as he reached the tree line of the Malgaard, the forest
bordering the Sotus, and then turned into an all-out sprint
as he disappeared among the trees.
Wank was no fool and fear fired his legs faster
than any orc could run. But not any worg.
Wank watched, in hiding, as the hunting party
readied. He had been freed and given a head start just after
dusk, before the orc warriors were to mount their worg
steeds. A long, eventful hunt was desired. The orcs wanted
no easy kill, and their expectations drove them to
uncharacteristic toothy smiles of anticipation. The death of
the orc-that-was-mostly-human would mean great honor
for his slayer.
After having circled out through the forest and
back around toward the caves, Wank had donned his cloak
of shadow. Thus cloaked, he climbed up an outcropping
some fifty feet above the orcs and, judiciously upwind,
watched tensely from his rocky perch.
The gray fur stood bristling like a thousand pin-
points on the backs of the pony-sized wolves. They
howled hungrily at the bars of their cages, chewing and
digging to escape and be after the quarry their animal
hearts and minds knew was out there. If not for the worgs’
preoccupation with the hunt, their handlers would not
have been able to beat the frenzied beasts enough to
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