That night, the priest had nightmares about devils and monsters, coming to rend him flesh from bone. The mercenary stood above them all, with his glinting tools and twisting bits of metal.
"You'll never manage it." He said. "I'll kill you, and everyone else."
The Man in the Woods was there, looking down at him with terrifying eyes. The priest felt a stabbing accusation boiling up.
"You ran away! You left us here and we're all going to die!"
The beast man looked at him with cold eyes, and bounded away without a word.
The priest was falling, falling. He screamed, and cackling laughter reverberated around him.
Then he woke up.
"That was nothing. Just one of the lab rats. Actually, would you like to see? I've got a lovely rat, and a dissected cat, and a LOT of beetles. Flesh-eating ones, did you know those exist? Wait! I have so much I could show you!"
There was a moment of silence, and then the door to the tower opened and closed. The scholar took a deep huff of breath, and slumped against it.
"Who was that?" the priest asked.
The scholar looked up to him, surprised to find him awake. He shrugged.
"A few guards that heard noises from my tower. Thankfully, it's easy to scare people off when they think you're half crazy."
"Do you really have a dissected cat?"
"No, but I do have an odd variety of beetles. Seems it's been an obsession of mine for a while now."
The room was quiet with sleeping breath, broken occasionally by one of Hafros's snores. There were blankets everywhere, and not a few pillows. The scholar glanced around.
"Say- Orrin, is it? You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"
The priest wasn't quite sure what to respond to that. The scholar sighed, and went to look out the window.
"I can remember everything so clearly sometimes. But it's only for moments. And then it fades, and I'm left trying to figure out what's real and what's not."
He pressed his palm into his forehead, as if trying to hold the memories in.
"I need to rely on facts Orrin, not these fleeting hallucinations. But they're all I have."
He sighed, and shook his head.
"I'm sorry. You needn't bother with me. It's just ramblings. I'll be fine."
The next morning they began to wander the castle, examining all the knights for any hint of familiarity. In the daylight, with the vertigo gone, the priest was much more dubious about his inspiration. However, as the others said, they had nothing else to go on, so they might as well.
"Why exactly did you feel inspired to think of a knight?" the scholar asked him, as they walked the halls.
The priest sighed in exasperation "I don't know. I- I thought of armor. Armor, and a shield with the pattern of the sun on it. Or something similar to a sun."
The scholar nodded excitedly "One of the symbols does look something like a sun!"
"The symbols?"
"The ones I showed you. Knowledge, light, hope, and so forth. One of them looks like a sun."
The priest nodded as if he understood, and continued looking down at the knights training below them. Some kind of military practice, by the look of it, though it could have been dance steps for all he knew about solders.
"You think we should steal something while we're here?" Catrina asked. They were in the armory, watching some of the knights get fitted.
Aderyn stared at the girl, looking horrified, then intrigued, then doubtful.
"It'd be our heads if they caught us."
"Only if they catch us. And I feel like we're on the beheading list already."
Aderyn thought about that.
"Maybe just a couple small things. Stuff we can hide in our pockets."
"Like gold coins?"
"Exactly like gold coins. Just make sure you don't jingle too much."
"Chosen ones?" Lily asked, and Hafros nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes. For some heroic duty. To smite some evil from the earth."
"Like that devil that Catrina and Father Orrin were talking about."
"Er- maybe. I suppose that could be it yes."
Lily sighed. "I'm afraid this is all going a little over my head. I'm glad to help, I suppose, but I'd prefer a simple problem in front of me to solve. Like an oozing wound. I can solve an oozing wound."
Hafros nodded philosophically.
Lily stopped to look at the jousting track, where several knights were going at practice rounds.
"Recognize someone?" Hafros asked.
"No. I don't think so." She huffed with disappointment "See what I mean? Nothing to work with."
They met up with the other four soon after, and exchanged a summation of no progress at all. The scholar scratched his head and paced back and forth.
"We must be missing something." He said. "Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way. Perhaps we need to look for a knight with some similarity to our's? Father Orrin here thinks he remembers armor, and a shield with the symbol of the sun. Does anyone else remember anything like that?"
"Red hair?" Hafros said, dubiously.
"No it was brown." Aderyn said "And brown eyes."
"I thought it was green eyes." The priest said quietly.
"I think I remember a horned helmet." Catrina piped up quietly.
Lily clapped her hands "Yes! I remember that too! Do you all remember that?"
Several nods rounded the circle.
"Okay so a horned helm." Hafros said "Scholar, do you know of any knights like that?"
The scholar looked at his feet and mumbled something.
"What? Speak up, I can't hear you like that."
The scholar looked up, flushing red "I- don't get out much. I don't know what any of the knights look like."
"Are there any traditional helms?" the priest asked.
The scholar shrugged helplessly "I haven't exactly studied chivalrous history."
Lily sighed and waved in the air as if wafting away a bad smell. "This isn't getting us anywhere."
Without another word, she marched off. The others stared after her.
"Where is she going?"
"I don't know. Is she mad at us?"
They followed Lily dubiously, and found her at the fence of the jousting track, making eyes at one of the knights. He was smiling, and looking as clumsy as the woodcutter's son. Lily gave him an extra-shining beam, and flounced back to the main group.
"The king's guard." She said "They all have horned helmets. He said they're on a hunting trip right now, so we can catch them as they come through the gate."
There was a trumpet call, and the knight on the track shouted after Lily.
"You'd better hurry! That's them now. Maybe you can catch them as they come through the gate!"
The entire gaggle darted, lumbered, and ran towards the front of the castle. They got there just as the portcullis was raised, and the first of the hunting party was coming through. The hounds came in baying first, and then the hound masters behind them, and the falconers after.
"What did you tell him anyway?" Aderyn asked Lily.
Lily tittered "I said that a noble knight had saved me of course, and that I wished to thank him in person. Young men like that are all romance, you know."
Next came some of the nobility, the higher-ranked sort who went on hunts. Several were sweltering in their velvet coats, and looked like they were nothing so glad as to be done. And after that were the knights, king's guard and otherwise.
"They all have their blinkin helmets on!" Catrina hissed "I can't see a thing!"
One or two of the knights took the helms off, but no familiar faces appeared. Catrina sighed loudly with frustration. Then, suddenly, she shouted:
"I see 'im!"
"What?" everyone said, but of Catrina was already off like a shot.
Everyone ran after her, all at varying speeds. The priest found himself lagging behind something awful, his legs starting to go wobbly and his head spinning. He paused to catch hold of a wall to regain his breath, the cuts and pains in his body jabbing into him as if fresh.
"You should be more careful."
The priest whirled around, but saw no one there. Just the crowd of servants and peasantry, arching their necks to get a look at the king's hunting party.
"You're a wanted man, you know."
The priest whirled again, and this time a found a hooded figure, hunched over in the archway. It seemed as though the muzzle of a wolf was under the hood, and he saw a glimpse of feral eyes.
The priest stepped forward, but someone jostled him, and when he looked up the figure was gone. He cast his eyes around the crowd in vain, but saw no sight of the wild man.
Suddenly, a suit of black armor caught his eye, and the priest gave a quick wheeze of suprise. He hunkered over near a building, at the edge of the crowd, and stayed that way while the devil man passed him by.
He stayed there, panting for a long while before he followed the others.