There had to be at least two more, which meant that there would be other Dragon Souls.
“Are you injured?” he asked the iron dragon.
“You took long enough,” he growled.
“I can’t get close to you with you radiating heat like that.”
As soon as he said it, the intensity of the heat retreated, and it washed down the dragon’s neck, leaving the back of his neck and his head a dark gray, almost black in appearance.
Jason grabbed Sarah by the hand and raced toward the iron dragon. When he reached him, the heat still wafted off the dragon, but it was not so much that he wasn’t able to withstand it.
Jason jumped onto his back, and Sarah climbed behind him.
Where was Henry?
A shadow descended.
Jason barely looked up in time, and when he did, he caught sight of a dark shadow darting toward them. It was an enormous dragon, a deep navy blue, and its scales glittered with power. Heat radiated from it.
It was a powerful dragon, something unlike anything that he had ever seen before, its strength matching only that of the maroon dragon that Therin had ridden.
Jason focused on the dragon, pushing power into it.
And as he did, he found no resistance.
Whatever else happened, this dragon wasn’t controlled the same way. Whatever training the Dragon Souls had used on this dragon was different.
And as he watched, the dragon continued to descend upon them.
They were going to have to fight.
16
Jason gripped the back of the iron dragon’s neck and tapped on his side. With a surge of heat, the dragon streaked forward, the heat rolling along the length of his body, the metal shifting. With a slap of his enormous wings, they exploded into the air, blasting into the sky, and Jason twisted, looking off to the side.
Where was Henry?
He found the man facing two Dragon Souls and a surprisingly small, dark dragon near him. Jason focused on the dragon, pushing power through him, blasting through the resistance.
If nothing else, he would give Henry a chance.
And then the shadowed form of the blue dragon neared.
The iron dragon spun, rotating through the air, and as he did, heat continued to radiate from him, blasting with the movement, and it seemed almost as if streamers of sparks flowed off him.
Jason clung to the dragon’s neck, focusing on the heat, on the power, and on the dragon’s energy, and he tried to hold on.
More than that, he looked over at Sarah, wanting to make sure she could hold on as well.
The power coming off the iron dragon was enormous, but Jason was more concerned about what this blue dragon would do. The blue dragon darted forward and the iron dragon twisted, roaring, and then dove, dipping toward the ground before blasting back up and shooting straight into the sky.
It took all of Jason’s energy to hold himself on the dragon, but Sarah started to slip.
He squeezed the dragon, holding on with his iron dragon glove, which gave him far more grip than he had otherwise. With his free hand, he looped around Sarah’s waist, clutching her tightly. The dragon continued to rocket upward, gaining speed and altitude, heat flowing off him. It was enormous and almost more than Jason could tolerate.
The air began to thin, reminding him of when he had traveled with the ice dragon.
The ice dragon.
He focused on his connection to the ice dragon, and he sent an urgency to the ice dragon, whatever summons he might be able to draw, and in doing so, he could feel power flowing from the ice dragon, and Jason called to him.
The sense of him came.
It did so slowly, but hopefully the ice dragon would respond and provide the help Jason needed.
And then the iron dragon dipped, darting back down.
They shot toward the ground, perpendicular to it, and he was forced to hold on to Sarah again, looping his arm around her, pinning her to the dragon’s back.
She cried out, but there was nothing Jason could do to help her other than what he was already doing. He shared her fear, the terror he felt within her, knowing there was nothing he was going to be able to do to prevent them from falling off.
The dragon had to know that he was doing more than they could tolerate, but they shot toward the blue dragon.
The other dragon twisted, angling off toward the trees, through the forest.
Jason tapped on the iron dragon, trying to get his attention, and he changed course.
They streaked off, chasing after the blue dragon.
There was a sense of exhilaration coming off the iron dragon.
“You don’t have to enjoy this so much,” he said.
“And why should I not?”
“Because you’re hunting another dragon.”
“Why can’t you just free it?” Sarah asked.
“That dragon isn’t influenced the same way as the others were,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I used everything that I could in order to test, and there was nothing there.”
And if there was nothing there, he didn’t know how they were going to stop the dragon other than actually attacking. That was something he was not eager to do. He didn’t want to harm the dragon. He didn’t want to harm any of them. All he wanted was to try to do what he could to free them. He wanted to finish this so that he could return to his village, to prove to himself that the people were there, and if they were not, then he was going to have to return to Lorach as they had planned from the beginning.
Even that wasn’t all of it. He worried about the reason he had been moved aside. Therin had manipulated him, wanting to draw him out, to try to use him so that he could find some way of attacking Dragon Haven.
More than ever, Jason was certain that was the key to what Therin had wanted. Because of that, he knew he needed to find some way to get safely back to Dragon Haven, but they would need to have enough support in order to do so.
How was that going to be possible?
They streaked across the top of the forest, the blue dragon twisting and turning, changing directions, and Jason clung to the iron dragon’s back, focusing on what they were doing, the weight of their twisting, the way they were turning. Now that they were no longer perpendicular to the ground, he found it easier to hold on, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still flying frantically.
For as fast as the iron dragon was, the blue dragon seemed to fly just as quickly.
The iron dragon needed to corral him, to angle him in a different direction, but what if the blue dragon was trying to draw them away?
“We need to be careful they’re not trying to pull you into an ambush,” he said.
He scanned the sky, looking for any signs of movement, but there were no other dragons. They had to be close to Lorach, and Jason believed there would be other dragons nearby, but he didn’t see any sign of them.
He held his breath, letting the dragon chase, feeling the sense of exhilaration radiating from the iron dragon and marveling at the fact that he was even able to detect it at all. Why should he know that exhilaration from the dragon?
Jason had never connected quite this fully to the dragon before. Now that he did, now that he could feel that emotion coming off the dragon, he had to wonder how it was happening.
The iron dragon streaked upward again, and with a surge of power, an explosion of heat, he angled back downward.
It was an interesting technique, heat exploding them upward and then letting them streak toward the ground. Each time he did, they got closer to the blue dragon, but the other dragon twisted, turning in the sky, trying to avoid any attack they might make and staying ahead of them.