The Second Leg of the Race

JP with Gonyaul, Alexis and Wim:

Wim looked at the two with a serious look on his face, “I did not say I would not help. But we have to go to my place so I can change out of my fancy clothes and get my gear.”

Alexis had half a mind to still leave the dubious noble standing there, but that was a different tune, and the building fury on her expression settled somewhat.

After taking a breath and swallowing a snide remark, she nodded.

“With you, I suppose that still oughta be faster then a detour to the keep.”

Gonyaul kept his thoughts to himself. It looked like the two oppositional personalities had come to an agreeable resolution. That meant Islana was one step closer to being rescued from the clutches of evil.

He smiled big and encouragingly celebrated, “Ohssi in erok o uanoko otok ag usamiked.”

They went to Wim’s place where he changed into darker, less fancy clothing. With the wall being built it was easy to find an area to sneak through as not to raise alarms and the small group headed off on their mission.

…

Gonyaul, seeing everyone ready, beckoned them all to follow. He began leading them immediately in the direction of his place on the farm; it was always his starting point into the woods. He decided to take more of a jogging pace out of courtesy for the others. He was mindful to slow down when it looked necessary; however, once recovered he would pick up the pace again.

When they arrived at his place he stopped to allow anyone to catch there breath for a second. It had been just over 30 minutes at that clip. Gonyaul seemed to have recovered the moment he stopped. He did have the added advantage of not wearing any armor as well as carrying no weaponry.

They would have seen his living abode completely razed to the ground and the garden void of any plants. Gonyaul had organized the debris off to the side from the structure and he landscaped the garden back to a ground zero. He had a blank canvas to work with for both now. Of course Wim had never seen his place, but Alexis would have recognized a difference.

“All ok? Ready to go woods?” By himself he could do the next leg to his camp in one and a half hours. With them it was going to take longer and he wanted to get moving.

Alexis looked at the remains of Gonyaul’s dwelling, with a furrowed brow.
Later.

“Ready.”

Wim looked at the ruins and shook his head. His place was better than this.

Hearing no objections to continuing onward, Gonyaul gestured once more to follow and took off at a jog into the dark toward the untamed wilderness. He had taken this route so many times that he could do it in his sleep.

Just like before he took lead over everyone’s condition to ensure they were keeping up and not going to be physically spent. It was possible they may have to fight at the end of all this.

When they hit the tree line he whispered to stay close. It was dark, but with a waxing moon there was quite a decent amount of reflected light off the moon. He moved low and took advantage of darting from cover to cover. You could never be too careful. He did live up to the nickname the rabbit, that the arbiter gave him, if you watched him move about.

They went on like this in silence for two hours before they neared his campsite. He didn’t actually take them to it; because he didn’t want them to know it existed. In the dark they wouldn’t have been able to identify it even if he had unless he specifically pointed it out.

It was at this point he stopped and let them catch there breath again. He seemed just fine endurance wise as he crouched really low and began scanning the area. He was crawling on all fours until he suddenly froze.

He looked up over his shoulder to the rest of them and whispered. “Tracks. This way”

He paused again to evaluate the rest of them. Could they keep going?

“Ready?”

Alexis was certainly impressed with the young man’s agility and endurance. Good thing she never skipped leg day herself in all these years of mercenary life, or she might have had more problems to keep up.

She nodded to Gonyaul, preparing to start moving a bit more stealthily.

Gonyaul went into a very low squatting position as he looked up to them. He placed his finger to his mouth to show they needed to be as quiet as possible from now on.

He had to stay low to the ground in order to keep sight of the signs that the cultists had left in their wake through the woods. The rest of them didn’t need to. They just needed to follow him, which his dark grey winter cloak made a little bit more challenging if they took their eyes off of him and lost track of where he moved to.

They were moving much slower now. Sometimes he had to stop completely to double check what way to continue. Other times he needed to stop and try and find another clue before moving forward. He rarely looked back to them, he was concentrating all his faculties at the moment.

Wim would have complained a bit, but there was an element of excitement of what they were doing. Wim watched how Gonyaul read the signs and how everyone else seemed not to make every twig on the ground snap. Stumps, roots, and branches seemed to ave hands that each reached out and grabbed at his feet and head. It wasn’t that Wim was louder than everyone, it was just that he was worried about being ambushed by a magic wielding madman and magic wielding thugs.

Gonyaul was most fortunate that it had been several cult members trampling through the forest towards wherever. If it had been just one person, for example, he doubted he would have been able to find clues of their passage in the dark. It was still a challenge, but he was managing at a pace much slower than he thought it would be.

He took stock of their group. Alexis seemed reliable and had a confidence about her movement that made Gonyaul sense she would handle any upcoming threats. The two men Wim brought seemed powerful and eager. And good Wim he conjectured was better with a blade than a bow and arrow, lest he wouldn’t have come. If the numbers were in their favor, or the strategy sound, they had a sporting chance.

What would they eventually find upon arrival? How much longer did they have to go? What would he do if he lost the trail? Did they have the capability to even effectively pull off a rescue?

These were just a few of the questions that would surface in his mind in between analyzing grass lengths, impressions in the earth, disturbed or loosed pieces of the environment.

With the thickening of the forest’s canopy the deeper they went, the moonlight was becoming less prevalent to aid his tracking. He could smell and feel a gradual transition towards an older and denser part of the woods he had never ventured too. He hoped strongly for a light or sound from the cult members they were pursuing, because he wasn’t going to be able to keep there progress going for much longer.

And they continued onward deeper still, continually getting slower and slower. Thus continued for what felt like forever, until Gonyaul came to a complete halt. He kept searching and searching, his face inches from objects or the ground straining to see or feel.

He looked back apologetically to Alexis and the group. “I lost trail”. He felt awful.

“Not enough to see.” They were going to have to stop, camp and wait for the sun most likely.