“So it’s weapons, huh?” I asked, looking around the room in awe and feeling a little out of my depth.

  “That is one of the reasons we’re here. If you can pick any of them up, then you can choose from anything in this room. All the way up to that doorway,” he said, gesturing to an archway at the back of the room that framed even more weapons. “Of course, they all require being ascended to carry them. Your opponent will have access to this same selection.

  I picked up a rapier on the rack closest to me, and gave a few swings with a smile for the Able. “Looks like your ascended thing isn’t all it’s cut out to be, huh?”

  He watched the full display with abstract fascination. I threw the sword on the table under the rack and wandered down the first aisle.

  I let my hand run over sword hilts, axe handles, and despite my initial excitement, I wasn’t sure how much I cared. I’d always been about the fists. Sure, I’d use feet and forehead too, even teeth on special occasions. But it hit me as I surveyed the armory that I could be facing people with years of sword practice and the like.

  My mind started running over how I could fight against a sword master or an axe-wielding maniac with the skills I’d perfected over years of training. Then my eyes landed on a bow, and I felt an extra little pang of concern.

  An enemy with a bow would be a huge fucking problem for me. And one I wasn’t sure I could cope with if they were skilled and a fast runner. It’d involve a lot of jaunty running, ducking, and diving. I might never get close enough to bash their skull in.

  With that thought in mind, I made a decision. I had to come up with something that would help in the worst case scenario, which was an archer, but would be useful against all weapons. Scanning the room again, I looked for shields.

  When I saw them, my heart dropped. They were bloody enormous. I headed over in the hopes that the massive, curved sheets of metal were hiding something a bit more reasonable. They were not.

  “What the hell are these supposed to be?” I asked the Able.

  “Those are tower shields. They are very defensive and generally used either by much larger fighters who use them in unison with a heavy one-handed weapon, like a hammer or axe, or static fighters who would use a spear and control the ground around them.”

  I nodded. The spear idea sounded good, and I was leaning toward it.

  “From my observations of your fight, Earther, you are very much a counter-attacker. Shields such as these would be of limited use to you.”

  “Of course I’m a counter-attacker when I’m fighting a bloody ogre the size of a fricking bungalow.”

  “I don’t know what a bungalow is, but it sounds truly ferocious.”

  “My point is that I change my fighting style according to my opponents. I’m not gonna dance around a soft shite for ten minutes if I can peddle them in ten seconds. Now, do you have any smaller shields?”

  He shook his head at my reply, but cast his eyes around the room. “There should be at least several different styles. Follow me.”

  He led me back the way I had come, then pointed at a few round, little discs laid flat on the table. My eyes had just slipped over them as I’d entered because they looked like nothing more than upside-down cereal bowls.

  “On the opposite end of the scale, we have bucklers,” he announced. “Not exactly a shield to strike terror into an opponent’s heart.”

  I picked it up, turning it around with my hands. It was made entirely of metal apart from cloth padding around the hand grip.

  I took hold of the grip and tested the weight when throwing a jab. It covered a lot of my hand, and it was as light as a feather. Next, I smashed it against the table with a fair amount of force, then checked the buckler over again.

  I grinned as images of cracking ogre skulls danced in my mind. “It’s perfect!”

  “And for your weapon?” the amused Able asked.

  “I get to choose something else?”

  “Of course. Though, you have restricted yourself to one-handed weapons in choosing to wield a shield. That is no bad thing.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I picked up another buckler with my left hand and set my stance. It was pretty comfortable.

  “Earther,” the Able said with a hint of a patronizing tone already present. “You cannot choose two shields. Not only is it suicide, it’s not within the rules. Every opponent may choose either a double-handed weapon, dual wield single handed weapons or one weapon and one defensive item. There is of course a ranged item which includes up to one hundred of its associated ammunition. As you can see, there is no provision for two defensive items.”

  “Don’t worry about it, because this one,” I said, raising my left hand, “is a defensive item, and this one,” I said, raising my right, “is a weapon.”

  “That is not it’s official classification. You have already flouted the rules in your first fight. There will be complaints enough that we are boosting your position to fight a pool fighter. Now stop behaving like a child and pick a weapon.”

  There was little point in arguing, and having something sharp was always helpful. I wandered off again, and tried out a few possibilities out. The first thing I snatched up was a hand axe. I swirled it around a few times like I knew what I was doing, and it slipped from my hand and clattered on the floor.

  I gave it a disdainful look where it lay and moved on. I figured swords were too unwieldy and required skill to use. And so I moved on. Finally, I came to the daggers. Deep down, I had always known that I’d end my journey here. It was the one weapon I’d used before, apart from a steel bar that one time behind Manors pub.

  There were a few lovely items to choose from, but most were too long and some only had one cutting edge. I needed something punchy.

  Unfortunately, none of them met my hopes. I made a shortlist of three that I liked anyway, and then began the arduous task of picking between them. If not for a lucky glance to a miscellaneous weapon section in the corner of the room, I might not have noticed an interesting-looking loop of chain and a few other interesting oddities.

  Curious, I wandered over to inspect. Lifting the chain, I put it down almost immediately as I uncovered a strange-looking knife buried in the pile. A little flutter of ecstasy hit me. I had found my weapon.

  The hilt had a knuckle guard that looked a lot like a knuckleduster. And the blade, while only about three inches long and with one cutting edge, had a thick rounded spine that looked more like a steel shaft, and it ended in a solid, deadly point. It was a weapon for stabbing not slashing.

  I picked it up and tried it on for size. It was a little too big to be comfortable, but I really didn’t care.

  “We’re done,” I said, turning to Able, waving it in his face.

  His expression said it all. “Are you entirely sure, Earther?”

  “As sure as I’ll ever be.”

  “You do realize that against any of these great weapons, you won’t stand a chance at deflecting any blows? I thought you might choose a sword to help with that but…”

  “That’s my problem, Able.”

  “Very well. Now, might I ask. Are you getting options for the weapons?”

  “Options?”

  “Yes. I understand all of this will be very new to you, but under normal circumstances, you can’t actually hold these weapons for longer than a few seconds if you don’t meet the criteria to wield them. Have you received any mental messages?”

  I honestly didn’t have any clue what he was talking about. My scrunched-up facial expression probably explained that for me better than words could as he slowly nodded.

  “As I thought. And to be expected. You are not ascended. I just… wondered. We can check again if you survive this next encounter.” He looked at the weapons again and shook his head sadly as I punched the buckler with the ridged knuckle guard of the knife. It made a satisfying clang and totally protected my knuckles.

  “Oh, and before you flit off,” I added, halting him mid-turn. “That healing shit you did to me earlier. It hurt like hell, but I’m almost healed. Any chance of finishing the job?”

  His expression dropped to an odd mix of outrage and amazement. “Firstly, one does not simply demand the Able of an arena to perform healing. Secondly, how are you not fully healed? I was certain I had completed the task.”

  “Nope. Leg’s still a bit dodgy. Everything else feels good though.”

  He stepped forward abruptly, and I stepped forward in response, weapons ready.

  He growled. “Let me check, Earther. It’s hard enough to read a non-ascended, but you are extra troublesome.”

  He had no reason to attack after everything he’d done so far, and I got the sense that having this Able fella escorting me here was real special treatment, so I beckoned him forward to make his check.

  He placed a slender purple hand on my head and closed his eyes. I watched him carefully as his face screwed up. He didn’t answer for a while, then his expression grew more intense as the last of my leg wound healed up.

  He finally pulled back, pale and with sweat beading his forehead. “I have exhausted myself to heal you. That is not normal in the best of circumstances. You owe me, Earther.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Not really, Able. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who does something without there being a benefit to yourself. You made a calculated choice. You want me at my best for this fight.”

  He sneered though his evident exhaustion. “You think so, do you?”

  “I know so. I might be a vicious bastard, but I’m not stupid.”

  His face contorted through a series of emotions, before it firmed up into resolve. “If you don’t win this fight, Earther, pray you are killed in there. For what awaits you in my care… Let us just end this with a little personal information. I consider the fine art of torture to be one of my favorite hobbies. Right alongside taxidermy. Do you have a word for taxidermy on Earth?”

  “Er, not sure how this language thing works. But if I’m following your words as I understand them, then you’re saying you like to torture people to death and then stuff and preserve their dead bodies as trophies?”

  He smiled the most sinister smile I’d ever seen in my life. It was a work of art in itself. “That is exactly what I’m saying!”

  Then he spun, his cloak swishing out in a pretty cool fan before he stormed from the armory.

  I was left suddenly feeling pretty fresh in the care of the two guards, and eager to get to work. “What now, guys?”

  I honestly hadn’t expected a reply, so when the bigger Be-Steady of the two grunted an answer, I was stunned.

  “Arena antechamber. Fight starts in one hour.”