Book excerpt: Congratulations on your acceptance to the Apprentice Academy, one of the world’s finest institutions for knightly education. Your course of study here will prepare you for a career as a knight, samurai, Viking, or really any type of sword-swinging warrior. Swinging a sword is inherently dangerous, but this guide will help you complete your education while minimizing the twin risks of 1. getting maimed and 2. working too hard. Learn how to: • Fight people! • Fight dragons! • Fight monsters! • Fight everything else! • Die honorably! • And more! Please follow all instructions carefully. If you go off on your own and try something silly, and then get your head chopped off or your body bitten in two, don’t start drafting a letter of complaint. You had fair warning.