Well Beth hadn't survived all those centuries without
being staked a few times,seemingly dead and then popped
up years again,just like a certain bloodsucker in old Hamner
movies.
And she needed to know if Palador had also become
such a immortal.
More or less a "You pull the stake out of my heart and I'll
pull the stake out of your heart"
So whilst the dragoness headed off and burnt and gobbled up
anything she came across Beth rushed back to the
village that the late RobinHood and his Merrye Men had come from,disguised herself as a Honest Nun and told the tale
of the dragoness that had offed their favourite heroes.
The villagers organized a posse and soon Beth and they were galloping in the direction the monster had last been seen with a
portable wind lance on a ox cart.
The beast had laired in a cave,bones of her victims just visible
inside the cave.
Those two unblinking serpentine eyes glowered at the pursuers
for hours and then come nightfall the cunning dragoness
came rushing out to do battle.
Beth noticed she was bigger and nastier looking then the last time Beth had gazed upon the formerly straggly
Prince.
The reason was obvious to the witch,Palador still
had the Cursed Dragon Chain ariound her lengthier
neck,which had fueled the continuing transformation.
Alas a scaly thick hide is no match against a
wind lance and so as the dragoness
reared up on her hind legs to roar out her challenge
to her enemy a windlance bolt plunged into her chest and
soon her gurgling and twitching had
ceased.
Whilst the others cheered their victory Beth snuck
over unseen by the others and slipped off the Cursed
Dragons Chain from the apparently dead dragon
and hid it.
Then since she didn't want years of planning to go down the drain now
she carefully instructed the posse on how to bury the dragon in a nearby hollow,pile rocks over the corpse
to cover it and make sure to leave the windlance bolt in the
brutes chest but to make sure the tip of the
lance stuck out of the rocky cairn to serve as
a visible warning to other dragons of what what happen to them all eventually.
Privately to herself Beth thought " the unstaking can happen
at another time"