The red light from the evening sun made the reddish scrub and hills of the landscape look even more bloody than usual. Standing at the top of one low hill was a figure that showed brightly in teal blue and purple robes.

Although she might have looked like a bright spot in the middle of a dreary landscape, Lilith was not happy. In fact, she did not like this situation- not one bit. The silver metal of her left hand curled back and started to clench, the black claws almost clicking on the heel of her palm. It was the only outward sign of her tenseness, except for a tightening around the tip of her muzzle. She stared into the distance and felt the flow of the life cords in her metallic palm. This one was big. Too big for comfort, and way too close to suit her. Escorting a merchant family through the Anjeg desert had seemed a simple task. After all, she had taken on far more dangerous assignment than this, but it looked like she was going to earn her way now. The light connection in the back of her mind turned fearful, and she sent back a stern emotional reminder to be dedicated and to quit being distracted by emotions. The whelp was here to learn, not to piddle her pad. Too bad she couldn't tell her that in words. Or maybe it wasn't.

Idle thoughts vanished as the life cords grew and strained against the circle formed by her fingers where she held them. She looked intently towards the spot where she knew her opponent (prey, that is, she was the hunter in this contest, not it) must be coming from and the golden bridge at the base of her muzzle began to feel cold as she remembered how she'd gotten it. With only a part of her muzzle and a hand lost to encounters with danger, she was far less marked than others in the guild, but it was still enough to keep her careful. A repeat performance did not promise to be any better than the original ones, which had on both occasions practically destroyed her emotionally.

Now she saw it, and it was as she had suspected. Twice as tall as her, far more heavy and muscular than she could ever hope to be, and she knew those fangs and claws were backed up with a fast and wary eye. Gray shaggy fur was revealed, along with a short thick tail as the scurat came running on its two hind legs toward what it considered an easy meal.

Just before the scurat's life cords swelled past her ability to hold them, she released a good dose of life energy with a deadly twist into them. Unfortunately not enough to kill it immediately, but trying to absorb that should slow it down. A second psychic release into the rings on her right hand cast a shimmer around her, and as the gray hulk suddenly lumbered to a stop and blinked, it was faced with a bright glow that flickered in front of its eyes like a huge firefly. Before it could figure out what had happened, a lance of pain in its left leg told it something had been seriously miscalculated.

Lilith's claws darted in and out in a blur, and her robes' skirts swirled out almost to waist height (having them split for comfort's sake made it really easy to maneuver) as she spun around to the back. One good dose of poison to the left femural artery, now one to the base of the spine.... but with her metal claws sunk into the base of the scurat's tail, she suddenly found herself swinging into midair as it turned, and then a massive blow knocked her loose and she rolled onto the ground. No real damage had been done to her, since the blow was awkward, and her hard-taught instincts came through as she judged the split second speed and distance of the rolling and leaped back to her feet. "One pace too little, and you will be squashed underfoot, one pace too much and you will be chased down and eaten" had been drilled into her too many times to recount.

Neither of those happened, but as the scurat bore down on her, she knew that all time for fancy tricks and tactics was gone. She doubled her fists together, raised her arms to point at the chest of the oncoming mountain of gray fur, and with legs braced and leaning forward, she let loose with a psychic blast that shook the ground and flickered in the sky. The scurat went down on its back, but she almost followed it from sheer weakness. Her breath came in panting sobs, and her wits almost scattered as she sensed all of the life strings in the air. Her hold on her new apprentice, though, gave her a quick rallying point and she mentally swung into focus within a space brief enough that it was as if the confusion almost never existed.

Normally the battle would have been over, but bad life energy and psychic shocks weren't enough for this one and she knew that she had had only seconds to regain her poise, if not her full strength. As the scurat's body rallied back from a crushed chest, it flopped over and began to get up on all fours. Lilith did a quick, complicated transfer of forces between her rings, both on her hand and in her ears, and with a bit of energy supplied from reserves that she didn't really want to tap, she formed a glowing arc in front of her right hand. The scurat suddenly found itself wobbling as Lilith's weight landed in the middle of its back, and then the arc of energy sliced into the back of its neck. The effect was immediate, although perhaps not too dramatic- falling back flat on its face from all fours didn't exactly shake the ground this time, but it did mean that it was finally dead.

This time, Lilith went to all fours on top of the body. As soon as she caught her breath, she sat up and watched as her apprentice came running out from the family encampment below. She could feel the fear and relief radiating from the little vixen's mind, and she groaned inwardly. This was going to be a long, long journey, and for more reasons than one.