The burst of vigor is a tangible thing—hot metal taste like a coin between the teeth or blood in the mouth. It, or the weight of the sword, or just Flint's weight properly thrown serves to shatter the Crow's guard in the same moment that the crutch racks hard across one of her ankles. She staggers, forgoing any chance at catching her balance for keeping both knives in hand so that when Flint turns the heavy falchion and makes to stab down after her, she may yet punch up—striking his wrist hard with the pommel of her dagger and popping loose his grip on the sword.

If not for that spark running through him, he wouldn't be quick enough to retaliate with a hard kick to her off elbow. The Crow's second knife might have slashed hard across the back of his thigh and dropped him. Instead the elbow cracks with an involuntary pained cry. The knife skitters away to the same ungainly clatter of metal as the falchion, and Flint falls on her rather than away.

The alley permits little room for swordplay, but plenty for viciously grappling after the remaining knife between them. Allegedly. Engaged from the ground, the Crow strikes her heel once on the uneven paving stones. The trick knife in her shoe blooms at the toe of her boot, and with the deftness of a circus acrobat—