CHAPTER VIII
A STEP AWAY FROM DEATH
A chop blow woke me from the troubled sleep in which I had been flailing for the past three hours. I opened my eyes, still dazed, my face burning with pain, but I was immersed in darkness. My first conscious thought was that I had probably become blind, that the fat, lazy god ruling over this damned camp had probably decided that it was time to take my sight as well, since otherwise I was not satisfied with the way things went in its realm. Instinctively, I sat bolt upright, while my hands were looking for fulcrums in the wooden planks that served as beds.
A swift move in the darkness, more like an illusion, was followed by a hard fist blow in the chest, which put me to the ground. Had the blow fully reached its target, it would have probably fractu
