Celestial cuts

Luke lunged and almost killed me on the first try. His sword went under my arm, slashing through my shirt and grazing my ribs.
| jumped back, then counter-attacked with Riptide, but Luke slammed my blade away with his shield.
‘My, Percy,’ Luke chided. ‘You’re out of practice.’
He came at me again with a swipe to the head. | parried, returned with a thrust. He sidestepped easily.
The cut on my ribs stung. My heart was racing. When Luke lunged again, | jumped backwards into the swimming pool and felt a surge of strength. | soun underwater, creating a funnel cloud, and blasted out of the deep end, straight at Luke’s face.
The force of the water knocked him down, spluttering and blinded. But before | could strike, he rolled aside and was on his feet again.
| attacked and sliced off the edge of his shield, but that didn’t even faze him. He dropped to a crouch and jabbed at my legs. Suddenly my thigh was on fire, with a pain so intense | collapsed. My jeans were ripped above the knee. |
516
was hurt. | didn’t Know how badly. Luke hacked downwards and | rolled behind a deckchair. | tried to stand, but my leg wouldn’t take the weight.

Som ch.8

I thrust my hand into my backpack, and my fingers closed around the piece of rope. I threw it and yelled the command word “TAS!”—Bind!—just as Camper Boy’s bronze blade cut into my wrist. My whole arm erupted in agony. My vision tunneled. Yellow spots danced before my eyes. I dropped my sword and clutched my wrist, gasping for breath, everything forgotten except the excruciating pain.

In the back of my mind, I knew Camper Boy could kill me easily. For some reason he didn’t. A wave of nausea made me double over. I forced myself to look at the wound. There was a lot of blood, but I remembered something Jaz had told me once in the infirmary at Brooklyn House: cuts usually looked a lot worse than they were. I hoped that was true. I fished a piece of papyrus out of my pack and pressed it against the wound as a makeshift bandage. The pain was still horrible, but the nausea became more manageable. My thoughts started to clear, and I wondered why I hadn’t been skewered yet.

SoSB pg.15-16