crash open with a thunderous clamor. Pale, wan, fading sunlight silhouettes the massive figure in the portal, casting him in shadow...he staggers in, almost as if drunk...

suddenly, in the eerie half-light of the bar, it is plain to see that he is covered in a sticky, red liquid from had to toe...his eyes are dull, with a vacant, far-off look, his hair is wild, matted with gore...

His clothing is in tatters, his cloak torn, and his leather breeches are smeared with crimson vitae. These things, however, are not what immdeiately draws one's attention...

What catches the eye is the still-dripping falcata, steam roiling off of the recently used business end of the weapon...

And, in the Brigantian warlord's left hand, four severed heads, their swollen tongues protruding grotesquely from their now-silent mouths, eyes rolled back in their sockets in a hideous death-agony, spinal columns hanging in bloody lumps from the stumps where their necks came away from their heads...

Tell me, Egyptians, rumbles Culann in a bear-like growl are all of your native varlets really crazy anough to attack a six-and-a-half foot Celt with a razor-sharp falcata and a bad attitude in broad daylight?

With that, the towering Brigantian drops unceremoniously to one knee, clutching a gaping wound in his left side, near his kidney...