He walks to the south gate.

Domic stomps down a cobblestone road to the south gate. There is a chill in the air today, and not many townsfolk are awake at this early hour. As he walks, he tries to{if Izabel **** = 1} ignore intrusive thoughts about Izabel. "She was so soft and warm, and that shift, that shift was nothing, if I wanted to I could've explored and touched and ple-!"{else} ignore intrusive thoughts about Cerni."How does she look naked? Is her body tight from hard work? Soft and squeezable from easy living? Both? Neither?!"{endif}

"Domic!” he jumps out of his thoughts at Cerni's yell, as she appears from a side road, walking rapidly towards him. "Are you ready?"

"Uh, yes, good morning. This is for you," he says, handing her a speckled cloak.

"Good. Let’s go," she says, not slowing her stride.

Domic frowns and continues after her, walking in silence. They reach the town gate just as it’s being opened, heavy oaken trunks and big iron hinges creaking and squeaking. "Dying to leave? Me too," a gatekeeper jokes from a **** hole above them. Cerni scowls at him as they march under the gatehouse and into the open fields, the morning sun just starting to peek above the tree line. A moss-covered statue of Paelic the Cunning, their town founder, stands just outside, with the road south running around him. Domic points the way, and soon they are plunging into the depths of the forest. They spend a couple of hours walking quickly, mostly in silence, except for Domic to identify any new bird calls or animal tracks. As the sun rises, peeking in and out of the clouds, warming the earth and them, Domic calls a break to take off his leather jerkin, and rest for a bit.

"Were you cold walking here? I wouldn't think so, since we plowed through the trees quick enough," he asks Cerni, with a touch of venom in his voice. He takes a sip from his waterskin.

She looks up at him, her eyes narrowing. "No, I wasn't - and what, our pace was too fast? You kept up just fine."

"It's not just about keeping up - it's about taking the time to notice things in the forest, things you miss if you're in a hurry. And I'm in no hurry to get to the caverns."

"Why? Are you nervous?"

"Yes, I am. I'd rather not run into any more orcs."

"Cuh," she scoffs dismissably. "We can handle a few orcish beasts."

"Well I'd rather not - and they're not beasts."

"Oh, right, your 'forester's honor'" she mocks, "my father told me all about it."

"Huh, you wouldn't understand," he says, anger starting to seep into his voice.

"Wouldn't understand? Wouldn't understand that you hunters and woodsfolk 'cavort' with them in the winter? Let them live to butcher travelers in the summer?" she spits, her face starting to redden.

"We don't 'cavort' with them Cerni - we survive together, huddled around a fire, when some fucking monster's trying to eat both our faces. Then we kill enough of them in summer so you merchants and your caravans can go south and get rich off our backs," he snarls.

"Get rich?! We keep the town alive Domic and the people in it. And don't you fucking dare say we don't pay in blood too," she jabs her finger at him.

"Oh, aye? And whose fault was that? Whose fault was it that the caravans are **** to go south, not east, and take four times as long to reach the southlands, through mountains and bogs and shit. Everyone knows the story Cerni. Before the Empire fell, there were three cities up here, Cerni. Which guilds voted to help the Faelish sack and burn Hael, huh? Really fucking smart of the merchants to do that, burn the only safe haven through deep fucking monster-infested forest, the only way to a fucking port!" he sputters.

"Domic you fucking hunters were all blind! You never even went inside their walls. You think we wanted to do it? Those fucking orcs were building cannons, storing powder, they were going to wipe us out!" she shrieks.

"No, no, you're wrong, the Faelish got paranoid and the merchants got greedy, and we stabbed them in the back, orcs yes, but still our sister city, we betrayed our oaths," he says, shaking his head.

"This isn't the south Domic. You of all people should know this is a cruel land, where oaths are brittle in the cold. It was only a matter of time, without the Empire here."

"Whatever. I don't want to argue with you anymore Cerni. We need to get moving," he says, getting up and stomping into the forest.

"Fine," she says and stomps after him.

…

"We’re close now," Domic says, looking up into the sky. "Just a little after noon," he thinks. "Do you remember what I taught you?" he asks, with a hint of sarcasm, as he pulls up the hood of his cloak.

"Yes,"Cerni says, checking her boots and cloak. "Do you remember what I taught you?" she asks, tossing it back at him.

“Yes,” he says, adjusting his sword belt in the way she showed him, and practicing the motion of the grip and draw, as she had demonstrated. “Let’s go,” he says and they creep forward. They come over a rise, and through a break in the trees, is the cavern. It is a dark hole that opens into the side of a large, rocky hill, one of the foothills of the western mountains. In front of it, in a clearing, stand three silent menhirs, eroded, lichen-covered, but old carvings still visible on their surfaces. Domic had heard tell that the menhirs were from even before the Empire, and he suspected they would be here quite a while. There were no orcs in sight, but the beaten and dead ground in front of the cave showed that quite a few somethings were going in and out.

“Now what?” Cerni asks.

“We should wait,” Domic says, settling down into the pine-needle covered ground.

…

"Domic?" Cerni whispers.

"Yes?" he whispers back, looking over to her. Her big brown eyes peek around the curve of her hood, back at him.

"Um...how's your shoulder? I'm sorry, I should have asked sooner," she says carefully.

"It's um, actually healed already. My sister put some special apothecary mush on it, worked much better than that doctor's shit."

"Oh, good. I'm glad you're alright." She takes a long pause. "Um, Domic...I'm sorry for before, as well. I'm too much like my father, I get angry too easily," she sniffles and rubs her nose.

"It's alright, Cerni. I forgive you. I'm sorry too...I have my mother's temper," he says, feeling like he should say something more. He sighs: "My father told me a story about him, from before I was born, and when Izabel was just a child. He was in the forest, in deep winter. There was a drake on his trail, waiting for him to make a mistake. He, uh, came across a tower house, an abandoned one, but the door was barred. He pounded on it as the drake came for him, and as he turned and raised his gun - knowing he'd only get one, likely pointless shot - the door opened and a hand yanked him backwards, then slammed it shut. It was an orc who had saved him. They never said a word to each other, the whole long night, only went to different floors of the house to sleep. In the morning, as he left, my father tossed the orc his knife, a small payment. I had asked him if he ever saw the orc again. 'No,' he lied, because I was young, and as my sister told me years later, he got the knife back that following summer. He had found it on the corpse of an orc raider, whose loot-laden group was just ambushed by my father and other militia. Maybe the orc had traded it, maybe not. I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Domic I...I understand," she says. "Um, my father told me many stories as well. Too many, I think, of burned farmsteads, ambushed caravans, buried bodies. I think he was preparing me, hardening me," she sighs.

"Thank you Cerni, and I understand you as well. I know what's at stake," he says.

"I know you do," she says, as they reach out and clasp their hands together.

...

It is nearing dusk, and for the past several hours, they had seen no orcs. Once, a fox had walked up to the cavern entrance, but it didn’t go in, and another time they had heard the faint echo of a crash, somewhere deep inside the cavern, but they had seen nothing else. After their conversation, Domic had periodically whispered the names of birds as they sung to Cerni, but otherwise they laid in silence on the ground, muskets in front, covered in their cloaks.

“We should go in there,” Cerni says suddenly.

“What? Are you crazy? We can’t go in there,” Domic says.

“We need to. We need to find out if there are any orcs in there, and if so, their numbers.”

“No, we should wait and see if they come out.”

“And if they never do? Do you want to come back again? And if you see nothing then, come back again? We'll have to go in there eventually, Domic. You've just taught me tracks. Are you going to lie to my face and say the menhirs disturbed that ground out front?”

“Maybe.”

“Huh, fine, well I’m going in regardless,” she says, crawling forward towards the entrance.

He hesitates, torn. “Damn you, Cerni,” he thinks, and crawls after her.