Now we learn an amazing development. The Lamanites had actually found the wicked priests of king Noah but when their wives pleaded in their behalf the Lamanites decided to invite the wicked priests and all their families to join them. However, the priests could not help the Lamanites find their way back to Nephi. This seems rather strange because sometime earlier the wicked priests of king Noah were raiding the farms of the Nephites for food.1
However, when king Noah was burned alive by the Nephite fathers who had been induced by Noah to forsake their families, it may have frighten the priests so that they moved deeper into the wilderness and accidentally got themselves completely lost. Then came the Lamanite army that accidentally found them. The two bodies united try to find their way home and in the process stumbled onto Alma at Helam.