Page 71 of Cast By Flames (Dragon's Breath)
“You are such an ass,” Rayna said to Galadon.
I frowned. “What did he do?”
“His conversation skills need a lot of work.”
Galadon grunted. “I could say the same of her.”
“Ha!” She pointed a finger at him. “I can’t even bring up the weather without you finding a way to be offended. Just once, I wish you’d try to have a civil conversation.”
Freya and I exchanged a look. Her orange eyes danced with merriment, but neither of us said anything. It would only make the lone shifter grumpier. I could only assume Hildegard had a hand in him being here, and maybe that waswhy he carried Rayna—though Conrad wasn’t a great option for him, either. He might have chosen the lesser of two evils. At least our newest slayer had refrained from slaughtering Titan, who appeared unscathed.
We scanned the skies, making sure no Kandoran patrols were near us. This was about the time they’d start appearing sporadically. It was the main reason we chose to stop and change our transportation method to avoid that problem.
“You ready?” I asked Verena.
She nodded and stood, wiping her hands on her pants. Chants escaped her lips in a whisper as she thrust her arms outward. A moment later, a burst of light temporarily blinded me. When my vision returned, I found a bright golden doorway shaped like a circle. We couldn’t see what was on the other side.
“Be quick,” she said, urging us to step through. “We need to keep it short so I can save energy for later.”
We didn’t need any further encouragement. The seven of us leaped one by one into the portal, with the sorceress following behind. It felt like I was falling for a few seconds before I stepped into a parking lot with a slight wobble in my knees. Nothing moved other than some birds, and it was quiet.
“Damn.” Conrad shook his head. “That was crazy but kinda fun. Think I can get a portal whenever I need to hunt for dragons?”
Verena narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not a taxi, silly boy. Portals require a lot of power, and I have limits on the distances I can open them. Do not push your luck.”
She’d made that very clear to me when I found her yesterday and asked for help.
“How about we figure out where we need to go to find these masks?” I was in charge and needed to start leading, even if it wasn’t my favorite thing to do. “Kandoran patrols could come through here any minute, and we’re in the open right now.”
Conrad pointed at a set of buildings. “See those? They’re called starship barracks for basic training, and Justin said they should have a bunch. Let’s start there.”
I looked at the beige-brown structures with red trim, standing three stories high. “Sounds good.”
We took off at a jog, keeping watch of the blue cloudless skies as we moved. I also took stock of our surroundings. There were a few buildings with burn holes and some ravaged cars, but for the most part, the area hadn’t fared too poorly. Perhaps because it was the training side of the base, but things might be different once we went to the other side of I-44.
Conrad led us to an open area underneath the second and third floors, explaining that was where the soldiers would have had formations. At the front, there were various offices. He frowned as he checked the sign labels, explaining he’d never been to this place before but had peppered Justin with questions last night and got some good tips for where to look. I’d let him manage that while I found Verena since we were short on time if we wanted to leave first thing today.
Eventually, he pointed at a sign proclaiming it was the NBC room—Nuclear, Biological, Chemical. It was locked, so no looters had gotten in there. “This is where they’d store the masks, but we gotta bust through.”
I kicked the door first, but it barely budged. Conrad took a turn next, and then Freya. Her booted foot knocked it down flat with a resoundingthud. The female shifter had some serious power that never ceased to amaze me, or maybe she had a knack for kicking doors. It was so loud, though, that it could likely be heard for some distance, with the cement floors and brick walls acting like an echo chamber.
I dashed back to thecorner of the building where Galadon stood guard, checking for Kandoran patrols. He shook his head. I sighed in relief and decided we’d use the shifters to burn through the locks next time. It was too risky to make that kind ofnoise again since we’d have to break into many of these rooms to get all the masks we needed.
“Okay, everyone,” I said, addressing the six males and females before me. “Grab them as fast as possible and pile them in the formation area.” Verena would watch from the sidelines since she’d need every scrap of energy to do her part.
We worked quickly, taking the square olive bags containing the masks and any extra parts to fix the ones that might not work correctly. I’d almost asked the shifters to put on the camrium gloves they stored in shiggara for the trip, but they didn’t hold any of the bags for more than a second, and that sort of thick material would take a couple of minutes to even start singeing.
Justin and Miles would be responsible for sorting everything since they were more familiar with the gear. They would be waiting on the other side of Verena's portal to Norman where we’d send the masks.
It was one of the reasons we had to have her specifically for this mission. No other sorcerer or sorceress could create portals on their own the way she could and do it multiple times a day. It probably had something to do with the fact she was born over a thousand years ago, and though she slept through most of that time, her powers continued to grow exponentially. She also had access to ancient spells from her youth that had likely been lost to time since then.
After the first room was empty, we moved to the next section of barracks, repeating the process. Everyone was hyper-focused, so we removed them from the battalion NBC rooms in just over an hour. After some thought, I decided we would form a chain to combine the mask piles from each company into a single large stack.
Conrad tossed one to me, and I tossed it to Freya, and so on. It went smoothly, so all the masks were in one place within thirty minutes. I’d lost count, but we’d acquired at least a thousand masks from this location alone. The more we got, the more we could provide for anyone who needed them besides our ground troops and support people.
After rechecking the skies, Verena opened a portal in the covered area to reduce the chance of it being seen. Galadon continued to stand watch just in case. Six of us began chucking the mask bags and supplies through as fast as possible since she warned she couldn’t hold it open for more than two minutes. I could only hope we didn’t hit anyone on the other side because we had no time to be careful about it. The portal began to waver as the pile was nearly done.
The last bag flew through as it collapsed.
