Maybe the writer Ron Miller was in fact Jim Theis, who published this book under a pseudonym to escape the unfortunate notoriety The Eye of Argon gave him. Does Spikenard then kills Bronwyn by "sheathing a foot of blinding steel in her organs of sight, sprinkling the dismal alley with her escaping life fluid"?

I personally would not want to screw someone whose tongue has stinging cells on it.
But maybe that's just me.