A few more powerful leaps at full speed got me up to the other combatants.

“Toss me your shield and I’ll get them off you,” I barked an order at Patrick, the terrified ginger-haired Irishman, with no weapon. Though he yelped to suddenly find me so close, he took one look at me and immediately complied. It was a bad throw, but with a leap and a skid, I caught the shield by the rim, popped off another [Weapon Mastery], spun like a discus thrower and launched the shield towards the encroaching jungle-folk.

With no depth perception, he couldn’t react until it was too late, and the bronze-banded shield smashed right into his nose and he dropped instantly like a sack, leaving a trail of blood following him to the dirt, his Quarterstaff clattered beside him.

“And there goes Pekk of the Agile Staff! Talbot’s on the warpath! But what will he do against the weapon-master, Go’leb the Sand-Striker?”

Hold on . . . Go’leb? The Analysis Card said his name was Gobblebobble.

A cruel grin split my face as the jigsaw clicked into place.

The desert-folk stopped his racing and blew his lungs out, steadying himself on the gold dust and stones, feet well-trained from a lifetime on the shifting dunes of the Breathing Sands. He passed his thick-headed Iron Mace from hand to hand.

“Hey, you,” I said, just loudly enough that the desert-folk might have misheard me. Instantly, he stopped throwing his mace around and stared at me. “Who are you, again?”

“I am the great Go’leb!” he declared. “And you will fall to my [Desert Blitz]!”

Taking off towards him, I brought my spear across my body with a hard grip, stretched my neck out and raised my voice:

“Whatever you say, Gobblebobble!”

Instantly, his face lit up bright red like a beetroot, tinging blue skin purple, and his eyes started twitching around, as if trying to gauge how many of the crowd had heard his real name.

That was all I needed. One more [Vigour] put me at an all-out explosion of speed and I leapt the last six or so yards. I hoped that little giggling monkey from the foyer was watching. With one movement, I shocked my arm forwards, let the spear slide against my palm to full length, and, grabbing the rounded butt of it with my fist, forced it towards him with all my might.

Gobblebobble — Go’leb, sorry — shrieked and turned, but way too slowly — the spearhead pierced his shoulder and threw him to the ground, pinned against the dirt. I stood over him a moment, gasping for breath, held the spear firm, and put my foot on the arm gripping the mace.

He let it go and whimpered, “Go’leb yields!”

I had half a mind to lean down on the spear and force him to yield with his true name, but happily the wild cruelty passed before I acted on it. . . .

I wrenched the spear free and turned to the last combatant.

“You,” I shot at Patrick, who was squatting by the side of the steps down to the ready room, hands on his face. “Step down. Concede.”

“All right, boss!” he shouted instantly in his Irish lilt, turned, and walked down the dozen steps and out of sight.

A ripple of murmuring, eye-of-the-storm silence passed over the stands, then like a volcanic eruption, a thousand people exploded into full-throated life. Scrambling over one another, pumping their fists and stamping their feet, they roared my name again and again:

“Talbot! Talbot! Talbot!”

The psychic pressure of a thousand people bearing down on me turned into a puffed chest and I felt like I grew a few inches taller. Stepping away from the desert-folk in the dirt, I lifted my spear high and roared again:

“HURRAH! HURRAH!”

I let absolute halcyon victory wash over me. Bathing in cheers and the echoes of my own name, I took a ridiculously boastful lap around the stage. Pekk had groaned to his knees and was watching me, fist closed on his face to still the blood pouring from his nose. Go’leb was hobbling away, gripping the awful wound in his shoulder as a couple of jungle-folk wearing the red and gold of the Arena came to meet him and help him down the steps.

In the roiling sea of bodies, I spotted Lenya’s little face poking out, squeezed between a couple of rabid audience members. She was white as a ghost and I saw her shiver and swallow, then raise a thumb to me before she was pushed aside by the hubbub and disappeared.

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A solid few minutes passed before the hype wore from me. I felt myself winded and a stitch cut into my ribs. I let my tired shoulders slouch and winced as my chest throbbed with the impact of the bear-woman, ribs bruised.

After a last “HURRAH!” and pump of my spear to the sky, I took off with a slight wobble from the golden sand, down the steps and back into the dark of the ready room.

Before my eyes had properly adjusted, I felt a cold, leathery hand grip my left in a frantic shake.

“Can’t believe dat was yah first time, naka! Ya clearly shouldn’t be bothering with de morning bouts!” A wild-eyed little jungle-folk, tail thrashing, practically hopping from foot to foot, continued to shake my hand.

I tried to pull my hand away but he had a tight grip and pulled me in closer, hunching me down almost to his height.

“Come on, Mista! You’re pretty much unscathed — ah’ll sponsor ya for dis evening’s dusk bout!”

Hrunja was sitting slumped in a heap against the wall, still catching her breath and muttering something foul. Pekk and Go’leb were being seen to by the red-and-gold-wearing jungle-folk attendants; they packed something wet and brown against their cuts and tied gauze to them. Patrick was waiting by the far locked door, his hand vibrating on the handle.

With a slow heat I realised I had signed up and then engaged in mortal combat with absolutely no information. A niggling hesitation crept up from somewhere in me — the same way it had the first day or two I had been in Barbican — that I had been changing. I had just thrown myself into danger against trained killers without a second thought. . . . Then the second thought came to me, and I’m not sure whether I should be more or less concerned:

“What are my winnings for this bout?”

“Glory!” he cracked back without a flinch. “Da Horizon Arena’s where heroes are made! Yah name will forever grace da stands in glory!”

“So there’s no . . . actual reward?”

The jungle-folk finally stopped shaking my hand and stepped back. He looked like a night-monkey with brown and white fur and two bulging brown eyes and a wispy white moustache that drooped over his chittering mouth. He paused for effect, then grinned, showing sharp, little teeth.

“Talbot, ma boy, listen. Yah’ve got some serious fire in ya, eh? Da name’s Zhokko, and Zhokko is a potential spier, a talent picker — ya don’t want to be wasting yah time with dese midday scrappers. The real action, the real money — it’s in de dusk bouts! Big wagers, big crowds; big risks. There’s at least one dead contestant every week, sure, but you? Ya seem to me to be cut out for it — a natural.”

He spoke in a fluid, comfortable accent similar to Jamaican or Hawai’ian — everyone did in Ith-Korr, but his was the strongest accent I’d heard. His voice was confidently welcoming, but sounded like a used car salesman to me. He spread his arms wide, as if offering me the world. Draping dark short sleeves were pulled over his fur and his chest was bare between the lapels of a little shoe string tied waistcoat. His wispy moustache danced as he talked, and every time he said his own name, he patted himself on his bare chest:

“Ya could make a killing, Mista, pardon me language. Let Zhokko set it up, ah’ll take care o’ de details, ya just show up and do what ya do best.”

The door opened on the other side of the ready room. Patrick instantly fled down the steps and out of sight and the wounded combatants started to file out after him.

Zhokko’s eyes glinted in the dim green glow of the vines, one half of his body lit by the late morning light.

“Let me — let me think about it,” I muttered, pushing past him. I didn’t know how much time we would be in Ith-Korr, but honestly I couldn’t think of anything else to do. In the moment, I sent out a probe to SYS:

Do I not get any XP for defeating enemies — only for killing them?

// SYS : You know the answer. XP is the term we use when speaking to Earthlings, but it is life essence that Systems distribute. //

I was afraid of that. . . . How about Skills? I’d still be increasing them in the Arena, wouldn’t I?

// SYS : That’s right, I suppose. //

Not too hot on the Arena, are you? I thought.

// SYS : There are better ways to achieve your necessary growth. //

I ignored her.

You said a while ago that Systems share information, right? So if any of the Systems from other Worlds came up with a way of facing off against the World-Eater, or even a way to slow it down, you’d know as well?

// SYS : I am the preeminent font of knowledge on all things World-Eater. If there was such a thing, I would know, and so, therefore, would you. This is an overarching quest that demands your full engagement. I chose you, and you chose Barbican. We make the most of the hands we’re dealt. //

Would another World be better? Should I be aiming for a World Gate?

// SYS : Barbican is as good as any. Its deadly savagery is — //

Got it, so I made the right decision. Well, just let me know if any of your mates come up with something — we’re sort of pissing in the wind, here.

As I went, Zhokko clapped me on the shoulder and called after me:

“Ya’d walk out a legend! Talbot of the Flying Spear, dey’ll call ya! Dey’d paint yah sigil on every banner, ya’d get free luxuries for life, and yah pick of da dames — if ya survive! But oh, keen ol’ Zhokko knows ya’d survive, yah?”

Stepping back out into the full sun was blinding, and I peered through split fingers. The crowds were gradually filtering through the foyer out again, driven on by the stone giant of a man, arms out wide. Instantly someone spotted me and a few loud calls of my name followed, and a few even stopped to vigorously shake my hand.

A few others gave me awful side-eyes, even muttered under their breath. I couldn’t hear exactly what they said, but I got the gist; they had lost money betting against me. Hrunja had been the favourite, I’d heard the announcer say. Shocking upstart. Likely I’d just made a good few enemies in this place. And now we had to descend back through the tiers of Ith-Korr, and back through the seedy residential district.

I blew out my lungs and stared into the crowd. I spotted Lenya huddled in a corner of the foyer, staff pressed over her body, head shadowed by her completely dishevelled, wild auburn hair. As the numbers thinned, I pushed my way over to her, shaking hands and performatively raising my spear whenever prompted.