The grand dining pavilion, which only moments earlier had hummed with sweet flutes and clinking porcelain, turned into an open butcher's pen.
Shrieks ripped through the air as dark-masked killers poured past the smashed cedar doors.
They came in waves, armed with curved sabers, hooked polearms, and serrated iron daggers.
The paralysis from the poison had already turned nine out of every ten guests into helpless sacks of meat lying limp beneath the tables.
"Protect the main table! Stand your ground!"
A desperate roar rose from the few family guards and branch elders who had only taken half a cup of wine or had arrived late to the feast.
A fierce battle of those who can still move against the assassins erupted across the polished floor.
An elder from the western armory, his knees wobbling from the creeping numbness in his veins, pulled a massive broadsword from his belt and slammed it into the neck of the first charging assassin.
