“If he’s cracking like that,” Artiom thought coldly, “I can imagine what sort of a cracking you’re going to hear from my bones right now.”
For the sake of appearances, he hopped on one leg, then the other, but immediately realized that he was too unsteady on his feet and began to warm up his neck and head, as though trying to twist it on or off.
“I should have said I’m a runner,” he thought finally. “At least they wouldn’t have hit me on the head for it.”
Boris Lukianovich led the fight slowly and carefully, only marking out the hits. After half a minute, Artiom calmed down and after a full minute, he thought with some irritation about his opponent: “He’s so confident in himself, as though he couldn’t even imagine that I could beat him down…”
Unexpectedly for himself, Artiom went on th
