Star Wars - Kenobi

temptation.
    Kallie was in sight now, half a kilometer ahead. Snit didn’t show any signs of stopping. Annileen and her mount cut directly across the flats toward them. Kallie was still out of earshot, but Annileen could see the girl was no longer in control of the beast, if she ever had been.
    The Calwell livery beat all others for safety: three mighty girth straps went around each dewback’s midsection, securing saddles. But those only worked well if the dewback sat still for the fitting, and she couldn’t imagine Snit had. The resultant loose straps, she now saw, had caused the saddle to start sliding off Snit’s back to the right. Kallie, her foot tangled in a stirrup, was hanging over the animal’s side, desperately clinging to the reins. With every futile attempt to climb back atop Snit, the girl was driving him crazier. He wouldn’t stop until he’d shaken her.
    Snit topped a rise and vanished. Annileen reached it long seconds later. What she saw on the other side took her breath away. She’d known the eastern reaches were prone to sinkholes, but this place was a geologic minefield. Worse, it was the kind of pockmarked landform favored by—and often caused by—creatures so horrific they nearly defied description.
    Sarlaccs. Big underground appetites that preyed on anything foolish enough to wander along. Monsters that could swallow a landspeeder whole, but were often impossible to see until they had you.
    And Snit was running straight into the place.
    Annileen doubled up on the reins and pushed ahead. Vilas snorted, straining against her. He didn’t like the look of the area, she could tell—and she couldn’t blame him. But she had to play the odds. Sarlaccs were rare. There was a particularly large one at Carkoon; another near some of Tatooine’s many ancient ruins, she’d heard tell. Even a tiny one of their spawn could be a fatal discovery—but there was no other choice now. She prodded the animal into a bounding run, keeping as far away from the mini craters as possible.
    “Help!” Annileen’s eyes left the pitted ground and darted a hundred meters ahead. Snit was going places fast, and Kallie was still stuck. “Mom, help!”
    Annileen’s heart caught in her throat—but she realized it meant that Kallie had seen her. She gritted her teeth and pushed forward, her senses overloading. There was sand flying everywhere in Snit’s wake; Annileen’s hair, now unbound, blew openly and violently behind her. The desert floor rose and fell below, present here, absent there. And there was the constant thrum-thrum-thrum of Vilas’s feet slamming against the surface, reverberating through her body. Yet she was still gaining.
    Vilas got his legs tangled up for a moment, but recovered quickly. Facing away from the chase for that second, Annileen thought she saw a Tusken Raider, peering at her from over a far distant dune. A moment later she was back on track, and sure she was hallucinating. Too much adrenaline. Snit, up ahead, didn’t seem to care about anything.
    Annileen’s voice cracked as she yelled into the wind. “Stop! Stop!”
    Snit was only a dozen meters ahead of her—and Annileen could see clearly how Kallie was tangled in the stirrup. The terrified girl was half sliding off Snit’s right side now, and in imminent danger of shaking free and landing beneath the beast’s massive rear legs. Annileen had to move.
    “Sorry, boy,” she called to Vilas. “Gotta do this!” She pushed the dewback harder, bringing him within nipping distance of Snit’s left hind shank. There was no question of riding up on the right; Kallie would be doubly in danger then, if she fell. Annileen would have to bring the monster under control herself.
    Vilas moderated his pace; fearful, Annileen figured, of Snit turning on him. But she was close enough. She released the reins, threw her weight forward, and scrambled up onto Vilas’s massive neck, the dewback’s scales skinning her gloveless hands.
    She looked down at the narrowing space between the two dewbacks. Grit exploded from the ground, each pounding step of Snit’s a sandy geyser. If Snit knew Vilas was alongside, he hadn’t reacted—yet. But he surely would. What would he do then?
    Annileen had mounted a trotting dewback before, but never an angry one running at top speed, from atop another animal. Snit could do anything. It was too dangerous to try.
    But she could hear Kallie, too, crying out with every bump.
    Now!
    Annileen reached into