The academy armoury was located on the north side of the island, not far from the Dead Fields. Wren was kicking himself that he hadn’t known that. If he did, he would of come to his meeting with Chadwick armed to the teeth and given the boy an even better ass whooping than he had. He actually smiled to himself in the thought of it, the image of him waddling along in big clunky armour that was four sizes too big for him and carrying three swords. How would that even work? One sword in each hand and one in his mouth? That would look ridiculous.

All of the first year recruits were lined up in their groups outside the armoury. They were introduced to their instructors and told that each class would take it in turns to enter the armoury and pick out a weapon that they’d be using for that day’s session. The first group to be allowed into the armoury was Class 5 led by an instructor named Phelps. This revelation caused quite the upstir amongst the rest of the recruits. They complained how it wasn’t fair that the more advanced recruits were allowed to pick first, it would give them an unfair advantage for picking the best weapons and would only widen the skill gap between the classes.

Wren on the other hand only saw this as natural. Fortune favoured the strong after all. And besides, what good would it do for the academy to stunt the growth of its strongest recruits just to appease the more mediocre ones.

After about ten minutes the group exited the armoury, each sporting different kinds of weapons. Strangely enough the most common weapon carried was the spear. They marched past the rest of the groups without a word with their heads held high in the direction of the Dead Fields.

The only person from Class 5 that Wren really knew was Xiao. She emerged from the armoury holding a bow and a large quiver of arrows. It made sense for her, she was very technical and Wren couldn’t think of any other weapon that required more finesse and accuracy.

The final recruit that Wren recognised was Chadwick. He had been absent from the cafeteria at lunch so Wren thought something must have happened. From the sour look plastered across his face, something definitely had happened, but clearly it wasn’t important enough to take him out of classes for the day. The boy was holding a wicked looking spear with what looked like an intensely sharp edge. The spear was mainly white and it shined brightly as the boy walked, but it had an intricate design of a red spiral ascending up and around the pole. It was clearly of a much higher quality than the rest of the spears Wren had seen the recruits holding. It must have been his own. How did he manage to bring it from home? Wren wasn’t allowed to bring any more than the clothes he had on his back. Obviously Legacies were given a lot more courtesy, especially the ones with parents on the Surveying Council.

As if feeling the eyes on him, Chadwick spotted Wren watching him and gripped his spear tightly. Rage darkened his features, but he quickly looked away, instead choosing to focus on the path ahead of him. How curious. Maybe beating some sense into the boy had done him a world of good.

The next group of recruits were sent into the armoury. They were led in by Liam’s father and spent about the same amount of time in there that the previous group had. Once again the majority of the recruits came out holding spears. He wondered why that was. Did the academy just have an over abundance of spears? Or did they encourage the recruits to pick spears? It would makes sense if their teaching syllabus revolved around spears, it would be quite difficult to teach a whole bunch of recruits how to use different weapons all at once. Perhaps having the majority of them learn the same weapon lightened the teaching load.

Never one to follow the crowd, Liam exited the armoury with a large great sword strapped to his side. It looked incredibly heavy, Wren doubted he’d even be able to lift it, but he thought it suited him. It would pair well with his monstrous strength and if the great sword strapped to his fathers side was anything to go by, Wren would hazard a guess that Liam would have a natural talent with the weapon.

Similarly to how Chadwick felt his eyes on him, Liam seemed to as well as he turned to where Wren was and shot him a proud beaming smile, throwing in a couple of thumbs up for good measure, before continuing on down the path after his father and the rest of the recruits towards the Dead Fields.

It was finally Wren’s turn to enter the armoury and he was buzzing. An entire room full of sharp pointy objects, it was a teenage boys ultimate dream. Well, maybe not quite the ultimate dream, for Wren that might have involved something with Anastasia.

They were led in by their instructor, a woman named Ash. She was tall and had a strong build, she had red hair tied up in a tight bun that appeared intensely bright when contrasted to the block white of her instructor robes. She led them into the armoury and explained a little about its makeup. In all honesty Wren found himself glad that he hadn’t raided the armoury in the end. He would have found himself in even bigger trouble than he would have for fighting.

“The armoury is protected by three different sets of alarms, focusing on motion, heat and sound, so if any of you young recruits have the bright idea of taking some of these weapons outside of classes you will be met with severe punishment.” She told them. “Now take a look around, feel free to pick up any of the weapons and get a feel for them, find what’s right for you. In ten minutes we’ll head over to the Dead Fields and begin practice, after that there will be no swapping weapons for the duration of the lesson, so pick carefully.”

Wren spun his head round the room, studying each of the weapons. Which one was right for him?