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The rain was relentless, pounding down on them as they rode along the ridge of the valley. Elyan pulled his cloak up, covering his head and wishing he was wearing his old cowl hood and jacket instead of chainmail, which held onto the rainwater once it had soaked through into the thick gambeson underneath.
“You alright, Elyan?” Lancelot asked, pulling his horse up next to Elyan’s.
“I hate the rain,” Elyan grumbled. Lancelot chuckled, reaching over to clap Elyan on the shoulder sympathetically.
They continued on in silence for a while, the only sounds the rain pattering on the trees to their right and the squelching splats of their horses’ hooves on the wet ground.
“Just to the end of this ridge and we’ll stop for a rest,” Leon called up ahead of them, gesturing towards where their path widened and wove into the forest.
“At least we’ll be a little more sheltered once we’re in the trees,” Lancelot said in a consolatory tone. Elyan gave him a half-hearted smile.
He tightened his grip on his cloak as they plodded further on, the cold wind whipping at his face and trying to snatch his cloak away.
Elyan’s horse gave a startled whinny and Elyan was jolted in the saddle as her hoof landed on an unstable bit of mud. The ground shifted underneath them, the waterlogged mud sliding and slipping and suddenly Elyan found himself tumbling from the saddle as the horse staggered to avoid falling down the valley wall.
The horse managed to lurch up to the ridge again, but Elyan, his foot coming loose from the stirrup, fell, caught in the now churned up mud that was cascading down into the valley below. He barely had time to yell and cover his face before he was plummeting down in a whirl of mud and rocks.
He hit the valley bottom with a thud, the side of his head smacking painfully into the ground. A torrent of rocks and debris covered him as the landslide raged down the slope. He had to move or he would be completely buried. Scrabbling at the loose earth beneath him, he tried to pull himself away from the valley side. But the weight of mud on top of him was too much. His desperate attempts to get free only caused more wet soil to shift down towards him.
Darkness crashed over him, flattening him to the ground, the roaring of the falling land thundering in his ears. His face was pushed down into the mud, his head covered. Panic soared in his chest. Grunting with the effort, and trying very hard not to whimper, he pushed his hands outwards, trying to dislodge some of the mud over his head. He fought against the weight of it frantically. It was no use; either the mud was too deep over him for his hands to break through it, or more shifted into place whenever he pushed any aside.
Trying to dig himself out was sapping all of his strength. He collapsed under the weight. Trapped. Unable to move. Unable to get free.
He tried to slow his breathing even as his heart raced. There was only a very small pocket of air by his face. How long before he suffocated under here, buried beneath who knew how much of the valley side?
Had the other knights been caught in the landslide as well? Lancelot had been riding right alongside Elyan. Had he managed to get clear in time?
His mind was getting foggy, panic and lack of air making his head pound furiously. He tried again to move, to get up, to push the dirt from on top of him. But the fall had taken all of the strength from him. There was too much earth crushing him down.
A sob worked its way up his throat, threatening to break free. As a lone wanderer and now as a knight, Elyan had always known his life was dangerous. The risks hung heavy over all knights. But he had never considered the possibility that being buried alive, alone and afraid, would be the way that fate would take him.
A scrabbling at his ankle snapped his focus back. And then a hand was grasping his calf, just above his boot. The hand moved up his leg, pushing the mud aside as it followed the line of his body upwards. Elyan could have wept. They’d found him. He let out a relieved whimper, gasping and trying to catch his breath in the tiny gap he had.
There were now more hands, digging around him, one set at his side, over his back. The other near his shoulders. One brushed over the back of his neck and he shifted his head.
“He moved!” he heard the muffled triumphant cry as more mud was dug away from him. “Elyan!”
Now that they had lifted most of the weight of earth from him, Elyan could get his arms free again. He pushed up onto his hands and knees. Two large hands grabbed his shoulders, hauling him out from under the rest of the mud. He gasped in a huge breath, immediately regretting it when it made him cough and choke on dirt, but Percival’s steady hand patted his back, and Gwaine was kneeling in front of him, grinning in relief.
“Are you alright?” Percival asked quietly, his eyes scanning across Elyan.
“I think so… Thank you,” he panted, trying to wipe the mud from his face with his equally dirty hand. Gwaine leant forwards and offered the sleeve of his gambeson. Letting Gwaine smear most of the dirt off of him, Elyan looked up at the side of the valley that had collapsed in the landslide. A large chunk of the slope was gone, along with the path up on the ridge that they had been riding on earlier.
“Are you… all… alright?” he asked worriedly, looking at the two of them.
“We’re fine,” Percival reassured, patting Elyan’s shoulder.
“None of you got caught in the slide? Lancelot…?” He glanced up at the ridge again, hoping to spot Lancelot or Leon looking down at them.
“Not in the slide,” Gwaine said. “His horse spooked and threw him” – Percival squeezed Elyan’s shoulder when Elyan’s eyes widened in panic – “but he’s fine,” Gwaine added quickly. “Just a little bruised. Leon had to practically hold him down to stop him running down here to help you.”
Elyan felt a small smile tugging his lips.
“Come on, can you stand?” Percival stood, one arm around Elyan’s back to help him up as well.
Gwaine scrambled to his own feet, slipping once in the churned up mud and started climbing up the slope, turning and reaching a hand to help pull Elyan up after him.
“We must be due that rest Leon promised by now,” he joked.
Rain splashed onto Elyan’s face and dribbled through the mud down his neck as they climbed back up the slope. But he didn’t care anymore. The rain on his face was refreshing, and as he turned his face up into it, he smiled.