16. Hornhead

The ambush opens with Kinch loosing an arrow at the swift scout he calls Deerpants while a massive spear glances off Galva’s shield. Norrigal’s animated staff saves Kinch from a hurled axe and then batters Deerpants, but the battle explodes on multiple fronts as Hornhead (Marrus) presses Galva with a mace and two more brigands clash with a suddenly appearing war corvid.

Kinch is knocked sprawling, tangles with the armored axe-man, and grapples again with Deerpants, narrowly avoiding her knife before the corvid drags her off him. He sees Hornhead’s tattoos deflect Galva’s blade and sprints to read the magic. Recognizing Old Kesh runes—“True Hand Turns” with a shield pictograph—Kinch tests an attack that glances harmlessly off, confirming the protection favors Hornhead’s dominant side.

Kinch shouts for Galva to strike with her off hand. Galva drops the shield, switches hands, and drives her short sword up beneath Hornhead’s mail skirt, breaking his defense. As Hornhead collapses, Kinch steps behind him and cuts his throat. The corvid savages the axe-man, while Deerpants, bleeding and furious, assesses the field and flees into the dark. Norrigal lies stunned, her staff inert, likely overwhelmed by screams that crashed through her amplified hearing.

In the aftermath, Kinch notices one of Galva’s raven tattoos is gone and the skin is bloody—revealing the war corvid was a disguised, enchanted tattoo she can release only by shedding her dampening mail. With Hornhead dead, the fight ends; Deerpants escapes, and the trio regroups on the riverbank, bloodied but alive.