PANTHEONS

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER 8

    Pain exploded inside my belly, but I ignored it. I stood up slowly, gritting my teeth in my frustration at having been caught off guard. I didn’t know who Tyrell thought he was, but I wasn’t going to let him push me around. I spread my legs apart for stability and held out both of my fists. I took a deep breath and allowed my body to relax, and then I began to bounce up and down on the tips of my toes.

    “Good form,” Tyrell said, studying my movements. “Now, let’s make things a little more interesting.”

    As I bounced upwards, the spiritual room shifted and became distorted, and then we were no longer inside, but outside, just like that. I could see trees to either side of me, and the open sky above me. In the distance, I could make out some mountains as well. Tyrell and I had a large log underneath us, which floated down a swift river. The transportation from inside the blue padded room to the great outdoors had been so sudden I had no time to prepare myself, and so as I came down from my bounce on the tips of my toes, my foot slipped on the log beneath me and I fell, landing awkwardly on my left side, and hard. I gasped in pain.

    “A godling who can only fight on solid ground won’t last long in the war that’s coming,” Tyrell explained to me calmly. I detected the hint of superiority deep in his tone, almost like an educated student to some unschooled hooligan.

    I was waist deep in the cold river, but I clung to the log tightly despite the burning pain on my side, and desperately pulled my lower half back up out of the water.

    Tyrell stood on the edge of the log barefoot; one leg balanced him perfectly on the drifting lumber while with the other he was scratching his knee with his toes.

    I slowly stood up on the unstable wood and stretched out both my arms on either side of me in an attempt to keep my balance. Things weren’t looking very good for me right now. My feet didn’t feel comfortable on a purchase that wasn’t quite solid and kept rolling to the left and to the right at strange intervals. I felt that they could slip at any moment. My opponent, on the other hand, seemed at ease on this bouncing log.

    Tyrell stopped scratching his knee with his toes and placed the foot down on the log. He clasped both hands behind his back and inched toward me slowly. I could see in his eyes that he would have no mercy on me whatsoever. If I didn’t come up with a quick plan, I was going to be in some serious trouble.

    When Tyrell finally reached me, he kept his arms behind his back; he lifted one leg straight up in the air slowly, then he brought it down with deadly speed. I tried to block it with my arms but I was too slow. His ankle caught me on my left shoulder and I was driven to my knees by the force of Tyrell’s downward kick. The pain brought tears to my eyes, yet I knew I had to grab the log if I didn’t want to end up drowning in the river. When I moved to grab the log, my left arm did not comply, and it was then that I realized the kick must have dislocated my shoulder. I ignored my useless arm and grabbed the log instead with my right. I heard Tyrell laugh. “I didn’t mean to dislocate your shoulder like that; I barely hit you. If I knew you were so fragile, I would have been more gentle with you.”

    The idiot! His laughter infuriated me and touched my last nerve; I was so angry that I wanted to beat him into a pulp. I forced my left arm, which had hung uselessly to my side, to grab the log. Pain like I had never felt before hit me in various waves as I swung it over the lumber. I clenched my teeth in stubborn determination; I was going to show that little punk a lesson he’d never forget. I pulled myself up and stood on the log. I pushed down with all my weight, and that helped my feet to gain the stability I desperately needed to stand well-balanced on the log. I knew I couldn’t bounce up and down on the tips of my toes like I was used to. But right now, I wanted to break Tyrell’s nose, so I started moving toward him, dragging my feet and making sure never to lose contact with the wood beneath me.