The door frame shrieked. A heavy mace slammed against the wood, sending splinters showering into the room like lethal confetti. Drovian didn't flinch. He stood in the center of the office, the ambient rain drumming a steady, mocking rhythm against the glass. The wood was buckling, the iron-bound edge of the door bowing inward as Raxel Durn’s men hammered away at their own salvation."Drovian!" Vane shrieked, his voice cracking. He scrambled from beneath the table, his eyes wide, fixed on the door. "They’re going to breach! If they get through, they’ll tear us apart before you can even draw a breath!""Breathe less, focus more," Drovian muttered. He reached into his belt, pulling out a small, serrated paring knife. He didn't look at his hands; he kept his gaze fixed on the door, watching the rhythmic distortion of the oak grain as every blow tested the integrity of his improvised wedge. "They are loud, Vane. That is their greatest weakness. They want to be heard. They want to be feared

The man dropped his broadsword, his hand suddenly useless, a fountain of bright arterial red pulsing rhythmically against the stone floor. He didn't even have time to scream before Drovian’s second blade—a thick-bladed boning knife—found the soft gap in the guard's gorget. It was a clean, clinical insertion. The man slumped, dead before he hit the floorboards, his body serving as a human speed bump for the next two attackers charging through the splintered frame."He’s down!" one shouted, stepping over his comrade’s corpse. "The Butcher is compromised! Surround him!"Drovian didn’t wait for them to form a perimeter. He kicked the discarded broadsword, sending it skittering across the floor, catching the second attacker in the shin. As the man buckled, Drovian stepped into the center of the chaos, his movements devoid of wasted energy. He felt the familiar, cold detachment of the butcher’s block. To him, these men weren't soldiers or heroes; they were meat, bone, and connective tissue,

"You finished everything, Drovian, except the only thing that mattered," Raxel Durn stepped into the room, his long coat heavy with water, dripping onto the floorboards. Each drop sounded like a ticking clock in the unnatural silence of the tavern. "You finished the lords, the guilds, and the fools who thought they could trade in your skin. But you didn't finish me."Drovian didn't shift his weight. He kept his feet planted firmly, the wooden floor groaning beneath his boots. "I left you alive at the border because you were a professional, Raxel. I thought you had the sense to recognize when a hunt had turned into a suicide mission."Durn let out a dry, hacking laugh, reaching for the hilt of his blade—a long, slender estoc designed for puncture, not hacking. "A professional? Is that what you call it? I lost three fingers to your 'butcher's precision' back in the valley, and my reputation lies in the dirt with every tavern-keep now singing songs about the man who broke the Sword Saint

"If you lunge, I won't even need to parry," Drovian repeated, his voice devoid of malice, sounding more like a craftsman lecturing an apprentice on a flawed joint. "I'll just step inside your arc, and you’ll have a hole in your lung before your tip clears the scabbard."Raxel Durn’s eyes twitched. He pulled the estoc from its sheath with a hiss of cold steel against leather. The blade caught the dim flicker of a dying lantern hanging from a rotted ceiling beam. "Arrogance is a terminal disease, Drovian. Let’s see if your hands are as steady as your tongue."Durn didn't wait for a response. He lunged, a blur of motion fueled by months of obsession and cold, biting rain. The estoc was a silver streak in the gloom, aimed directly for Drovian’s throat. It was a perfect, textbook thrust—fast, precise, and lethal.Drovian didn't retreat. He pivoted on his left boot, a movement so slight it looked like a tremor. The tip of the estoc whistled through the space where his neck had been a fracti

"You're leaning on your dead foot again," Drovian muttered, the sound swallowed by the howling rain drumming against the rotting shingles overhead.Raxel’s breath came in ragged, burning gasps, fogging the damp air between their faces as they locked together in a desperate, straining grapple. The estoc was trapped between them, pinned flat against the grime-caked floorboards by Drovian’s heavy, calloused palm. Every muscle in Raxel’s body trembled with the desperate effort to wrench the blade free, his boots slipping and sliding in the puddle of rainwater and spilled ale pooling beneath their feet."I'll cut you apart," Raxel wheezed, spittle flying from his lips as he shoved his weight forward, trying to crush Drovian’s ribs against the splintered wooden bar counter. "I've spent years tracking you across the borderlands. I didn't come here to listen to a retired butcher lecture me on footwork!""Then you should have practiced your stance," Drovian replied calmly, his voice entirely d