"Alcohol... oh! OH!" The halfling leapt to his feet as if scalded. "Yes, alcohol! Absolutely right!" He scurried toward the bar, feet pattering frantically across the floorboards. "Alcohol cleanses wounds, yes, yes! Of course!"

  "Beer," Irene repeated, her voice faint.

  "Beer!" Emry yelped again, as though the word itself were a revelation. "Aye, that's it! Beer's the very best thing for washing out a wound… or is it?"

  With exaggerated care, the halfling poured a generous measure into a weathered wooden tankard. "How should I apply it?" He placed the vessel on the table, anxiously examining Irene's blood-seeping wound as it rose and fell with each labored breath. "Do I… do I need to remove your… your clothes first--Oh, by the gods, that's not what I meant at all!" Emry's face flared a beetroot red, his hands windmilling in a flustered denial. "I am speaking purely from a… a medical and physiological standpoint, you understand…"

  Without ceremony, the Monster Slayer unbuckled her belt and peeled away her blood-soaked shirt. Emry's mouth gaped in shocked paralysis. "You are welcome to a closer inspection, should you desire it," Irene remarked, her voice laced with a dry, almost imperceptible amusement. "And if you deem it entirely necessary for your… assessment… I can, of course, dispense with my smallclothes too." The halfling whirled about with the speed of a startled hummingbird, nearly tripping over his own feet.

  He caught only the rustling of fabric and Irene's suppressed groans of pain. Risking the very periphery of his vision, he attempted to ascertain the Monster Slayer's condition. To his considerable surprise, Irene had fashioned her discarded shirt into a makeshift bandage wrapped around her midsection, while the beer remained untouched upon the table. "Shouldn't you cleanse the wound first?" The words had barely left his lips when Emry's jaw dropped anew—for Irene had seized the tankard and emptied its contents down her throat in a single, desperate draught.

  "Another, Emry," she gasped, amber liquid glistening on her pale lips. "Please—fill it to the brim." The halfling hesitated, extending a tentative hand toward the emptied vessel.

  Before his fingers could close around the handle, the heavy wooden tankard slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor. Irene clutched her left hand to her lower abdomen, her face contorting. (It begins now.) She recognized the impending crescendo of the Tears of Nira's aftermath—the violent contraction of stomach and viscera, intestines seemingly knotting themselves into impossible configurations, and the inexorable, bone-deep chill that would pervade her entire body, reluctant to release its grip. "Mistress?" Emry yelped, his panic flaring anew as the Monster Slayer suddenly went limp as a rag doll and pitched sideways from the bench. In frantic desperation, he grasped her shoulders, shaking them while repeating her name with increasing urgency.

  Irene knew this particular agony intimately—vastly more excruciating than the initial consumption of the potion, ten times more debilitating than her most severe monthly courses. Her mind drifted to Kazerath, to that time that scarcely qualified as childhood: how, during her monthly bleedings, every Monster Slayer in the fortress had been rendered utterly helpless—watching her writhe upon her pallet while she, in turn, witnessed their impotent horror. She had been the sole female presence among that gathering of monster hunters. Eventually, by painful trial and much error, they had stumbled upon a fundamental truth: a woman's peculiar ailments were best understood, and perhaps only remedied, by other women. From toothless crones to flower-crowned maidens, whenever her monthly visitation arrived, the Monster Slayers would summon women to her chamber for mysterious ministrations that no man should witness or comprehend. Afterward, coin would change hands. This continued until one rather unfortunate occasion, when a woman of garish paint and dubious virtue, upon eyeing the pale, frail child upon the cot, had trilled, "You didn't bring me all this way to tuck in this little lamb, did you, my dears? It was your robust company I was anticipating, not hers!" Only then did it dawn on them they had procured a lady of the night. Only then did the Monster Slayers cease recruiting random women from the streets, turning instead to the Kiovi Temple for nuns and priestesses to shepherd her through her monthly tribulations.

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  Now, as the black waves of agony threatened to drag her under into blessed unconsciousness, there were no soft-handed sisters to soothe her brow, no gentle hymns to ease her passage -- only the shrill, panicked yelps of a very frightened halfling. Perhaps, she mused distantly, it was precisely this irritant that allowed her to cling to the final tatters of awareness until the worst had passed.

  "Miss?! IRENE?!" The halfling gradually reduced his agitated shaking, sensing her body's slow relaxation, her breathing stabilizing. "Irene..." Emry's voice cracked, verging on tears. "Where is my beer?"

  The halfling retreated several hasty paces. "BEER?! Miss, you're—"

  "I am not dead yet," the Monster Slayer bit out, a dangerous edge to her voice that brooked no further argument. "I merely require my beer. I am exhausted. Please." A wave of profound fatigue washed over her. (Without alcohol, unconsciousness will claim me.)

  Emry retrieved the fallen tankard, hurried back to the bar, and poured with shaking hands. He regarded this woman with a mixture of awe and terror—one moment apparently at death's threshold, the next issuing commands with undiminished authority. After delivering the fresh draught, he maintained a prudent distance. She consumed the beer with methodical determination while he observed, momentarily oblivious to the fact that she sat clad only in her undergarments, her waist encircled by what appeared to be red fabric. She looked, for a fleeting, incongruous moment, like some village lass with an earthenware pitcher, bearing cool water from a hidden spring. But no -- that crimson wasn't the dye of any cloth. "It's blood," Irene remarked, catching his gaze. "Blood, not cloth." Emry's eyes widened in delayed comprehension. "That's not cloth—it's BLOOD! Your entire shirt is saturated with it!"

  "I'm aware," the Monster Slayer replied with unnerving tranquility.

  "You're going to die, Irene," the halfling stated bluntly.

  "I'm aware of that as well."

  Muffled sounds emanated from the cellar below, though neither paid them any heed.

  Emry regarded her with incredulous disbelief. "I will die, Emry. As will we all. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow."

  "The blood is pooling beneath you. Continue this way, and your death approaches swiftly." The halfling attempted to match her detached pride with his own.

  "Then let death come. Before it claims me, I desire another drink."

  Emry exhaled a defeated sigh. He desperately wanted to help but lacked any conception of how to proceed. He filled another tankard and delivered it to her, watching as she consumed it methodically, repeating the process until the fifth round.

  She ceased requesting further libations. The halfling, bursting with exasperation, inquired, "How do you feel now?"

  "Mmm." A response devoid of definitive meaning.

  He hopped down from the table. "What happens next?"

  "We await my demise."

  Emry felt a powerful urge to strike her, despite it being the most exquisite face he had ever beheld.

  Irene was, indeed, simply waiting for death. She made no attempt to treat her wound, understanding that even with rudimentary care, the aftereffects of the Tears of Nira would render her effectively paralyzed for the coming hours. The halfling seethed with a frustrated indignation; he could not comprehend it -- how could this warrior woman, who mere moments ago had danced with death and snatched victory from its very jaws, now simply… give up? Her apparent apathy was a betrayal that galled him to the core. Emry bounded back onto the table, arms crossed defiantly across his chest, glaring down at her.

  "Depart," she instructed softly. "I alone am death-bound."

  The halfling maintained stubborn silence, exhibiting a halfling's characteristic obstinacy.

  "The Godman forces will surround us imminently. You should escape while possible, taking the women from the cellar. I am responsible for slaying the Friez, for killing Godmans. This conflict is mine alone, not yours."

  The halfling's defiant silence persisted.

  Soldiers' voices grew audible now. "They approach. Near now. The rear exit remains viable. Indeed, it represents our sole escape route."

  Silence.

  (I might as well address the furniture,) she thought, slumping forward onto the table, a small smile playing across her lips, unseen by her companion. "Very well, then. We shall embrace death together."

  Silence.

  Then came the thunderous impact of the tavern door being kicked open, and the triumphant shouts of soldiers filled the air.