Nessalir choked. She gagged. Her head swam as though she had inhaled plumes of thick bck smoke. All around her, the forest tilted and wobbled, and it was all she could do not to fall over.

  "Your body is rgely human," the Remuran observed. "It was not made to contain dragonfire, was it? Do your insides now burn and char? Does the smoke consume you from within?"

  She gred at him through watery eyes, and attempted to scowl—though a fresh fit of coughing broke her expression. The Remuran ughed.

  "You disappoint me, drakkowar. But I suppose whoever purchases you doesn't need to know of your weakness. Yes, I believe Senator Gaisetrum would be interested. He so loves breaking strong servitae. I'm sure he would pay handsomely for one such as you."

  He stepped back, smiling a smug smile as Hrolnar strode forward to seize Nessalir with his mighty hands.

  She tried to raise her sword against him, but her body burned with agony, and her head was still light. The bde shook in her hand.

  Hrolnar ughed as batted the weapon aside and closed his burly fingers over her arm.

  In the next instant, something massive came crashing through the forest, smmed into the big man, and tore him away from Nessalir.

  The drakkowar fell to the ground, blinking tears from her eyes and gasping for breath. Through the dull pain and the fire in her lungs, she managed to catch a glimpse of some green blur, and hear Hrolnar's shouts of surprise.

  "What is this?" the Remuran demanded. He raised his spear as though to protect himself, but he did not otherwise move. He gred in the direction of Hrolnar and the thing that had attacked him, and like Nessalir he seemed to be attempting to discern what precisely had just transpired.

  A loud cracking, like the splintering of wood, resounded through the forest. This was followed shortly by an agonized scream from Hrolnar. The reverberations of his cry buried themselves deep into Nessalir and rattled against her bones, and she set her jaw and steeled herself against them, fought through the pain and discomfort, and forced herself, awkwardly, to her feet. She held her sword in her right hand, and with her scaly left she drew her handax. The hurt from her interrupted fmes was immense, but she knew that she could not succumb to it. She was in battle, and she had been granted a reprieve, a miraculous distraction for her foes, and as any warrior would, she knew she must now take advantage of this.

  Moving quick, Nessalir made to strike at the Remuran. He saw her attack coming, however, and spun on her, raising up his spear and parrying her sword. Not to be deterred, Nessalir followed through with a swing of her handax. The Remuran twisted his spear, sought to block both bdes, but the drakkowar was too quick for him. She hooked the spear shaft under her ax head and pulled, and the weapon was wrenched from her foe's hands.

  The Remuran's eyes widened, and for the first time, Nessalir saw fear clear on his face.

  She raised her sword to strike him down, but at that moment she was distracted by another shriek of terrified agony from Hrolnar, which was cut off into a terrible gurgling. She turned just in time to see the big man colpse, covered in his own blood, and above him, naked, stood the Green Man.

  Nessalir faltered. "You?" she asked. "I saw you die!"

  The Green Man met her eyes, and he shook his head. "You saw a body fall."

  Before she could ask him what he meant, however, a shuffling in the grass and dirt alerted her to the Remuran's movements. She returned her attention to him just in time to see his back as he vanished into the trees.

  "He must not escape!" the Green Man insisted.

  Scowling, Nessalir ran after the Remuran. She dodged around trees and leapt over roots. Low-hanging branches scratched at her as she passed, their sharpened cws leaving stinging lines of red on her face. Again and again, Nessalir caught a glimpse of her quarry as he ran ahead of her. At times, she despaired that he was sure to escape, but she was a seasoned warrior with the blood of dragons, and he a mere man. Slowly but surely, Nessalir gained on the Remuran.

  A great roaring sound began to make itself known. It became louder and louder as she ran, and at first Nessalir thought it to be nothing more than the rush of her own blood in her ears. But soon enough she realized it was the crashing roar of falling water. The air grew cool and wet, and Nessalir became certain that a mighty waterfall y just ahead of her.

  In this she soon proved correct. Bursting from the trees, Nessalir found herself on the bank of a river. A great cliff rose up just a few paces away, and from above fell a great white sheet of water, spshing into the river below and raising a fine mist all around her.

  Nessalir stood on a rocky outcropping over the water, and she looked around for any sign of the Remuran. Seeing none, she cursed the stars, and then doubled over coughing. While her skin was cool in the presence of the falls, her chest still burned from within.

  What a fool she was! She needed rest, to recover. Instead, here she was running blindly through the woods after a Remuran poacher and sver. This had surely aggravated her lungs.

  Raising her face toward the heavens, Nessalir howled in pain, and in doing so exhaled at long st the heat from her lungs. A stream of smoke flew from her mouth, and when it was gone she felt—not healed, precisely, but better than she'd been.

  She closed her eyes, and allowed herself to rex just a bit. It was at the moment that she heard rapid footsteps behind her. She turned to face the Remuran, and he barreled into her chest, and before Nessalir could react, the two of them fell from the rock into the waters below.