarah watched him. Jason couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “I didn’t leave my village because I wanted to leave,” he said softly.

  “Is there much for you there?” she asked.

  Jason made his way to the edge of the stream, looking down into it. He saw his lean face reflected back up at him, the silver eye shining back at him. Different than everyone in his home village. Were he to go with them to Dragon Haven, there might be others like him. Wasn’t that what he wanted? A chance to fit in, to understand what he might be able to do, and whether there was a connection between him and the dragons. What he’d seen with Therin had proven he had some power.

  Memories of his father came back to him. There might be something he could learn by going with them, but there was more he needed to learn by staying.

  Staring into the stream, every so often, he thought he saw movement on the bottom, but that might just be his imagination.

  “Therin killed my father,” he said slowly.

  “How do you know?” Sarah asked.

  “He told me. He said he saw him. My father found an egg Therin was trying to place, and he killed him for it.”

  It was a simplification, but it was enough.

  “I need to return. I’ve been so distraught over losing my father for so long that I haven’t been the person I needed to be. I need to return for my sister and my mother. I need to return for…” He took a deep breath, looking up at Sarah, meeting her eyes. There was something unreadable in them. “I think I need to return for myself.”

  Henry approached. “I will leave a token with you. If you ever need us, you can use it.”

  He handed something to him. A small piece that reminded him of the dragon pearl, though it wasn’t smooth or round.

  “How would you know?” Jason asked.

  Henry held his gaze. “We would know.”

  Jason turned away from the stream. Somewhere in there was the ice dragon, and he needed to better understand his connection to it, as he was convinced that he had a connection. The longer he spent here, the more he thought he could understand it. Once he did, he could figure out if it was time to go to Dragon Haven and join the others. Until then, he would remain in the village.

  It wasn’t ideal. The village didn’t feel quite like home to him any longer, but there were people there who cared about him.

  They settled down for rest, and he had a fitful sleep, filled with dreams of cold and ice and movement underneath the water.

  When he awoke, light streamed in from the opening of the cave. Henry was already up, standing there, looking out, heat radiating off him. When Jason joined him, the other man glanced back. “I’ve summoned the dragon.”

  “How long will it be?”

  “Not long. We’ll search for Therin.”

  If Therin had survived, Jason wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to return. The stream would carry him far from here, and it would remain as icy cold for the entirety of the journey. It would take quite a while for Therin to come around, and even that might not be survivable.

  He had to hope that the other man was gone.

  It didn’t make him sad at all. Therin was responsible for what happened to Jason’s father. If nothing else, he thought he could let his mother and sister know, though even if he did, would they believe him? They were like he had once been, and believed the dragons were responsible for his loss.

  It didn’t take long before a dark shape appeared from above, and the enormous form of the dragon lowered to the ground outside. In the light, the sunlight reflected off its scales, giving it a shimmering appearance. Heat radiated from the dragon’s back, and it lifted its front legs while it stood in the snow.

  Henry climbed onto the dragon’s back, looking down.

  Jason glanced at the others.

  “I hope to see you again,” William said.

  “I do as well.”

  William climbed up on the back of the dragon, sitting behind Henry.

  Sarah hesitated, looking at Jason, a question filling her silver eyes. “You don’t have to stay here.”

  He wanted to say something more to her, to explain himself better, but he couldn’t tell his sister about the dragon yet and he couldn’t leave without his sister. “It’s not that I have to.”

  “There is much that you could learn. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “I don’t know that I’m ready.”

  “I hope one day you will be ready.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment before pulling him toward her, hugging him, and then stepping back. When she turned away, she seemed to have moisture in her eyes, and she climbed up on the dragon’s back.

  Jason waved, but the dragon took off quickly and circled as it went, disappearing into the air. He took a deep breath. It was time to head back.

  Before doing so, he turned toward the stream, reaching his hand into it.

  As he suspected, it wasn’t nearly as cold as he remembered. He brought his hand out and shook off the ice that formed, and felt none of the ill effects he would’ve expected.

  Crawling back into the cave, he crouched at the edge of the stream.

  “If you’re in there, know that I will come and visit.”

  There came a deep rumbling from somewhere, and yet, the dragon didn’t appear.

  Jason smiled to himself. That was okay. The dragon had helped him, and because of the dragon, he had survived.

  He stuffed the dragon pearl into his pocket, pulled his glove back on, and headed out of the cave.

  He looked up at the sky. It was almost blue. For the first time in as long as he remembered, there were no clouds in the sky. Wind whistled as it often did, but there wasn’t any of the same bite to it as he was accustomed to feeling.

  A bright sky full of hope.

  Jason smiled at the thought, another quote from his father. There hadn’t been many bright skies, but when they’d had them, his father had wanted to take advantage of them, believing them better days for hunting. There wouldn’t be any hunting today, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good day for hunting.

  Jason turned his attention up the slope, and he climbed.

  From here, it wasn’t a long climb. Only a few hours, and it seemed as if he made better time than he usually would have. His boots didn’t sink into the snow the same way they once had, and he couldn’t help but feel as if his connection to the dragon had somehow altered something for him, making it so that not only was he more impervious to the cold, but he was able to travel more easily along the surface of the snow.

  As he went, he began to grow warm.

  It was a strange sensation, and yet, he smiled to himself.

  By the time he finally saw the edge of the village, a sheen of sweat worked over him.

  He stood looking up at the village. There was movement there, and to his dragon sight, he could make out aspects of that, though he wasn’t able to recognize anyone from where he stood. He breathed in the crisp air and wondered what sort of reception he would receive upon his return.

  It was difficult to know how long he’d been gone. It likely had been nearly a week, possibly longer, but in that time, so much had changed for him. He had changed.

  And he was thankful for that.

  Taking another deep breath, he headed back to the village.

  When he reached the first row of buildings, he paused. He had questions for Tessa. The egg had ended up in the cave, and he suspected she was responsible for it as she must have been the one to return with it, but those questions would come another time.

  It was time to go home.

  The snow was piled up outside, having not been shoveled. That was usually his job. He frowned and swept a hand across it, but as he did, the snow seemed to shimmer, freezing beneath his hand.

  He stood, staring at it.

  That was strange. Had his connection to the dragon ch
anged so much for him?

  Once the snow was cleared off in front of the house, he pushed open the door.

  It was dimly lit, and a faint fire crackled along one wall, the air filled with the odor of burning dung. It was a familiar scent, but not necessarily a welcome one.

  There was no one here. He closed the door behind him, not wanting the heat to escape, and began to unbutton his coat, looking around for his sister or his mother.

  Neither of them was here.

  He checked the kitchen, thankful there was some food, and he grabbed a bit of old meat, chewing on it. The venison was oversalted, but his sister had made it tender, and it melted in his mouth. This was what he had missed while he was gone.

  Now that he was back, he was going to have to hunt again, and yet, he wondered if he would find it easier. No longer would he fear descending too far down the side of the mountain.

  Even if he did, he knew there was much that he could find. If he were to risk it, he could go all the way down the side of the mountain, down to the village, and perhaps find supplies.

  “Kayla? Mother?”

  “Hello?”

  The voice was soft, muted, and Jason started toward the back room. When he reached the door, he looked inside.

  “Kayla?”

  His sister leaned over the bed. When she looked over, her eyes went wide. She took a step back, staggering away. “Jason?”

  He nodded. “It’s me.”

  “How are you… How are you still alive?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  He took a step into the room but his sister remained stiff, watching him.

  “You’ve been gone for so long. No one ever returns when they’re gone that long. You missed Reltash’s punishment for firing one of the ballistae and… where have you been?”

  He would have loved to have seen Reltash get punished and was truly sorry that he’d missed it. “I got caught in the storm. An avalanche…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I made it back.”

  She reached a hand forward, touching him. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “I’m better now.”

  “But your coat is frozen.”

  He glanced down. He hadn’t realized icicles still coated him. Perhaps he should have been more careful. “I’m okay.”