Hearing Hagrid's shout, Norberta immediately swooped down and sprayed a scorching breath of dragon fire at the equally enormous Runespoor.
Had this been a real Runespoor, it probably would have fled at once.
Perhaps an enormous, elderly Runespoor was not much weaker than a dragon in combat.
But dragons had an intimidating effect on almost all intelligent creatures.
Whatever their particular species, dragons had scales that formed special patterns. Even wizards were unconsciously intimidated by them, never mind their powerfully intimidating roars.
That was the origin of what was known as a dragon's aura of intimidation.
Even some dark creatures that were no weaker than dragons in combat instinctively feared them when they met.
There was a reason dragons were the most famous of all magical creatures.
They really were that formidable!
Unless a Runespoor grew over ten meters long, it was on a dragon's menu, so its fear of dragons was perfectly natural.
And because they were not clever enough, growing large enough did not make them realize they no longer needed to fear dragons.
So even enormous Runespoors feared dragons and fled at the first sign of them.
But this Runespoor was no longer alive. It was an Inferius creature being controlled by a wizard. Such creatures had long since lost their feelings and biological instincts; their instinctive actions were now driven by the Inferi's craving for living flesh.
Thus, the Runespoor showed no fear of the attacking dragon. All three mouths opened at once, spraying three clouds of foul-smelling gray deathly aura to meet the dragon's breath.
Runespoors could spray venom imbued with powerful magic, making them extremely difficult opponents among magical snakes. Having become an Inferius, however, this Runespoor could no longer produce magical venom.
It retained its fighting habits from life, though, and still sprayed