It became quite evident relatively quickly that this group of carnival folk were not, in fact, a group at all.  If he had to take a guess, he might almost say that the whole lot of them stumbled upon this exact same spot at the exact same time just as he had.  He wasn't much of a superstitious man, but the odds involved here were quite a bit more of longshot than he was comfortable with.  At least he could accept the small solace that it didn't seem like any of the people in his immediate vicinity were about to pull a knife on him the moment he turned his back.

As things stood, unless someone tried to pick a fight or engage him in direct conversation, Signod was more than content maintaining a gruff silence until he got a better feel for this bizarre hodgepodge of people.  Almost immediately he had to roll his eyes in disgust as the elf started parroting that ludicrous gossip about the animals all being gone, even as the crickets continued their song and the fireflies dotted the growing darkness with their luminescent rumps.  Dwarven rule number one in dealing with elves: you can [i]always[/i] count on their ignorance.  In this case, it seemed the fancy-pants elven maiden didn't even possess enough basic wilderness knowledge to realize that insects were animals too.  Or perhaps she had some other pretentious elven thought- mayhaps she considered such animals not [i]aesthetically pleasing[/i] enough for those delicate elven sensibilities and as such were beneath her notice or consideration?

At that thought, Signod had to bite back a bark of laughter, turning it into an amused snort instead.  He looked around, waiting expectantly for someone to tell the elf to open her eyes and look to the forest if she wanted to find some animals, then suggest she learn how to move more stealthily so she wouldn't scare off all the rest.  Unfortunately, they all seemed to be going along with this farce.  Dwarven rule number two for dealing with elves: all the more foolish of races out there tended to let themselves get beguiled by elven nonsense for no good reason.

Fairly abruptly, the relative peacefulness of the forest was shattered by a feral sounding roar, followed shortly after by a scream.  "Whelp, there's the animals yer looking for."  Signod chortled, this time not bothering to hold back the bark of laughter.  Though some of the others seemed intent on rushing into the woods to see what the commotion was about, Signod was smart enough to stick to the trail instead of blundering around half-blind.  Instead, he calmly drew his bow and nocked an arrow just in case things went South.