I am no stranger to nightmares

The sound was the faintest of clinks, a scraping of steel over stone. I lift my head, listening intently.

surrounded by grass and thorns, blueberries broken on the ground, mud, worms, rotting leaves, and squirrels up above and creeping through the bushes.

I catch a glimpse of steel from my brothers sword, covered with the blood of the sentry he killed. There are other squirrels running through the branches above, fear...you can taste it.

Clink, I hear it agai, I rise swiftly to my feet, ears pricked, body crouched. I hand signal my brother (move in, it means). It is a wet night, a night to drive men to seek shelter by their meager fires. The rain has stopped, but still they linger by the warmth of their fires....fools. My brother comes sliding through the trees, moving forward quietly.

We move in, my brother racing beside me.The walls were low but they where slick and wet from the rain! Frustrated I look around, my eyes fall upon a great tree covered in needles, slanting towards the wall. Swiftly I whirl and bound back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath my feet, branches whipping at me as I run past. I could hear my brother following close. We plunged by a maple tree and around a cold pool, through the blueberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks an ash, to the pine tree.....and there it was slanting towards the wall...excellent.

I turn and race back in a rush my feet flying, kicking up wet leaves and pine needles, throwing myself up the trunk, upward I bound, up an up, two, three, barely slowing, until I was up as far as I could go. Branches tangled my feet and whipped my eyes. I jump...needles scattering eerywhere, scrathing my bare face and following down my bare neck, sticky sap on my hands, the sharp piney smell of it.....

.....The sky was gloom of cloud, the woods dead and frozen. Roots grabbed at my feet as I ran, and bare branches lashed my face leaving thin stripes of blood across my cheeks. I crashed through heedless, breathless, icicles flying to pieces before me.

Hes dead, primary mission accomplished...secondary mission is to stay alive along enough to reach the escape point.....