Disarm

Thus, even as I jumped down from the final table, he began to slice the blade up toward the child’s throat. She shrieked as it approached her. But I struck out with the hilt of my own blade, driving it hard into the temple of my opponent so that he fell backward, stunned, the weapon falling from his hand.

It did not pay to kill such a being wantonly. The Shaiksa never forget, and even as one lay close to death, his dying mind could reach out over a great distance to tell his brothers the name and location of his slayer. So it was pragmatism, not mercy, that had guided my hand.

B11 C6