Chapter 16 - Of Stealth and Combat Christofert listened attentively to Odysseus. He was quite interested in finding out what Odysseus might be able to teach him to help him on his adventure. "First of all" began Odysseus "you need to learn to be more stealthy. You have done remarkably well, but you have been in some pretty tight places. A bit more stealth and maneuverability would keep you out of a lot of trouble. And preventing a problem is much better than solving the problem. When that fails, I might be able to help you with your fighting." Odysseus spent quite awhile talking with Christofert about stealth. When he needed to demonstrate something, he would row very hard for a few minutes to get far upstream. He then could ship the oars for a few minutes to demonstrate. The first thing that he taught Christofert was about playing dead. Soon he had Christofert looking like the deadest ferret ever. Unfortunately, Christofert kept falling asleep while he was playing dead. The second lesson concerned concealment. He showed his ferret pupil how to seem to disappear, and then how to seem to reappear somewhere completely different. Soon, Christofert would be sitting on the opposite bench talking with Odysseus, then would suddenly disappear and then reappear behind Odysseus. Christofert thought this was entirely too much fun. The next lesson was about climbing. Odysseus was impressed with Christofert's climbing onboard the Pinta, but he had some other pointers to help him get up other obstacles. Odysseus held two boards close together and taught Christofert how to walk up one board, while his back was pressed against the second, even though there was nothing for him to grab on to. Finally, Odysseus moved on to fighting. "Now Christofert, if you can control your opponent's head, you can control his body." He reached out and grabbed Christofert by the scruff of his neck and gently twisted his wrist. Christofert immediately found himself rolled onto his back. "Now quickly Christofert, continue to roll in that direction and you can break out of my lock." Christofert continued the roll and found himself back on his feet. He was even able to grab the back of Odysseus's wrist, gently of course. He tried to roll over to flip Odysseus, but found that the size difference was too great. Odysseus pointed out that larger opponents usually had weak points. He told Christofert that usually the inside point where a limb bends is especially tender. "It won't cripple a large opponent," continued Odysseus, "but it sure does hurt and surprise. Why don't you take a nap now, and when you are rested, I'll take you across the river and you can continue your journey." (to be continued) Bryan P. Coffey - Boston, MA Weasel Warriors - Albi, Esef, Merri, and Mint http://www.gis.net/~bpcoffey/furball.html [Posted in FML issue 2832]