Shango POV: Day 90

  Current Wealth: 211 gold 2 silver 42 copper

  I wasn’t much looking forward to my match, which, in my defence, was a fairly standard attitude to aim towards an imminent ass-kicking. It was just so obvious what was coming. I wasn’t Beam, not physically and definitely not technically. Magic aside, and it would be aside as per the rules, I had nothing on him in an actual fight. I couldn’t even cheat with my gun.

  Any round able to inconvenience him would very possibly bury me, so I entered the arena with no small amount of worry. That worry wasn’t really reduced in the slightest when I saw a woman stroll out to face me.

  She was tall, but not particularly well built. After so long spent around giant, burly bastards able to one-hand a sledgehammer I’d evidently developed quite a skewed sense for human muscularity, because her impressively lean outline struck me as skinny rather than anything else. She moved well enough, though, hopping from one foot to the other and testing the weight of some short, broad metal blade held tight in one hand. A chain ran from its back, affixed to the base of her apparel.

  I didn’t want to be right, but guessed it was probably not a close-up sort of weapon. Just perfect.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk this out?” I tried, nervously smiling, and using the expression to hide my gaze as it flicked across her face. The woman’s features were unmasked by any visor or helmet, and I hoped to read whatever emotions might flit across them. If she’d been hired to kill me, and decided to do so, there might be an explosion of uncertainty, or anger, or any number of other things.

  But it was like looking at a statue. A very murderous statue, mind, which wasted no time in drawing its weapon and stepping forwards. Her armour clinked and rattled with the movement, bringing my attention to it for the first time.

  Interesting, not plate armour. But not cheap, either. It was solid steel made into smaller rectangle plates that dangled around her frame and shifted easily with each movement, or else lay crested around limbs and torso segments in solid walls. Easy to move in, I’d guess, but hard to break through. My hand tightened around the handle of my own weapon- a tool steel rapier which had been the thing best suited for Beam to train me in. It was heavily built as far as fencing steels went, to compensate for armour, but otherwise unchanged. A lot smaller than the weapons mostly favoured in this world, and that lack of mass seemed particularly problematic all of a sudden.

  Strength 9, Speed 13, Dexterity 10, Stamina 7, Toughness 9, Alertness 13, Charisma 6, Intelligence 7

  Well, there was a surprise. With an Intelligence stat that high I’d have to watch her, she’d be quicker than-

  Slower than the bit of steel which suddenly came flying for me, that’s for sure. I tried to duck and failed miserably, merely shifting millimetres and feeling it bite down in a gap between my metal plates. I feared, for one moment, that I’d been cut, but the chainmail beneath it held fast. Ardin had done a fine work- tool steel like the others. Lucky for me, he’d gotten faster at making it. Unlucky for me, my opponent was swinging again.

  This time I was prepared, but her steel edge still twisted too jerkily and cleanly to follow, scraping along the armour around me and losing one of its own tips in the process. She withdrew it, scowling.

  Well, that was mediaeval steel for you. Worse than the stuff we’d used back on earth. If I could just get her to keep smashing my armour head-on, my enemy would be unarmed soon enough. She seemed to realise the fact, and moved to enact a new tactic.

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  It was like trying to keep track of an arrow which insisted on changing its own direction by the moment. Not a matter of focus, or anticipation, just raw speed. By the time I’d clocked it in one place, it’d already flitted by another eight feet to another. I sustained my futile effort of pinning down the fucking thing before it suddenly came down for me. I flinched, raising a guard, then swore as one last twist ran along the chain and whipped the end upwards under my now-exposed armpit.

  This time I did feel a cut, and staggered away. There was no blood outside my armour, and shifting inside it I could feel the chainmail was only down a few links, but that was a fucking close one. My enemy was more confident now, watching me from the seven or so paces separating us. Evidently, her weapon could do either a lot of damage, or a little. A fickle thing based on momentum and centimetre-precise aim. Had I taken her best shot already?

  I doubted it. And if they got much worse than that I’d be bleeding out sooner rather than later. The decision of what to do next practically made itself. I let out a roar and charged.

  Now, I’ve never been the most intimidating of fellows. Well, if you ignore the fact that a black man is inherently scary to plenty of folks, and that an African is inherently savage to plenty more, at least. What I have been, though, is six feet tall. And since being tortured by Beam’s little exercise routine, I’ve also had a fair bit of bulk to boast about too. Adding the plate armour on top of that and I probably cut a very scary figure, sprinting and screaming and swinging.

  Which was really something I’d been banking on having more of an effect than it did. But this woman didn’t even flinch, she just watched me closing in like some idle fascination, calm and collected, biding her time until the perfect moment came. Her bladed weapon caught me right above the hip.

  The biggest pain I’d felt since being beaten in that alley ran up my side, a burning, screaming lance stuck right in me and grinding itself deeper with every step. My body tried to seize up, muscles to tighten still, heart to pound right out of my chest. I ignored it all, turned it into more screaming as I closed at last to melee range, and swung.

  Of course the bitch already had a shortsword up by then, because God wouldn’t have found it nearly as funny to give me an easy opponent. My opening slash was clumsy and unprofessional, like always, but I’d come a decent way since starting my lessons with Beam. It was straight at least, and forced her to take a sidestep in deflecting it. The impact ran right up my arm, back down to the elbow, and by the wince on her face I could see it did that and more for her.

  Well, I had the strength advantage, and the armour advantage. And all the mass here was mine, too, up close we were in my turf. It was a reassuring thing to know, and lent extra vigour to my next swings.

  She didn’t try to block these, just whipped back. The one advantage, I saw, to my rapier-like weapon was it meant I could get a lot more swings in a lot more easily than with a broader, periodic sword. On the other hand this also left me with a lot less momentum behind each one than a heavier piece. My enemy was beyond reach now, circling, eyes narrowed, cautious. I was just about to speak when she darted in.

  Quick jabs, one, three, ten. I barely even parried a third, feeling the rest skid off my armour. She was moving to encircle me the next moment, and just as I twisted to keep her ahead her next swing came down hard at a joint. It broke the mail, barely, and cut me like the first chained swing had. A tiny little nick dealing damage which was more psychological than physical.

  I backed up, she closed faster. A leg found its way behind one of mine, my balance broke and I felt myself lurch back, landing hard. Before I was up, the woman was on me, a knife drawn and pressed back down under my armpit. I froze.

  It was the place she’d already cut into with her chained weapon, and she had a perfect opening to drive that steel in. This one wasn’t so strong that no human on earth could’ve matched her, but her physical power was still a good few times stronger than what most men would be generating. If she wanted to, if she’d been paid to, she could stick that knife in, drag it back and cut all the tendons. Corvan was approaching the limits of his healing, he’d need to be taking breaks soon, long ones. Week long ones.

  Was I about to lose the movement of my arm?

  “Do you give up!?” She snarled.

  I hesitated a literal instant before frantically nodding, and losing myself the match.