“There will be plenty of runners and beggars left among the others, I am certain. You will save your butcher’s wrath for them.”

Namrok grumbles unintelligibly, but his blade continues to hover harmlessly above her.

The bone-armored giantess steps forward, looming directly above Evie as tall as a centuries-old tree. Tomoe twirls the haft of her poleax with practiced ease as she raises it above her head. Evie watches the sunlight blink through the revolutions of that massive blade, catching in the steel and burning even brighter for a sliver of a moment each time.

Dying in the sun, Evie thinks. That’s not so bad, is it?

At the very least, she will finally be allowed to rest.

Evie closes her eyes just after that poleax ceases to twirl, as Tomoe steadies her grip on the haft in preparation to strike. She hears Namrok laugh; an ugly, gravelly noise that she deeply wishes wasn’t the last sound she’ll hear.

The impending strike doesn’t come, and Namrok’s laughing is abruptly replaced by the sound of Tomoe screaming.

Evie opens her eyes. Sirach has ripped the bolt from of her chest and leaped onto Tomoe’s back. The Sicclunan agent hooks both curved blades deep beneath Tomoe’s armor, sinking them through the meat and sinew just below her shoulders.

Namrok’s attention turns to his distressed companion. Evie doesn’t hesitate, first batting her forearm against the flat of his blade to remove its threat from her neck and then burying the sole of her foot deep into the blood coin hunter’s groin. The kick doubles him over where Evie meets the whole side of his face with a sharp elbow strike. She rolls from beneath him and retrieves her broken sword from the dirt, springing to her feet.

Behind her Tomoe is screaming her rage and pain unbidden, thrashing from side-to-side in an effort to unseat Sirach despite the agony every movement causes her. Sirach answers by sliding another half inch of blade beneath each of Tomoe’s shoulders, her legs wrapped around the waist of the giantess with her ankles and feet locked together. Tomoe finally ceases thrashing and instead backpedals toward the rocks, her long strides quickly building up a lethal momentum. Sirach has no choice, she rips her blades from the blood coin hunter’s back as roughly as possible and lets her body fall to the ground, where she quickly rolls between Tomoe’s legs.

Despite being half blinded by the intense pain in her back, the giantess has enough facility to bring the thick haft of her poleax down atop the Sicclunan. Sirach raises both her daggers from one knee, the deep curves of their blades catching and holding the poleax haft. She stands, hooking the weapon with her daggers and twisting her body into Tomoe’s, leveraging more than brute force disarming the larger woman and flinging her poleax into the opposite wall of rock.