Jason focused on the iron dragon.
“Slither,” he said.
The dragon pushed off. They fell.
Then the iron dragon began to slither, sliding forward as he had through the forest. His wings remained open, motionless, and yet, strangely, the way he slithered, the heat radiating, stretching from his head down toward his back, seemed to propel them forward.
Then they glided.
It wasn’t quite the same as flying with the ice dragon, but Jason hadn’t expected it to be. The iron dragon was different, and yet, as they glided, he realized it was successful. This was flying for the iron dragon.
“Try using your wings,” Jason said.
He didn’t know if it would make a difference, but the iron dragon pumped his wings. It was a strange sensation, the stiff, metallic movements so different from the way the ice dragon flew, and yet there were similarities. Iron and ice weren’t all that different, were they?
Gradually they began to ascend. The heat continued to ride along the surface of the iron dragon, radiating from head to toe, and power surged, propelling them forward.
They were flying, and he patted the iron dragon’s side.
The ice dragon took a position in front of them.
“Where is he going?”
“I suspect he intends to take us to Dragon Haven.”
“And where is Dragon Haven?”
“Dragon Haven is a place of dragons. Free dragons.”
And they were more than just free dragons. If his experience had been representative of Dragon Haven, the dragons were practically worshipped.
He had a marker that Henry had given him, and Jason thought he should use it to summon the man, to let him know they were coming, and yet if he did that, he wondered if the Dragon Souls might be alerted to their presence. It was better if they simply appeared.
Then again, if they simply appeared, it might look as if they were Dragon Souls. With Jason dressed as he was, they might come across the wrong way. He had a bundle of other clothing on the ice dragon, his bearskin coat and the other dragonskin clothing, but he wasn’t sure if that would make a difference.
They gradually gained altitude.
As they did, it seemed to Jason that the iron dragon became more confident in his flying. Every so often, he would pump his wings, but not nearly as often as the ice dragon. It seemed as if the heat radiating along his body propelled him almost as much as his wings did. It was a strange and undulating way of flying, as if he slithered through the sky, yet there was something rhythmic about it.
It was different than the ice dragon, and different than what he had experienced when traveling with Henry, but it was no less powerful and no less impressive.
He clung to the iron dragon’s back.
As he did, he stared down at the ground.
The whole purpose of coming here had been to find other hatch mates. They had found one, but how many others would be like this? Would there be any way of finding them before the Dragon Souls?
Perhaps that wasn’t the right question.
Jason frowned, swiveling on the dragon’s back, looking toward the cave they had come from. “I think we need to go back.” He patted the side of the iron dragon. They moved forward a little faster, and when they got within range of the ice dragon, he shouted out, “We need to speak to the Dragon Soul.”
“What would you say to him?” the ice dragon asked.
“I would ask where the other Dragon Souls are searching.”
The ice dragon regarded him with those blue eyes for a moment before rumbling. The sound filled the sky like thunder, and with a swish of his tail, the ice dragon spun.
The iron dragon did not change direction nearly as easily. It was a sign of his discomfort flying that it took him several more moments to turn, but when he did, he quickly kept pace with the ice dragon, and they flew alongside him.
The edge of the cliff loomed in view and Jason held himself down, pressing his body up against the dragon, waiting for the inevitable collision.
The ice dragon slithered into the opening, and there was a certain grace to the way he did so. Jason could imagine the ice forming, his body gliding along the surface.
When the iron dragon struck, there was a loud gong, the metallic sound of the dragon colliding with the stone, his wings folding in, his legs tucked up, and then he slithered forward.
Jason kept himself low, clinging to the iron dragon’s back, until they came to a stop.
They reached the small clearing where they’d left the living Dragon Soul. He was unclothed, and in the time they had left him, he’d barely moved. Anytime he had threatened to wake up, Jason would strike him with another attack through the ice dragon, and yet, now that he was traveling with the iron dragon, he wondered if the ice dragon would even allow him to borrow his power again. It was almost as if the ice dragon were angry with Jason.
He had to be careful. The dragon might be temperamental if he ignored him.
As he approached the Dragon Soul, the ice dragon crawled alongside him. He was able to roll himself up within the tunnel, sliding alongside Jason, tilting so that he fit within the cave more easily.
“What do you think to find from him?”
“They knew about this dragon,” Jason said.
He glanced back, looking at the iron dragon. He sat on his legs, his head practically filling the entirety of the tunnel. He was a large dragon, and it might be Jason’s imagination, but it seemed almost as if the dragon were getting even larger the longer they traveled together.
How much more time did they have before he was too large to fit even in a tunnel like this? How would they ever hope to hide him?
That seemed to Jason to be the greatest challenge. If they couldn’t hide him, then it would be far too easy for the Dragon Souls to find him. And already the Dragon Souls had proven they had the ability to use whatever their call was to summon the dragon, to control him. It wasn’t hard to believe that they would be able to continue to do so, and eventually overwhelm the dragon’s ability to prevent them from using him.
So far, Jason had protected him, but what would happen if he weren’t there?
Perhaps that was why they needed to get to Dragon Haven. If they could reach it, and if they could get the people there to help, then they wouldn’t have to fear what might happen to the dragon.
He crouched down next to the fallen Dragon Soul.
“We keep attacking him, but I wonder if we can wake him up.”
“You can,” the ice dragon said.
“How?”
“Do you think my power is only destructive?”
“I know it’s not.”
“Use it,” the ice dragon said.
Jason focused on the cold, on what he could feel as it flowed through him, thinking of that chill. As it usually was when he was so close to the iron dragon, finding that chill was difficult, and yet, as he was closer to the ice dragon as well, it was a little bit easier. The proximity made it so that he could feel the cold. He called upon that, drawing on it, and let it fill him.
He pushed it out, using the dragon pearl, summoning that magic. It flowed through him, through the dragon pearl, and out and into the Dragon Soul.
He had no idea how to use the power, but he found that he didn’t need to.
It seemed almost as if that power were directed, and when he looked up at the ice dragon, he realized that it was. The ice dragon controlled it. He guided Jason, controlling how the power flowed from him, into the Dragon Soul.