Hawk (Vlad) Read Online Free

at the best of times—and already panting from the exertion of surviving a fight is hardly the best of times. How much time did I have before I blacked out, then died? Twenty seconds? Twenty-five? I think Loiosh said something into my mind, but I didn’t have the attention to spare.
    My first thought was Lady Teldra, but I was too disoriented; I had no idea which way to move, and whatever odd arcane sense might have told me where she was, was too busy screaming about getting air.
    And my right arm still wasn’t working.
    Seriously. This was starting to become a problem.
    I had a knife in my hand. A fighting knife—mostly blade. It was good for cutting and slashing bellies and faces; it was never made for stabbing, or, if you will, puncturing. But it did have a point—ask the guy who’d just tasted it.
    If there’s no other way, you can always cut your own throat.
    I really, really, really do not recommend this as a way to pass an evening. Listening to someone with a monotonous voice recite an epic poem in a language you don’t speak while you’re hungry and need to find a privy is better than cutting your own throat. Well, okay, maybe as bad. Fortunately, I didn’t have time to think about it; if I had, I probably wouldn’t have done it.
    I was, somehow, on my knees, and black splotches were forming in front of my eyes. I found the spot with the fingers of my left hand. My left hand was still holding the knife, so I gave myself a shallow cut on the right side of my neck, just so I’d be able to feel stupid later when I realized it. My fingers searched my neck. Take your time. Breathe! There’s the throat-knob, now down— Need need need to breathe!
    I slid the point in. It hurt. Harder than sliding the knife in, though, was not sliding it in too far; you don’t have much leeway in there before going all the way through the windpipe, or even nailing an artery, and if I did that I’d see a red spray through the black splotches, and then nothing, ever. Worse (though I didn’t give it any thought at the time) was that, while I had made a very careful and thorough study of Dragaeran anatomy, I hadn’t ever bothered to find out the differences between Dragaeran and human. But, like I said, I didn’t think about that as I was doing it; this was just not the moment to consider that, and, as the man said, there was no time to learn it now.
    But here I am talking to you, so I must have managed it.
    I held the knife where it was, sticking out of my throat, then I twisted it a little to open a gap for air. That really hurt. I leaned forward so the blood would flow out that way instead of going down my throat and making me cough.
    And I inhaled.
    Let me summarize: It was absolutely no fun at all.
    And yet, I’ll tell you, that first rush of air felt so good, I wondered why I had never thought of doing this before.
    Then I almost fell on my face, but with the knife still stuck in my throat holding my windpipe open, that would have been a tactical error. I reminded myself that, if I didn’t do something fast, I’d just bleed to death, and having gone through all the work of cutting my own throat only to have it prove useless would be more annoyance than I could stand. Of course, if the other assassin was still lurking nearby, and he managed to find me, the whole thing was moot. And I couldn’t see how he wouldn’t.
    But you deal with one problem at a time.
    “Boss!”
    I couldn’t concentrate enough to make a coherent reply. My right arm wasn’t working, and my left was weak, and getting weaker. I knew I’d been badly stabbed in the side; I couldn’t tell exactly where, which was almost certainly a bad sign. But I became aware, then, of Lady Teldra; maybe six feet away. I went toward her, trying to move the knife as little as possible while walking on my knees, until, just short of where I needed to be, my knees refused to work any more and the world started spinning. I became aware that I was on my side and I