Adakontus stepped onto the circular stone arena. The iron obelisk loomed in the arena’s center, twice as tall as a man. Dried blood covered it all. Dried blood even covered dried blood, new red layered onto old brown. The arena smelled of death and iron, but Adakontus barely noticed the stink anymore.

  Black plate encased Adakontus, except for two rectangular eye slits. His hands held a four meter long sword-lance with familiar ease. A long dagger hung at his waist. An impressive visage, in his biased opinion.

  Adakontus’ opponent bowed and introduced himself.

  “Mazzalur Un.”

  Un’s skin tone was milky white. His bald head contained a set of pupiless black eyes. He wore a bronze breastplate worn over a sleeveless, red-leather jacket that hung to his knees. His arms and legs were bare, and tattooed with black stripes. His wrinkled hand clutched a jagged war cleaver.

  In spite of all that, his most distinctive feature was the horizontal band of chromed silver that covered the bottom half of his face. The top started just below Un’s nose and the bottom covered his chin. The band wrapped all the way around the back of his head. A fiendish smile — brandishing an uncomfortable amount of teeth — was embossed upon its surface.

  The man creeped Adakontus out. They all did. A whole wagon of Mazzalurs had arrived at the clearing: Mazzalur Un, Mazzalur On, Mazzalur Awn, ad nauseam. They numbered thirty in total, and appeared identical except each one used a different weapon. Most used blades of some type, like Mazzalar Un, but a few had exotic weapons. Mazzalur Aweg swung around a chain with a granite ram’s head attached to the end. Adakontus dueled each of them at least three times now.

  “Adakontus.” He bowed.

  “Irist Sangus,” Mazzalur Un replied. He gave a second bow to Adakontus, and a third bow to Amolhekai who was bossing around some skeletal workers.

  The creeper wouldn’t fight unless Adakontus participated in his little charade. Adakontus didn’t know what “Irist Sangus” meant, but it boiled down to “Let’s start this shit.”

  Adakontus’ reach kept Mazzalur Un at bay. Un stood low, holding his weapon high and shifting it about. The cleaver snuck out of Adakontus’ restricted vision temporarily. Un wrinkled his nose and leapt at Adakontus, who stepped back and slashed. A controlled twist of the waist, the short slash missed Mazzalur Un’s exposed leg. Un’s cleaver swiped at Adakontus’ head and fell short. The pale man darted away.

  Adakontus leaned into a thrust. Un pushed the sword-lance aside, one hand on the hilt and another firmly on the cleaver’s spine. The cleaver screeched.

  “Hraaa!”

  Adakontus reeled his weapon back with a shout, and swung again. Mazzalur Un closed in, his cleaver flashing. Adakontus’ helm rang, and his teeth clattered. The shaft of Adakontus’ weapon slammed into Un’s breastplate. Adakontus rotated the other way and smashed the pale man with the counterweight on the sword-lance’s butt end. Mazzalur Un fell.

  Adakontus dropped his sword-lance and dove at his opponent. Mazzalur Un recovered, but Adakontus’ tackle took them both to the ground. A gauntlet crushed a pale nose. Adakontus’ dagger flew from its sheath and spiked towards Mazzalur Un’s neck. He caught Adakontus’ wrist, his black eyes narrowed in fury.

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  Adakontus tore at Un’s face, ripping that silver mask off. Mazzalur Un’s jaw split open like a pair of insect mandibles. No, he had insect mandibles! Three worm-like, black tongues writhed out of Un’s exposed throat, howling like a plague of locusts.

  In his confusion, Adakontus almost missed the mutant reaching for his own dagger. He shoved a metal hand into Un’s mouth, grabbed, and pulled. The mandibles clamped onto his hand harmlessly. Adakontus wrenched his dagger hand free, and buried the blade into Mazzalur Un’s left armpit. The terrible noise fizzled out.

  Once restored, Mazzalur Un and Adakontus bowed again. Un didn’t seem angry about his unmasking, to Adakontus’ relief. Adakontus stepped away from the arena and into the camp.

  Over the past few days, the arena’s surroundings morphed into a bustling encampment. The skeletons scraped away the mushroom meadow, leaving loose, white earth. Rows of tarred canvas tents popped up. Skeletons sprinted down the aisles, completing their duties at full tilt.

  Amolhekai had a team building some sort of enclosure. Driving upright logs into the ground and connecting them with chains. The task took up most of its time. The thing was downright massive. Five covered wagons sat parked next to it, but the skeletons ignored them.

  Helm tucked under his arm, Adakontus walked through the camp. Wearing nothing but his underwear, Green-beard laid on his back, splayed out in the dirt. His listless eyes stared into overbearing, black sky. Adakontus sighed. Welcome to back to reality, bud.

  Despite all the happening, the atmosphere was downbeat. Adakontus dodged a few forlorn gazes. Lingering among the others killed his mood.

  “Hello!” a cheery voice called to him.

  A purple skinned beauty waved Adakontus down. Her short blue hair gave her a girlish charm that conflicted with her extremely womanly body. She wore a thin black shirt and matching pants. Metal boots — identical to Adakontus’, but smaller — covered her feet.

  She pointed to herself, “Iozo.”

  Adakontus nodded. “Yes, Iozo.”

  Aozo pointed at him. “Adakontus.”

  She grinned. “Yez?”

  “Yes.”

  “Goot!”

  Aozo somehow deduced Adakontus ‘awoke’ before the others, and spent her free time trying to headbutt through the language barrier. She struggled with english, but refused to teach Adakontus her language. Figures.

  Iozo started to follow him, but he shooed her away. Her orange eyes narrowed accusingly, but she complied.

  Other than Iozo pestering Adakontus, the only voices came from the Mazzalur’s edge of camp, where they huddled around a small campfire and murmured to each other. The students avoided the creepy bastards. Which is exactly why Adakontus set up near them.

  Adakontus arrived at his armor mannequin, where the waiting skeletons set about removing his armor.

  The others could mope around all they want, Adakontus relished the opportunity to catch up. He’d won every fight against the Mazzalurs, so far, and mostly on the back of his armor. His missteps stemmed from the sword-lance. He envied the Mazzalurs’ more practical weapons. Peeved, Adakontus spat onto a skeleton. It didn’t care. They never did. Its bony fingers worked the straps of Adakontus’ armor without pause, while the saliva rolled down its yellowed skull.

  Adakontus’ heart sunk. The training was winding down, and he still had so much to learn. Amolhekai barely paid attention to the students, it pawned the arena onto the Mazzalurs. Adakontus was glad to have the monster out of his hair, but even so… Once the training ended, the real combat began. Where death meant death.

  Adakontus yawned, which shocked him. He felt sleepy. He hadn’t felt sleepy since this whole ordeal began. Tired, sure. He’d worked his body to the bone, until his muscles burned and breathing hurt. But sleepy? Never.

  Finally out of his armor, Adakontus stretched. Being sleepy wasn’t so terrible. Unclaimed tents made up most of the camp, with bedding already in them. He could just pick one and take a nap. That sounded nice. He yawned again.