Page 23 of Skalterra By Nightmare
A coyote laughed in the dark, much closer than I would like. Hopefully the silver light of my flail would be enough to keep the wildlife at bay, because I absolutely had no idea how to otherwise use the weapon.
“Alright. Me to the left, you to the right! Galahad is that way.” Orla pointed into the dark. “Again, the Grimguard is far behind us, so he shouldn’t be a problem. Best to keep an eye out, though!”
She turned on her heel and stepped between two trees. The shadows were already cutting across the light of her blade, leaving me in a circle of silver.
I didn’t want her to go. The forest had been bright and welcoming during the day, but now, oppressive shadows loomed, hiding who knew what and who knew who.
“It’s not real,” I said to myself, stepping off on my own into the dark.
“Yes, it is!” Orla called at me from the shadows. I scowled and tightened my grip on my weapon.
“That’s exactly what someone who isn’t real would say.” I kept my voice low so that Orla wouldn’t hear me this time.
The forest at least felt different from the one in the mountains near my high school. For one, these woods weren’t real, unlike the woods where I’d been lost in the dark. That had been all too real. Not only that, but here the tree trunks were thicker and their roots more exposed and gnarled, making for tricky footwork in the dark, but the undergrowth was sparse. I didn’t have to fight my way through brambles and thickets like I had graduation night, and instead focused on crawling over roots and dirt mounds while I kept the distant green light of Orla flickering between trees to my left.
As far as nightmares went, this one was tame. It was vivid and the amount of detail and continuity my brain had managed to fit over the course of several different dreams was alarming, sure, but I wasn’tscared.
Or, at least, not as scared as I was used to feeling. If this was all Galahad needed from me for the next however many nights, I could probably manage that. And then, hopefully, my subconscious would set me free.
A branch snapped, and I turned too quickly, bringing my flail swinging around. I dropped it to avoid the spike ball smacking me in the leg, and it fell in a tangle of roots, casting a mosaic of silver shadows upwards against tree trunks and distant canopies.
I swore under my breath and reached my arm down into the jumbled roots.
It was then, with my face pressed against a root and my fingers scrabbling at the handle of a weapon just out of reach, that a man’s voice spoke.
“Hello, again, Blue.”
6. Ballroom Dance I
The Grimguard’s steel-toed boot stood so close that I could smell the dirt and loam that clung to its tread. I craned my head away from the tree root to better see the Grimguard towering over me. The light from my discarded weapon cast deep shadows up his body and face, but he looked just as he had the night before, all dark clothes and glowing orange irises. Pale Skal-light from the bottles at his belt peeked out from beneath a tattered cloak that hung down his frame.
Orange light sparked to life in his hands, and I abandoned my flail in the roots, rolling away to avoid the spear that skewered the space I’d just been lying.
I backpedaled away, scooting through dirt and dust, keeping my eyes on the Grimguard as he yanked the spear out of the root.
“Were you there?” His voice was an icy growl. “Did you help them kill Daithi?”
I scrambled to my feet. The spear sizzled as it flew through the air, and I ducked in time to hear the dullthunkof it embedding itself in the tree trunk.
“I’m not with them.” I put my hands up. I still wasn’t convinced this was real, but if it were? Galahad and his pals were the ones who’d dragged me into this nightmare. I wasn’t prepared to take a spear to the skull for them.
“No?” The Grimguard stepped off the tangled roots, looking all the more sinister with the silver light of my flail at his back. “I thought you were a Nightmare last night. You reek of dirt and used-up Skal. But you’re back. Nightmares don’t come back.”
“Maybe I’m not a Nightmare.” I puffed my chest out, trying to look tougher than I felt. The hiss that sounded from beneath the man’s cowl resembled something like a laugh.
“That’s Galahad’s Skalmagick, Blue. I don’t know how you’re lucid, but since you are, maybe you can tell me, which of those cowards killed Daithi?”
Another spear formed in his hands, and he held the point just beneath my chin. The weapon’s orange glow bounced off the black sclera of his eyes. I wondered if that’s what Orla and the others’ eyes would look like if they didn’t wear their goggles.
Orla.
I searched for her green beacon through the trees to my left, but the only lights were my silver and the Grimguard’s orange.
The Grimguard tensed, as if preparing to lunge forward and drive the point of his spear through my neck, and I grabbed the staff of the weapon with both hands before he could make his move.
White-hot pain seared across both my palms, but I kept my grip and swung the spear. The Grimguard stumbled to the side, and I released the staff, unable to bear the burning in my hands any longer. I curled burnt fingers over my welted palms and cradled them against my chest.
The spear sizzled against air resistance, and I managed to avoid the attack, but the Grimguard already had a new weapon in hand. He brought a massive orange broadsword down swinging over my head.
