Each of her tattoos was a story of survival. Her body was covered in them, and as her eyes narrowed at the cannibal, she was unshakably certain that she would add one more [i]when[/i] she got out of this one alive. She too, was no fool-- for one, it be idiocy to commit her last spell to a move that she was well aware the cannibal could dodge. No, this Binding Contract wasn't a trap. It was bait.

Zande made a monstrous leap over the last spell Tanya had the strength to write into the world, and brought the axe down like a thunderbolt. With all the speed that Tanya had, the same burst of acceleration that had let her dodge Zande's ferocious kick, she dove low as he jumped high and stretched her fingers out to her dropped knife. She gripped the handle as the axe came down and focused her will to the blade, flinging the handful of feathers that stuck to it like shrapnel from underneath and behind the crazed cannibal. The Hot Steppa would probably bury itself next to her left shoulderblade at the same time her last feathers sliced through Zande's skin, but with the patterns of her wings still floating behind her, she prayed it wouldn't be fatal. This was one more desperate move-- the last she made before she felt the velvet of unconsciousness press at the edges of her vision.