"Well, that's one positive," he said with levity. He wiped his forehead with his jacket sleeve, but it only spread more frost and flecks of mud under his thick dark hair. In the morning light, his eyes and skin looked especially dark. In the light he was more caramel in color, maybe a tad lighter. It was hard to tell where he was from, really. But he spoke like a commoner of the north and sarcasm wasn't lost on him, so it didn't matter much at the moment. 

He placed an arm under her own to help her to her feet, but he looked back up the gulley. It was practical since they very well might be chased, but really he felt torn. The men and women in the cages... they would either be used as a ritual for abominations or eaten in an Orc fire pit. He wanted to go back up, but he knew it would help nothing. He didn't voice his concerns, and instead stepped forward. All his grace, or most of it was gone when his foot clipped something in the snow. He almost fell flat but nimbly leaped to catch himself, planting his foot where it was going to be a moment earlier. 

"Are [i]you[/i] good?" She asked, apparently seeing it was her turn. 

"Yeah I... oh nice!" He said, a smile reaching his face. He had brushed aside the snow and found a staff, painted maroon in color. It could server as a walking stick or quarter staff in a pinch, and by the twinkle in his eyes, he recognized it. He reached down and picked it up. "Good, I thought I lost this thing." 

Absently he slid his axe into the loop of his belt and hefted the staff. 

Whoops and undulating, inhuman screams erupted behind them from above. Beren glanced back and didn't spot anything, but he knew anything that happened to look their direction would go after them. The brambles before them looked uncomfortable to wade through, but thankfully they were both dressed for winter. 

"Fuck, fuck, let's go." He said, and the two of them braved the mud and the slicing sharp tips of dead brush. Whoever the girl was, she weathered things well and broke aside mottled branches and dead wood with grit. Eventually they reached the end of the small, muddy no-man's land and made it into another thicket. Beren felt it was just his luck when another cry, unimaginably loud, echoed across the small dale. He looked back and saw three Orcs, each holding wicked axes and crude halberds looking at them like hungry lions, eyes wide and teeth bared. Four more joined them at the top of the gulley, and Beren didn't stop to see if they were going to pursue. Orcs were bloodthirsty invaders of the realm. Their entire religion was based on destruction and their physiology helped them accomplish their bestial goals. 

"Are you always this lucky?" Beren asked Jocasta. 

"Funny, I was going to ask you that." She said back, both of their eyes on the Orcs, before looking at one another. Without another word, the two sprinted off into the woods. 

The air in their lungs was cold and came haggardly, though Beren was a bit better off than Jocasta for having been out for hours. The cold clung to them like an unwanted lover, and though the sun peeked further up from the horizon, it would only reveal more horrors in all likely hood. Damn, he thought they were close to civilization by this point. What happened? He would find out later, but as it were their only option was to run. 

They had a good head start, but their feet crunched leaves and snow and they couldn't well conceal themselves while they sprinted. For a good solid ten minutes, Beren thought they might have to fight for their lives, but the trees suddenly disappeared, the two cutting through grabbing branches to find rocky crags climbing up the slope of the mountain they had seen from the distance. Or was this a different mountain? Yet again he would care later. As Jocasta determinedly began to climb, Beren stopped her. 

"Wait!" He said, holding his hand out to halt her and staring at the rocks. He seemed to be looking for something. After standing there for ten solid seconds, she waved a hand across his face. 

"He's gone crazy," she said to herself. 

"No, I saw it." He said, still being unrelentingly vague. He walked over to the largest rock, a huge boulder twice the size of a wagon, with other rocks stacked around it. On second glance, it didn't look man-made but not entirely natural either. He blew across the frost that clung to the stone, brushing it away to reveal runes. Broken runes, unfortunately, but runes nonetheless. Another hoot lifted out of the trees, but instead of running, Beren took out his axe and tapped the blade on the stone three times, then seven, then two. "Hope this bloody works."

"Akra-dum ish-ta-krumnul," He said, nervousness in his voice. He knew time was up. The stone, still as death, began to shift. The language was dwarvish, something virtually unknown to human scholarship for the secretive practices of the race. Somehow Beren knew it, but that didn't end their problems. The stone moved, and Beren's smile died when he saw an ornate stone door with shimmering glyphs, ones he did not recognize. His heart sank, and he realized this wasn't a normal entrance to a dwarf city. It was something else. A dwarf, a friend of whomever had made this, had placed the first barrier up. Now it was the second entrance. 

"Wait, that's Andernic!" She said at the 11th hour, just as the first Orc leaped out of the trees. Relief and dread flooded into Beren.

"Ok, you handle that, just try and go quick ok?" Beren said, doing his best to remain calm and not to make her nervous since she held the key to their lives. He took up his staff and strode forward, taking a deep breath to steady his sense of self. Closing his eyes, even as the Orc barreled down on him like a raging bull, he breathed in...and out... and opened his eyes. 

He reacted to the Orc's lunge like he was in a sort of moving meditation, as if he could see where the sword was going to go. His staff spun, batting the sword aside and cracking the Orc across the head with the arc of a windmill. It didn't kill the monster, but it sent it to the ground. Another Orc appeared, this one approaching more slowly. It bore two axes in its hands, and the first one was groaning. Beren kicked it in the head to silence the groans.