### 317

Filling your hand with the hilt of the sun-sword, you unsheathe its golden blade and sever the tendril with one stroke. But instead of blood, or what would pass for blood in the body of this ghastly creature, a flame bursts into life like a sputtering fuse. The brain ceases to move, hovering motionless above the sand, as the spitting flame burns fiercely along its thin tube of sundered flesh.

Turn to 170.