The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) Read online

  The Caged Dragon

  Cycle of Dragons Book 1

  Dan Michaelson

  D.K. Holmberg

  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 Dan Michaelson

  Similar Series by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  A thin trail of smoke drifted up in the horizon, and I paused from the fence post I’d been setting long enough to look up at it. It spiraled toward the low-lying cloud cover, drifting toward an ominous storm cloud, floating over the forest and toward us. The steady rumbling of thunder had been with us for the better part of the morning, and I suspected a typical storm would come, but didn’t know when that would be.

  “I know you wanted my help, Ashan, but I don’t really want to get drenched if I don’t have to,” Joran said.

  I looked over to my friend. He had a wide, sun-darkened face, and the hat flopping over his ears fit the long hair stuffed beneath it. We were about the same height, though I was more solidly built, and I didn’t have the same lanky hair as Joran. He leaned on the section of fence that we had already repaired and wiped the sweat from his brow. It wasn’t a hot day, but hot enough.

  “If you stop taking breaks as often as you do, we might manage to get another few posts in before the rain comes,” I said.

  Joran grunted, wobbling the post that we had just buried. He kicked at the dirt around it, stomping on it. “What was I thinking, helping you with this? Figures you’d be thankless.”

  I chuckled, wiping the sweat from my brow and trying to keep my wavy black hair from falling into my face. “You were thinking you owed me.”

  Joran glowered at me. “You keep reminding me of that, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me to want to help.”

  “Then don’t want to help, just do the work.”

  I set back to my task, digging at the post hole. There were only a few more posts that needed to be placed before we were done. As I leaned into the shovel, Joran started whistling. Another rumble of thunder came, and I glanced up, flicking my gaze to the trail of smoke.

  “What do you keep looking at?” Joran asked.

  I cupped my hand over my brow. “Out there. I’m not really sure what it is.”

  Joran squinted, staring in the same direction as me. “I don’t see anything. Nothing other than storm clouds coming our way. I think you’re waiting for the storm to hit us.”

  “If it comes, we just go into the barn.”

  “You can go into the barn. I’m going to your house to see if your sister made anything to eat.”

  “I’m sure Alison won’t turn you away.”

  Joran glanced toward the simple farmhouse. The single-story white house was nestled on the small rise that was set back from the road where we were working. The windows were open, letting in a gentle breeze. The smell of my sister’s baking drifted out of the windows, tempting me. Joran, too. That was probably why he had been so agitated.

  “How about we just do one more?” I asked.

  “I told you I was going to help get this fence done, so let’s get it done. We can enjoy Alison’s sweet breads later.” He winked at me before turning back to his work.

  I paused, leaning on the shovel as I watched him. “Why do you have to say it like that?”

  “Like what?” Joran asked.

  I frowned at him. “Like it’s something more than just her baking.”

  Joran shrugged. “I can’t help it if Alison is sweet on me.”

  I arched a brow at him. “Alison is sweet on you?”

  “Now that you mention it, she probably is. Not that I can blame her. She sees a strapping young man like myself, and she knows what I have to offer.”

  I groaned, lifting the shovel to start digging again. “What exactly do you have to offer?”

  “Someone who keeps her brother out of trouble.”

  I stared into the distance again. That trail of smoke was troubling, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Mostly because it came from the forest, and I wouldn’t normally expect to see any smoke coming from there. It was said the Djarn who lived in the forest provided some sort of magic to protect it. It would be nearly impassible if it were not for the King's Road.

  “Whatever you’re looking at has grabbed your attention. Why don’t we go and take a look?”

  “You just want to stop working,” I said.

  “I’m not going to deny that, but I know you, Ashan. You’re not going to let it go until you figure out what it is.”

  “We need to finish this fence.”

  Joran wiped an arm across his forehead. “You need to finish the fence. Not ’we.’ ”

  “Fine. I need to finish the fence. And you’re here to help me. Since I have your help, I want to take advantage of it.”

  Joran chuckled. “I'd say that you've been taking plenty of advantage.” As he leaned on the most recent fence post it started to bend, startling him. He jumped up, spinning toward me, a flush coming to his cheeks. “Besides. Whatever has caught your eye must be more interesting than whatever we’re doing.”

  “I’m not so sure that it is. It’s just smoke.”

  “Smoke?” he asked, frowning at me. “Why would you care about smoke?”

  “It’s not that I care about smoke. It’s that I care about where the smoke is coming from.”

  “And where, exactly, is it coming from?”

  I nodded into the distance, and Joran turned, looking out toward the twirling smoke that was rising there. It might be my imagination, but it was thicker than it had been before. Darker. Much like the storm clouds that were moving in. Thunder rumbled again, and Joran just shook his head.

  “There’s no smoke over there. I don’t know what you’re seeing, but it’s not smoke.”

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  “Besides, why would there be smoke near the forest?”

  “That’s my point,” I said.

  “You think the forest is burning?”

  There were the occasional fires , though the rains were frequent enough that they didn’t burn for very long, despite how dense the forest was. “I doubt it’s the forest,” I said. “We’ve just gotten out of the rainy season.”

  Joran shrugged. “And what do you think it is?”

  I turned my attention back to the work, digging slowly. “Nothing. I don’t know why I’ve been paying attention to it.”

  Joran started to laugh, and I looked up at him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You don’t know why you’re looking? I think I know.”

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Because you’ve always been curious,” he said. He set the shovel down, nodding. “Come on. You aren’t going to be able to focus on anything until you go and have a look.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Joran just grinned. “It means that I know you, Ashan. We can ride over, take a look and see what’s burning, and get back before the storm.”

  “We won’t be able to finish the fence,” I said. “And until we do, I can’t let the l
ivestock out.”

  “You can’t let them out in this section, but there are other parts of the farm you’ve already fenced in. Besides, you weren’t going to have this done until much later.”

  He was right. Had I done it on my own, I would have taken the better part of the week to do it. Working with Joran, we had nearly gotten it done in the last two days. I should be thankful, and more than that, I had time to take a break to investigate. I could see Joran wanted to.

  “If it will satisfy your curiosity, then we can do that,” I said.

  Joran laughed softly. “If that’s what you want to believe..”

  We headed over to the barn, and I got my horse, Adela, saddled. She was a dappled gray mare, stout and sturdy, and not at all as rambunctious as Joran’s horse, Wind. It wasn’t long until we were heading along the road, moving quickly toward the smoke curling in the distance, and the increasing thunder. The storm clouds hadn’t moved that much, but it wouldn’t take long before they were.

  “We should be careful,” Joran said. “From what my father has said, the Vard have been more active lately.”

  I frowned. “The Vard haven’t bothered us this far north for years.”

  Joran shrugged. “I’m not so sure. There are plenty of Vard sympathizers within the city.”

  “There have always been sympathizers. We’re too far to the west for there not to be. Quite a few people even think the king shouldn't have conquered the plains.” Even with the sympathizers present, there had been no evidence of actual Vard in the city.

  “The king shouldn't have conquered us,” Joran said.

  “Not you too,” I moaned.

  “You know how I feel about this,” he said. “Long ago, my ancestors were—”

  “I know all about your family,” I said. “You make a point of telling me every time the Vard come up in conversation.”

  “My mother tells me they were low-ranking Vard nobles,” he said.

  “Which makes you what? Some sort of duke. A baron?”

  “I don’t know. I never got the chance to be Vard nobility. Instead, I’m nothing more than a stupid sheepherder.”

  “There’s nothing stupid about herding sheep.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your cattle stay in place. The chickens and pigs, too, for the most part.”

  “Then maybe you need to do a better job training your sheep.”

  “Not just the sheep. The goats. Even the pigs. They all like to wander off.”

  I chuckled. “At least you have others at home who can help.”

  Joran’s face clouded. “I wasn’t insinuating that,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I’m not trying to upset you.”

  “No? Well, you have a strange way of going about it.”

  “Leave it to you to find something interesting to go look at while storms are brewing,” Joran muttered. The roadway was slightly elevated, with the ground sloping off to either side. The hard-packed King’s Road was well maintained. It was the only way to travel from the capital city of Carlath in the east to the town of Berestal on the far western edge of the kingdom. It skirted south, cutting through a swath of lush, dense section of the forest, to connect our home in the plains to the rest of the Laganarl Kingdom.

  As we made our way along the road the smoke began to dissipate. I fixated on the drifting smoke as we rode, and couldn’t help but feel as if this was a waste of time. It might satisfy my curiosity, but was it worth it?

  Thunder rumbled overhead, the storm cloud moving closer.

  “We should head back,” I called over to Joran.

  “We aren’t that far from it,” he said. “You’re the one who wanted to come out here and see what this was. At least let us have a look.”

  “I do, but I also don’t want to get caught in a storm.”

  “It’s the end of the rainy season. It’s not going to be a bad storm.”

  I flicked my gaze up toward the clouds. They were moving quickly now. There was something ominous about the darkness that swirled within them, and lightning crackled every so often, emitting a flickering light.

  This was going to be a significant storm.

  In the plains we had two seasons: wet and dry. Even so, our dry season got more rain than the rest of the kingdom. We had just come through the height of the wet season, where daily rainfall made it difficult for any travel along the King’s Road. We were isolated for the most part, but would get the occasional caravan that came through, but even those were infrequent. The horses were accustomed to it, and they plodded along, unmindful of the muck they trudged through.

  “We’re almost there,” Joran urged.

  We slowed as the road led up a small, hilly rise lined with waist-high grass. When we topped the hill, the tree line loomed into view. The King’s Road cut through this section of the forest, though the canopy still hung over it, dense and cutting out the light. To the south, the forest thinned, becoming almost maneuverable, even without the road. On the northern end, it was nearly impossible to make our way through the forest on horseback. It was simply too dense.

  Something caught my attention near the edge of the tree line. I squinted for a moment, trying to make out just what it was I had seen. “There,” I said, pointing.

  The horses trotted along , though Adela tossed her head— as if annoyed with the direction we headed— as we followed the road until we reached the edge of the forest. Once there, the stench of ash and whatever had burned began to fill my nostrils. This was what I had seen. I didn’t know what it was, only that I could smell it.

  “What do you think was burning here?” Joran asked, climbing out of his saddle as he made his way along the road, guiding Wind.

  I patted Adela on the side, getting down from the saddle. I swept my gaze around, looking along the road. “I don’t know. But it looks like it was something big.”

  “Whatever was here either completely burned away, or someone moved it,” Joran said.

  I nodded, crouching down along the side of the road. There was a dark streak along the ground. I ran my finger through it, tracing the ash. Bringing my finger to my nose, I breathed in carefully.

  It stunk, a strangely pungent odor. “Maybe this was nothing more than a lightning fire,” I said. I looked up to the clouds. Every so often, the lightning dancing within seemed to pause, as if one of the gods decided to take a break from their merriment.

  “The storm is moving in this direction, not from ,” Joran said. “Besides, we haven’t seen that much lightning.”

  Fires, overall, were not uncommon when it came to the significant storms that moved through. Most of them were caused by a potent burst of lightning, leaving nothing but a smoldering ruin of whatever had been struck. Usually, it was little more than a crater where the lightning bolt erupted. There was no sign of that here. No sign of anything here.

  “What else do you think could have done this?” I asked.

  Joran looked over at me, shaking his head. “Really? You’re asking that question?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “What I’m saying is that there was a time when you would have been the one offering the alternatives.”

  “What alternatives?”

  “Look at this,” Joran said, sweeping his hand along the road. “We have at least a twenty-paces-long section that’s burned.”

  I studied the road for a moment. It was a little longer than twenty-paces. Maybe twice that. But within that section, there were streaks of what looked to be the same dark ash that coated the road. There was nothing else that burned here.

  “And?” I asked.

  “And the smell is strange. This doesn’t smell like any fire that I’ve ever been around.”

  “Which is why I suggested it was a lightning strike,” I said.

  “And I’m telling you I think you’re wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “What lightning fire would run along the road like this?”

  I shrugged. “I suppose you’re going to tell me.”
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  He started laughing, looking up at the sky, frowning as he stared at the clouds. “I didn’t see anything, but maybe it was…” He trailed off , his voice getting softer.

  “Maybe it was what?”

  “A dragon. What else do you think this could be?”

  “It couldn’t be a dragon,” I said to him. We’d seen dragons. Everyone in the kingdom saw dragons every so often, but only from a distance and rarely up close. It was how he solidified his rule. The dragons were the reason he had been able to expand his lands, and the reason that our home, including Berestal, had been claimed. Were it not for the king, we might have ended up under the Vard’s control. With both of the dragons and the dragon riders, he could ensure his influence. The Vard had no magic of their own, not like the king and his dragon mages who could control the magic of the dragons. “If it had been a dragon, we would’ve seen it.”

  “I’m not so sure you would have,” Joran muttered.

  “What’s that mean?”

  He shrugged. “It means you’re so focused on the farm, that I doubt you would have seen anything.”

  I started to smile. “I think I would’ve noticed a dragon flying around.”

  “Maybe ,” Joran said.

  “Let’s just say you’re right. Let’s say this was a dragon. What do you think the dragon attacked?”

  If this was a dragon, and I wasn’t at all convinced that it was, it would’ve had to have attacked in order for it to have left everything burnt like this.

  “I don’t really know,” Joran said, waving his hand. “Maybe my father was right and the Vard were moving through here. The king could have sent one of his riders—or better yet, a dragon mage—to take care of them.”

  I paused at the end of the charred area, marching along the road to count how many paces it was. I had been wrong in my initial assessment. It was more than twenty-paces. It had to be at least sixty-paces.