Page 116 of Skalterra By Nightmare
I followed the Lyrians into the fray, wielding my bone shards ahead of me like pikes. I focused on the thought of the Nightmares waking up in their beds back at home, safe and warm, rather than linger on the way their bodies resisted my serrated bones. For being made of dust and magick, they felt horribly real.
Galahad’s magick surged through me again, and I directed it to the muscles in my legs, forcing myself deeper into the tangle of Nightmares.
They were armored in leather and each Nightmare carried a different weapon, but they lacked the wits to move quickly or react to our attacks. What they lacked in formidability, however, they made up for in numbers.
An armored Nightmare grabbed me from behind to tackle me to the ground. My arm spikes snapped off against the stone steps, and the Nightmare’s blank stare reflected the orange light of the dagger in her hands.
She brought the dagger swinging down, but I caught her by the wrist and tried to force her hands away. She was stronger than I anticipated, but another wave of Skalmagick rolled down the bond between me and Galahad.
“Yield, Blue, and this will all be over,” Ciarán hissed in my head.
I threw the Nightmare off with renewed strength, and she crashed into the Nightmares behind her. A flail fizzled into shape in my hand, brighter than I remembered it being the last time I’d summoned one, and I swung it into her skull.
The Nightmare crumbled to dust under my attack.
“A bit brutal, don’t you think?” Iseult asked, dissolving another pair of Nightmares.
“Brutal?” I swung the flail into another attacker, trying to remember the LARPing videos I’d studied. “It’s quick. Besides, Galahad says they can’t feel anything.”
“Doyoufeel it?” Iseult’s shoulder pressed against me as we fought Nightmares side by side. “When you get hurt here?”
“It’s different,” I grunted. “I’m lucid. They’re not. It’s just a bad dream to them.”
“Is this not just a bad dream to you too?”
“Not if there’s a chance Galahad accidentally turns me into a rotsbane tonight.”
“Then it’s more than a bad dream to them too. If you turn into a rotsbane, you’ll devour their consciousnesses.”
“I don’t need you to lecture me about Nightmares.” I sliced through three of them at once as Iseult protected me from a swinging sword. “I know firsthand how crappy it is to be one of us, and at leasttheyget the luxury of not remembering any of this.”
“I’m not lecturing anyone. I only commented on the brutality of your choice of weapon.”
My leather armor hardened into kevlar at my bidding.New bone shards grew through the gashes the old ones had left in my arms, and I worked Galahad’s magick into my hands to create talons.
“Is this better?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think we’d all be better off without Nightmares.”
“Lady Iseult!” Urian’s cry came from behind us, and we both turned to see him grappling with a Nightmare on the top stop while another three ran past him into the Sanctum.
“Protect Lady Lyria!” Iseult abandoned the steps to chase after the Nightmares who’d made it past us. More Nightmares surged up the steps, and the force of a blow to my back knocked me to my knees.
I sliced through limb and tendon to force my way back up. Galahad’s magick roiled inside me, and a distant, familiar hunger burned in my veins.
A swarm of Nightmares intercepted Iseult and pinned her against the Sanctum wall. They brought their weapons arcing downwards, but every blade dissipated into nothingness as it made contact with her skin.
“Iseult!” I reached through bodies with lethal talons and dared to pull more of Galahad’s magick. My skin hardened with scales like an alligator’s, and orange weapons deflected off of me as renewed strength propelled me forward.
“Don’t!” Iseult yelled in warning. The Nightmare pinning her on her right side brushed against her face, and then crumbled into dust. He was quickly replaced. “If you touch me right now—”
I would die. Her Skalbreaking ability would not discern between me and the other Nightmares. Frustration mounted inside me, bringing with it more strength from Galahad. I tried to cut down the Nightmares that surrounded Iseult, but there were too many.
More power from Galahad. More strength. A swelling hunger that drove my arm spikes into another wave of Nightmares.
And then, the sizzle of Skal against Skal.
Nightmares wielding weapons of silver light rushed from the Sanctum to push against the tide of Ciarán’s army.
