Here's My take:

quote:

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The smell of burning hair and boiling blood rose from the pot, filling the little room with an unsettling stench. Otho Good Eye [opened one eye and closed it again. His<--Is this important? If not, I suggest cutting it so that Otho Good Eye is doing something.] fingers tightened on the smooth stone in the palm of his hand, preparing to hurl it at [the<--[Suggest using a because this is introducing the shadow to the reader.] squat shadow behind the veil of smoke. There came a sound, like steel grating on stone, and Otho’s eyes snapped open. Two coal-black eyes peered at him over the mouth of the bubbling pot, then vanished. The old man[Who is this?] had jumped up and was moving towards him[Who is this?], parting the smoke like a dagger through mist. [A slender length of black wood was held<--[Passive, maybe put:He held a black piece of wood] rigidly at his side, [bristling with curving thorns<--[What was? His side?].

“Kal’shathi!” the man croaked [Who is this?], spitting what looked like black blood fom his lips. "Kal’shathi rosh!”

Then the old man hit Otho with his fanged staff, again and again, before Otho could so much as lift his hand.<--[This is the first sentence in which I can distinguish, for certain, who the old man is. And it changed from a piece of wood to a staff.] Pain exploded in his skull. The room tipped [once more<--[When did it originally tip into darkness?] into darkness, and Otho was falling again[Again, I feel like I've missed something.], down into the [deep black of a bottomless<--is a tad too much. Bottomless would naturally be pictured as deep/pitch/jet black--so it's both redundnat and cliche.] well.

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All in all, I think it's good. Cleaned up, I'd read on.

Nice use of metaphors (which some will think are too thick, but you won't please everyone).

Nice choice of names--Otho Good Eye evokes an image, a viking-like or barbaric image.

Nice use of sound.

About the use of smell: what does "burning hair" smell like (especially when it fills a little room)? What does "boiling blood" smell like? And "unsettling stench" does little good when one cannot associate the other smells. I know that sometimes smells are all their own, but smell is so closely related to taste, that hair may leave a taste on your toungue (or blood, which is often related to copper or metal). I've smelled the cloying stench of burning hair filling a room, and it is thick and sour...but, I'd suggest you do an experiment: Light a lock of hair afire and put an overturned cup over it. The fire will burn itself out, but not before filling the glass with smoke. A couple of separate sniffs will make your description more accurate.