Sword fight. At last. I mused over the irony of this session as I went to the rack to pick a sword for my next fight.
Since the contest started, contestants had never been banned from coming to a fight with weapons—some small pen knives hidden in sleeves, some pencil-thin rods disguised as walking sticks.
I could see why this was called the sword fight though: the weapons were honest here, blades you could see and respect.
The arena smelled of metal and old blood; standing on the field, even to one side, I could almost taste it in the air. There were caked marks on the soil where bodies had fallen.
Eleven contestants dead so far, Isla had briefed me, her voice calm as if reading market results. The brutality matched Rachel's warnings.
