Temple Hill - Drew Karpyshyn [37]
Some of Lhasha's cavalier attitude must have rubbed off on him.
The men stood still, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the blackness of the room. Corin's only advantage was the fact that his eyes had already adjusted to the dark, it would take a couple minutes before his opponents would be able to pierce the dark well enough to see him in the deep shadows. He moved fast, hoping the gloom could compensate for his lack of a weapon.
He struck with lethal precision, bracing his stump against the back of one man's neck and wrapping his other arm around his target's forehead. One sharp pull and the man's neck broke with a barely audible crack of vertebrae.
As the body slumped to the floor, Corin yanked the short blade from the inert grasp of his first victim. The other two assassins struck out with their own daggers, zeroing in on Corin's location through the sounds of the kill. Then-blows were uncannily accurate, knives slicing the air in a pattern designed to disembowel their unseen foe.
Corin had thrown himself clear, rolling in a backward somersault across Lhasha's bed and landing on his feet on the other side, placing the canopied mattress between himself and his attackers. The would be assassins paused, heads tilted at odd angles as they tried to sense Corin's new location.
The aggressive stance his opponents now assumed did not resemble men facing an unknown, unseen enemy. Somehow they knew where he was… they could feel him. Corin had heard stories of warriors who were able to do battle even in the dead of a moonless night, sensing their opponents only through sound and motion. Blind fighting, it was called. Obviously the stories were true.
Corin hefted the assassin's dagger, trying to get a feel for its weight and balance. He was used to handling a sword, and the tiny blade felt awkward in his hand. There was no sense of substance. It was too small to parry an incoming attack, too short to strike a killing blow without getting in very close, closer than Corin wanted to get.
He studied the shadowy forms of the men across the bed from him, focusing on the way they held their knives out in front of them, moving the blades in slow side to side circles. There was no hint of the awkwardness Corin felt while wielding the unfamiliar weapon.
Corin briefly considered calling for help, but decided against it. His enemies had a vague sense of where he was, and if he closed to engage them their sightless fighting ability would enable them to meet his attack. If he stayed silent and motionless, they still would have trouble locating him precisely. Calling for help would give his exact position away, and for all he knew the knives were balanced for throwing. So Corin kept quiet, and still.
If Corin waited too long, the Masks' own eyes would adjust enough for them to make him out in the darkness. It was time to act. He dropped flat to the floor behind the bed. Even as Corin's body struck the hardwood he heard the thunk of a dagger plunging into the wall above him. One of his foes had keyed in on Corin's movement, and with a flick of the wrist had launched a nearly fatal strike.
Corin used the momentum of his fall to roll under the bed in one smooth motion. An attacker dived across the top of the mattress and landed on the other side, throwing himself toward the sound of his foe in an effort to get in close enough to use his dagger. Corin's stump swept out from beneath the bed and knocked the Mask's feet out from under him. As the assassin hit the floor, Corin lashed out from his hiding spot with the knife, burying it deep in the man's side. He felt the blade penetrate the chest wall, slicing through the tough tissue between the ribs. Corin twisted the blade and drove it in farther. The muffled screams of the man told Corin he had punctured a lung, and the warm, sticky fluid spurting out from the wound meant he was sure to die soon.
From his spot beneath the bed, Corin saw the feet of