Page 7 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

This was the first time I’d come into consciousness in Skalterra in a full sprint. I stumbled as my feet formed beneath me, but I caught myself mid-step and managed to remain upright. Silver and gold light emanated from Galahad and Tiernan’s swords, illuminating the ring of Nightmares that surrounded us in formation as we ran.

The largest of the Nightmares carried Fana on his back between Galahad and Tiernan.

“Is Orla alright?”

Galahad asked. It was all he could muster before falling into a coughing fit.

“I died. Your stupid Grimguard killed me!”

I seethed. I kept pace with Galahad’s running stride but shoved my palm in his bearded face so he could see the fresh scar there.

“What the hell is this? What is this?”

“Is Orla alive?”

Galahad demanded.

“She should be fine, which must be nice, because I was murdered!”

“Where’s the Grimguard?”

“Galahad!”

I grabbed his arm, bringing his faltering sprint to a stumbling halt. The Nightmares surrounding us followed suit, and Tiernan was several paces ahead before he realized we’d stopped.

“Let go of him!”

Tiernan charged back to rip my hand away from Galahad.

“If the Grimguard catches up—”

But Galahad held up a staying hand from where he stood doubled over, fighting for air. The Grimguard had warned me the old man wasn’t good for much more than creating Nightmares, but whatever pity I might’ve felt was eclipsed by anger and panic at having woken up in my bedroom with blood dripping from my neck and a new scar to mark my most recent death.

“There’s a new mark.”

I shoved my palm in Galahad’s face.

“It’s there in the real world too.”

“The real world?”

A bushy gray eyebrow quirked above Galahad’s goggles.

“Keldori,”

I hissed.

“The scar is still there in Keldori when I wake up. You’re going to kill me.”

“The Grimguard is going to kill us all if he catches up!”

Tiernan watched the shadows behind us, tensed and ready.

“You fought him,”

Galahad panted. “Where?”

I oriented myself for a moment, thinking back to when Orla had forked left, and I had gone right.

“That way.”

It was hard to see the trees beyond the yellow and silver glows of Galahad and Tiernan’s weapons, but I was fairly certain I was pointing in the right direction. Galahad nodded and every Nightmare except for the one carrying Fana on his broad back rushed into the forest shadows.

“They were carrying all our supplies,”

Tiernan growled.

Galahad straightened up, having somewhat caught his breath.

“We’ll restock in Trawler’s Bay.”

He took my hand in his to inspect the scar the night had added.

“I hope you gave him a good fight at least.”

“Send her with the other Nightmares,”

Tiernan said through clenched teeth. He was the tallest of the group, matching height with the remaining Nightmare.

“We don’t need her.”

“We are a young girl, an old man, and a rash, untrained warrior too eager to prove himself,”

Galahad said.

“The lucid Nightmare stays.”

“I’m not untrained!”

“Then you agree you are rash and too eager?”

“You can’t keep me here.”

My voice quaked as I cut between the two men. This was real. I could die.

“It’s- it’s inhumane!”

“This is nothing compared to what the Frozen God will reap if he is freed.”

A burst of orange light in the distance flashed across Galahad’s face, but he ignored it.

“Do you feel it yet? The gravity of the situation? You faced the Grimguard. Is that who you want unleashed on your world?”

“I—”

“And I wish I could say the Grimguard is the worst thing to exist in Skalterra, but I fear there is far worse, probably here in these woods with us right now. Last night you mentioned a ‘Gams’. Do you think she’ll be spared if our worlds are forced to collide? There was a reason the Four Magicians banished our kind here. There is a reason that here is where we must remain.”

The dark of the forest pressed in on our ring of light, and I wanted nothing more than to dissolve into dust like the Nightmare I was.

“I can’t help you.”

I shook my head and stepped away. I glanced between Galahad and Tiernan before meeting Fana’s wide brown eyes. She stared at me from over her Nightmare’s shoulder. She looked so tiny on his back, and so horribly breakable.

“You can—”

Galahad started.

“I’m just Wren!”

I shouted.

“Do you want the Grimguard to find us faster?”

Tiernan clapped a gloved hand over my mouth. The muscles in my arm rippled with strength I wasn’t used to, and my fist flew, smashing into his jaw. He fell back in the dirt with his goggles askew, staring up at me with shock and loathing.

“Maybe you’re just Wren in Keldori,”

Galahad conceded.

“but here you are a lucid Nightmare, and there is no weapon more powerful than a lucid Nightmare.”

He nodded at Tiernan where he sat sprawled in the dirt, rubbing his jaw.

Green light flashed through the trees ahead, shooting upwards to arc over the forest.

“That’s Ferrin.”

Galahad offered Tiernan a hand up, but he batted it away and climbed to his feet on his own.

“We’re near the edge of the forest then.”

Orange flashed behind us, and the screams of Galahad’s Nightmares had me second-guessing what he’d said about non-lucid Nightmares and their immunity to pain.

“Then move!”

Tiernan grabbed Galahad’s elbow and pulled him towards Fana and her Nightmare.

“I’ll buy you time if he catches up.”

Galahad adjusted his goggles and procured a silver staff to lean against.

“Keep Wren with you. She might prove useful.”

He turned his head towards me.

“And try not to die. You know what’s on the line now.”

His silver light faded behind us as he led Fana and her last remaining Nightmare bodyguard deeper into the trees.

Tiernan’s golden light, meanwhile, simmered and hissed, catching the rim of his protective goggles. The golden rapier flickered as it crackled with the energy of the Skal that made it.

Right. I probably needed a weapon too. Or else I’d die again.

But worse than the thought of dying a second time tonight, the image Galahad had put in my head of the Grimguard hunting Gams had stuck with me.

I didn’t even bother trying to draw a sword and settled for the inevitable, pulling a silver flail out of the air.

“Do you know how to use that?”

Tiernan kept his eyes trained on the shadows of the forest, scanning for signs of the Grimguard.

“I was using it just fine earlier.”

That was, at best, a stretch of the truth. Lobbing flail after useless flail at the Grimguard had only kept him dancing for so long.

Tiernan stood ready, staring into the shadows. He might’ve looked stoic had I not noticed him gulp in the light of another orange burst.

“Look,”

I started.

“I’m sorry about punching you, but—”

“You will not speak to me, Nightmare.”

“Excuse you?”

“You will not speak to me.”

He said it slower this time. He kept his gaze trained on the trees.

“And you will not speak to Fana. The others think you can help, and unfortunately for me, I’m outvoted. But from here until we reach the Second Sentinel, you will not address me.”

“Excuse you?”

Pain registered as shards of bone erupted from beneath my skin to form three lethal blades. Blood dripped off their tips to dot the dirt at my feet.

“And what makes you so much better than me? Both our worlds are at stake, aren’t they? At least you chose to be here!”

Tiernan ignored me and grabbed his rapier handle with both hands. The gold light crackled and split to morph into two curved picks, and Tiernan launched himself at the nearest tree. He clambered up it with ease, sinking the barbed points of his picks into the soft wood one after the other as he hoisted himself upwards.

“I don’t think I’m able—”

“What did I just say about speaking to me?”

he growled down from where he perched on a thick tree branch.

I took a steadying breath, suddenly very much missing Orla. I grabbed my flail handle the way he’d grabbed his rapier and tried to apply what Orla had taught me earlier in the night. The Skal buzzed in my hands, and when I ended up with two flails instead of two picks, I looked up at Tiernan helplessly.

The orange bursts of light were growing closer.

“I can’t get up there!”

I called after Tiernan. He turned his back to me, balancing on his branch with a hand braced against the trunk.

My cheeks burned with indignant rage.

“I’m here against my will, remember?”

I hissed up at the twisted locks gathered at the back of his head. The trees had gone still, and there were no more orange bursts of light to disturb the shadows.

“You can hate me all you want, but I promise—”

A twig snapped, and my attention fell from Tiernan to the shadows beyond his tree. I held my breath, waiting, and just when I decided I must have imagined the sound, two glowing eyes of orange emerged from the darkness.

The Grimguard took shape, stepping into the halo of silver light cast by my flails. His cowl was back over his mouth and nose, but he stood bowlegged, and blood dripped from the wounds I’d left in his thighs.

I gave one of my flails a swing, trying to look intimidating, but the Grimguard raised a condescending eyebrow at me.

“I’ll kill you all night if I have to, Blue.”

A sword of orange sizzled to life in his hand.

He charged, and I side-stepped his first attack before fending him off with a sloppy flail swing.

“Nightmare!”

Tiernan called down to me, and a ball of glowing gold formed in his arms like a miniature sun. He lobbed it into the air. “Catch!”

I stumbled to catch it, desperate for anything that might help me survive another round against the Grimguard. The tiny sun fell into my arms, searing against my skin.

“Squeeze it!”

Tiernan’s command echoed overhead, and as the Grimguard bore down on me again, I had no choice but to obey.

I squeezed the orb, fighting through the burning pain, and waited for whatever it was to deploy and save me and—

Searing gold light ripped through my every molecule, and I was back on my bedroom floor, dripping sweat and wide awake.