Highland Dream (Book 1)

Chapter 3

“Cam, I know it’s not the castle you’re used to but welcome to my humble abode.” Artair chuckled slightly to himself. Camdyn didn’t know why Artair tried he never made anyone but himself laugh, even Aonghus didn’t laugh at Artair’s jokes, but there was much eye rolling involved.

Complaints were heard behind them and as they turned to see what had caused the commotion they were hit with splashes of water…as Hamish was shaking himself off like a dog, while stood in the centre of the cavern and hitting everyone in the vicinity. Every then joined in with ribbing Hamish and the mood had considerably lightened since the company had left the rain behind. But Camdyn. Camdyn couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he needed to be somewhere, and if he didn’t get there soon it would be too late. And that feeling was telling him that too late was not an option he wanted to take.

He waited until his men had settled and they started talking about what they would do when they reached home. He then took Aonghus aside. He couldn’t tell Aonghus about his feelings, he hadn’t been able to tell anyone but his mother about them. So he told Aonghus he was going to scout further up the road to see if it was stable at the moment or if there had been any mud slides that would have to be cleared before they continued on their way. “I will join you Cam, just give me a moment to tell Artair.”

Camdyn grabbed Aonghus’ arm as he turned, “No, my friend, I need to clear my head and think on how we can speed this journey up to reach home by the day after next.” Aonghus took a long look at Camdyn’s face before slowly nodding, he knew there was something wrong with what Camdyn had said, but as he had no proof he could not pull him up on it.

With that Camdyn left the safety of the cave and re-entered the wet world outside. He wondered if this is what is was like to live under water. After hours of trudging through ankle high mud, sucking the strength out of him as he went ever further, Camdyn was seriously starting to question whether a ‘feeling’ he had was worth this.

As Camdyn foot came down, he expected it to be sucked back into the ground, but instead hit something solid and he went down. He tried to stop himself, arms held out, his palm scraped down the nearest tree and his forehead bounced off of the solid structure. Apart from the pain in his head and hand and a little dizziness he landed on his knees mostly unscathed.

The strangest thing happened when he lifted his head. The place inside him where his ‘feelings’ were seemed to expand and change, as he looked around he saw a silver trail, faint and looking like dust motes in sunshine but it was most definitely something that he should not have been seeing. His ‘feelings’ were tugging him toward the trail, now he knew the way at least, but to where he had no idea.

Following this trail was the easiest part of the walk so far, the rain didn’t seem to sting against his skin as much, he felt lighter and did not sink into the mud as he had done before. But none of this he really noticed. Moreover, the closer he got to his quests end, the more the ‘feelings’ took over and he could not think clearly about anything else than finding the source of these ‘feelings’.