Six hours before...
The last group of scouts had returned 20 minutes ago, no one had found anything during the whole day of searching, unless you counted one dubious looking type. It was to him that Hin was going now, a pair of monks armed with halberds stood outside the flimsy looking shed. At the sight of the chief they made a slight bow and opened the door before him.
There were three men in the room: the village chief, a young monk, and another wiry man. The three men did not even look at the abbot's appearance and stared somewhere in the centre of the room. As Hin came closer and looked at a very wrinkled and dirty man, the abbot took a quick look at the man he had caught. 'He's clearly been worked on, judging by the number of teeth, or rather their almost complete absence.
"Tell me, you bastard, where are the others!" shouted the wiry man, his face contorted in a grimace of rage. The captive was silent, and the young monk, tired of waiting, kicked him in the stomach.
"Stop," said the abbot and coming closer squatted down and grabbed the prisoner by the hair, asked a question looking him straight in the eyes.
"Where are your accomplices?" The abbot was not cruel in himself, but the situation was close to critical, and extreme measures were justified. The bandit spat a clot of blood and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Man, I wasn't born yesterday, you're going to kill me anyway, so what's the point of answering me?" The bandit looked at the abbot, confidence in his eyes.
"You have a big problem with logic, we don't need you at all, if I find you useless I'll just hand you over to the locals, but we can help each other." The abbot pulled the outlaw's head closer to his face and continued.
"By law, you should be strung up on the nearest branch, but if you help us I can send you to the mines,' the outlaw's eyes filled with hope and ran back and forth in an unbridled burst of joy."
"Abbot, this vermin needs to be hanged, who knows how many people he and his associates have killed." Hin stopped the young monk's stream of consciousness with an outstretched palm, and looked angrily in his direction.
"Do you want to challenge my right to judge in my own territory?" The young monk shivered and took a step back, the wiry peasant did the same, even if the threat was not directed in his direction, but he knew from rumours that the Abbot was terrible in anger. The village headman was clearly amused by the scene, and seeing that the youth was about to shit his trousers, he hurried to save the day.
"I think they've got it all figured out, but what about you?" The headman pointed his finger at the lying bandit, "will you co-operate?"
Grasping the chance, the bandit nodded vigorously, attracting everyone's attention.
"When we escaped, we set up a new camp, not far away, where we wanted to stack our loot, and we agreed to take turns at the lookout, and to go out together. Then yesterday our boss came back from a scouting mission and found a lone traveller in strange clothes. He looked strange, we thought he might be a sorcerer or something worse. We decided to take him that night, so I stayed at the camp and the rest of us went to work." The bandit finished his story, and with every word the abbot's face darkened more and more, it seemed to him that he was about to have a stroke, and he wouldn't have to clean up this arse. But to his sorrow nothing happened, and when he came to his senses he asked.
"Where did you see him?!" Hin shouted throughout the barn, the monks standing guard at the entrance immediately rushed in, halberds at the ready, with a slight gesture of the abbot's hand, they were sent back. The man stared at the lying bandit, with impatience and evident irritation on his face. The bandit hurriedly replied, his speech was confused and he struggled to express his thought.
"Umm.... Well... Yes..." Ason was finally fed up with this theatre of the absurd, the man took out a knife, and with a barely perceptible movement brought it to the bandit's throat.
"Now listen to me, speak quickly and clearly, I'm running out of patience." The outlaw's eyes widened and sweat ran down his face.
-"The boss said he saw him upstream, about four hours' walk from our camp, I don't know any more!" The outlaw said in one breath, and stared hopefully at Hin. He did not waste time and turned round and said.
"Gather everyone, everyone in general, and start searching," Hin shifted his gaze to the young monk and continued. "You ride along the shoreline on horseback."
"Ahh... so it's dark, we'll bash our heads in the dark." With a faint hope that the abbot would change his mind, the monk replied quietly.
"Quickly and silently! Go!" Hin shouted like a madman, none of those present recognised him, usually he was calm and reasonable, but now everyone present, fearing for their lives, kept a sepulchral silence. Everyone except Hin and the headman ran out of the room. The abbot was about to follow them when he was called out.
"I can't feel my hands anymore, man." Hin didn't even pay attention to the shout and hurriedly headed towards the exit.
"Hey, man..." the outlaw's shouts were already like the wind were only insignificant noise in the background. The groups were already gathering and the mounted troop was already on its way. The elder was giving instructions, the locals were gathering in groups of ten, discontent on their faces, the night was already reigning outside and many of them had been dragged out of bed.
Five minutes of instruction, and they also moved out on the trail, with only the old headman remaining beside Hin, both of them looking at the departing groups in the trail. And when the last point of the torch was hidden in the woods, they stared at each other.
"Well, what are we going to do now?" With genuine interest asked the headman, he was on a roll, his village was small, and such a ruckus diluted his daily boredom.
"I'm going to meditate, and you." Hin walked towards the headman's house. - Go to sleep, now all we have to do is wait. The abbot turned his head towards the forest. ''I hope luck smiles on me today.
...
Dima sat beside the burnt Min, no strength for anything at all. The guy was not a pampered city dweller, and fought quite often and with pleasure. But a fist fight behind the garages was one thing, but here he had killed a man. The guy threw a glance at the small piece of beach where lay, the second outlaw. 'Two.'
'I...I had to, they, they forced me, I didn't want to.' The guy couldn't stop winding himself up, his upbringing was taking its toll, Dima looked at Min with horror on his face, the man's face was burnt almost to the coals and it was almost impossible to see anything on it. The guy wanted to calm down, turned away from the corpse and closed his eyes. But it got worse, and Min's face, still alive and cheerful, came back to him.
"GHAAA!" - The guy yelled, his scream cutting through the silence of the night, echoing through the forest.
"Fucking hell, we've got to get out of here!" Dima stood up with difficulty and with shaking hands began to search Min's pockets. A lump was coming up to the guy's throat, and dinner was about to burst out. With difficulty Dima took off all the little interesting things, the guy quickly went down to the shore and also examined the corpse of the second robber.
When it was all over a small mountain of things lay before the lad. Mina's cleaver with a scabbard, a wooden club of the second bandit, a couple of leather flasks, and three small bags, filled with all kinds of rubbish: rags, small vials with muddy and smelly slurry, some strange boxes with ointments and the most interesting thing - 5 small copper plates, on which was depicted a strange symbol, in the flames of the burning fire to see anything was almost impossible, and Dima abandoned the idea.
The guy wanted to leave, but there was one important question where to? 'Maybe we should stay... No, I don't know how many accomplices they have, we have to go,' After a couple of minutes Dima finally decided to go further. The guy grabbed the robbers' belongings, put out the fire and went to meet the night darkness.
...
The moon occasionally shone dimly, illuminating the forest, but even with it, walking was as difficult as possible. Every step was difficult, and the forest was dense, as it turned out. The guy had been walking there for two hours already, not knowing where he was going, and he thoughtfully didn't go deep into the forest, orienting himself on the river, which was hardly visible behind the mass of trees and bushes.
"Fuck..." The guy stumbled once again, and almost collapsed to the ground. The forces were running out, adrenaline had long ago let him go, and the guy got tired. Dima was finally exhausted and sat down on the ground, leaning his back against a massive tree.
"Fuck, where am I going, and most importantly, why?" Anger and irritation were all he had on his mind. "Um, what for?"
A group of riders swept along the shoreline, the guy could see them with great difficulty, the trees obstructed his view, but even so, the guy could see their massive halberds that reflected the light of the torches so well. The riders didn't stay in the guy's field of vision for long and quickly disappeared from sight.
"If it's after me, I'm fucked... hey Glee Club, is there anything you want to explain to me?" The questions were directed into the void, and there was expectedly no answer. The new circumstances inspired the guy to quickly change his position, and with tripled enthusiasm he went in the opposite direction from the movement of the group of riders. His legs ached, and branches and leaves whipped him mercilessly on the face, but he wanted to live more, and Dima persistently moved forward.
'Fuck...' - Dima said in his mind, dozens of torch lights flickered ahead, and they moved straight towards him, the guy squatted behind a tree trunk. Dima nervously looked around looking for a way out in such a difficult situation.
'Dima looked to the right, there, as it turned out, was a gap in the forest and it was impossible to run through it unnoticed. His head was buzzing like a locomotive, and there was no way out, besides, the time was approaching, the lights were inevitably approaching, and the silhouettes holding them became distinguishable.
'Dima ran from one tree to another, looking for shelter. The guy ran into a massive tree and realised he was in trouble, the irritated voices were already very close, Dima pressed himself against the trunk of the tree mentally preparing for a night run from the whole crowd. The guy in panic made a step back with all his might pressing into the trunk, under his feet he felt a crunch. The ground crawled, and the guy was knee-deep in the earth. He didn't quite understand what happened next, his body moved somehow on its own. With convulsive movements the guy scattered the earth, his salvation was very close, he reached someone's burrow, which went deep under the roots of a tree.
There was no time to dig further, and Dima squeezed himself with all his might into the earthen shelter, which was as big as a window, but the boy somehow managed to cram himself into it, and in good time, in a minute there were footsteps and the crackling of torches.