Thorne
He thanked his stars that they arrived at Fort Banner without incident, exiting the helicopter and emerging into more open surroundings at last.
The entire ride over he’d tried not to engage Corde, or even meet his eyes. Risking any sort of confrontation with the red dragon with Carla that close by and unable to escape was simple unacceptable. Even now as they walked through the base toward the mountainside headquarters he was trying to figure out a way to separate them.
Sounds of military life were all around him, and he could see Carla’s shoulders drop as the knot between them grew larger. Returning to the base she’d known for so long must be bringing about some strong emotions within her, and he mentally apologized that he’d been so caught up in his own situation that he hadn’t paid her enough attention. Now he slipped his hand into hers, though he didn’t squeeze tightly in case she wished to let go.
But her hand tightened and then she gave it a squeeze, her way of saying thank you.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he growled under his breath. “You did nothing wrong.”
She straightened, but only slightly, and Thorne knew he would have to do whatever it took to make this plan of theirs succeed. No matter the cost to him, personal or financial, Carla needed this. This was home to her. Just because he didn’t understand didn’t make it any less important. Her family was here, and while she may yet still be willing to make room for him in it, she wasn’t willing to leave it. He would never ask her to make that sacrifice.
Shoulders back, head held high, he marched through the various encampments and buildings, few of them permanent, daring anyone to question their presence there. No one did, but he was ready to defy them if necessary, simply to make his point. Eventually they made it to the mountainside, the sheer rock face covered over with metal secured deep into it. The entire area around the entrance was dedicated to a massive set of gates that, if anything were to happen, would seal the entire tunnel off with massive plugs of metal.
He walked past one of them as they plunged inside, noting it was taller and wider than he was, all of them in sequential order on rollers, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. The entire tunnel sloped downward in a straight line, the sides smoothed and prepared to ensure the plugs would go as low as possible where it started to grow smaller in diameter. At that point they would come to a halt, and spikes would plunge outward from the sides, embedding it even deeper into the rock in an attempt to contain the invasion.
Thorne doubted it would work, but it would buy them time. Time, perhaps, for the dragon riders to assemble, if he and Carla were able to forge them into a weapon worth wielding.
A motorized cart swept them down the ramp toward the bottom, where Colonel Mara was apparently waiting.
Thorne glanced at their driver, noting the set of his jaw and the whiteness in his knuckles as he gripped the wheel. When he combined that with the general business of the troops he’d seen aboveground, it all came to mean one thing.
“What’s going on, son?” he asked, addressing the driver calmly.
The young man jerked at the deep voice in his ear, but other than a slight jerk of the wheel that was barely felt by the passengers he wasn’t spooked any further. “Uh, it’s the portal, sir.”
“What about it?” he pressed.
“It’s…well…we’re not sure. Doing stuff. Only nobody knows what it means or what exactly it’s doing. But it’s different. More…active, I guess?” He shrugged, a quick nervous gesture. “Look.”
Thorne’s head came up as they entered the massive cavern that housed the portal. He stared in shock at the transformation that had overcome it.
“Uh, guys,” Carla said, the trio staring in rapt horror.
The massive rent in space hadn’t grown or shrunk. Nearly a hundred feet high, probably close to twice that wide, it was still a formidable and imposing object, easily the center of attention in a cavern that housed it without issue. The normally opaque murky darkness within the center was alive and strobing with violent flashes of purple-white lightning. The border, a normally dull purple, was infused with energy, glowing nearly neon and pulsing rapidly, as if energy were running around the perimeter.
Coming to a halt at the command platform, he signaled at Colonel Mara, indicating the portal. “What the hell is going on?”
“I wish I knew,” she replied, moving to stand closer to them. “It started acting up about a day or so ago. That’s why I’m here instead of back at Fort Stark. Incidentally,” she said, nodding to Corde, “that’s why all of you are here as well. In case something is coming through, I wanted a team ready to greet them.”
Thorne nodded, wondering if that meant Kallore was around somewhere as well.
“Anyway, our cameras aren’t reporting anything coming through from the other side, and we’re sending them at regular intervals now, so we’re not alarmed. Much.” The colonel took a deep breath and focused on them. “You have an idea you wanted to pitch me?”
“We do,” Carla said, and he gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.
“Excellent.”
Silence reigned in the cavern. Eventually Colonel Mara started looking back and forth between the two of them. “Is one of you going to tell me?”
Thorne nudged Carla. “You got this.”
She looked up at him. “What? It was your idea.”
“I know.”
Carla smiled and leaned into him.
“Well that’s certainly cute,” Colonel Mara said with a soft smile. “I’m glad to see your time in Barton City has been productive. I half thought the two of you would burn the town down around you.”
Thorne started to laugh. “No. We—”
There was no warning. One moment he was about to say how he and Carla had worked a lot of things out, and the next he was airborne, smashing into the cavern wall. Rock cracked and cascaded down around him as he sat blinking in surprise.
“MURDERER!”
A giant shape closed in on him, picking him up by the neck and slamming him back into the wall. Corde, fury etched across his face and all semblance of sanity lost in the fires that burned in his eyes, hauled back an arm and punched him.
Thorne finally realized what was going on, and he managed to get an arm up to block the punch just in time.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” The irate crimson dragon whirled and tossed Thorne aside. He slammed through a bank of computers and equipment, nearly crushing a human technician who almost didn’t get out of the way fast enough.
“I knew I recognized your scent from somewhere,” Corde snarled as he stalked forward, clasping both hands in front of him, one atop the other.
Thorne knew what was about to happen, but he was still impressed when a mighty greatsword forged of pure flame erupted from his hands, bathing the area in light and heat. Thorne got to his feet and shook his head.
“Don’t do this, Corde,” he pleaded. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not what I think?” the other dragon roared, his gray eyes steely and flame-filled. “How can it not be what I think?” He slashed his sword through some of the equipment as he came, clearing a path. “YOU MURDERED MY VILLAGE!”
“Ah shit,” he muttered, ducking to the side as Thorne swung the sword, the air burning as the great flaming blade missed him by several feet.
“Everyone I knew is dead because you, you cowardly swine. Now let me kill you and avenge them!”
“STOP IT!” Colonel Mara yelled from behind them. “BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID LIKE OPEN THE PORTAL!”
Thorne wasn’t entirely sure how they could do that, but then again, they didn’t know much of anything about the portal itself. Who was he to say what would or wouldn’t open it more.
“I’d love to!” he called back, easily ducking aside another wild swing of the sword, though he could feel the heat blast his face as it swung by. “But he’s not exactly willing to listen to me right now!”
“Why should I listen to you? You are nothing but a killer of women and children, the old and feeble. They all succumbed to you!”
Thorne snarled in anger and summoned his own power. Liquid flowed down his forearms, black and thick like tar. It rolled out of his skin like blood from his veins, coalescing between his hands into thick dripping ropes. The ground beneath him hissed and stones popped as droplets of acid fell to the ground.
“Don’t make me do this, Corde!” he warned. “I promise you, it’s not what you think.”
But Corde wasn’t there. His rational, thinking side had been overpowered by hundreds of years’ worth of grief and murderous rage that he’d kept bottled up. Now he was nothing but a shell of his former self, intent on avenging his own guilt over the situation. Thorne knew there was nothing he could do save one thing.
Win.
If he could overpower Corde, and perhaps hit him in the head hard enough, he could knock some sense back into him.
“Get Callan and Torran down here!” he hollered at Colonel Mara.
“What do you think I am, an idiot? That was the first thing I did!” she snapped. “They’re coming, but until then, I think you’re on your own!”
“Perfect,” he muttered as Corde came at him. “Last warning, Corde!”
The red dragon howled in fury and swept in at him. Thorne leapt high into the air over the swinging blade, whipping his acid creation over his head and then flinging it down at the wild dragon shifter.
The ropes spread wide, wrapped and twined together, the net opening as it settled down over Corde. He winced as it started to burn at his skin, and the shriek of pain that rattled the cavern was painful to his ears. The black ropes of thick acid ate away at the tough shifter’s skin, but it wasn’t designed to kill. Only hold him in place.
Thorne landed in a roll, coming to his feet at the same moment that fire erupted from Corde’s hands, burning away at his prison until he was freed. The thickly muscled red dragon came to his feet, balls of flame held carefully in each hand.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Corde said, hollow-voiced, stepping forward. His eyes were totally inhuman now, flames having eclipsed the last shreds of steel gray.
He tossed a brightly burning ball of yellow-orange fire at Thorne and then came at him with his fists. Thorne ducked aside, came to his feet, and pelted Corde’s back with balls of acid that spread apart on impact, burning clothing and skin alike. Corde was covered in a patchwork of crisscrossed lines from the net, pink skin showing where it had eaten away at him. Now the acid balls added to the agony.
Corde sneered as he turned, and a beam of fire as thick around as his wrist came flashing across the cavern. Thorne barely had time to react, but it wasn’t the first time he’d fought a red dragon. He knew their tricks.
Thrusting both hands forward, fingers extended and palms inward, he called upon his own powers. Once more acid flowed down his forearms. It reached his fingers and pooled there until it jumped from one hand to the other. A black barrier of acid formed between his hands in the blink of an eye, and it caught the onrushing fire, the liquid nature of it dousing the flames as soon as they hit.
Thorne was forced to continue pouring more acid in as the heat evaporated some, but though the barrier stretched toward him like dough, it never broke. Corde saw his attack was wasted and another howl of anger filled the cavern as he came at Thorne once more, disdaining power this time and going for straight-up brute force.
Ducking out of the way of the wild haymaker, he rose up and slammed a fist into Corde’s cheek, his superior speed powering him through. If Corde connected again, it would hurt, but—
Corde’s backhand caught him completely unawares, rocking his head back and pitching him across the floor. His shoulder scraped against solid rock, leaving his shirt and skin behind as he bled freely from the wound until it could clot.
“Ow,” he muttered, blinking away stars.
Getting to his feet, he looked around as Corde advanced. The portal was in front of him, solid wall twenty feet behind him and ten feet away on his left. He was backed into a corner. There weren’t many options for avoiding the fiery shifter, and a straight-up fight was not something he was overly interested in. Looking up for help, a wild solution came to him.
“Corde, come on. Let us talk. This isn’t what you think it is!”
“YOU KILLED MY FAMILY!” he shrieked and came on hard.
“Fine.”
Thorne raised both hands and acid shot into the air, hitting the ceiling—and the stalactite directly above him. The giant downward-shaped cone of rock shivered as the acid ate away at its upper barriers, and then with a great groaning noise it broke free and plummeted toward the two shifters.
Corde looked up, and for a brief moment sanity re-entered his eyes. He saw the oncoming mass of rock, and knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid it. Anger blazed in that knowledge and he stabbed both hands at Thorne, unleashing a double-barreled blast of fire.
Thorne, who was busy backing away, didn’t have time to defend against it. The inferno washed over him and tossed him backward like a ragdoll. He hit the rock wall behind him and plunged straight into it, bouncing along a narrow passageway for nearly ten feet before finally coming to a rest.
In front of him the massive stalactite slammed into the ground two feet away from Corde, burying the rampaging shifter in tons of rock and debris. A dust cloud swept over the room and the tunnel, forcing Thorne to close his eyes and throw up an arm to block the debris cloud.
As it settled, the only noise Thorne heard was the sound of someone trying to extricate themselves from under some rock. It wasn’t surprising that Corde would already be trying to do that. His dragonbone armor should have prevented any truly serious damage.
His brain was slightly addled though. Thorne tried to puzzle out the one thing he couldn’t understand.
Why were the sounds coming from behind him?