It didn't matter how much his legs hurt, or how much he wanted to fall over. They had to run or they would be caught and they would die. They could hear the shrieks behind them, and the calls for guards. The priest stumbled, and Catrina caught him and shoved him onward. The castle seemed to reverberate with the sound of clattering armor. They weren't going to make it.
Then a door opened, and they were yanked inside. They hit the ground. Catrina came up spitting and hissing, ready for a fight.
By the doorway, a hooded figure put a finger to his lips and made a quiet "shhhhhhhhh".
Catrina stopped, and they heard the sounds of armored footsteps pass them, retreated into the distance. They waited for a moment, two. The sounds faded, and drifted into silence.
Then the figure moved to the wall, and pressed a switch. The wall moved, and a great spiral staircase revealed itself. The hooded figure beckoned to them.
The priest struggled to stand, and Catrina helped him walk up the stair. The figure, seeming to know the passage by heart, walked ahead of them without faltering.
At the top of the staircase, there was a tapestry. The figure pulled it out of the way, and held it open for them. The priest found himself looking at a tower room, round and luxurious. A thick rug adorned the floor, and bookshelves lined the walls all around. A single desk set near the window, covered with sketches and diagrams.
He turned to look at the figure. They took off the hooded cloak they were wearing, and moved to the side of the room, where they lit a lamp.
In the light, a man in a scholar's robes turned to face them, showing with frazzled auburn hair and glittering green eyes. The recognition hit both Catrina and the priest at the same time, and the scholar smiled at them.
"Who are you?" The priest asked, and a wry smile twitched across the man's face.
"Well, that's a great question, isn't it? That's the question we're all looking for."
Several chairs circled the room, and the scholar gestured to them.
"Sit. You look like you need it."
Catrina lowered the priest into a particularly plush chair, but stayed standing herself.
The scholar glanced between them, eyes glittering.
"Now you two appear to be a prisoner, recently escaped, and a thief here to break him out, yes? I've stolen looks at the dungeon registry, so I know that logically you two are very dangerous accomplices of the Man in the Woods."
Catrina opened her mouth to protest. The scholar held up his hand.
"Here I'm mainly known as Mellan. But to you two? I believe the name your looking for is Izzy, or Tentamon, or Kabuterimon. Do those make sense to you?"
The priest felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo.
The scholar went over the desk, and picked up a diagram. He handed it to Catrina, who stared at it blankly.
"I can't read."
"Oh." He exchanged it for another, a simple drawing this time.
"What is this?" he asked, stabbing his finger at a symbol on the page.
Catrina stared at it.
"Light." She said "It means light."
The scholar snapped his fingers and nodded, and held the page in the priest's face, poking at a different symbol.
"Hope." The priest said, and the scholar nodded again.
He stabbed a finger at the first symbol on the page, a large one, and then jabbed a finger at himself.
"Knowledge." He said. "And I would be a poor representative if I didn't put that to use. I probably don't have many more clues that you two do." He gestured at the papers.
"But I've been writing them all down and piecing them together."
The priest held up a hand to stop him "I'm sorry, he said, but I just got out of a torture chamber. Perhaps you could give me some time to recover before you begin?"
Catrina jolted into action.
"Miss Lily is outside the castle. She and-" Catrina glanced at the scholar "The others are all out there. I'll get her."
The scholar grabbed Catrina's arm.
"The others. How many are there?"
Catrina glared at him and he sighed with frustration.
"I'm one of you remember? I'm not going to turn you in."
She still glared, but spat out: "Three. Lily, and two others."
"That makes six. Bring them up then. It's better if we all talk. Much better."
Catrina paused, but then scampered off into the secret passage without another word.
The scholar and the priest were left together in the room, staring at each other.
"They think I'm mad you know." The scholar said. The priest stared at him uncomprehending.
"The other scholars. And the knights, and the servants. They think I'm raving mad, a loony. I'm not though. You all prove it. You prove it."
He hurried to the desk and started scribbling notes down, frantically. The priest found he didn't have the energy to say much of anything.
When Lily came into the room, she let out a cry and rushed to the priest's side.
"Monsters! She said. Horrible beasts and devils, who would do such a thing!"
She had a large bag with her, and set about applying all sorts of sticky salves to him and forced him to swallow several bad-smelling concoctions. As soon as Hafros lumbered up the passageway, she snapped her fingers and demanded the bandages with the air of a queen.
"So this is seven right?" the priest croaked out "Including the Man in the Woods? That means we have everyone."
The scholar shook his head wildly "Eight. There are eight of us. There were seven, but then miss light over there joined and we had eight."
He jabbed a finger at Catrina and repeated: "Eight."
He paused, and said: "The Man in the Woods is one of us? Prodigious. I didn't know that."
Hafros settled down in the largest chair there, making the poor wooden legs creak.
"Well man then, what do you know about all of this?"
The scholar plopped down in a chair behind the desk and steepled his fingers together, grinning.
"Once upon a time," he said ",there were eight chosen heroes."
"Knew it!" Hafros cut in.
"Yes, well good for you." The scholar said, looking miffed at being interrupted.
"The heroes were defeated a great deal of evil, and did a great deal of good. As heroes tend to do. And as often happens, the evil monsters found they could not defeat them." He smiled "So they decided to change the equation."
He gestured about the room, at all of them "In this world, we have no power, or only a shadow of our power. We have no memories of our purpose. We have no memory of our enemies.
"If we had remained as we were, it would be quite easy to pick us off. It is therefore natural to assume that one of our enemies put us this way."
"The Devil Man."
The scholar looked at Catrina, who had a hard light in her eyes.
"'E knew who Mister priest and Aderyn were as soon as he saw 'em. He locked 'em up tight, and wouldn't let anyone see them."
The scholar hemmed "You mean Captain Dunn don't you. The man who was a mercenary."
The priest nodded "He's the Devil."
Hafros looked taken aback, and stared at the priest.
"Surely, you don't mean that like you say it."
"You're the one who said we were Chosen. Is a devil really so strange?"
Hafros huffed hard.
"Well… destiny is one thing. Demons…"
Aderyn cut in "I don't think he's the one."
Catrina looked at her in disbelief "You saw how 'e acted, same as I did! He knew you!"
"But he was as surprised as we were to find us there!"
"Because 'e was looking for the Man in the Woods! Not you!"
The scholar cut in.
"I'll admit it's a possibility Captain Dunn is an enemy. I'll even admit to the possibility that he is a demon. However, I agree with your friend here. It's too early to decide that he is the enemy. Besides, what we need to do first is find the last of us. It seems like it would be poor judgement to start without them."
"A knight."
Everyone turned to look at the priest. He looked back at them, his eyes determined.
"I'm almost sure of it." He said "The eighth will be a knight."