She could see his back, his neck, and every fiber of her being told her to strike with the reckless abandon of a hungry wolf seeing her opportunity. Every instinct except for the small, lizard-brained but overwhelmingly potent understanding which had been bred into, stamped upon her subconscious from early childhood. A normal champion of the arena would not understand, would have charged into the ploy without a second thought or moment of hesitation. She had never been taught properly at a young enough age in the art of the dance of blood upon the sand, and for the first time in her career it might have been an advantage to her. Her first task was that of the oppression of the weak and the constant bickering of tribes over control of water, slaves, and the choicest bits of food that could be taken from those near slave foragers beneath her. Both the slaves and the tribes used ranged weapons, both in the form of your average projectile lobbed in an effort to disrupt your opponent and hopefully break a poorly disciplined line and in the form of bone darts spouted from old world pvc pipe and tipped with the venom of the most potent vipers and other venomous snakes which occupied the wastes. 

This beast had no doubt been searched before being allowed to compete in the arena, would have had anything too large or too glaring taboo in this generally melee combat to have carried in a handbow let alone a windlass capable of tearing through her armor and turning her inside out. What could have made its way through, however, was something as small as a blowgun. She had looked him over without noticing one, but that didn’t mean anything. It could easily have fit into a hidden compartment within his armor or have been secreted in some other fashion less pleasurable to think about, and should he be intending on pivoting at the knee and putting the dart into her fleshy, exposed arms, shoulders, or face then she could have died right then and there, vainly attempting to wrest enough control over her deteriorating musculature and nervous system to ensure that he would join her in the grave whilst he ran circles about her hacking away at her polearm, then her arms, then her legs, and only finally at her neck if he was merciful enough not to allow her a few more hours of pained breath a stump of a torso too weak to move except to spit up her internal organs upon a stone bench in the cavernous fight den below the arena. 

There didn’t appear to be anything attached to the axe itself, though she wouldn’t have considered the attachment of a thin enough wire as to allow it to be tugged back upon her or used as leverage to trip her as she advanced on him. That kind of technology didn’t exist here, and would have shocked all in attendance were it to be witnessed in use upon the sands. What she did understand was death by the venom of a viper posited beneath the skin vicariously through the use of a dart and a hollow tube. He could of course be planning something else, to lob a dagger in her direction or turn and leap toward her as she approached with his other axe and what could be a secondary weapon, but she doubted it. Wouldn’t be likely to be effective against her steel armor in the case of the former, and would be dangerous at best a strategy against the superior forward facing position of a wielder of a longer and more prolific killing tool in the latter. He could have something else entirely in mind, but these were the thoughts capable of her grasp within the fleeting moment she had to react, herself being from a world too largely regressed technologically to understand gunpowder or explosives. 

She was about to introduce this heathen of the law of blood and sand as to why polearms were preferred to blowdarts by those with the funds to pick their choice of arms. She contorted at the hips, now facing nearly perpendicular to her opponent, her right hand, arm, and shoulder virtually obscured from her opponent’s view should he turn while remaining almost on top of the punch dagger carried on her hip, releasing hold of the polearm with her right hand entirely, and tucked her left elbow to her chest and turned the outside blade of her forearm to the haft of the polearm, placing the blade of the axe out in front of her face from the perspective of her opponent, only the top of her eyes and her steel half helm visible above the axe blade. All this was done while she broke into a sprint toward her opponent. She was no beginner, and never took the time to position her feet and hands before getting into movement. All of her actions were as one, with the mechanical and all too perfect precision of someone who had done this ten thousand times, who boasted a degree of spatial awareness and body control alien to the average untrained and inexperienced masses. 

There wasn’t so much as a square inch of her flesh showing from the perspective of her opponent unless he managed to side step and get off the line. That wouldn’t matter. Her position was better, he would be forced to turn and fire as she gained on him giving him the least chance of success, or to wait until she was within striking distance with the axe blade of the halberd carried in her left hand to fire at the whites of her eyes, and it was far easier, far faster to react to his movement facing away from her and having to side step or pivot to face her then it was for him to turn or move, aim and fire at a wall of glistening steel and bronze. Should he turn and fire as she approached she would simply roll the dice that he wouldn’t get a good shot, his chances given her positioning and having every bit of herself either armored or hidden from view by either axe head, helmet, bronze polearm haft or simple angle of her body in relation to his, before getting into range and thrusting forward with the spear point at the tip of her halberd. She would also thrust at this point should he not turn, and run him through square in the back. At least that would be what she would attempt to do in that case. 

If he turned as she gained on him and tried to fire full in her face she would watch his shoulders to determine the direction he would pivot to face her, and step diagonally to the opposite side whether his left or his right, keeping her right arm out of his view and launching a blow from her axe blade down and toward his head and neck. This wouldn’t kill him given she would only be striking with a tucked elbow and only traveling from her own midsection a couple of feet to his head before striking steel to steel, but the axe was heavy and she was moving, and would be pivoting at the hip in time with her slash. It would be enough ballistic energy to knock his teeth out if he caught it square in the face, and should he fire it would still leave her as shielded as she was going to get. Should he turn and launch a strike with his axe she wouldn’t particularly mind. Her halberd was longer, and had a spear point. His only options would be to go low, and she was confident that despite his reach and the axe he wasn’t going to outrange the top quarter of her halberd along with her own arm length, or to strike at her weapon itself. 

Should he use two weapons, or an axe and a hand to accomplish striking at her halberd he could likely wrest it from her, but she would still be moving and could close the distance, let him have the halberd and before it hit the ground have drawn and struck in a straight line from her hip with the punch dagger on her right hip into his open belly, flank, underarm, or even his neck were he still crouched, a possibility if he was to attempt to strike low. This is what she would attempt in response to these stimuli of course. For all she knew he might throw a glass vial filled with bees square at her axe blade and the barely visible eyes just above it as she ran, blinding her momentarily and sending her into a wildly rolling spiral of collapse and violent spasms on the sand as she waved desperately at the swarm, attempting to rid herself of the pests and regain her feet weapon in hand just in time to have her head taken neatly off at the shoulder by the meeting of his twin axes and her spine. Whatever game he was playing at, she wasn’t satisfied by his initial gambit. Hopefully he had more fight than this.