He lets her go to free the captives.

"Fine - get us killed," he says, releasing her. Cerni steps out from behind the stalagmites, and runs towards the tied-up group of humans, their eyes practically exploding out of their heads as she removes their blindfolds. She holds a finger to her mouth as she cuts their rope bonds and unties their gags.

“Thank you, gods guard you, gods save you,” the man stammers. “I am Corint, my wife Uga, and son Corug,” he says, as the woman and child blubber their thanks, tears rolling down their cheeks.

“I am Cerni, and that’s Domic,” she says, gesturing to him. He stands, sword drawn, listening by the tunnel they came from. “We must go, we’ll talk later.” Corint nods, lifting up Corug into his arms, as Uga follows behind. Cerni passes Domic to lead the way, back up the tunnel. They walk quickly for several minutes, passing the dead wolf, its blood still oozing into the floor. They come to and pass the fork in the tunnels, taking the path back to the entrance. Suddenly there is a faint yell behind them, followed by the muffled stamping of dozens of feet, echoing through the tunnels.

“Hurry, hurry!” Domic says, as Cerni and the others start to run.

As they come to another turn in the tunnel, close to the guard alcove, Cerni suddenly stops, raises her sword: and half impales, half lets impale himself, the stomach of one of the drunken orc guards. She withdraws her sword while shoving him backwards into the path of his surprised drinking companion and they tumble to the ground. Cerni viciously and quickly stomps the second guard in the face before he can react, and then she’s focused on a tall, snarling orc swinging his ax overhead. As he catches his ax on the top of the tunnel, Cerni is already stabbing through his throat and bringing her sword back. The gurgling orc falls to the side and she faces a fourth, who holds his ax close in one hand, and a long knife in the other, the better to slip under her guard. Unluckily for him, Cerni doesn’t indulge him, feinting a thrust that she turns into a sharp diagonal hack at his knee as she squats quickly. As he crumples to the side, snarling and off-balance, she brings her sword up and stabs down into the base of his neck. A fifth orc, deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, turns around and sprints off. They hear him splash through the water of the long hallway, and follow his lead, running as fast as they can through the frigid water, and up the tunnel to the entrance of the cavern. Under the cold moonlight they find no sign of the orc, but hear plenty of snarls and yells echoing up from the cavern. They all run into the forest, as the menhirs stand silent.

…

They run through the forest, swords out as the shouts of orcs echo behind them. Domic leads, following a deer trail through the twisting terrain - scrambling up a cut in the ground, around a lichen covered boulder. They run past trees, owls and other things screeching in alarm at their passage. As he leads them between two thick yews, a tall shadow with three red circles suddenly looms up in front of them.

“Guh! Cerni! NO! STOP!” Domic screams, reaching out too late to her.

“KYYYAAH!” she screams, swinging her sword at the shadow, cutting through it…and then a black claw with horse hooves for talons appears and picks her up, screaming and hacking uselessly through the shadow.

“SPIRIT! WAIT!” Domic thunders. “STOP FUCKING SWINGING! Cerni! Stop swinging!” he yells. “Spirit! She doesn’t fucking know! Spirit please! She doesn’t know the ways!” he stammers in Norword, as the shadow stops. It releases her, and she falls screaming to the ground.

“GAA!” she screams in pain as she hits the ground. “Domic! Domic! Whathafuckisthat?!” she screeches, tears streaming down her face.

“You’re alright, you’re alright,” he says, holding her. “Corint! Get over here and take her!” A dead-white Corint appears, grabs Cerni as tight as he can, and they both scramble away from Domic and the shadow.

Domic is vaguely aware of the cries of Uga, Corug, and Cerni as well as the now approaching yells of the orcs. The shadow with three red circles towers over him, at least twice his height. He looks up at it, heart pounding wildly. The shadow says nothing, but Domic somehow understands that it is very, _very _insulted to have been attacked by an insolent little human in such a manner and would love to hear why it shouldn’t devour her this instant.

“Please spirit…f-forgive her…she’s of the stone…the s-stone circle…she doesn’t know the ways of the forest,” Domic says in Norword, voice quavering, on the verge of tears himself. “I-I haven’t taught her yet. Please forgive her spirit. We can give many gifts. Many gifts to repay this insult.”

Again, the spirit says nothing, but Domic understands that it shall consider this, dependent on the gifts.

“Of course, of course, thank you spirit, thank you,” he says, scrambling back towards the others, heart slowing down. He finds them cowering behind a boulder, Uga holding Corug, Corint still holding Cerni. He grabs his and Cerni’s packs, throws everything except the bread, meat, and lantern out of his. Then he stuffs the bread and meat from Cerni’s inside, plus all of his powder and shot. Then he yanks out a hunting knife from his belt. “Hold out your hands,” he says, drawing the knife across his palm and letting the blood drip into the pack. “Do it!” he thunders when they hesitate, the sounds of the orcs coming closer. He cuts them all, causing fresh tears to erupt from Corug and Uga as they all let it drip. “That’s enough,” he says, after a few moments, and then drops the knife in the pack too.

He turns and starts towards the spirit, but stops when he suddenly understands that no, no, no, the insolent little human has to do it, and she has to apologize.

“Cerni. Cerni! Look at me,” he says, grabbing her. She stares wide-eyed at him, chanting prayers of protection under her breath. “You have to take this to the spirit and apologize if you want to live! Do you understand? You have to fucking do it!”

She gulps and slowly nods. “Wha…what do I say?” she chokes.

“How good is your Norword?”

“Not very good,” she quavers.

He tells her a short phrase in Norword, repeating the longer words. “I’ll explain later, but the spirit won’t say anything, but you’ll understand that it thanks you and that it asks a question for a question. You have to answer its question to the best of your ability, and ask it one in return. You’ll understand it’s answer, and then you say ‘Thank you, and peace to you, spirit,’ in Norword,” he says, repeating the phrase for her. “You can do it, go.” He looks behind himself, through the trees. Torches are weaving in and out amongst them, maybe a hundred or so yards away.

She nods and quickly crawls towards the spirit with the pack, as Domic watches her fearfully. A couple of paces from the spirit, she leaves the pack, and crawls a bit backwards. “Spirit…please, uhm, forgive me. Forgive…um, my insult to you,” she quavers in halting Norword.

The horse-hooved claw slowly appears out of the shadow. It grasps the pack and then recedes back. The three red circles travel down the shadow to the level of Cerni’s face as Domic hears her mumble a few words and the last phrase in bad Norword. Then the three red circles travel back up the shadow as it glides away towards the torches of the orcs. Domic is already scrambling towards Cerni, the others right behind him.

“Get up, get up,” Domic says, dragging her to her feet. They all run further into the forest, as the yells of the orcs change to screams.