The hissing and smoking and smell were terrible, and the nymph screamed in pain and then went still.

The man pulled the sword out, satisfied that he'd done the job, and returned to the fallen girl. She was coming to, but there would be some time to go, and he didn't like this particular forest, not at all.

He put down his lethal short sword, reached into a small knapsack he had brought with him, and removed two very delicate sets of bronze cuffs. No iron here. He rudely grabbed both of her wrists, brought them in back of her, and put on the smaller cuffs. Then he pulled off her boots and brought the ankles together, clearly with the intent of cuffing them as well.

Suddenly he felt a horrible, burning pain in his back, and he cried out and straightened up, dropping the cuffs on the ground. He stood, frantically trying to reach between his shoulder blades and remove the dagger that had been driven in between them, but he could not reach it.

He looked around, totally confused, wracked with pain, yet desperate to see who had gotten him, only to see the wood nymph standing there, looking at him in grim satisfaction, the ugly gaping scar on her chest blazing but already beginning to somehow heal and disappear.

"But — but — that was iron!" he managed. "How…? It's not… possible!"

He then pitched forward, shuddered, and was still.

"This is Husaquahr, bub. They got a rule for everything here and an exception to every rule," Joe commented.

She was probably the only one in all faerie — save the dwarves — who could not be killed by iron. But it really did hurt like Hell.