The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) by Dan Michaelson (websites to read books for free txt) 📕

could feel the urgency with which I needed to act, knowing that I couldn’t wait here much longer, that whoever had led these wagons into the forest would be here soon. I needed to know, though. I needed to know whether this was the Djarn or the Vard.

The woman hurried toward the path.

I looked through the trees. The firelight was coming closer. Whoever was coming in our direction was going to reach us, and then…

Then I would lose the opportunity to figure out who this woman was and what she might know. More than that, I might miss out on the opportunity to find my sister. If I waited here, I still might not find her. I might end up captured as well.

I scrambled forward, reaching the next wagon, and pulled my knife out of the sheath.

“What are you doing?” Joran hissed.

“I need to see if Alison is here,” I said.

“You don’t have time.”

I jammed my knife into the hatch. It was structured the same as the other one , and I began to wiggle my knife back and forth, trying to pry the hatch off. I could hear the voices getting louder.

I needed to disappear, so that whoever was coming wouldn’t see me. I almost had it. Finally, I pried the hatch free. I poked my head down, looking inside, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

I set the hatch loosely back on top.

The light glowing in the distance was getting closer.

I turned toward it, to see if there was any sign of who it might be, whether it was the Vard or Djarn, but I couldn’t tell.

I scrambled down the side of the wagon, and I hesitated there for a moment.

Joran grabbed my arm, as he dragged me into the trees. As soon as we were off the path the forest seemed to swallow everything, making it so that I couldn’t hear anything else.

I peered through the trees. There was movement near the wagon, but not from whoever was coming. It came from the wagon I had jumped off of.

The hatch lifted.

I stared for a moment, trying to see who it was, but couldn’t tell.

I needed to get just a little bit closer. If it was Alison, then I needed to help her. As I stepped through the trees, Joran grabbed me, trying to keep me from moving any farther forward.

A head poked out of the top of the hatch. Long, black hair stretched down the person’s back, and milky-white skin was visible, just enough that I could tell that it wasn’t Alison. She turned toward us, and there was something in her eyes that seemed to recognize me. Had she seen me?

I glanced over to Joran. “We need to go help her.”

“Help? What do you think that you’re going to do. She—”

A loud growl erupted.

It was closer than it had been before. We had been hearing that growling for a little while, but this time the sound was different. More menacing.

The light that was moving toward us stopped. I started toward the clearing again, when the person jumped off the wagon and ran into the trees.

She was on the opposite side of the path. We backed into the trees, disappearing into the shadows of the forest. I could hear the voices, if only a little bit.

“I saw something moving,” someone said from the Djarn path.

The person talking had a deep voice, and he sounded angry.

“Check the wagons,” another voice said.

“You don’t think that somebody escaped,” the first person said.

“They shouldn’t have been able to, but with that damn mesahn out in the forest, anything is possible.”

I turned to Joran, mouthing the word, mesahn. I didn’t know what that was, but if it was the creature that I’d heard growling—and the same one that made the massive pawprint—then I didn’t want to encounter it either.

At least it explained why the wagons had been unguarded. They had been forced away from the wagons because there were monsters in the forest.

“We chased it away,” the other voice said.

“For now, but if he manages to command it, the damn thing is going to rip through these wagons. We’ve only managed to protect the one.”

“That’s the only one that needs to be protected.”

“It’s not. Not if these others have the potential that we believe.”

The other growled. “I’ll do what I can.”

I glanced over to Joran, frowning. “What do you think is going on?” I whispered to him.

“I don’t know, and I don’t think that we should be here. Now more than ever, I think that we need to go back to the marshal and tell him what we’ve seen. He can get word to the king and they can—”

“And Alison would end up being dragged away from here. Is that what you want?”

“You know I don’t , but I also know that whatever is happening here is beyond the two of us. We need to get out of here.”

I stared through the trees. As far as I could tell, they didn’t know that we were here, and even if they did, they would have to wander into the dark in order to find us. I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until we know what’s going on.”

Joran groaned softly. “What about that Academy woman you freed? She staggered down the path. Where do you think she went?”

I suspected she’d been injured. She wouldn’t have been able to go very far.

And if she was from the Academy, she might be able to help.

“We could backtrack, see if we can come across her. Then we can see if she knows anything.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“She has to know something,” I said.

Joran looked at me as if he wanted to argue, his jaw clenching in frustration, obviously irritated with me for wanting to do this. We followed along the Djarn path, staying within the shadow of the trees. I kept an eye out, searching for the men that we had heard, but didn’t see anything. Joran looked over to me. “Tell me you hear