The Lost Ruins, Chapter 5

Nothing besides the ghoul came close to Elena’s camp for the rest of that night, and everyone managed to get some sleep before setting out again the next day. Unfortunately for the expedition, the weather decided to take a turn for the worse within a few hours of setting out. Before noon, the already grey skies began to leak out a thin drizzle that gradually intensified into a steady downpour that managed to filter through the canopy of the Walder as though it wasn’t there. Hoods were raised, collars turned up, and the expedition continued anyway.   Elena herself burrowed deeper into her thick digger’s coat, grateful for its warmth and relative dryness. Ahead of her, Nic had bundled himself into his thick cloak, which was apparently good enough that the rain did not inconvenience him in the slightest. It was hard not to be jealous of him as she trudged along behind him, wishing that her coat had a hood like his. Within an hour, her hair was as wet as it would be if she had just climbed out of the bath.   As the rain continued, the road got muddier and a thin white mist began to rise up from the ground. The mist managed to find any gaps in water protection that the rain had failed to penetrate. It took almost no time at all for Elena to descend into a quiet misery. Only the exertion of moving through the mud kept her from shivering. The column as a whole slowed to a crawl as they fought their way through the mud and slowly rising mist.   It took a moment or two for Elena to catch up to Nic in the wetness. “Is this normal?” she asked. “The rain?”   “Yes, unfortunately.” Nic slowed just a bit to allow her to keep pace with him. “It should die down in an hour or so.”   With a resigned sigh, Elena dropped back towards the rest of the group. She veered towards a minor commotion, and found Marcus helping one of the other expedition members unstick one of the supply wagons from an unusually deep patch of muddy road. She arrived just as they managed to get the wagon moving with a forceful shove, and Marcus turned to face her. He was caked in mud up to his knees, and he looked fairly put out as he stifled a yawn.   “Bloody weather,” he muttered. “Bloody country.” He rubbed at his eyes.   “Are you okay?” Elena asked.   “I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well last night. It happens to me sometimes.” He took a deep breath and forced a smile. “At least we’re moving.”   “Yeah.” Now it was Elena’s turn to suppress a yawn. Moving through the muck must be taking more out of her than she had thought. “Moving slowly, but moving.” She glanced around the bit of the forest she could see through the gloom. “I hope this breaks soon.”   “I think we all do.” Both Elena and Marcus turned to face the new speaker, a middle-aged Castillian priest, as he drew up alongside them.   “Father Gálvez,” Elena greeted. “No words of comfort on this dreary day?”   “Tribulations are a sign of blessings from Theus,” the priest answered with a tone of mild superiority. Then he grimaced and glanced up at the sky. “Right now, though, I would prefer it if he were blessing us just a bit less.”   Elena chuckled at the man’s joke. She herself was not of his religion, but she had been warned that traveling through Eisen without an ordained priest would be risky. Gálvez had two main advantages over any of the priests from the Church of Avalon: first, he was skilled at performing exorcisms; and second, he was willing to leave his rectory for the right price. As an added bonus, the Vatacine priest had not attempted to debate his theology with anyone unwilling through the entire journey so far. The older man had actually begun to grow on Elena as they had traveled together.   “Hope your holy books are managing to stay dryer than my shirt is,” Marcus said with a grin.   “Oh, they’ve seen worse than this.” Father Gálvez tapped at his chest, presumably indicating a pocket in either his coat or shirt. “They’ll be fine here.”   “Good. Keep the faith, Father.” Elena smiled, having used a phrase that she often used to tease the priest. For his part, he took it completely seriously every time she did it, though it was obvious that he understood her jab.   “Of course. Don’t forget to do the same.” He shuffled off with some difficulty, and Elena watched him go with some interest.   “Does he look like he’s moving more slowly than usual?”   Marcus smiled faintly. “I think we’ve already established that we all are.”   “No, I mean ‘does he look tired?’” Elena yawned again.   “Now that you mention it, he does look a bit worn out.” Marcus shrugged. “We’re all tired out from moving through the mud.”   Elena did not respond right away, instead allowing her eyes to travel along the other members of the expedition that she could see. It was not possible to see everyone clearly through the low-lying mist, but those that she could see did seem to have a kind of lethargy to their steps. She also saw more than a few yawns, including one from Marcus directly beside her. A trickle of unease began to move down her spine.   “I need to go ask about something,” she said. She accelerated her pace despite the difficulty, moving to try and get back to where Nic walked at the front of the column. It took several minutes, but she eventually made it back up to the front, where one of the expedition members pointed her to where Nic was scouting ahead a few dozen feet. By this time, his dark cloak was starting to blend into the mist as it thickened and continued to rise. She called out to him, and he quickly moved back to where she was, brushing a bit of water out of his eyes as he drew close.   “What is it?”   “Nic, I’ve been noticing that everyone seems a bit more tired than usual. Do you know of anything that could have gotten into our camp last night that would have made us sleep less soundly than usual?”   Nic frowned, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Not that we wouldn’t have seen, no. And I slept fine, but now that you mention it…” He trailed off, glancing around into the forest for a moment or two. “Wait here,” he said abruptly, and moved ahead once more.   Elena cocked an eyebrow and stared after him as he vanished into the mist. It took a disturbingly short time for him to disappear completely, and she had the order to stop temporarily relayed down the column. Once the others had stopped as well, she turned back to wait for Nic’s return. After a few minutes, she heard a distant thump, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps. Nic’s large form had just started to emerge from the mist when he waved his arms frantically.   “It’s the mist!” he screamed. “It drains your vitality! Climb the trees! Do it now, for Theus’ sake!”   For two deadly heartbeats, Elena froze with indecision. She wondered if this might be some kind of trick, but quickly decided to trust her guide. She whirled to face the others. “Climb!”   The second shout–from the expedition leader this time–drove the others to instant action. Everyone raced towards the nearest trees, beginning to struggle up towards the top of the mist. Elena herself ran towards a tree, pushing others upwards from the ground as everything dissolved into chaos. Now that she was paying attention to it, she could feel her strength sapping quickly, and she knew she would have to start climbing herself or it would be too late. She abandoned the tree that she stood under to the others clustered there and ran to the next tree over. She took a hold of the trunk and began to climb. Luckily, there were plenty of knobs and branches for her to cling to, and she made progress upwards even as her hands began to lose their dexterity. After a minute or two, she found herself above the mist. The sky was still fully grey, but outside of the mist things were brighter. More relieving, though, was the fact that she could immediately feel her energy returning.   After a quick check to make sure that the mist was not still rising up to claim her, she began to look around at the other members of her expedition. The mist was thickening below her, causing all of the shapes to become indistinct. She saw someone move to her tree and attempt to climb, but the person only made it partway up before slipping down. Elena wasted no time. She stabilized herself on the tree branch and pulled the rope off of her belt. She dropped one end of it down to whoever was down there, shouting for them to take the rope. After a few seconds, she felt the person do so, and she began to pull upwards on the rope. By now, the mist was so thick that she could barely see, but she kept pulling, and after a moment Father Gálvez’s head broke free of the mist. He gasped as though surfacing from underwater, and managed to scramble to another branch near Elena’s. He clung to the branch and sucked in deep breaths of air. He had lost his hat somewhere, and his greying hair was disheveled and plastered to the side of his head by the still-falling rain.   Below the two of them, the mist thickened to an impenetrable white floor. She tried in vain to see how many of her expedition may be left down below. She also strained her ears, but the only sounds she heard were from the gasping priest in the tree with her. No screams or even the sounds of bodies collapsing came up to her from below. The silence was even more unnerving than sounds of death would have been.   “Thank you, Miss Hunt,” Gálvez croaked out after regaining his breath. “I did not think I would be able to climb until your rope arrived like a miracle from heaven.”   Elena turned her gaze horizontal, peering through the rain towards other trees, trying to see how many of her fellows had made it up other trees. She could make out some vague silhouettes from the trees beside her, but could not get a definitive count. She called out, asking for anyone else to respond, to give her some kind of indication of how many were trapped below.   Others began responding to her call, carrying the shouts back and forth across the treetops. Each time she heard a new voice, she sagged with relief. Once the voices began to die down, she turned back to Father Gálvez.   “Sorry I didn’t reply to you sooner, Father.”   “No apologies necessary. A shepherd must watch over her flock.”   “Pray for us, Father,” Elena requested. “Not all of us made it, and those of us who did will need the extra strength.”   The priest nodded. He bowed his head and began to mutter prayers in Castillian. Elena settled herself more comfortably on her branch and tried to relax as she listened to the muttered prayers and waited for the mist to dissipate.