Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Read online

  Storm Dragon

  The Dragon Misfits Book 4

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2020 by D.K. Holmberg

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Author’s Note

  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  The smell struck Jason Dreshen first.

  It was a strange scent, and it seemed to drift through the valley, wafting toward him, an unpleasant odor of rot he couldn’t quite shake. On top of it, though, was something familiar. It was almost as if he had smelled that rot before, though Jason wasn’t entirely sure why that would be.

  He wrinkled his nose as he breathed it in, focusing on that smell and trying to determine whether he should investigate or just leave it alone. At this point, it might be wiser just to let it be.

  He looked around the valley. The hillside rolled forward, a gentle slope toward a jungle filled with deep green shrubs and trees and vines, all of them growing densely together. It was different enough from the forest that he had thought perhaps he might be able to find one of the other dragon misfits within its boundaries, but in the time he’d been wandering through here, Jason hadn’t encountered anything. Somewhere out in the valley, the iron dragon weaved through the trees, slithering in his distinctive way, navigating far more effectively than a dragon should be able to.

  The smell continued to press upon him.

  The farther he went, the more overwhelming that odor became.

  At some point, he might have to turn back. Whatever rot he detected here was awful.

  Distantly, the sense of the ice dragon floated high overhead. Jason pushed a hint of himself through the connection they shared, demonstrating to the ice dragon what he smelled. For a moment, there was amusement within the ice dragon, but then that faded.

  There was a sense of power. The ice dragon was coming.

  “You don’t need to come down for this,” Jason said.

  He used the connection he shared with the ice dragon in order to communicate with him, and thought it strange that the ice dragon would even think he needed to venture down here, but maybe he was concerned for Jason. He viewed himself as Jason’s protector. In the time that they had known each other, there had been more than a few times where the ice dragon had needed to protect him.

  He didn’t think this was one of them.

  Not that he really understood what he smelled, though maybe that was the point.

  The ice dragon hovered, his massive wings stretched out from either side of him, the cold leaving a shimmering mist in the air around him as he hung suspended overhead.

  “You didn’t need to come down here,” Jason said again.

  The ice dragon snorted. It seemed as if steam drifted from his nostrils, but it was more of a frosty fog. “Something is amiss,” the ice dragon said.

  “And by something, I presume you mean this awfulness I smell.”

  “That is what I mean,” the ice dragon said. “It smells like a rotting carcass.”

  “It’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced before.” Of course, in the northern mountain village that had once been his home, animals didn’t rot. If they died, they were caught out in the storm and froze. There was never any odor, never anything quite like this.

  Smelling this now was unpleasant, but maybe it was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Jason didn’t really know what was normal when it came to this sort of thing. Having been spending time in Dragon Haven, he had been experiencing things he never had before, new sights and sounds and activities. He no longer hungered the way he once had, his belly full in ways he still found miraculous. He sometimes found it impossible to even believe the types of food he was offered could exist.

  Most of the smells that he had experienced were pleasant ones, so it was possible that this was simply something normal that he’d not encountered yet.

  “It’s just ahead. I think you need to look into this,” the ice dragon said.

  “Why would I need to look into it? If it’s a rotting carcass as you said, I don’t need to see it. It’s not like I’m curious about what a rotting carcass might look like.”

  “We should look,” the ice dragon said again.

  There was something else in the way he said it, an urgency that Jason recognized. It was a troubled sound.

  Jason focused on the connection he shared with the ice dragon, and he felt a sense of concern there. That was unusual.

  Typically, when it came to the ice dragon, he wasn’t concerned by anything. He was powerful, and he was growing increasingly so. It was almost as if his time in the northern reaches, and high overhead, continued to fuel him. Compared to the smaller, weaker dragon Jason had first discovered, the creature that he now saw was something completely different.

  “Where do you think I should look?”

  “It’s not far from here,” the dragon said.

  Jason wound through the jungle. The air was warm and he glanced up at the ice dragon, looking to see whether or not he was suffering, and noted the sheen of ice glistening along his surface. He added a layer of water and solidified it, turning it into a barrier of sorts along his wings and scaled sides.

  “I can keep looking into this and let you know what I find.”

  “I would like to see what this is.”

  “Why?”

  “There is something amiss.”

  He squeezed his iron dragon glove, pulling upon the energy within the iron dragon. The creature was still somewhere distant, far enough away that Jason wasn’t able to see or detect where he was. Jason could feel him, though. When it came to the dragons, Jason was able to feel them all of the time. That connection was something he valued, a far cry from the way he had once felt about the dragons. Even the forest dragon remained connected to him.

  Jason could feel the sense of the forest dragon, aware of her even though he had not spent as much time with her as he had with the other dragons. He recognized she was there, near enough to him, and connected well enough to him, that he could detect her presence within his mind. There was the faint fluttering of the wind as he often felt from her.

  Her ability had been useful to keep him safe, to keep Dragon Haven safe, but outside of that, Jason didn’t know what more he could do with her illusions. She was powerful, but he wondered at the extent of her power.

  Drawing upon the ice dragon and the iron dragon, Jason let that sense of power flow to him, and he borrowed it in order to help him move more rapidly through the forest. He
strode forward, hurrying between trees and around shrubs, parting them off to the side in order to move through here as quickly as he could.

  The smell intensified.

  The farther he went, the more horrible it was.

  Jason glanced up at the ice dragon still flying overhead. He had gained a little more altitude, though he wasn’t going to be completely comfortable until he was higher in the sky, away from the heat and humidity found here. It might be pleasant for the iron dragon, but Jason didn’t need to reach through his bond to the ice dragon to know just how difficult it was for him. He could feel it, but he could also see it in the way water glistened off his hide, the droplets raining down around him.

  “Go,” Jason said. “I can summon you when I find something.”

  The ice dragon sent a hint of irritation through him. Jason smiled to himself. The dragon didn’t like to admit to any weakness, but when it came to heat—especially heat like this—there were limits to how much he was able to withstand. There was no point in trying to fight through it, no point in the ice dragon attempting to overpower the natural heat of a place. It was easier for the ice dragon to remain where he was comfortable. It might be a weakness, but from what Jason had seen, all of the dragons had weaknesses. Most couldn’t endure the cold the ice dragon called home.

  The dragon suddenly launched himself upward. He streaked high into the sky, moving much faster than he once had been able to, making it a little difficult for Jason to follow him. After no more than a few heartbeats, he had disappeared, blasting into the clouds high overhead and fading from view.

  The link between them remained solid and strong, and even though Jason could no longer see him, he could still feel the ice dragon and the connection that they shared.

  He turned toward the smell.

  The ice dragon might not be able to help him here, but the iron dragon could.

  Jason focused on his connection with the iron dragon, squeezing the glove. He didn’t need to squeeze it in order to solidify that bond, but there was something in the gesture that added a connectivity. The metal on his hand was remarkable. In the time since the dragon pearl had flowed over the surface of his hand and up his wrist, it had become a part of him. He still marveled at it. It was metallic, but it was flexible, and it carried with it the lines and contours of his skin. Because of it, he was never separated from the dragon, and never separated from their connection.

  It was the same with the forest dragon. Through what she had done to him, giving him the gift of a bond that flowed over his other hand, through his veins, he had a different sort of energy and an understanding of her.

  Jason embraced that.

  How could he not? Having the power of the forest dragon, the energy of her running throughout him, made it so that he was better connected to everything she could offer. It was more than just her power and the ability to cast illusions. That was useful, and it was something he prized, especially now that he had been able to use it to defeat Therin. It was the sense of her within him.

  Each of the dragons had their own unique personality. They had all suffered, and in a way, they were outcasts, different than the rest of the dragons that existed throughout these lands. It was something that Jason understood. He was also something of an outcast. He was different than the people of his village. So different, in fact, that Jason didn’t even know if he could ever return.

  Not that he thought he wanted to. Now that he had come to experience and understand the beauty and the nature of Dragon Haven, Jason doubted that he could ever return to live in the mountain village he had called home.

  “I might need your help,” he said, sending the connection through the iron dragon glove.

  There was an immediate response, as there usually was. When it came to the iron dragon, he might disappear for stretches of time, but he also seemed to actively enjoy the bond he shared with Jason.

  There came a steady rumbling, a crackling of branches as the dragon slithered back toward him.

  Jason laughed, though it felt strange with the foul odor all around him. When the dragon appeared, pressing his massive face through a space between two stunted trees, Jason could only shake his head.

  “You could have flown.”

  “Flying isn’t always the most fun way to travel.”

  “You might be one of the few dragons who feels that way.”

  “Maybe,” the iron dragon said, breathing out a streamer of steam and smoke. His body was cooled, blackened, and almost looked as if it crackled, the occasional flash of red glowing along his surface making it so that Jason was aware of the heat within the dragon, even if he didn’t radiate it.

  “I love it,” Jason said quickly.

  The dragon turned one eye to him, the orange glow seeming to burn from someplace deep within him.

  The dragon snorted, and Jason could only shake his head.

  “Do you detect anything here?”

  “What should I detect?”

  “The smell. The ice dragon thought it was a rotting carcass, but it is awful.”

  The iron dragon breathed in deeply, and the trees and shrubs all around seemed to move, sucked in by the force of the breath. When he let it out, they fluttered back away, blasted by the heat, the leaves withering or curling under the strength of it.

  “There is something,” the iron dragon said.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No, though it is familiar to me.”

  “Can you help me find it?”

  “Following smells would not be my strength,” the iron dragon said.

  And it wasn’t something that the ice dragon would be able to do. If Jason were able to coax the forest dragon out of the forest, he might be able to ask her for help, but she refused to leave. She felt far more comfortable in the trees, protected by her forest and her illusions, and was unwilling to go anywhere else.

  Not for his lack of trying. Eventually, he thought he would need the forest dragon, and he would need to see if she might be able to assist when it came to searching for other hatch mates.

  For now, he had committed to not pushing.

  There was no point in trying to force her into doing something she didn’t want to. There was a limit to how much he could encourage before she began to rebel. Having been controlled by the Dragon Souls once before, she was far more sensitive to those things than others.

  “I suppose it’s going to have to be me, then.”

  “Do you have a sensitive nose?”

  “Apparently sensitive enough. I can smell whatever it is that’s out here, and it’s awful, so it is has to be nearby.”

  As dense as the jungle was, even if whatever he smelled was nearby, it might take him too long to find it. That was something the iron dragon might be able to help with.

  “Can you make way through here for me?”

  The dragon looked over at him, snorting, and then he began to crash through the jungle.

  “I didn’t tell you which way to go.”

  “I can tell which direction you can smell it,” the iron dragon said.

  “You can tell?” Jason and the dragons had a considerable connection, especially as it worked both ways. Not only were they able to detect things about him, but he was able to borrow from them, to look through their eyes from time to time and see the world from their vantage.

  He hadn’t realized that it extended to other senses.

  “Can I smell what you smell?”

  “You might not be able to understand it,” the iron dragon said.

  “How can you understand what I’m smelling?”

  “It’s not an understanding of what it is. I can tell which way you want me to go based on what you detected. It is different.”

  Jason had to spend some time thinking about it. If he were able to borrow those senses from the dragon, he might be able to gain something even more. He could imagine how that might be used, and he could imagine not only the sense of smell, but borrowing temperature differentials, or sounds,
or…

  The odor continued to intensify.

  It had to be close.

  “We might be searching for nothing more than a rotting wolf.”

  “Are there wolves in this part of the world?”

  Jason looked around at the jungle. The iron dragon had carried him as far to the east as he had dared to go, staying beyond the traditional boundaries of Lorach. There was so much of the world that Jason had never known existed, and by traveling through here, following the jungle and the iron dragon, he had started to think perhaps he might find another hatch mate.

  There were others. There had to be others.

  Yet as he searched, the intensity of the odor kept distracting him.

  “I don’t think we’re going to find a hatch mate here,” he muttered. “Any dragon that lived here would be scared away.”

  “Dragons aren’t scared,” the iron dragon said.

  “Maybe not scared away, but whatever else would be here might be chased off.”

  The ground dropped off suddenly and Jason hesitated, standing on a ridgeline.

  Far below, a river rushed beneath them, rapids spreading out, some of the spray even drifting up and catching Jason. He breathed it in, hoping the water would wash away some of the stench, but it didn’t.

  It seemed to be intensifying it.

  Could it be that the smell was floating along the river?

  “Can you get me down there?”

  The dragon lowered his head and Jason climbed up on his neck.

  Suddenly, the dragon pulled his wings in and glided, drifting down the slope and splashing with a massive steaming hiss into the river.

  It reminded Jason of the very first time that he had traveled with the iron dragon. That time, they had been running, trying to escape from Dragon Souls, and the dragon hadn’t even known how to fly. They had slammed into trees as he worked his way toward safety. Even now, the dragon still enjoyed traveling in a similar way, and Jason couldn’t shake the amusement he felt at how the dragon slithered as it moved.