Chapter 90 The Wounded - Part 5

Chapter 90 The Wounded - Part 5

Beam glanced at the bird as he walked. There was something about its look that made him believe Dominus' words. The crow cawed again, then flew away, as though it knew just what they were talking about.

"Clever birds," Dominus murmured. "Cleverer than people, some of them. Rest boy, you're pushing yourself too much too early."

"I'm so weak," Beam complained grimly, not looking like he was going to stop any time soon. "I need to get back on my feet soon. There's so much to be done. But even then, my strategy isn't anywhere near where it's meant to be."

Dominus smiled. "Ah, you are going to struggle so much, boy."

That got the attention of the irritable Beam as he narrowed his eyes and spoke with far more anger than he normally might. "What do you mean?" n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"This? A mere few days of inactivity? A mere few weeks of lagging progress? If this angers you so, and leaves you so bitter, your soul will burn away to darkness long before you've achieved anything worthwhile," Dominus said, his hands covered in red from his butchery work.

"But this... This is more important than all that – there's no time! I could manage if I wasn't making progress, but having no time is what makes it unbearable. I have to improve faster. I have to get so much stronger. This just isn't enough."

"Greedy," Dominus tutted. "There is always no time. No matter where you stand, no matter your circumstances, if your impatience is thus, there is always no time. The same pain will continue to haunt you until you harden your heart. Progress is laced with suffering – that is its very ingredient. You need not react so strongly to it."

Beam could tell that there was wisdom in the words, but he couldn't apply it. It did nothing to soothe the prickly emotions he was feeling. All he wanted to do was push harder, to go further, to punish himself into progressing faster. In that moment, he felt that he'd endure any amount of suffering, if only he could make a little progress.

"She won't let you force it," Dominus said, seeing the look on his face. "Anger won't make progress flow faster. Well, to a degree it might – to the degree that it makes you more willing to practise, so that you can supply the river of progress with the water it needs. But alas, the river will flow where it will, according to the path it will, and you have no control over that direction. You must exercise patience and trust that it will get there eventually."

"Besides," Dominus murmured. "Progress is no longer the problem for you – there's something else you must fight again."

"How can I have trust so close to such an important deadline? Before this, I had nothing. I had no shot at progress. I was just going to spend the rest of my life rotting in a village, doing nothing at all. Passing these tests are the only shot I have at achieving something significant – I can't just lie back and do nothing as they get closer and closer. I'm not ready," Beam said.

"I'm glad that you're taking them seriously, but things will merely go as they might. All you can do is all you can do. Beyond that, there is no use worrying, for things will fall where they might," Dominus said. "Come, sit, we'll cook this rabbit and let us play once more, mm? I have a feeling the progress in your strategy might begin to flow more freely starting today."

Begrudgingly, Beam sat down next to his master, his leg throbbing from his wound, and once again they drew out the Battle board and once again Beam played his master.

In the first game, he lost spectacularly, which did nothing to improve his mood.

"Not quite there yet," he said to himself bitterly. But he was still looking at the stones.

He walked back to the hut as though to avoid them, but he simply couldn't help himself and he backtracked walking right in front of the first of them. "Surely... Surely this is fine, right?" He murmured to himself as he put a hand on the cold first stone.

"Pah, if the first stone is difficult, then I'm in for a rough time," he said, firing himself up as he rolled it to him. He hefted it to his lap and winced, before barely managing to get it to his chest.

"No good..." he murmured bitterly. That one lift there had taken a significant amount of effort. Far more than the first stone should. After all, he was meant to be lifting the fifth stone for 10 lifts in just over a week. He was so far away from such a goal at this point.

He felt his anger bubbling up again at that realization and his impatience kicked in. He hefted the stone up once more, ignoring his pain, making his weak leg bear a little more of the force. And then he lifted.

Again and again he went, until his leg was once more leaking that strange fluid – such a thing hadn't happened in a couple of days now, since the wound had scabbed over, so from that fluid Beam recognized that he was likely pushing himself too far. But still, he didn't want to stop. He lifted it again and again until a sheen of sweat formed on his forehead, and then he moved on to the second stone.

He gulped, eyeing what would normally be the easiest of warm-up weights for him. He had to fire himself up with a significant amount of anger before he even dared to attempt it. And once he did, the attempt was pitiful.

It moved so slowly it was as though his strength had been reduced to that of a toddler. And his injured leg burned so thoroughly it felt as though the muscle was threatening to be torn from the bone.

"No good," he muttered, dropping it back down. He was out of breath from the effort, but still he didn't want to stand around doing nothing.

"I have to slowly start getting back into everything," he told himself. He'd rested for nearly a week now and the build of energy and emotion was driving him mad. Even if it wasn't optimal, even if it was likely better to do nothing at all, Beam couldn't help himself.

Then he dared to try a run.

"Gah..." That was even worse than the stones. He lumbered with all his weight basically on one leg as though he was a corpse soldier. It was a pretty horrific sight, but Beam didn't want to stop there. He gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to run around the campsite some more.

It didn't take long for him to reach his limit and he lowered himself to the ground, leaning his back against a tree as he got his breath back. "C'mon..." He pleaded, tapping his leg. "Don't fail me now. We've got to get going again. There's not enough time."

He clenched his fist, thinking of how far he planned to push himself tomorrow

Chapter 11 – The Unshakeable

On the eighth day was when Beam had had enough. There had been no more progress in strategy yet – in fact, there had been a slight regression, with him continually losing, with Dominus having two pieces remaining. And now, he was determined to at least do something.