I hadn't thought of this story as sword-and-sorcery. Hmm. Another point in its favor.
Seconding an earlier comment, Mur Lafferty was a great choice to read this story. I could believe she might be scared, but that she might also throw a knife into the back of my skull.
And knife-throwing and swordfighting, after being hungry and chained for three days? Those are some action story tropes, and once I started split-screening it in my head, between our heroine and the butt-chinned action hero from Central Casting who might have been given the part in a less interesting version of the story, it didn't bother me one bit. (It did make me question what I think of as "normal" in stories like this, though.)