A single quarter of a single second can be all it takes to mean the difference between life and death upon the sands. As she had suspected the man had a blowgun and was making to fire it toward her face, a futile effort that died upon the steel of her axe blade before it could so much as even create enough difference in pressure or momentum to even catch her attention. She had spun away from the direction, his left, that he had turned, and launched a left-to-right slash toward his head as he fired with the blowgun, and short of his having superhuman reflexes there would be no chance that his right arm, having just spun left, was going to get to her halberd blade in time to stop it, or with enough force to actually stop her slash. She was three quarters of his size, but had the massive advantage of having been moving dead on toward him and stepping into her slash, while he would be depending on the upper body strength of a single arm alone to try and stop her blow. He didn’t look three quarters the size he would need to be to outweigh her advantage in speed with his sheer mass alone, and she was entirely sure that within a quarter of a second she’d have knocked his teeth in at the least. 

Firing across her body the long way around and as she was tucking to the right, and considering the arm and the polearm in between his blowgun and her face the chances of making a meaningful contact with her face with a solid projectile had been almost zero. What she couldn’t have seen coming, didn’t see coming and wouldn’t even have had the time to react to if she had was an actual liquid strike against her, still of dubious efficacy considering he was firing past a solid obstacle across his body and toward a moving opponent, but the single action of her having thrust forward, downward and to the right with a tucked elbow and the precision of a master combatant would give him the opening he would need. Had she continued charging, had she struck at a different angle or even moved past him before striking he would have had absolutely no chance from this angle, but she had not. She wasted exactly no moments with her actions, and struck with as absolute a precision as any normal human could have. This placed her half helm’s top left quarter, and the tip of a visible eye ball just in sight from Zande’s perspective. 

There was no precedent for an actual liquid attack from a mouth operated weapon system in the wastes. Liquid weapons in the form of acid in vials did exist, and were used frequently as lobbing projectiles much in the same manner as burning pitch in other cultures, but that could neither be held in the mouth nor spit through a blowgun. Only a quarter of a second had passed, her strike would either land or somehow be deflected by the clearly inferior positioned opponent with his right arm alone and from a standstill which would prompt her to immediately draw and thrust forward with her punch dagger into his then open neck or, should he lean backwards and swing around with his axe to connect with her weapon from his own right side into his flank. He had almost certainly worked himself into an unworkable position, but his gambit would find itself proven effective, if only barely. The chances of hitting her right side of her face from his position were near zero, but her arm, her polearm, and her angle coupled with the manner of her strike put the smallest amount of an eye visible and open to her own left. Her mind wouldn’t have time to react before her strike would land. 

That did not change the fact that a single globule, as though itself propelled forward in a time and place slower and clear as crystal in quality of picture, moved past its fellows who landed harmlessly upon her polearm, the arm behind it, her half helm and her pauldron and landed true, mostly caught in her eyelash and the slightest corner of the smallest of particles visible by humans landing directly in the white of the top left portion of her left eye. It wouldn’t register or have any effect in the time it would take her to hit him, or even to draw and strike with her punch dagger should he somehow manage to block her strike, but it had landed and would register. An attack like this could not have been predicted, would not have been understood by those in attendance least of all Aibhilin. There were no spitting cobras in the wastes. No one here knew of anything that was venomous but could be held in the mouth before spitting it into a person’s eyes without harming oneself. It was not going to cause the damage a full strike in the face would have, but it was toxic and would be painful. Within a second she would understand. 

This however was a quarter of a second. By waiting until she struck he had ensured his secondary gambit would have the maximum chance of success. It would also give him the least chance of stopping her from clobbering him to death in the next moment of his life, she was upon him now and it was far too late to roll away without her running him through with the spear point upon her halberd. Should he somehow survive the second to see her overcome with the pain her mind would rack her with in an attempt to convince her to wash her eye out in time to save it, however, her advantage would naturally wain. It wasn’t effective like a sword through the gut or an axe cleaving off a limb was effective. Those stopped people based upon the instantaneous drop in blood pressure, something no grasp over your own mental fortitude would grant you the strength to overcome. She would fight through the pain if he wasn’t dead yet, but she would soon be half blind and dealing with the erratic screaming of a mind whose prerogative to save its own left eye takes precedence over allowing the woman whose skin the brain wore peace of mind in her continued life and death struggle upon the sands.