Blade of Champions

Chapter Seventeen: Full Moon

        CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

        FULL MOON

 Pounding. Pounding.

His feet fly through the swirling mist.

The air is dead. The flog clings to him like rain.

Hughell skids to a halt and whirls around.

The grey surrounds him like a wall, but still his eyes dart, seeking movement. His ears burn to catch a sound, any sound. 

Nothing. Not even his own, ragged breaths, or the crunch of the frost on the hidden ground.

A blade cuts towards him through the mist. Silent. Deadly.

Somehow, Hughell senses it coming. His arms move of their own accord. Block. Hold.

Muscles strain and ache as the attack bears down upon his blade, forces it lower, inch by inch.

Something's wrong. Hughell's eyes widen as he catches sight of his blade. The mark of the Prince! It's gone!

Suddenly, a face darts out from the mist, mouth opened wide in a sickly grin. The eyes gape like black wells in the ground as the face closes in.

At that moment, Hughell feels his fingers slip. A cry tears from his throat, but the sword twists free of its own accord and flies away. Then down, down into the mist.

He dives for it, but the air around him has become thick as honey. His hands rake the mist; searching, searching. He cannot find it.

He cannot find it.

Out of the darkness, something grabbed Hughell’s shoulder, shaking him awake.

He jerked away from the touch, hand clawing the dirt beside him for his sword... and came away empty. He froze, his chest heaving, heart galloping.

'I thought I should wake you.' A woman's head and shoulders leaned over him, framed by an eery, cold light that was neither daylight nor the light of a fire.

'Where's my sword?' Hughell snarled. He half-rose in his bed, shaking and taught as a bowstring. 

Startled by his tone, Nadoli pulled away, her eyes widening.

'It's right here, Hughell,' she said, pointing. There was an edge of hesitation to her voice, as though she were afraid of what he might do with the weapon once he had it.

Hughell looked and saw his scabbard, stretched out on the dirt beside where he had slept. On the other side. He dragged himself into a crouching position and held one hand over his eyes. He did not know what to say. 'I'm sorry.'

She shrugged. 'It wasn't time to wake everyone yet, but you were... crying out in your sleep.'

She raised an eyebrow questioningly.

The wind blew against Hughell, sending chills across his sweat-streaked skin. 'It must have been a dream,' was all he said, but he shivered, fighting the memory of the failure. The failure he feared more than anything. 

Nadoli seemed to understand his silence. She rocked back on her heels, looking up at the black sky.

Hughell’s gaze followed hers and it was then that he remembered what night it was.