He wasn’t sure what happened next. He had his knives out, she was right there in front of him, and then her elbow smashed into his face, shattering his nose and blinding him with pain. And somehow both thrusts he sent her way, one seeking the soft spot just beneath her sternum, the other striking lower down, both failed. One blocked, the other missing entirely, dagger point driving into the wall she’d been leaning against.
The blow to his face turned his knees to water, but only for the briefest of mo shy;ments, for Seba Krafar was a bull of a man, a brawler. Damage was something to shake off and then just get on with it, and so, shoulder hunching, he attempted a slanting slash, trying to gut the bitch right then and there.
Something hard hammered his wrist, sending the dagger flying, and bones cracked in his arm. As he stumbled back, tugging the other knife from the wall, he attempted a frantic thrust to keep her off him. She caught his wrist and her thumb was like an iron nail, impaling the base of his palm. The knife dropped from senseless fingers. She then took that arm and twisted it hard round, pushing his shoulder down and so forcing his head to follow.
Where it met a rising knee.
An already broken nose struck again, struck even harder, in fact, is not some shy;thing that can be shaken off. Stunned, not a sliver of will left in his brain, he landed on his back. Some instinct made him roll, up against the legs of his desk, and he heaved himself upright once more.
The quarrel took him low on the right side, just above his hip, glancing off the innominate bone and slicing messily through his liver.
Seba Krafar sagged back down, into a slump with his back against the desk.
With streaming eyes he looked across at the woman.
Malazan, right. She’d been a soldier once. No, she’d been a Bridgeburner. He used to roll his eyes at that. A Bridgeburner? So what? Just some puffed up ooh-ah crap. Seba was an assassin. Blood kin to Talo Krafar and now there was a monster of a man-
Who’d been taken down by a quarrel. Killed like a boar in a thicket.
