On the other side of the skirmish, fortune was turning foul. Roche and Banli delivered alternating strikes at Regan's knees, thighs, and torso, yet without exception, each attempt was met with nothing but the jarring reverberation of steel against steel, sending painful shocks through their arms. Roche hefted his axe, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Curse this impenetrable hide!" Roche gasped, his breath ragged. His companion nodded in grim agreement, lungs likewise burning.

  Regan's face remained a mystery, his expression concealed behind the impenetrable steel of his helm. He made a casual show of toying with his war maul, setting the massive, death-dealing weapon to spin with an almost contemptuous ease. The dwarves had gradually retreated from the tavern wall—strategically attempting to draw the armored behemoth away from Irene. "Target his feet, the knee joints," Roche whispered, dropping into a crouch. "There's only leather protection there—"

  "Or perhaps mail beneath," Banli countered with apprehension. "By all the gods, I've no desire to close with that monster."

  "If we maintain this distance, we're doomed to endless retreat." After sidestepping a somewhat careless, sweeping blow from Regan's maul, Roche found precarious cover behind a cluster of upended barrels. "I'll create a diversion; you seek an opening to strike."

  "I've still got plans for us in Phyal, remember? We're to join the Gambril Oathsworn and live high on the hog! This mad charge of yours is no different from slitting your own throat -- I'll have no part in it, nor will I stand by and watch you throw your life away!"

  "Consider Irene—she's battling that mountainous brute without complaint. Abandon your fear of death." He delivered a hearty slap to Banli's shoulder before bursting from cover. "But not like this!" Banli cried out in panic. "Think of Emry, think of me, curse your beard!"

  "Come then, you witless hulk of iron!" Roche roared, planting himself squarely before Regan and spitting a glob of defiance onto the dirt at the giant's feet. "I, Roche, son of Kartham, by my ancestors' sacred bones, vow to crack open that great helm of yours like a rotten gourd this day!"

  Regan halted his advance, deliberately planting his war hammer into the earth like a walking stick—a gesture of profound disrespect during combat. Roche charged forward with reckless abandon, roaring dwarvish imprecations, employing the particularly venomous curses reserved for sleepless, ale-soaked nights. The Steel Friez raised his hammer with methodical precision and brought it crashing into the ground. Roche had anticipated this, timing his leap perfectly to evade the devastating weapon while simultaneously closing distance. He was certain Banli had maneuvered behind their adversary—indeed he had. Banli crouched behind a stone well, a mere five paces from Regan's left flank. "Now, Banli!" Roche unleashed the triumphant battle cry of his ancestors, absolutely certain a Friez scream would follow within three heartbeats. A scream did indeed rip through the air -- but it was Roche's own agonized cry that Banli heard, a sound that turned his blood to ice and his knees to water.

  With unexpected speed, Regan had reversed his hammer's momentum, violently yanking the weapon backward to connect with Roche's unprotected spine. The dwarf collapsed face-first into the dirt, his agonized howl cutting through the air. Rage surged through Banli's body like molten metal; he yearned to hurl himself at Regan—because he understood with terrible clarity what would follow. The Steel Friez hefted his massive maul in both hands, raising it high above his head, then brought it down with all his murderous force directly onto Roche's unsuspecting, brown-haired pate.

  The head that had once held a dwarf's wry humor and unbending sense of justice, topped with a familiar thatch of brown, was now reduced to a sickening, shapeless ruin of crimson gore and yellowish brain matter. Pale brain matter spattered across Banli's tunic and beard. "Gods… oh, gods below," he choked out, scrambling back behind the dubious sanctuary of the stone well. "Damn his black soul to every hell..."

  "'Vow to crack open that great helm of yours'?" Regan finally spoke, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble, like boulders shifting in a riverbed. "'Rotten gourd'? 'Witless hulk of iron'?" His tone was a clear goad to the last remaining dwarf. "I pulverized your friend's head, little one. Crushed him like a cockroach stealing kitchen grease. But even a roach may survive without its head. Not so your companion." He hoisted his hammer, still dripping with Roche's pulverized remains, and began his inexorable approach toward the well. "And next… it is your turn. To have your… skull… caved in. Ohh." A low, almost rapturous hum rumbled in Regan's chest.

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  Banli peered over the well's edge, his features contorted with an intensity of hatred he had never before experienced. "Try it if you dare, you worthless heap of scrap metal!" he snarled with murderous intent. "The only skull to be shattered will be yours—I move more nimbly than any master burglar alive."

  Something in this declaration triggered an unexpected response. The Steel Friez roughly tore away his throat guard and hurled his helm to the ground with startling violence, revealing a visage that epitomized grotesque disfigurement—his nose had been cleaved away entirely, half his scalp bore the puckered shine of severe burns, and a jagged scar traversed from ear to jawline. He stretched his lips into a ghastly semblance of a smile, the scar tissue pulling and contorting with the movement, making the grin even more horrific. "My head is right here before you." He pounded his knuckles against the half of his skull that still retained hair. "Come then, dwarf. Shatter it if you can."

  Banli's entire being burned with the desire to bury his axe blade deep within that repulsive creature's skull. Yet he recognized the futility—even leaping to his full height, he could at best strike the dog-head emblem adorning Regan's breastplate. Patience was essential; he must await the perfect moment when the steel giant might be brought low. Only then could he extract proper vengeance—for Roche, and for himself.

  Meanwhile, Gauner, the long-haired Friez, held the Girl on a Lance with evident discomfort and boredom. "We've overextended ourselves," he ventured, attempting to reason with Wenloff. "Nearly our entire contingent lies dead. Prudence dictates withdrawal and rendezvous with Luda."

  "Luda fights on the main front; his concerns are not ours. Besides," Wenloff added, his voice dripping with cold disdain, "what difference is there between a dead dog and a live one, if both are curs?" Gauner held his tongue; he wanted no part of this female Monster Slayer, be it at the point of a sword or in any other fashion, her striking beauty notwithstanding.

  Regan's attention remained fixed exclusively upon Banli, the diminutive opponent barely reaching his waistline. His single-minded focus prevented him from noticing a barrel gradually shifting position toward his feet. He inadvertently kicked the obstacle and pitched forward. "This blow is for Roche Edd Hasrobafork!" With a bellowing war cry that would have made his ancestors proud, Banli buried his axe deep into the Friez's left eye socket. Regan released an agonized howl, instinctively using his hammer as support to avoid collapsing. Banli wrenched his weapon free, preparing to deliver a second, fatal strike, but Regan, despite excruciating pain, managed to seize the dwarf by his throat with his free hand. With savage fury, he smashed Banli repeatedly against the stone well. By the fourth devastating impact, Banli's axe had fallen from his nerveless fingers, and one side of his skull had partially caved in—yet his condition remained marginally better than his fallen kinsman's.

  "For glory and honor!!" the seemingly innocuous barrel suddenly proclaimed—followed by the emergence of four furry limbs from its circumference, revealing Emry the halfling, self-proclaimed legendary burglar. He brandished a kitchen knife with theatrical flourish, but upon witnessing the horrific tableau—Roche's bisected remains, Banli's broken form wedged against the well, and Regan clutching his ruined eye socket as blood cascaded between his fingers—the halfling froze in abject terror.

  Emry, still partially encased in the barrel, felt his head swimming and his legs transformed to lead, rendering retreat nearly impossible. Regan, muttering guttural curses, spotted the halfling through his remaining eye and reached for his fallen hammer, agony twisting his features into a mask of hatred.

  Emry was certain his final moment had arrived. Had Irene not intervened at that precise instant, he would unquestionably have been reduced to a bloody smear upon the earth. The Friez warrior, suddenly impaled through the throat by a longsword thrust with surgical precision, toppled like a mighty oak felled by a woodsman's axe. Irene cast an impassive glance toward the fallen dwarves, her expression revealing nothing of her inner thoughts. Emry found himself positioned behind her protective stance, shielded from further harm.

  Gauner swallowed audibly, acutely aware that he now constituted the final defensive line for the Friez contingent. He harbored no illusions—he would not survive three exchanges against the formidable Monster Slayer. Irene leveled her bloodied blade toward the two remaining Friez warriors. "Who offers themselves next?" she inquired coldly, wiping azure tears from her cheek with her knuckles. "Or perhaps you prefer to face me simultaneously?"