Nessalir the Red

The sword blade flashed in the moonlight, and it was all Nessalir could do to pull her head back in time. The steel edge sliced the air where her neck had been mere breaths before, and she inwardly cursed herself a fool.

She was still rattled and aching from the Beast's attack, true, but that was not what had distracted her so and put her in mortal danger. No, Nessalir knew that her folly lay in trusting Finn dy'Blodyn. He was a man with a singular goal: to slay the Questing Beast and bring glory to his House. When faced with a choice between accomplishing that goal and bringing a murderer to justice, of course he chose the Hunt.

Still, Nessalir was confident that Finn had not slain Orov dy'Cangen. And as she knew that she was not the killer, that left only Akirim dy'Gwinwyd, her current opponent.

"What a fool you have been!" Akirim declared as he came in for another blow. His sword arm was sluggish, and if Nessalir's head was clear she could easily have disarmed him. As it was, she could just barely parry his attack. "Taken in by dy'Blodyn's lies! If dy'Cangen truly lies dead, then it was surely that honorless cur who slew him!"

"No," said Nessalir. Her blade met his. Metal scraped against metal, and easily she was able to push him back. The Elf stumbled away, grimacing, his sword arm shaking the extertion and blood flowing freely from his wounded shoulder. "Honorless he may be, but that man is no assassin."

"And I am?" demanded Akirim. The Elf scowled. "As I said, drakkowar: you are but a fool."

He moved swiftly to the right, raising his sword as he did so. But Nessalir recognized the maneuver from his brief bout with Finn. When he suddenly changed trajectory and came at her from the left, she was prepared.

Her blade slid across Akirim's, diverted his weapon away, and cut across her knuckles. The Elf cried out in pain and dropped the sword.

"I shall not die on this day! I shall not--" His eyes widened, and his gaze refocused itself on something behind Nessalir. At the same time, she heard the tell-tale snap of a boot on a twig.

Nessalir spun around, ducking instinctively as she did so. A mere dozen paces away stood an Elf woman clad in a dark green cloak, loosing an arrow from her bow. Had Nessalir remained standing and focused on Akirim, the missile would surely have struck her in the back.

Instead, it flew over her head, and Nessalir heard a grunt of pain behind her as the arrow found purchase in Akirim's flesh.

Glancing back at the man who had, until now, been her opponent, Nessalir saw a brown-fletched arrow sticking out from his already-injured shoulder. The Elf's eyes bugged out, and violet blossomed all across his flesh as he contorted about in pain. The Bulgara venom did its work, and the champion of the House of Vines collapsed in a twitching heap before swiftly expiring.

Nessalir had taken her gaze away from the assassin for a fraction of a second, but when she returned her attention to the archer, she saw that the villain was already on the move. The back of a retreating cloak greeted her, and Nessalir scowled and gave chase.

It soon became clear that the murderer knew well the lay of the Wildwood. The Elven woman leapt over gaps and avoided roots with an easy practice. It was all Nessalir could do just to keep the killer in her sights. Presently, she began to catch up, but the assassin spun around and threw a dagger at the drakkowar's face.

Bringing her sword up swiftly, Nessalir deflected this new attack, and she continued her chase with renewed vigor. Blood pumped in her ears, and the effects of the Beast's attack quickly faded. As she gained on her quarry, Nessalir felt her head clearing, and with that clarity came rage.

She truly had been played a fool. Neither she nor Finn had considered the possibility of a fifth hunter, and the assassin had used this to her advantage. Akirim truly was innocent, and through her insistence on bringing him to undeserved justice, Nessalir had inadvertently played a role in his death.

Though it was unlikely that the assassin planned this, it was nonetheless clear to the dragonblood that she had been made into an instrument of murder, a weapon pointed at someone who might well still live had she only considered the possibilities.

That shame fueled her anger. It stoked the flames of her rage until it became a blazing inferno. How dare this killer use her like this? How dare she?

The heat spread across her body, concentrated in her lungs, and let out a breath of fire. Tongues of flame enveloped the fleeing assassin, who cried out in terror and flung herself into the dirt, even as the fire spread across the wood around her.

Orange light climbed the trees. Smoke billowed into the sky, reaching up to caress shining Hamanira. The assassin rolled about, desperately patting out the flames which yet clung to her, and she looked up at Nessalir with wide, panicked eyes.

"Please!" she cried. "Mercy!"

She was an Elf with fair skin, and hair the color of fresh-cut maple. She looked almost like a ghost, so pale she was even against the light of the fire. Her eyes were gold as Nessalir's own.

"Mercy?" Nessalir snarled. "And mercy would you give myself, were our fortunes reversed?"

"I… I would demand answers!" said the Elf, who, now Nessalir looked at her, seemed strangely familiar. "I would demand to know what House I served!"

Nessalir pointed her blade at the Elf's throat. "And what House do you serve, assassin?"

The killer opened her mouth, then closed it again. "I shall not say, until you bring me to the Palace! Only then will I reveal which Prince sought to interfere in the Hunt."

"Better to put you down now, I think," said Nessalir. "Else you'd simply be a distraction. I still have a Beast to kill."

No sooner had the words left her lips than a great trumpet horn resounded throughout the Wildwood. It crescended above the roar of the flames, and its echoes reverberated throughout the trees.

The assassin laughed. It was a manic, half-mad sound. "No, you don't!" she cleared. "The Hunt is ended. That damned rake from the House of Flowers claims victory!"