The trudge back was a glum one. They had survived. They could say that much. However, he had promptly left and given them precious little information.
"What do we do now?" Aderyn asked "He was the only lead we had."
She looked at her fists, and half-heartedly tried to punch a tree branch. She yelped when it connected, but the priest barely noticed.
"He knew me. That was for sure. And I knew him. It was more than the rest. I felt kind of like that when I saw Catrina for the first time."
"What are you mumbling about priest? Are you even hearing me?"
"It'll be all right." He said "It'll all be all right."
Then there was a sudden shout. And the thunder of horse hooves burst through the forest like an earthquake. Bodies burst from the forest, horses crashing through the trees, and like a wall of flesh the riders surrounded them.
The priest looked up and found himself looking at the point of a sword. Ridiculously, he felt a spark of joy and hope.
Of course, he thought, of course they're a knight.
Then he looked further up the sword, and found himself, utterly, totally, wrong.
The man at the other end of the sword was pale as milk, and dressed from tip to toe in leather and steel armor, painted black as could be. It was a mercenary's garb, plain and simple, but it had the King's crest painted on the front.
"Well, well." the man said, and his face snarled cruelly "Look what we have here. I suppose it's my lucky day."
The he turned to his compatriots and shouted "We've got a couple of poachers here! Who's ready to string them up by their thumbs?!"
There was a roar of approval, and the priest realized that he was quite terrified.
"Now look here." he said, trying to be reasonable "We aren't poachers, or anything of the sort. I'm a priest at a village just a few miles from here and-"
The man interrupted him by bursting into hearty laughter "A priest! Oh that's good! That's really good!"
"I am!" the priest protested "There is a whole town full of villagers who can vouch for me!"
One of the other soldiers piped up "And I suppose the lady beside you has the bow because it's a holy relic?" They all laughed, and Aderyn clutched the bow to her chest and scowled at them
"It tisn't against any law for a lady to defend herself, now is it?"
"And what's a lady doing in the woods anyway? And with a priest tagging along?" one of the men shouted, and another chorus of jeers broke out. One of them made a crude comment as to what they might have been doing, and they all broke into laughter, while the priest blushed redder than a tomato. He didn't know what to do in a situation like this. It was completely foreign to him.
"Tie them up!" shouted the leader "And sling them over the horses!"
Aderyn, desperate, made a sudden dash for it, but one of the man grabbed her by the arm and hauled her upwards. She snatched an arrow from her quiver and stabbed his hand with it, making him drop her with a howl. She started to run again, then a dozen men were clammering upon her, pinning her to the ground.
"WILD MAN!" she shrieked "HELP US!" she bit one of them, but ten more piled on.
"She's in league with the bandit!" one of them shouted, and another socked her in the jaw.
"Aderyn stop!" the priest pleaded "You're only making it worse!"
"What happens if they catch me holy man?!" she shouted back at him.
A poacher could lose a hand for something petty, a head for something dire. He didn't know which she had earned.
And the priest was torn, because there really was a whole village of people to vouch for him. If he walked away right now, or submitted peacefully, then he would be able to go home, and be safe.
One of the men twisted Aderyn's arm behind her back, and she screamed. The leader laughed, a hideous cruel laugh. There was a pain in his head, and a flapping of wings, and that terrible laughter, and without knowing exactly what he was doing the priest was somehow on top of the leader's horse, and pummeling the mercenary's face in with all his might.
They crashed to the ground together, the sword going flying, and the leader hissed and struggled to shove the priest off, wrapping hands around his throat and squeezing as tight as he could. The priest responded to that by giving him a bloody nose.
Aderyn somehow managed to wriggle half free, and was clawing at the men's faces something fierce. The priest knew that any moment the beast man would come barreling through the woods and save them. Maybe Hafros would suddenly pop up as well, a hammer in hand, and whack them all sideways like bowling pins. Then the priest was on the ground, pinned, and the hands were around his throat again. He gasped and choked to no avail, and the man in black sneered at him in cruel delight.
"Seems you aren't at your full strength little holy man." The man sneered.
Aderyn was being tied up; bound with ropes, trussed like a chicken for dinner. The man in black armor squeezed harder on the priest's throat, and laughed even louder than before. Above them, perched in the trees, the priest saw a glint of blue eyes.
Then everything went black.
When he woke, the priest was in a dungeon. The holy man, with all his years of good deeds, and wonderful preaching, and prayers and faithful service, was chained to a dungeon wall like a low brutish criminal.
He found himself worrying about the service that weekend. Who would run it without him? What would they think? Even if he did get back, there would be some quite terrible stories to tell about him. Arrested in the company of a poacher, known to be a consort of the bandit in the woods. What would they think of him?
He wished that he could talk to Aderyn.
She had brought him to Hafros, she had tracked down the Man in the Woods. She always seemed to know what to do next. She was a good woman, even if she was a poacher.
He was so alone in here.
He heard the sound of boots on stone, and door creaked open. A dark figure came in: the leader of the soldiers, with a cruel grin on his face. Very quickly, the priest wished he was alone again.
"Well, well." The man said "So we meet again."
"I'm not a criminal." The priest argued, his throat rasping.
"You assaulted a man of the law." The soldier said. "That is certainly a crime, you must admit."
There was still a proper harvest of ripe bruises on the man's face, along with a crooked nose, and the priest could hardly bring himself to argue with such evidence. A wide grin came to the man's face, and he suddenly seemed much larger than he was.
"Well holy man. For the duration of this visit you may think of me as Devil."
He drew out several sharp objects from his person.
"Please," the priest said "I'm sorry for what I did. There's no need to torture me."
"Oh this goes far beyond that." The man said. "You don't seem to remember it, but I do."
There was a pain in his head, the flapping of wings, and cruel laughter. The man in front of him seemed to swell to several times his size.
"Like I said." the mercenary said "The Devil. Here to collect on old debts."
Soon after, the screaming began.