Today was Monday, five days after that encounter in the woods, and that nightmare. On the morning that Uncle Ecgbald was preparing to leave, I convinced my parents, and him, to let me go with him to his home in Aldburg. He was surprised to hear this, but agreed with me. We got to his home, I settled in, and started to ask him some questions. "Uncle-" I paused with hesitation, but continued on, "Uncle....Is it possible, we could continue my combat training with the spear today? We haven't done it in at least three weeks! I really must know this if I am to protect myself and serve Rohan someday!" I spoke with confidence, sounding convincing. "Of course. You always were a smart lad, thinking ahead and such. We must get started then, as I plan to go to the market on the morrow," he spoke with happiness, he put his left hand on my shoulder, squeezing it ever so slightly, in a reassuringly gesture. I was joyful, but I felt guilty for not telling him the real reason why I had, at least lately, wanted to learn how to use as spear. Of course, uncle believes that no training can begin without a proper meal, a good one at that too.
Dried meat is what we had, chewy, but good, uncle assured me that this is a 'proper meal' just before we would train, for I doubted at first. It was sunny, warm, a great day for training. Uncle put up the targets, refreshed my mind with how to threw one, as simple as it was, I didn't understand it. Ecgbald was referred to the patient, cautious, brother out of the two, my father was the irrational, stubborn, quick-thinking type. I just realized these facts, watching uncle throw the spear, aiming its sharp point to land directly at the center. Bulleyes! The spear hit the center, I wondered if I could do this, it was amazing. Simply amazing, I thought. It was my turn to try, so I aimed, took deep-breaths, and threw it. Sadly to my disappointment it didn't hit bulleyes, but it did get to the middle ring, quite close to bulleyes, but close doesn't cut it. I tried again and again, before uncle finally said, "Patience, you'll get it one day, lets go inside and rest a bit, we've been out here for quite some time," I sighed with frustration, then laid down the spear upon the green grass and went inside. I decided to take nap, as I my arm was tired from all that spear-throwing. The nap was filled with the same nightmare as I've been having since the encounter near the edge of the woods, all get more and more vivid. I disregarded this dream, when I woke up, knowing that its just me thinking about it too much.
After resting, we started to head back to my house, which was a good trek away, so, just as a precaution, we had brought our spears. It was starting to get dark, which is why we started to hasten. I was getting worried, scared even, as I didn't like the night, nor did it like me. Uncle started to get worried too, for reasons unknown, maybe he didn't like the night, or didn't like how we were not that close to home. The ground was rough, difficult to traverse at night. We both stopped, hearing growling and howling nearby, we sprang on our heels and started to run, we saw the fire from the house, but still wasn't close enough. We continued running and running. I don't know why, but I stopped, trying to get a look of what was chasing us, and I saw it. I stopped in pure fear, those same yellow eyes from the night several days ago was right behind us, alongside with growls. I ran faster than before, with a brighter spark of fear. We came to the doors of my house, then entered, locking it quickly. I was still gripping my spear with fear. Father and mother were scared to death, their faces were pale, but I could tell in father's eyes that he was angry, scared, but relieved that we had gotten home. Uncle stayed at our house in the guest quarters, I spoke to him why I really wanted to learn how to use a spear lately, as now, during the trek back home, it came to me, perhaps the nightmare, wasn't really a dream. Perhaps it was just a thought made by my fear, or something else. I didn't think about it as I needed sleep, good sleep, at that as well. So, I laid my spear at the doorway in my room, and went to sleep.
