Beyond the Darkness

The beast screamed and turned to attack him, but was severely wounded. It was a younger one, and had strayed too far from its nest. Still it was powerful and enormous compared to Tarkin. Its tentacles reached out to grab its attacker.

Tarkin shot at one and dodged the other, hacking away as fast as he could.

Tarkin had the advantage of surprise. The creature, now partially eviscerated, flailed and tried to grab its enemy.

He slashed at the tentacles again, gritting his teeth and gripping the beast as tightly as he could.

It began to flail and try to escape. It was mortally wounded and made a last ditch effort to get away from Tarkin but eventually fell.

Tarkin sheathed his blaster and raised the knife, making a final cut down its abdomen.

The beast fell, and after a brief struggle, expired. All was quiet except the distant cries of other animals. More would soon be attracted to the scent of blood. There was no sign of the Zabrack.

Tarkin looked around and cursed quietly. The boy ran up, chest heaving.
"I lost you there," he panted, staring down at the beast. "Did...did you do that?"
"We have competition for the quarry," Tarkin said curtly. "Find my rifle and come after me." He started off into the brush.

Sirejj stopped when he figured he was no longer being pursued and listened. He held his breath for a moment, and there was only distant sounds of far off creatures. He sighed, catching his breath. Now there was trouble. This human, surprising him in the dark, would prove problematic. Now it was a race to catch the mouse, who was likely far away and had no intentions of returning to its den.

He listened carefully through the night sounds as he walked, trying to listen for either of his targets. The quarry would be well away from them now; he might to better to wait until the day but now that this Zabrak was here, time was of the essence.

Sirejj continued to move, eventually dropping to the ground. He would travel high when the lower branches allowed it, but made good pace on foot. These woods, full of huge thorns and branches and plenty of holes to break ankles, were not unlike those of his home planet. Minus the rancors, but Ryloth had its own aggressive fauna to keep one on their toes.
He needed no light to see in the dark. His staff proved a bit awkward in the brush but he was so used to carrying it that it slowed him down very little.

"Sir!" The boy came dashing up to him a few minutes later with the rifle in hand. "I found it!"
"Good." He took the rifle. "Get back to the tent, I'll handle it from here." The boy's brow furrowed.
"But sir, I was ordered to--"
"You have new orders. Go back to the tent." He waited, and eventually the boy dipped his head and turned around, shoulders hunched. Tarkin resumed his journey forward, keeping his rifle ready.

Sirejj was travelling at full speed. He was fit, he made a point of maintaining his strength and stamina for these exact situations. He circled around, finding traces of where a speeder had left. That trail wasn't hard to follow. He dropped down to the ground in the tracks and took off, hoping to put as much distance between him and the other hunter as possible.

Tarkin found the tracks shortly after--he'd been substantially delayed by the fight and the meeting with his assistant, and he had pulled something while battling the beast. It was slow going, but he followed the speeder tracks as swiftly as possible

On he raced till he reached another treeline. Here he paused, picked up a trail again, and left in a jog. They were covering slightly more open ground now, this looked to be where blurrgs grazed during the daylight hours. He noticed as he passed damaged roots and wallows where the creatures had gathered. This may be close to an outlying Twi'lek village. There was one several kilometers north.