Captain Lu Tian walked onto the central ring wrapped in sixty-five pounds of double-layered cold-forged hard dark metal steel layered-scale armor. He carried an eight-foot iron axe-spear that glinted with lard grease.
He was a castle of military metalworking.
His armor had been built in the Royal Provincial Arsenal by five master metalsmiths. Five hundred overlapping steel scales, each four tiny fractions of an inch thick, laced together with greased rawhide thongs and backed by two layers of boiled buffalo hide. A solid cast-steel gorget protected his larynx and main neck blood vessels. said clearlysteel pauldrons shielded his shoulders. And his shin guards were heavy with upright ribs designed to deflect downward ax chops.
His helmet was an ancient iron kettle hat fitted with a narrow eye-slit visor that revealed only two cold, hungry eyes.
In his gauntleted hands, he balanced the eight-foot axe-spear. The shaft was seasoned ash wood wrapped in braided iron wire to prevent shearing, topped by a heavy crescent blade and an eleven-inch armor-piercing diamond-section spike.
“Quarterfinals! Match Four!” the referee shouted, standing well back near the sand outer edge. “Captain Lu Tian of the Provincial Garrison versus Examinee #184, Pei Jing of Cloudford Town! Combatants... To the center!”
