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As you slowly work the stag’s heart between your teeth, savouring the tough texture and flavourful vital juices that flow from it with every bite, you come to a conclusion. Orc hunting parties and dwarf strongholds, for all the promise they might hold, are little more than tempting ideas in your mind at this point. You have been given nothing to go on to seek out dwarf gold on your own aside from a landmark that might not even resemble its namesake, and the orcs Sidgier cut down may very well have been an isolated occurrence. What is to say you could find either? You could easily spend days chasing shadows and tricks of the mind if you proceed without caution, searching for that which is too well hidden or simply does not exist.
Yet why would you when the most obvious solution to all of your problems walked off into the tree line mere minutes ago? The small party of men have already given you a wealth of information, more than you could have hoped for in truth, and they might yet deliver you even greater prizes. They clearly know more than you do of the red roads and mannish villages of which they speak, and you need only follow after them to learn for yourself. You would be wise, therefore, to do so, staying far behind them to keep them unaware and find out where they intend to spend the night.
To this end you wait a little longer, gnawing at deer bones and licking out the marrow to occupy yourself as you let distance grow between yourself and those you intend to track back to their very doorstep. The sun has moved far westward and the sky taken an orange tint, the mountains and trees casting long shadows over the valley around you, before you decide that the time for action is on you. You set your nostrils close to the ground and inhale, the still-fresh earthy scent of the face of men, coupled with deer blood and orcish grime, leading you forward.
For a time you crawl slowly through the forest, winding your long body through the trees and taking care not to kick a stone or break a branch beneath your claws. The sunlight fades even more until it eventually disappears behind the snowy peaks completely, leaving you in the blackness of night by the time you finally find them. Your ears alert you to the sound of muted conversation and your nose picks up the familiar notes of treated wood, leather and fresh deer meat. You soon track the unique mixture of scents to a sheltered alcove in a cliff face, not quite a cave but welcome protection from the elements nonetheless.
