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Julian was going to backpedal. There was no reason to expect anything else. She was clearly rattled already, and stalling for time -- what reason could she possibly have to step forward, then?

But that was exactly what she did. As Nathaniel approached, sword upraised to deliver a heavy stroke and knock her weapon from her hands, she didn't even try to block it. Instead, she simply lunged forward, raising her own weapon.

A ploy, then. No matter. There was still ample time for a swordsman as skilled as Nathaniel to deflect a strike from such an untrained and feeble opponent. It would be a simple matter to pull his own attack, parry the blow, wind his blade over her guard, and then force the weapon from her hands.

Or, well, he was probably thinking something like that. Julian wouldn't know -- she didn't know anything more about swordsmanship than what she had heard of in books about knights and fantasy stories. But whatever his plan might have been, he probably was at least expecting her to [i]actually swing at him.[/i]

But no swing came.

Instead, the hand she had hidden inside her pocket came darting up and a curtain of blinding, itching, scratching [i]pain[/i] filled his vision as, of all things, a handful of [i]sand[/i], meticulously collected from the riverbank that morning and saved for this very moment, was hurled directly in his face. Her last resort, and strongest weapon had finally been unleashed, as, deprived of every other trick she could think of, she was forced to fall back upon the very first teachings of the school of hard knocks: when in doubt, go for the eyes.

Caught off-balanced by his own attack, this would in turn open the way for teaching number two: if they can't stop you, go for the legs. A swift kick was aimed at his shin, then, a moment later, she rammed her shoulder up against his chest, aiming to knock him to the ground, before finally...

The match would only end when someone was disarmed. So, in this moment of golden opportunity, all that was left was to whack the crap out of his hand until he let go of his sword!

...In her defense, he [i]had[/i] asked her to "be done with this." So really, she was just obliging his request by ending things as quickly as she could. And so quick it was that most of the crowd probably wouldn't even have time to shift their attention from the overly-flashy duel happening in the next arena over before Julian's ruthless counterattack was already complete -- leaving them in silence as they wondered what had just happened.