Fight day! I jumped up from bed with a spring in my step. What a day to be alive. I might not see the end of it, but that was part of the spice!

  I did five minutes of stretching and then headed out to pace off my nervous energy in the gym. I didn’t go hard, but I picked up the heavy hammer again and swung it about for a while, feeling the weight in my arms as my rapidly swelling muscles stretched and contracted in a satisfactory way.

  When Estwin came for me, he offered another withering look at my weapon choice, especially when I showed off a little with a looping figure of eight and almost lost a grip of it before I intentionally let go.

  The hammer shot off like a missile and just missed the training dummy, clattering into the stone wall in an explosion of stone shards.

  “I need to work on the aim,” I muttered as headed over to him.

  He smirked and led me out to the official armory to choose my actual weapon and armor. “Will you choose the lamellar armor again? You moved well in it.”

  “I was thinking full plate for this one.”

  He turned to the side with a look of surprise. “Truly?”

  “Nah, ya daft arse. I’ll take the lamellar. I might train one day in full plate, but it’s not today. I’m hoping to get my Toughness up so high that I won’t need armor.”

  He chuckled. “There have been some who have tried to do exactly that. Most have died from avoidable injuries, a rare few have made a real go of it. But we are talking about people who have taken their Toughness close to the maximum, and it is a dangerous path.”

  “My middle name is danger.”

  “Odd. Your identifier doesn’t display a middle name.”

  I shook my head, but didn’t bother to reply as we’d reached the armory. The array of weapons had lost its appeal now, and I headed straight to the war hammers.

  It was my first time really taking note of the options as they’d never appealed before, but now I had to choose.

  I moved along them, picking up each of the two-handed variety that looked light enough to be held with one hand. Lucky for me, some meticulous wanker had laid them out in size order so that it wasn’t too arduous a task.

  Finally, I chose one. It was a finely crafted piece, with a solid steel head—heavy, but balanced. The shaft was made of polished wood, and had a slight flex to absorb impact. The bottom half of the shaft was wrapped in worn leather. One side of the hammer was flat for crushing, while the other had a sharp spike for piercing armor. I hoped to make use of both, but that wasn’t really the purpose of it.

  Estwin watched me with a bemused expression as I left the chosen hammer on the table and headed toward the miscellaneous weapons selection.

  I felt a huge weight of relief when I saw the knuckleduster-knife combo. I loved that weapon, and lifted it reverently from the pile and slid it over my gloved knuckles. It didn’t feel quite right on account of me missing a finger, but I didn’t care.

  “I don’t think so, Earl. You can’t take the knife when you’re taking a two-handed weapon into the arena.”

  “I’m not. I’m taking a main weapon and an offhand weapon. That’s allowed by your own rules.”

  “True, but those are classed as two-handed weapons,” he said, pointing at the hammers.

  “Who says?” I asked, lifting the hammer awkwardly and swinging it around with one hand. I think he realized something at that point, and a flicker of a smile crossed his gray lips.

  “You will have to display both as you leave, and you will have to be seen to use the hammer as a one-handed weapon for at least ninety percent of your attacks.”

  I winced. “Ninety percent? Is that the rules?”

  It was his turn to look uncomfortable. “Not exactly. But I can’t stress enough that it must be seen as a one-handed weapon, and ninety percent keeps you safe. Less and you could be disqualified. I’m sorry if it ruins whatever crazy scheme you’ve worked out.”

  “Yeah, it’s not ideal.” I returned my gaze back on the hammers, considering a lighter option.

  I was many things, but I wasn’t a fool when it came to fighting, and while I knew I had to show my knuckleduster, I could do it and not make a deal of it.

  I headed back to the table and hefted a smaller two-handed hammer. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. With a nod to the hammer, I turned to Estwin. “I’m ready to dance.”

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  His look didn’t fill me with confidence as he held the door open, but then if I needed confidence from Captain Hippo, I really shouldn’t be here.

  He led me back to the very familiar antechamber where I paced the stone floor, studying each blood stain and chink in the stone to clear my mind. Before I knew it, the time had passed, and the door opened. It was time.

  As I strode out into the arena, a healthy blend of both boos and cheers rang out. The cheers as usual came from the far corner of the arena, but there were far more in attendance than there’d ever been before. I took a few short strides and dropped the hammer on the sand so that I could wave both my hands in the air and display the stumps. The response was everything I could have hoped for and more as a wall of noise buffeted me.

  After riling the crowd up a little more, I swept up my hammer again and set off toward my patiently waiting opponent. He was an impressive bastard—tall, light gray skin, with a familiar dark gray beard, oiled and styled into spikes at the chin.

  The same breed as the fuckers who’d captured me. This was turning out to be quite the exciting fight after all. A little payback always felt good even if he wasn’t the one who’d kidnapped us all in the first place.

  His pitiless, black eyes without any visible iris or sclera stared through me. Cold and calculating with the look of a predator.

  His shoulders were broad, his arms thick, with chunky, dark gray veins bulging just beneath the surface of his skin. It was around that moment that I realized his beard wasn’t actually a beard at all. But the biggest, spikiest chin of all time. I wondered if it was full of blood. Might be worth trying to open them up and get a feel for what we were dealing with.

  How that moment would come was another issue altogether. He carried his tower shield and a five-foot-long sword like they were made of cardboard.

  The commentator began to shout his pre-fight bullshit, but I blanked it out. I only needed to hear one word, and I only had eyes for my opponent now. I studied every move he made. He wasn’t the only fucking predator on the sand.

  “FIGHT!”

  I moved forward fast. Stupidly heavy hammer held in one hand, I held it low, practically dragging it along the floor.

  Oblesi’s eyes narrowed as he watched the pathetic display. In a cold voice, he spoke. “Whatever trick you have planned, I fear you have made a grave error in judgement.”

  “Possibly,” I replied, flashing a grin. “But I’ll work it out as we go.”

  A row of flat, white teeth flashed between thin, dark lips of gray, and he battered his sword against his shield. “I look forward to it.”

  Then he lunged, striking like a viper.

  I spun to avoid the blow, bringing the hammer up in a backhanded move that spun a wide arc toward his head.

  With a twitch of his arm, his shield rose. I didn’t think he’d made the block, but I was horribly wrong. He’d timed it perfectly and sent my blow harmlessly wide. At the same time, he altered the direction of his sword, dropping it low to come in at waist height.

  I had no choice but to throw myself away from the attack, but it wasn’t enough. He’d moved too fast, and all I could do was raise my knuckleduster-protected fist between me and the sword.

  I think he was as surprised as me when my desperate deflection worked, and I rolled away unharmed beyond a throbbing wrist.

  Such was the impressiveness of my move, I expected to have a moment to regroup my wits.

  The weird beard kept coming forward, his pace steady and sure. Exactly as Estwin had said he would. What else did he say? I wracked my mind, but nothing came to me, so I just swung my hammer at him wildly. I aimed for the shield, working on the theory that repeatedly hammering his shield would tire his arm out eventually.

  In reality, there was no way in hell he would tire holding the shield before I did swinging the stupid hammer I’d chosen. My strikes didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest, and he just kept walking me down like Michael fucking Myers from Halloween. Only this seven-foot fella had a tower shield.

  I still had a rough plan, but it was looking less and less likely by the minute. This monster was everything Estwin had said, and more like he was an anathema to my style.

  I need to wind this bastard up! I chuckled at the thought, then dove away from a head-splitting slash, twisting away to avoid the follow-up sword thrust… It never came.

  Instead of stabbing me, he swung out a big old heavy boot. I was totally unprepared for the move, and he caught me clean on the chest.

  The next thing I knew, I was flying backward, then was bouncing across the hard packed ground. I tried to get my bearings and land on my feet as I came to a halt. I managed a foot and a knee, and it wasn’t pretty.

  Slowly, I stood, gasping from a broken rib, and hammerless.

  Despite the distance I’d traveled, Oblesi hadn’t stopped moving. The relentless piece of shit was only a few footsteps away from me. Worse, he was now between me and my hammer.

  “Let’s see what you do without the deception, Earl Henshaw. I’m curious to see what your plan is now.”

  “That makes both of us,” I muttered, flicking up gravel from the ground that I’d dislodged in my landing.

  Bastard didn’t even blink as the sand went in his eyes. That worried me more than anything I’d seen so far. Sand in the eyes was an absolute bitch.

  The idea had been to circle around him as he recovered. Now I just accepted I wasn’t getting the hammer back any time soon, so I reassessed. Pain was definitely on the horizon if I wanted to get any change out of this mountain. So I did the only thing I thought might catch him off guard, and I charged at him, brass knuckle dagger brandished and ready to bury.

  He dropped, lowering on one knee, shield practically covering his entire body as he braced, ready for my impact.

  My eyes scanned for any openings, of which there were none. I expected that. I knew I’d have to make my own. On the last few footsteps of approach, I launched myself into the air, right arm poised to attack with the knife.

  As feet became inches between us, he swung his shield with all his might to batter me away like an annoying fly. After an earlier coming together, it was what I’d hoped for rather than expected. Flicking my feet forward at the last moment, I managed to control my deflected body into a more favorable angle.

  While this may sound like I did some amazing ninja move, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. It was an ugly, awkward moment, and to a casual onlooker, it would have still looked like I’d been battered to shit, but all I wanted was to drag his shield wide and land on my feet. And that was exactly what had happened.

  From that position, I launched myself forward again while there was still a gap. I twisted past his desperate sword strike, taking the pommel rather than the blade in the back, and I scored a hit against his big old chinny chin chin.