Hawk (Vlad) Read Free Page B

drew a Morganti longsword and had a dagger in the other hand, and he was showing every sign of knowing how to use them. The sword came down in a fast arc from my left, toward my head. I took a step back and parried with Lady Teldra, while drawing a fighting knife from behind my back, but he was awfully quick, and very good, and there was what at first felt like a dull, weak thud in my right arm just at the elbow, but then there was a whole lot of pain, then there was numbness and Lady Teldra dropped to the ground; then there was panic. Well, almost.
    He came at me with both blades then; I stepped back, tried to draw my rapier, but my right arm wasn’t working. He missed me, and then came in again, both weapons from the same angle, this time coming down from my right. I didn’t have a clear idea of what was behind me. I couldn’t look. Loiosh and Rocza were a long, long way away. My primary hand was disabled, and he had a Morganti sword and a long fighting knife coming at me. More important, Lady Teldra was on the ground and I kept getting farther away from her. And this guy may not have been the best assassin I’d ever met, but he was an awfully good fighter.
    I was becoming concerned.
    I took a step back and to my left as he struck again, this time the blades coming from completely different angles; I only just barely avoided the knife. I felt wetness on my right hand, which meant there was some feeling there, and it was bleeding. I threw my knife at him, aiming at his chest. It hit him point-first, which wasn’t bad for a left-hand shot, but there wasn’t enough strength for it to stick. It checked his progress for a moment. The good news was, a whole lot of the stuff I keep around to throw was set up to be drawn with my left hand, figuring I’d have a more convincing argument in my right. I drew out three shuriken and sent them at him, and one went into his cheek, making him pause again. I tested my right hand to see if I could do anything with it yet. I couldn’t. I continued circling to my left, hoping to make my way to Lady Teldra; if I could pick her up, I knew she could heal me.
    He apparently figured out what I was doing—which was disturbing on several levels—and moved to interpose himself. For the first time, I got a look at him: a narrow face, dead gray eyes, broad shoulders, hair cut short enough to be bristles. Neither of us said a word.
    I carelessly threw a handful of darts in his direction—he couldn’t know that I hadn’t gotten around to dabbing poison on them—and pulled a knife from my boot. Then, with the same motion, I stepped in to him, committing everything I had to a shot at his right arm, hoping for a combination of surprise and an unexpected angle of attack from inside the arc of that big fucking sword.
    I got it; the knife sank in, and something connected with my right side, feeling like I’d been punched there, but I had gotten a good, satisfying thrust at his sword arm. The Morganti sword fell slowly, like I could watch it spinning on the way down. And with the same slowness, I drew the blade from his arm at the same time as he pulled his from my side.
    Insofar as you do anything that can be called thinking in situations like that, what I thought was that he’d either stoop to pick up his Morganti weapon, or, more likely, stab me again with the knife in his left hand. I didn’t figure him to punch me in the throat.
    I drove my knife up under his chin at the same time as he brought his right fist into my throat. He hit my throat in the right place—I mean, for him—and really, really hard.
    I’d gotten him. Yay.
    Now all I had to do was figure out a way to breathe.
    His knees went, and he started to go down; it seemed to me that it was only then that the Morganti sword hit the ground. I don’t know. Most of my attention was on my throat; my brain was screaming that it really wanted some air, please. Right now.
    When your windpipe is crushed, you can go maybe a minute or two