Decoy

[Gridish]

A soft whimper of a wolf falling prey to Yagak and his companion, Shadowmane echoes through the lands of Shadowoon Valley as the quiet night arrives. The Orc and his wolf companion approach the fallen foe and Yagak pulls out his skinning knife. Shadowmane sniffs their prey and lets out a low growl, confirming the kill. Yagak removes the arrow from the wolf’s torso and slides the arrow into the quiver that is attached to his left thigh. ” This is the first step to our plan, Shadowmane… Soon we’ll complete what we set out to do and retrieve our reward.” the orc says in a whispering tone to his companion as he starts carving into the fallen foe. ” You ready to get your paws dirty?” the orc asked his companion with a big grin on his face.  Shadowmane barked in response to his master and laid down.

”How long will it be before we arrive to our destination?” A young female Draenei asks the two Draenei guards leading the group of five. “ You’ll see when we arrive, Ma’am. We shouldn’t be â€"too- far away now. ” one of the two guards in the front responded. The group of five consisted of two Draenei guards leading the group, a younger female Draenei in the center and two more guards following the group, keeping an eye on their flank. The five Draenei riding an Elekk mount each. The female in the center of the group looks up into the sky that is illuminated with stars that twinkle into her eyes. ”What a beautiful night tonight, don’t you agree?” the female asked the four guards and the four guards simply responded with a nod and nothing more. ”Come on you four… you should take a deep breath and enjoy the beautiful events life grants us to admire.’ the female said trying to get more enthusiasm out of the other four. ”I will take a deep breath the moment we return safely to camp, ma’am.” one of the guards admitted and everyone went silent. After a few moments of silence, one of the two frontal guards mentions ”What’s that?” and points to a shadow in the distance in the middle of the road.

A soft and pitiful whimper can be heard from the object as the group gets closer. ”Is that an animal?” the young female asks softly in response to the whimper. The group stays quiet as continue their way. ”He sounds wounded… we should help the animal...” the female continued. The two guards leading the unit looked back towards the female “we can’t stop… we don-“ before the guard could finish his sentence, the young female interrupted him ”Either we stop, or â€"I’LL- stop and tend to the animal’s wounds.” The leading guards stopped and the remainder of the unit stopped as well. “Very well ma’am… I’ll have a look. You stay here with the others.” said one of the frontal guards and dismounted his Elekk. The remaining three guards gather around the young female in a triangle formation, two Draenei covering the flank and one in the front-center. As the dismounted Draenei approaches the downed animal, he can see it’s a wolf and it’s covered in blood. He kneels before the animal to inspect it for any wounds. ”The animal is covered in blood… but I can’t find any w-“ Before the draenei could finish his sentence, two quiet whizzes are heard cutting through the air and impact the two guards’ heads that were guarding the flanks. Their bodies sink on their mounts and fall off. The young female lets out a terrified scream as the two Draenei behind her fall to the ground. The guard that had separated himself from the group to check the wolf looked back to inspect what the screaming was about. Before he could do anything, he heard a intense growl followed up by a cold feeling in the back of his neck. The ‘wounded’ wolf had risen from the ground and took a chunk from the back of the Draenei’s neck, severing the spinal cord and killing the Draenei.

Before the remaining guard could give the order to ride, an arrow impacted his back and he tumbled off his elekk mount, face first into the ground. The archer slowly closed the distance between him and the young female Draenei. The archer Orc hand signaled to his wolf. The wolf jumped up and headbutted the young Draenei female off her mount onto the ground. ”Hello little girl.” the orc said, looking down at the girl with a grin on his face. ”Someone has paid a great sum to deliver you to him.”. The Draenei starts crying and screams for help. The wildlife grows silent, but there is no other response to the young female’s. The Orc chuckled at the crying and screaming. ”No one is coming to save you.” the orc said. ”Cry as much as you like… scream as much as you like.. beg for your life as much as you like.. It’ll only feed me.” the orc continues and grins. Yagak leans down to the young female and whispers in here ear ”Hush little baby, now don’t say a word… Nobody’s coming for you, that is simply absurd.” Yagak pushes himself up to his feet again and slams his bow across the young female’s face, knocking her out. ”You did well today, Shadowmane. Take one of their bones as a little souvenir.”