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You tumble head-over-heels down the steep embankment, landing with a crunch and a cry of pain, your head cracking against one of the river rocks. The sharp pebbles beneath you dig into your stomach. The icy water laps around your hands and knees. The thick fog hanging over the forest seems to coil around you, making it impossible to see in any direction.
Shaking, whimpering in pain, you manage to pull yourself up onto the slick mossy sides of the creek, leaving smears of blood as your leg drags behind you. Your arms are cut up from the fall, where you tried to catch yourself. You've been wandering this cursed forest for almost a week now, without food or shelter. You let your head droop limply back into the creek so you can lap at the water like an animal. You never should have come here.
It all started as a dare from your friends at uni, to spend a night in the "cult woods" of Devonshire, but turned into a horror story when you became lost and couldn't find your way back to the road. You’d forgotten to bring your phone and hadn’t realized. The temperatures have been steadily declining, the nights broken by the screeches of owls and the shrieks of foxes. You've barely slept since you came here. You're fairly certain that you're wandering in circles, your clothes tattered and torn from pushing through thorn thickets, and your trousers caked with foul-smelling mud from when you plunged feet-first into a patch of mire without realizing that you had reached the edge of the moor. Some say that this area is haunted by the fae. Others say that a great predatory hound stalks the moors like in the classic Sherlock Holmes story. Another popular tale is that there's a cult, living nomadic off the land, that makes their home among the poplars and briars-- pacifists, led by an ex-soldier from the Special Forces. They call him Price.
Your knee is swelling rapidly, turned at a crooked angle. You shudder against the squelchy ground, trying to stand, but you can't find purchase, and your leg won't support your weight. You sink back onto your side, your breathing faint and vision swirling with dizziness. Slowly, agonizingly, you claw your way up the mound of earth in front of you, raising yourself up on your elbows, your face streaked with dirt and tears. The edge of the moor greets you-- a wide, bleak expanse filled with mist. There's no civilization in sight.
You can't go any further, your will broken, your strength depleted. You bury your face against your arm with a ragged sob. Night is rapidly descending. You hope, vaguely, that the cold will take you this time around. Death would almost be worth it, just to be warm again.
* * *
You don't remember falling asleep. A pair of gentle hands turn you over, feeling for a pulse. Heavy boots crunch the leaves underfoot. Masculine voices, multiple of them, with accents varying, are speaking in hushed tones. One sounds Scottish. You recognize another as Northern, probably Manchester. Two more, as well, one polished, London-sounding, and the other deep and rough.
You stir weakly, your limbs too stiff to unfurl from how you've curled up into the fetal position to preserve body heat. Your fingers flex, even the small movement painful. You can't force your eyes open, your teeth chattering. You're trapped between your nightmares and waking.
"Easy, now," the deep voice murmurs. He sounds like a father. What a strange thought. He smells like smoke and whiskey. You lean into his touch, reaching feebly for the heat of his bulky form. Strong arms lift you up. The voices fade to a steady stream of nothing in your head. You dip in and out of consciousness as you're carried away.
You're lain down on soft pelts. Someone tends to your knee, petting your hair as you give noises of fear, soothing you. The joint is popped back into place with white-hot pain that sends you back into a dead faint. The injury is wrapped up and splinted, padded with a folded cloth of fleece. You're coaxed into drinking a thick concoction of pulped herbs mixed with milk and honey. Calloused fingers massage your throat in a circular motion until your muscles reflexively spasm, forcing you to swallow. Afterwards, you're rewarded with a spoonful of hot, savory broth prodding at your mouth until you part your lips. Your body soaks up the nourishment, your atrophied stomach finally coated with something to ease the ache of hunger.
You don't know how much time passes. You doze, feverish and groggy. It feels like days have passed when your bleary eyes finally flutter open. Your head is still muddled. You must have been concussed when you hit your head on the rock. You take in your surroundings; you're in a large tent made of tarps and animal hides and thick wooden pallets that look hand-hewn. There's a fire burning low nearby, the smoke funneling up through a clay chimney. The aromatic scent of valerian, yarrow, and linden fills the air.
A cup of water is pressed to your lips. You drink gratefully, your tongue thick with thirst.
"Shhh... take it slow," murmurs the London accent. As your vision begins to come into focus, you see a man, probably in his late twenties, with handsome dark skin, short black hair, and warm brown eyes. "Looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake. The captain'll be pleased about that." He stands, his body long and lithe like that of a frequent runner. He has a recurve bow slung over his shoulder, along with a quiver of arrows. He walks to the door of the tent and whistles-- a sharp, two-note sound as perfect as a bird call.
After a few moments, he retreats back into the tent to make room for another man whose figure takes up the entire door. His chest is broad like a bear's, his arms thick with muscle under a healthy layer of fat. He has thighs to rivel Odysseus, hands that would span the width of your entire torso. He's bearded, though it's short and well-kempt, with a bristling mustache and muttonchops, his hair brown but partly greying. His eyes are the color of the sea when a storm is brewing out on the distant horizon. "Good lad, Kyle, f' callin' me. Y' ca go on y' hunt now. Be back by nightfall."
"Aye, sir. Don't wait up."
The man with the bow -- Kyle -- ducks through the doorway and disappears. You're left alone with the other man. He stares keenly down at your prone form, as if taking stock of your worth, or perhaps just your health. With the methodical, heavy grace of a predator, he slowly moves to sit down beside you. His expression is stern, but not unkind.
"Well, son. We have some talking t' do, don't we?"