The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) by Dan Michaelson (miss read books .txt) 📗

to all of them. Over the years, we’d had incredibly bright dogs as well. The last one had been several years ago, lost in the same accident that had claimed my brother and father, but all of the dogs we ever had had possessed a level of intelligence.

This creature watched me with something more than that. It was bordering on human-level intelligence. It was a feeling I had, and I had no idea whether or not that feeling was justified, only that as I watched the mesahn watching me, but he regarded me with a stare that carried with it the knowledge and understanding that an animal shouldn’t have.

I took a step to one side, and the mesahn followed. I moved to the other, and the mesahn still followed. Each time I moved, I had a feeling that the mesahn was tracking me, trying to decide what level of threat I was, or trying to decide when to attack.

So far, it had not chosen to do so.

I didn’t know how much longer that would be the case.

The mesahn took a step forward.

I caught a glimpse of dappled fur, streaks of brown and gray, and an enormity to the creature that I could scarcely fathom. It was nearly as large as a horse, but more catlike, and imposing in a way that no other animal that I had been around had been.

The fear that Elaine had for the mesahn made sense.

Not only Elaine , but the fear the Vard had of the mesahn, as well.

This was a creature to be afraid of.

“Ashan?”

I couldn’t move, but I wanted to call out to Joran, though I knew better than to do so. The mesahn watched me, and heat flared in the creature’s eyes.

My skin grew tight. There was an energy there, a power, and something that suggested to me that there was something more taking place.

Maybe Elaine was preparing to attack.

Suddenly, the mesahn bellowed, its voice loud and shrieking against the darkness of the forest, and then it bounded off, disappearing.

I stood, trembling for a long moment, barely able to move.

Finally, I shook myself, and headed over to where Joran stood near the stack of stones.

“That sounded close,” he muttered.

“I saw it,” I whispered. “The mesahn. I saw it.”

“It was here?”

I looked back toward the forest, trying to make sense of what I had seen. A creature like that could hide in the forest.

“I think it wanted me to know that it was there,” I said.

“But it didn’t attack you.”

I shook my head.

“Why?”

I looked over to the center of the Djarn city. Elaine was still there, flames crackling around where she searched. I could feel the energy that she radiated, a heat that filled the air, making the already humid forest even worse. “I wonder if it’s afraid of her,” I said.

“If so, then we need to stay with her.”

I nodded. “And we need to make sure that she gets my sister free. If she doesn’t, and if that creature comes after us…”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. We need to tell her about it when she’s done with… whatever she’s doing.”

We stood at the edge of the Djarn city, neither of us talking for a while. Elaine was right. This was abandoned, and from the look of it, the city had been abandoned a long time ago. There were no Djarn here. Elaine continued to circle around the city, using the bands of flame that stretched away from her. Every so often she would twist them, whipping them further along the ground, and leaving trails of fire that somehow didn’t burn anything, before releasing that power and heading further along the forest. She made a circuit all the way around the entirety of the Djarn city, and when she was finally done, she stopped in the center once again. She held her hands over her head, as flames began to circle her wrists, stretching down to her elbows, and then she sent them sweeping out. As one band of flame neared us, both Joran and I jumped, avoiding the crackling flame as it sizzled across the ground. It didn’t burn where it touched, though.

She was powerful. And she wasn’t even the Chief Dragon Mage.

I had no idea how they had captured her, but if the Vard were able to capture a dragon mage as powerful as Elaine obviously was, I didn’t want to think about what they might do to Alison.

After a few more moments, she finally released her power, heading over to us. She glanced from Joran, to me, and shook her head. “Come. We will return to the caravan and see if we can find your sister.”

15

We crept along the Djarn path. It was late, and the entire forest was dark. Moonlight drifted through the canopy, making the forest floor practically seem to glow with that light. I glanced over to Joran, who walked behind me, his breathing and footsteps soft, and shook my head before turning away.

We were trying to be as quiet as we could, as we headed back toward the wagon caravan, though I didn’t know how far we had to go. We had gotten quite a ways away by the time we had found Elaine, so it was possible that we had a long walk before we came across it again. That was assuming that it hadn’t moved on. If it had, then we had to chase it.

Considering that I had rescued Elaine andfreed that other person, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Vard had decided to take off and head onward.

We had no idea what was going to happen, but after finding the remains of a Djarn city, I no longer had any idea what we were doing. Elaine seemed to, though. When we came across that Djarn city we should have been excited, if anything. There was no sign of the girl that I had freed from the wagons. Elaine didn’t say it, but she was disappointed, though I didn’t know why. “We’ve spent some