"No, I don't think so - not without the direct and extreme miraculous intervention of a god, anyway - but it's probably related to the snow, right, if I had to wildly guess I would say that something in this region of the forest is - echoing something that happened in it before, maybe -"

They don't...seem...like they're acting. Which might mean they're really good actors or it might mean they're all enchanted (they don't seem enchanted either...) This doesn't seem like any particular lich's (or vampire's) style that she can think of and it's an awful lot of effort to go to to get them but it's still far more likely than that they're actually from the future when paladins are illegal and the laws are enforced by Baphomet cultists.

retreat-question? she signs at Iomedae.

It's not only a lot of effort to go to to get them, it's unnecessary, if you have the resources this implies and are watching the two of them closely enough and have some way to make sure Arazni can't see your every move. Anyone capable of this would also be capable of having just - killed Alfirin at range at some point after they set out. 

The two signs she makes back means, roughly, I'm-noticing-something-you-aren't question?

No.

Sometimes undead do unnecessary inefficient things because they're all weird obsessives! Maybe this is someone's hobby! Maybe it's not related to the war at all and they just rode into a faerie ring!

...OK that last one is actually pretty plausible. She checks for faerie rings.

(There are no immediately visible faerie rings.)

Iomedae's theory was that these people rode into a faerie ring which made them look like orc Baphomet cultists but that doesn't explain thinking it's a different year or that paladins are illegal!

"If she is an illusion, we should to leave this place before we're attacked again. If she is not, we should deliver her to the Archduke." 

"It sounds like she doesn't have any objections to that, really."

He chews his lip for a second.

"All right. Iomedae. There's no reason to hang around in the forest, and we are, in fact, heading back to Kantaria. I think, almost certainly, we are going to find the Archduke Ignasi Alfonso Avernus Narikopolus de Kantaria, who will tell us, if you haven't disappeared by then, that you have broken the laws of Menador. At that point, I will tell him that you found his son disabled in the forest, and that you attempted to save his life by healing him."

"But suppose, hypothetically, that we find the Archduke you expect. What do you intend to tell him?"

"That we encountered in the woods a number of people under some terrible curse which has led them to believe that they are from another world where it is illegal to be a paladin in Menador and laws are enforced by priests of Baphomet, who claim membership in the Archduke's family. ...while being in some cases apparently orcs. And that if he wants the people so afflicted gone the Crusade can take the ones who aren't Baphomet cultists."

"None of us are Baphomet cultists. It's always illegal to be a Baphomet cultist."

Then why are they wearing symbols of Baphomet - 

oh. That's ...worse?

"Is that a priest of ...Asmodeus? That's - every honorable man in Menador would die before he let the devil's forces rule his land."

"Asmodeanism is the state religion of Menador. For the moment - oh, Ferran, I'm assuming command until we get home."

Actually that happened a long time ago but, like, thanks. He nods.

"For the moment he is under my command, and I will not see him harmed."

The priest bristles at this, a little, but he does so silently.

Iomedae believes very sincerely that you'd have to kill every adult man and woman in Menador to achieve that, and that the fact this happened is probably why half these people are orcs, but it would really not be productive to say that.

"If you serve Hell, you will be tortured for all of eternity; while your ancestors look down in horror from paradise you will forget your names and all else as you suffer for the amusement of devils that will hate you all the more as you get more tedious in your suffering."

Wow, harsh.

"That may be, but Nulgreth and Verex just don't speak to me."

"- you can escape the evil afterlives. All of them. Even if you're presently a cleric of Asmodeus, you can renounce him and do it. You can have Axis, you can have Heaven, if those aren't to your taste" she has never actually met a Lawful orc "there are a thousand other paradises. They want you. You just can't serve Hell. I'm not going to kill your priest, unless the Archduke asks me to. But if you would not see him harmed, get him to stop."

"Well, I'm not going to evangelize or convert to anything in the middle of the forest. We've waited long enough here already."

"Iolanda, can you do horses?"

"Only one, today."

Iomedae remounts her own horse. She is quite upset about the Asmodean purported Menadorans. She is not going to ask Alfirin to spend one of her spell slots on this.

Iolanda spins up a mount for Ferran.

The lady totally offered for the wizard to make more horses before but apparently that's not happening because Carles made her mad at them now! Whatever! It's not like he lost his horse in the process of dramatically saving Ferran's life or anything! And then didn't get credit for that because instead everyone was focusing on the lady who claims to be Iomedae! Even though he almost died!

He comforts himself that probably Ferran himself remembers this. Maybe this will matter somehow. 

Apparently he's jogging. With some minor injuries sustained by being knocked off his traitor horse. The other horses are tired from the centipede dramatics and probably can't travel at full speed. 

It's fine. Whatever.

Their horses are much much faster, but it seems like a bad idea to abandon what are hopefully a group of badly deluded people who she knows to be committing a number of serious crimes in the forest. "Do you have a way to check," she murmurs to Alfirin instead.