SOLVED. Fantasy, sword and sorcery. Read in late 70s or 1980. Female protagonist similar to Red Sonja, but not her. Villain that could only be killed by fulfilling a prophecy to strike him "A thousand times with a thousand swords" [s]

[Ken]

I think there were two books in a series. Possibly more, but I only recall two. The female sword-fighting protagonist was the main character of both. Chain-mail bikini, etc. I think long red hair. I believe she was the sole PoV character.

It was kind of a low-fantasy setting. I don't remember any magic, outside of the villains.

I'm not sure if the "1000 swords prophecy" villain was the first book or second. He had the ability to make people see illusions. I seem to remember his name started with L, but not certain.

Spoiler re/ how this villain was defeated:

(view spoiler)[They put two mirrors facing each other, so when he was stabbed one time, the reflections made it look like 1000 swords hitting him. (hide spoiler)]

The other book had a villain named "Pyre" who was a man with a toad's head, I think.

Other characters I remember:
--a virgin princess who was captured for some villainous ritual. She evaded this by: (view spoiler)[well... let's just say she stopped being a virgin (hide spoiler)]

--a barrel chested strong man who didn't believe in keys. He "locked" doors by bending a metal bar across them that nobody else could move. He locks up some of the heroes at some point, but they escape by
(view spoiler)[bending the metal bar because one of them turned out to be as strong as he was (hide spoiler)]

That's all I can remember. Any help is appreciated.

[Ky]

Ahah, this is the character Tiana of Reme from Demon in the Mirror by Andrew J. Offutt. This is the first in a trilogy. I kind of remember the princess but not the strong man who didn't believe in using keys so that may have been in either The Eyes Of Sarsis or Web Of The Spider. Pyre of Ice is the wizard who is sometimes Tiana's antagonist.

[Ken]

Yes! That's it. Thank you.

I was going to post an update where I said I think her name started with T. But then I figured why bother, since nobody responded anyway. I didn't think anyone would ever get it.

I was also starting to think I had some of the details confused with Thieves' World, so I'm not surprised to see that this author also contributed to that.

So, I might be wrong about the strong man being in this series. He could be in the second book maybe. Reading through the descriptions on Goodreads, it looks like the princess may have been in Eyes of Sarsis also.

Anyway, thanks again for the response.

[Ky]

I'm glad I could find the book for you. It might have been worth it to bump it. I found this post only because I've been trawling the older posts since I find it helps jog my own memory about books I've read, and I think this post was back in the low 100s when I came across it.