Page 24 of Skalterra By Nightmare
Some ancient instinct took over, maybe something Galahad had programmed into my Nightmare body, and I pulled a new weapon from the air.
Sword! I need a sword!I told myself, trying to imagine the weight of a sword in my hand.
Nope. Another flail.
Damn. It.
I rolled out of the way of the broadsword attack, swinging my flail feebly in response. The Grimguard stepped back, and though half his face was covered by his cowl, something about the look in his eyes and the set of jaw told me he was smirking.
“If you kill me,” I panted, “how will I tell you who killed Daithi?”
“I’ll just have to ask you again tomorrow night when Galahad drags you back to fight his fights for him.”
He swung again, but I was proving adept at dodging. He buried the edge of the sword in the side of a tree, and pulled on the handle. When it didn’t budge, I saw my opportunity and brought my flail arcing downwards.
He abandoned the sword to dodge my attack, and when he tried to form a new weapon, the orange light sputtered and died in his hands.
“Ha!” I yelled. He was out of Skalmagick. For the first time since I’d gotten Linsey Harper expelled from Von Leer, I had the upper hand in something.
A muscle in my back spasmed with the effort of swinging my flail as hard as I could. The spiked ball hurtled towards the Grimguard’s head, crackling with silver fire and energy.
I had him. Ihadhim.
He stepped back, out of my range, and the flail ripped itself from my grip, sending the weapon careening between the trees.
We both paused to watch its light get farther and farther, until a gentle thud told us it had found a resting place in the dirt.
The Grimguard’s hands shot to the bottles of Skal that hung from his belt, but I already had a new flail in hand. It wasn’t quite the throwing knife I’d been trying to form, but it would do.
His spear had burnt my hands. I was certain any weapon of mine would do the same to him.
I hurled the flail at the Grimguard, making no effort to keep a hold of it this time. He danced away, but I was ready with a new weapon to rain flail after flail down on the Grimguard.
Because it didn’t matter that I didn’t want to fight him. If he managed to get to the bottles of Skal at his belt, he’d make sure I died, and, yeah, I was mostly sure Galahad and the scar he’d left on my hand weren’t real, but I wasn’t keen to prove it with another dream that ended with me skewered.
Each flail I threw was heavier than the last, and the Grimguard saw an opening in my attacks as they slowed. He tackled me around the middle, pulling us both to the forest floor. He pinned my arms to my side under his legs, and leaned in towards my face as he panted for air.
“Your methods are…” He paused for breath.
“Inspired?” I quipped. I arched my neck, trying to wiggle free, and he placed a leather-clad hand over my sternum to keep me still in the dirt.
“I was going to say questionable.” He removed a bottle from his belt, deftly uncorking it before pulling his cowl down. He was clean-shaven, and his pale skin glowed white in the light of my many discarded flails. The neat line of his nose matched the sharp cut of his jaw, and I was struck by how young he appeared. “You’re bleeding yourself dry of Skal. You’ll be nothing but dust if you keep this up.”
He shook loose hair back from his face and downed the bottle of Skal in a single gulp. Light sparked in his hands.
I doubled my efforts to escape, trying to buck the Grimguard off me, but he leaned in closer, so that his forearm was a heavy weight across my chest as an orange sword formed in his free hand.
“Now. Back to my question. Did you help them kill Daithi?” The sword tip seared beneath my chin.
“No,” I spat.
“Then who did it?”
I remembered Galahad turning me into a tree, and I remembered forcing my trunk to break into two legs. This wasmydream.Ihad control.
I ignored the Grimguard’s sword and instead focused on my arms slowly going numb under the weight of the Grimguard’s legs. I imagined what it might feel like to grow boney spikes, and sharp agony erupted across both my forearms.
My cry of pain mingled with that of the Grimguard, and I finally bucked him away. I staggered to my feet, staring at the four serrated spikes of bone that stuck out from each of my arms like knives. Dark blood dripped off their points, and my eyes darted to the Grimguard, who hurried to use his cloaks to hide the gauge marks my improvised anatomy had left in his thighs.
