Low moved through the undergrowth with the stealth of a hunting mongoose, her small frame a fleeting shadow amidst the tangled roots and fallen leaves.
Borin sat propped against a tree, the very tree Leonotis was now tied to, idly sharpening a curved skinning axe on a whetstone. He hummed a tuneless, grating melody, blissfully unaware of her silent, deadly approach. Each scrape of stone on steel set Low's teeth on edge.
Leonotis, facing away from Borin but able to see the edge of the clearing from where he was bound, watched her arrival with a surge of desperate hope. His singed hands, tied cruelly tight behind him, throbbed with a fiery agony that made his vision blur, but his eyes, when they met Low's for a split second, held a spark of rekindled, defiant fire. He gave the slightest, almost imperceptible nod.
Low reached the edge of the clearing, her bare feet making no sound on the thick carpet of mossy ground. She took a deep, steadying breath, the crisp scent of pine and damp earth mingling with the sharp, unavoidable metallic tang of Leonotis's blood that had guided her here.
A surge of cold, controlled fury welled up within her, a feeling so intense it felt almost physical, a tightening in her chest, a humming in her ears. This oaf, this careless brute, was part of the group that had hurt Leonotis, that had treated him like an animal.
She moved. Not with her usual hesitant, scavenging steps, born of years of avoiding notice, but with a newfound, explosive fluidity, a coiled spring of primal energy unleashed.
The hunter, Borin, startled by the sudden flicker of movement at the edge of his peripheral vision, scrambled clumsily to his feet, the sharpened axe flashing in his meaty hand as he registered the small, darting figure.
He lunged, a clumsy, telegraphed overhand swing that, a few days ago, would have easily caught the old Low, the one who relied on luck and speed born of fear.
But this Low, the one forged in recent fire and infused with an inexplicable new awareness, saw the movement before it fully registered in his dull eyes. It was as if time had subtly stretched, fractured into a thousand tiny moments, allowing her to perceive the shift in his considerable weight, the tightening of his brutish grip, the almost imperceptible telegraphing of his shoulders.
She sidestepped with liquid grace, the heavy blade whistling past her ear with a sound like tearing silk, the wind of its passage ruffling her hair.
Borin grunted in surprise, his small, piggish eyes widening slightly at her unexpected agility. He swung again, a wider, more powerful horizontal arc meant to cleave her in two.
Low ducked beneath it, her spine bending with an impossible ease she hadn't known she possessed, the axe head passing inches above her. Her muscles felt coiled and ready, her limbs light and astonishingly responsive. It was as if the very air around her hummed with a faint, empowering energy, guiding her, amplifying her movements.
He came at her a third time, a frustrated, bestial snarl escaping his lips. This time, he feinted high, a crude attempt at deception, then brought the axe down in a brutal, two-handed chop aimed at her shoulder, a blow meant to maim if not kill.
But Low was already moving, her reflexes, sharpened to a razor's edge, seemed to anticipate his intent before he fully committed to the strike. She twisted her torso with a dancer's precision, the heavy blade grazing her arm, leaving a thin, stinging red line – a shock of pain – but it was a flesh wound, far from the intended crippling blow.
The hunter stared at her, his initial surprise morphing into a dim, confused anger. His confidence was visibly shaken. He was bigger, stronger by far, heavily armed – yet this scrawny, slip of a girl was moving like a phantom, a wind-sprite, evading his every attack with an almost casual, infuriating grace. He couldn't understand it. He'd fought wildcats with more predictable moves.
Low, meanwhile, felt a strange, fierce exhilaration cutting through the pain in her arm. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, a familiar companion. But it was overshadowed, almost eclipsed, by a burgeoning sense of power, a thrilling awareness of her own capabilities.
The harsh years of scraping for survival in the orphanage, the constant adrenaline of their recent escapes, the strange, potent magic they had encountered – it felt as if it had all coalesced within her, awakening something ancient, something dormant, something powerful.
She saw an opening as Borin shifted his weight ponderously for another clumsy, enraged swing. Instead of simply dodging, she exploded forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Her hand, small but surprisingly strong, shot out and clamped onto his thick wrist with the tenacity of a steel trap, halting the axe mid-swing.
His eyes widened further in genuine shock, not just at her speed, but at the unyielding strength in her grip.
This wasn't the weak, fearful, easily intimidated orphan girl he'd dismissed at a glance. This was something… different. Something that had been forged in the crucible of hardship and inexplicably tempered by something wild and fierce.
An idea sparked, primal and instinctive, a solution born of desperation and this newfound, vibrating energy. Her gaze fell upon a large, jagged rock half-buried in the leaf litter beside the tree line. It was heavy, easily thirty pounds, the kind of stone she would have struggled to even lift properly a few days ago.
Now, however, that strange, empowering energy thrummed insistently beneath her skin, a newfound, almost intoxicating strength she hadn't yet begun to fully comprehend but was eager to unleash.
With a silent, focused surge of adrenaline, Low moved. She darted towards the stone, her movements fluid and swift, surprising even herself with their efficiency. The bounty hunter, still trying to wrench his axe-hand free from her unexpectedly vise-like grip, could barely register her shift in focus until the last moment.
His eyes, already wide, threatened to bulge from their sockets as Low, with a grunt of effort, hefted the jagged rock. It felt surprisingly, almost impossibly, light in her hands, the rough edges digging into her palms, a welcome, grounding sensation.
Before he could react, before he could even form a word of warning or a bellow of mockery, Low pivoted, her whole body uncoiling, and swung with all her might.
The rock hurtled through the air, a crude but brutally effective projectile. It struck the bounty hunter squarely on the side of his thick skull with a sickening, resonant thunk.
His eyes rolled back in their sockets until only the whites showed. His face, moments before contorted with rage and confusion, went slack with stunned disbelief. His massive frame wobbled precariously for a long moment, like a felled tree, then crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap, his axe clattering harmlessly beside him into the dirt.