The dying sun dyed the stony plains blood red, where biting winds whipped through the thorny thickets and crunched the dried animal bones scattered among the rocks. Ruffnut dug her claw into the barren earth, feeling the dust rise beneath her heavy boots. Around her, the young minotaurs—barely snotty, their horns still small and clumsy—were clustered together like a nervous herd, their chests rising and falling with ragged breaths.

She stood there, unfazed, in her warrior's attire: a dark green cloth shirt that ended at her hips, the fabric encircled with belts at her waist, revealing her powerful, muscular arms, marked by battle scars and adorned with a metal armband on her biceps. Her tanned leather shorts, reinforced with metal plates at the knees, creaked with every movement, as did Her handcrafted boots, nailed down to hold their ground. The scar across Her left cheek gleamed in the evening light, a reminder that only the strong survived.

Brutilda spat on the ground, bouncing a pebble against the boots of a shivering apprentice.

"Brats!" she roared, pointing an accusing finger at the giant ox grazing a hundred paces away. "That fat ball with legs will be your dinner... if any of you have horns properly attached."

The apprentices exchanged glances. One of them, a mere five-foot-seven young minotaur, dared to stammer: "But... what if he charges us?"

Brutilda slowly turned her head toward him, making her cervical vertebrae crack. The scar on Her cheek paled as he clenched Her jaw.

"Attention, useless ones!" Brutilda roared, making several apprentices tremble. Her voice echoed like thunder on the stones. "That mountain ox weighs more than all your mothers combined," she pointed disdainfully at the enormous animal grazing about a hundred paces away, its muscular back gleaming in the dying light. "But today you will learn that a true minotaur does not hunt... IT DOMINATES!"

Without further warning, Brutilda charged toward the beast. Her handcrafted boots kicked up clods of dry earth, each stride an explosion of brute strength. The wind whistled between its white horns, its dark mane billowing like a war banner. 10 meters from the ox, she inhaled deeply and...

AAARRRGGHH!! she screamed with her voice, like a beast incarnate

Her war cry split the air, sending the apprentices reeling. The ox reared its head, eyes bulging, just as Ruffnut's horns dug into its flank with a wet sound. The impact was so brutal it was heard like thunder across the moors. Brutilda rammed her horns directly into the animal's ribs. Her powerful thighs propelled the impact, lifting the fat beast like a bale of hay. For an instant suspended in time, the beast flew... until it crashed against a boulder with such force that stone splinters rained down.

Brutilda reared up in the dust, steam rising from her nostrils like an enraged beast. The ox's blood trickled down her horns and arms.

"This..." she panted furiously, "...is not hunting. This is a power grab. Tomorrow you will do it. And whoever fails..." Her green eyes flashed with danger as she dragged the beast with her hand, "...I'll use him as bait."

The apprentices, now with looks between terror and admiration, nodded in unison. Ruffnut growls as she drags the beast toward the village.