Proceed down the path. This sort of navigation is easy for a hardened desert barbarian like me, but some of the loose stragglers might have trouble... Bah, if they're too weak, they can get left behind!
(Cunning chit if navigation is a test here.)
scout the path out for danger, then scout to see if this alternate route can be used to breach the fort.
Onward with my stalwart companions! Knives sings off key and boisterously, of barmaids and farmers daughters, of beer and bourbon, of looting and pillaging!
I have no idea where we are or where we are going.
Navigation isn't a test, but this track may well be. It leads high up the mountains to the south of the road below the two forts. The first obstacle along the way is a twelve foot cliff at the top of a slope of loose gravel, leading up to an upper cliff with a path that leads up towards the peak. Barbarisan grabs a short staff, and uses her quick feet to climb the pile of loose scree, with it sliding down all around her. She then uses the stick to lever herself up and over a small crack in the rock to get to the top of the cliff.
The Raider, despite his initial success at finding the path is stymied at the slope, being able to climb it but then sliding down every time he reaches the cliff, not allowing himself time to find purchase and get himself up.
While looking around he checks the path trying to see if it can be used to attack the forts. That does seem likely, as the forts are built well-up into the mountains, and the walls are less high near the mountains than they would rise above the road. But in order to get to the short side of the wall, he needs to climb this cliff first.
"In Barrouth Town there was a lass,
Her hair as rich as grain..."
Beorn, on the other hand, climbs the slope and the cliff, without even breaking tune.
The two barbarians that have defeated the cliff reach the peaks of the mountain. Below them they observe that the forts are indeed more vulnerable from this side.. however, there may be little need to attack, as there is another trail down the western side of the mountain. It looks steep and rugged, and falls into dark woods long before reaching the plains below, but it's certainly navigable.
As for the land below them, they can see a thick band of woods, broken by the narrow ribbon of the west road running away from the forts, and beyond that the parts where the woods gives way to the farms of the civilized. On the edge of their vision lies the sight of another city, last one before the desert, the forest town of Grazina. Grazina, famous for it's emeralds, and it's ivy-covered walls.