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

“If they’re not common, then why is it here now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are the Vard using it?”

She looked over and shook her head.

That couldn’t be it, and the Vard had seemed afraid of it.

Maybe the mesahn were just one more type of creature that prowled in the forest. It was a strange enough place as it was, and dangerous. Perhaps the Djarn used the mesahn.

“Are you going after that woman so you can see if you can use that creature?” I asked.

“The Djarn do not hunt with mesahn,” she said.

Djarn? I thought she said she was from the Wilds. “Then what are you… Oh.”

I looked over to Joran before cutting off. The forest opened up into a wide clearing. In the distance, a city spread out among the forest. It was like no other city that I’d ever seen, and it seemed to grow amid the forest. The buildings were all heaped and massive mounds of earth, some piles of stone and trees appeared to grow out of the middle of it. In the darkness it was difficult to make out any detail, though enough moonlight streamed through that I could see some of the features of the city. There was a strange energy in the air, and a strange odor as well.

“Is this what you were looking for?” I said.

“Not this,” Elaine whispered.

I looked over to her, and she sent out streamers of fire that cracked along the forest floor, leaving the air sizzling with the energy coming off of it.

“This is abandoned,” she said.

“You were looking for a Djarn city?” Joran asked.

“Did you know they had cities like this?” I asked

Joran shrugged. “I didn’t know, but it only made sense. I think my father suspected that they did. They would travel a long way in order to trade with us, but this doesn’t seem nearly as long.”

“Maybe it goes faster when you’re taking one of the Djarn paths,” I said. “Or maybe they have magic.”

Joran just nodded. He stopped in front of one mound of earth, running his hand along it. “My father always said they were connected to the forest itself. He spoke of them as if they were something mythical, powerful.”

“Look at all of this,” I said, sweeping my gaze around the forest. Were it not for the moonlight shining down overhead, I wasn’t sure that we would be able to see much of anything. It took Elaine’s magic for us to be able to make out most of the city. Even what we could see was impressive. Not just because of the structures, but how it flowed with the forest, and a realization struck me. “You wouldn’t see this from the sky,” I realized.

The trees had openings in them, enough that the moonlight could shine through, but with the way that the forest grew around the buildings, I could easily imagine how difficult it would be for anyone to see this space from above.

Elaine stopped at one structure that surrounded a massive tree. She circled the entirety of the tree, coming to stop on the far side of it, sweeping her gaze all around her. “We knew they had cities, but we’ve never been able to find one.”

“You found this one just fine.”

She cocked her head, looking at me. “I was following the girl. I want to help her. The Vard captured her the same way that they captured me, and I feared that if she got too far into the forest…”

“We haven’t seen any sign of her, though,” I said.

“No.” Elaine continued looking around her. “Maybe she managed to escape.”

I couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or pleased. Either way, I didn’t know that it even mattered.

“If this was where you were coming, it’s time for us to head back to the wagon so that we can find my sister.”

“We have time,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“The Vard aren’t abandoning those wagons.”

“What if they—”

“They are not abandoning the wagons,” she repeated.

I decided not to argue. There was no point in getting into a battle with her over that.

Instead, maybe I should use the opportunity to explore the Djarn city as well. I doubted I would ever find another one. It was hard enough for me to find my way through the forest in the first place, so to think that I might find my way all of the way through the forest and uncover another Djarn city seemed impossible.

Joran followed me for a little while before stopping in front of a building made out of stone. It was piled up and stacked in such a way that it looked to be leaning off to the side. I was tempted to join him, but I headed to the edge of the forest. I lingered there for a moment, looking out into the darkness. I listened, but no longer heard any sound of the mesahn.

It had been getting closer up until recently. Why would it suddenly have stopped?

I turned before I saw something.

Eyes that glowed out of the darkness. They were bright, yellow, and intense.

At first, I feared it was a wolf, then maybe even one of the camin. Here in the forest, either would be dangerous.

But the size was wrong.

It was enormous.

I couldn’t shake the feeling of the enormity of the creature, or the sudden trembling fear that struck me.

It was a mesahn.

I’d never seen one before, but having seen the pawprint, having heard it howling in the forest, I felt as if I knew the creature, even without seeing it.

Through the trees, it seemed that the mesahn regarded me, as if trying to decide whether I was a threat or not. There was a level of intelligence in the creature’s eyes that was more than what I would expect. Having been raised on a farm, I’d been around animals my entire life. Some gave off the impression that they were smarter than the others. There was no doubt in my mind that some horses were incredibly intelligent, though like with people, that didn’t apply