Home > Night Dragon : An Epic Fantasy Adventure

Night Dragon : An Epic Fantasy Adventure
Author: D.K. Holmberg

 

1

 

 

The darkness swirled all around the inside of the forest and Jason focused on it, staring into the inky depths. In this case, it could just be the fog of night layering over everything, but it could also be something more, something unsettling. He had enough experience with the small night dragon to question why it created this shade.

He held onto the power of the other dragons. He could feel the ice and the iron dragons’ power flowing through him as it often did. Jason added a hint of the forest dragon, that connection that allowed him to be able to shift reality. On top of that, he had a faint and distant sense of the storm dragon. That dragon was there, crackling energy, and the more that he focused on that sense of energy, the easier it was to know there was some way to use it. It was a new connection.

He took a step forward.

He was careful when he did so, not wanting to move too quickly, not wanting to risk the danger of the darkness. He could feel that around him, almost as if it were squeezing around him, though even now, he couldn’t tell whether or not that darkness was anything other than the shadow of night. When he looked up at the sky, he saw only a cloudless night, no moon, no stars, just the blanket of black. That, as much as anything, suggested this was supernatural.

“I can feel you,” Jason mumbled. His voice came out muted, quiet and soft, and it came out as if it were within a fog of energy.

It was another clue that he was right about what he had detected and how he believed the night dragon to be here. He held onto the other dragons’ energy, calling that power to him, letting it surround him, swirling throughout him.

Jason started with the iron dragon, letting the heat radiate outward. It was one aspect that he knew the night dragon wouldn’t be troubled by, and then he added a hint of the ice dragon’s cold. By holding onto the two, the bonding pair allowed him to create a fog of his own, a cloud of water vapor that hovered over everything. Finally, he added a hint of the forest dragon. Vaguely, he noticed something different.

It was an insidious sort of sensation, something that filtered through, leaving a trailing swirling all around him. There was a part of Jason that thought it felt cold, though cold wasn’t quite right. When he was connected to the iron dragon as he was, there was no real sense of cold anyway. Jason had long ago lost the fear of the endless bite of cold he had once known his entire life.

What he knew now was a sense of energy. That pressure upon him was little more than a fluttering.

Tracking through that connection, Jason could feel something more.

He took a step. Out here in the darkness, surrounded by the energy of the night, it was dangerous to take too many steps.

Especially as he had no idea where the dragon was and whether there was anything about the dragon that he needed to be more careful with. Jason had learned that the night dragon could hide from him all too easily. He took another step and braced himself.

This time, he held out the ice and iron dragon connections, pulsing it away from him. That cloud of water vapor radiated around him, creating a circle.

There was pressure upon that circle.

There.

Jason turned toward it and began to move more deliberately. There was a soft and persistent pressure upon him, and as he headed toward that sense, he moved as carefully as he thought he needed in order to detect the sense of the night dragon.

The dragon was near enough that Jason thought he could reach for him.

Gradually, he took another step, and then another.

Jason moved toward that pressure around him.

His heart hammered, racing wildly.

He paused a moment to steady himself, not wanting to get too caught up in the emotion of what he was doing. He took another step.

Now he was turning toward that energy and he could feel it crashing around him.

He turned in place, sweeping the energy of the other dragons through him. There came a small echoing. It was faint and subtle, but because he had sent the power, he could detect its echo.

He took another step.

A shadowed form loomed near him: a tree, at least as far as he could tell.

Jason ignored it and took another step.

There came a bulging of energy, a quick reaction, almost a terrified sense, but Jason held on. He took a quick step forward and exploded power and light around him.

Suddenly, the forest was awash in bright orange light, the energy of the iron dragon. It radiated all around, filling the space between the trees. A shadowed form loomed near him, trapped within a bubble of energy Jason had created.

He hurried toward the dragon, squeezing a moment longer.

The dragon struggled within that barrier, continuing to try to break free, but Jason held tightly, maintaining his connection to the dragon as long as he could. He wanted to ensure he had that dragon wrapped up with that energy. It was a test, as much for Jason as it was for the dragon.

He paused in front of the night dragon, the energy swirling within the barrier he held. “I got you this time,” he said.

The struggling continued, tendrils of darkness that attempted to swirl out, slamming into the barrier, but the energy Jason maintained through his connection to the other dragons allowed him to keep the night dragon inside.

“You don’t have to struggle quite so much,” he said.

The dragon settled.

Finally, the dragon came fully into view.

He was small. Smaller than the other dragons, little more than the size of a large dog. His wings stretched off to either side, and though he allowed Jason to see him more clearly now, his wings took on some of the shadowed form as well, stretching out in a way that left it looking as if there were shadows streaking away from them.

The dragon rubbed up against the barrier, testing it. Wings slashed at it.

Jason had long ago learned that they were sharp and could damage his barriers. It required he hold more firmly to his barriers, clinging to them tightly enough that he would ensure the night dragon was unable shatter them and break free.

Jason crouched down in front of the dragon.

The dragon turned its face toward him. Everything was dark. It was impossibly black. The only light was a faint flicker of light within his eyes.

“You aren’t going to be able to break free this time,” Jason said.

The dragon started again and shadows streamed off him, slamming toward Jason. Jason held onto the barrier, solidifying it for a moment to ensure that it held, but the dragon didn’t attempt to break free again.

Jason grinned. “What else do you want to try?”

The dragon turned toward him and lowered his head.

“That’s it?”

“You have succeeded,” the dragon said. Even his voice was wispy, little more than a faint tremoring.

“I expected you to try more than this,” Jason said.

“Why should I try more when you succeeded in holding me?”

“You can see if you can break free again.”

That was the game. He would try to find the dragon, trapping him within one of the barriers, and the dragon would either try to hide or break free. Feeling the pressure from the dragon now, the way that he was no longer attempting to shatter the barrier, Jason recognized that he no longer attempted to surge free.

“The game is done,” the dragon said.

Jason released his hold around the dragon. There was no point in maintaining it, as he didn’t want to harm the dragon, and he certainly didn’t want to scare him. He needed to maintain that hold so that he could continue to work with the dragon, trying to get a better understanding of him.

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