[Blood Bowl 04] - Rumble in the Jungle

by Matt Forbeck - (ebook by Undead)

  The lizardmen in the chamber all gawked at their leader for a moment. As they did, Dunk walked over towards the cage and called to Spinne across the lava moat that separated them.

  “I can’t believe you’re alive,” she said to him, tears welling in her eyes. “I thought we’d lost you for sure.”

  “I knew I’d find you,” said Dunk. “I never doubted it.” He paused. “Okay, I doubted I might live, but I knew that if I lived I’d find you.”

  “Hold that thought,” she said, staring at something over his shoulder. “Let’s hope it lasts.”

  Dunk looked behind him to see the lizardmen tending to their murdered leader. The space that had been cleared through the centre of the room had started to disappear as the lizardmen milled around, many of them unsure of what to do. At the moment, none of them seemed interested in killing him, which is what would have worried him most, but many of them held their weapons before them as they faced him, hoping to defend themselves if he somehow managed to produce another deadly flying disc, or series of them, with which to kill them all.

  Dunk turned back to the cage that held his friends. “How do we get you out of here?”

  Slick slipped out between the bars, which were spaced too widely to hold him, and pointed at a long, black board over which Dunk had nearly tripped. “They use that as a gangplank, son. It took two of them to move it.”

  Dunk turned to snatch up the plank, but as he did, he saw a phalanx of lizardmen moving to intercept him. He reached to his side, but his sword wasn’t there and hadn’t been for a long time. All he had were his fists, and he put them up, determined to make the best use of them.

  Before Dunk could even throw his first punch, though, the lizardmen closest to him fell to their knees. The ones behind them followed suit, and so on, as if a wave of worship worked its way outward through them, sparing none in its path. Within moments, everyone in the room but Dunk and his friends lay face down on the hot, stone floor.

  Dunk stared around the chamber. The corpse of the monstrous creature he’d killed still sat against the far wall, leaking blood that hissed and sputtered as it ran into the lava. Yet, the creatures that had served it had turned on it in an instant.

  “You have to be kidding me,” he said, louder than he had intended.

  “My friend,” Jiminy said, impressed, “you sure know how to make an entrance.”

  A large lizardman, who’d been standing next to the gigantic toadman when Dunk came in, sprang to his feet and hollered something in a hissing and twisting tongue. The creatures all around him murmured in reverent tones, but stayed where they were, prostrate on the stone floor.

  “Intruder,” the lizardman who’d spoken to the others finally said, in words that Dunk could understand. “You have committed a grave and foul murder. For thisss I should make you pay.”

  “But you won’t,” said Dunk. He wasn’t clear on what the lizardman’s game was, but he knew he had to figure large in it.

  The lizardman crept from the dais upon which the dead toad-god’s corpse lay, already turning putrid. Perhaps its body had long been that way. The lizardman leapt across the glowing moat the way that Dunk might have jumped over a puddle in the street. Then he loped up to Dunk and crouched before him on his powerful haunches.

  The lizardman wore crimson robes over scales the colour of the bluest sky. These bore gold and silver embroidery that depicted a figure much like the one that had sat on the wide, low throne, a fat, ugly beast that somehow rated the awe of this army of coldblooded creatures.

  The lizardman fixed a pair of slit pupil eyes on Dunk and spoke in a low, sinister voice.

  “You have ssslain our god-massster, He Who Rules Over Usss All, in an inssstant, without any warning or challenge. Your might isss great, and our people recognissse your power.”

  “Excellent,” Dunk said with a smile. “In that case, let’s get started with my list of demands.”

  “Not ssso fassst,” the lizardman said. Transparent eyelids blinked over the creature’s large, yellow eyes. “I am the Reverend Ssstallwell, the high priessst of our ssslann god. For years I have brought that foul creature’sss will to my people.”

  Slick understood immediately what it was Stallwell wanted. “And you’re willing to do the same thing for us.”

  “You are a wissse and underssstanding morsssel,” Stallwell said. He bared his full mouth of long, sharp teeth. Dunk couldn’t tell if this was meant to be a threat or a smile. Either way, it spelled trouble.

  “We have no designs on your people or your power over them,” Dunk said. “We just want to leave here, unharmed.”

  Stallwell bobbed his head up and down and rubbed his front claws together. “I am sssure that can be arranged.”

  Then Dirk piped up. “What about what we came here for in the first place?”

  “To get away from the zombies?” Dunk asked.

  “I think your brother’s talking about the Lizard’s Claw,” Jiminy said.

  “Right,” said Dunk. He looked at Stallwell, hoping to be able to read the creature’s response. He hadn’t had too much experience with lizards in the Old World, not enough for him to get any vibe from the beastman that didn’t seem alien. “So?”

  “Of courssse,” Stallwell said. He clapped his hands, and a lizardman in robes similar to his own leapt to his feet and appeared at the priest’s side.

  Stallwell hissed something into the other priest’s ears, and watched the creature leap off to do his bidding. None of the other lizardmen had moved an inch as far as Dunk could tell.

  “No one else here can understand a word I’m saying,” Dunk said. “Can they?”

  Stallwell shook his head. “I have found it ussseful to pick up many languagesss in my line of work.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ruling my people and bilking them for everything I can get.”

  Dunk blinked. “They don’t mind?”

  “For yearsss, I was the only one who could protect them from the insssane rantingsss of our ssslann ‘god’. They owe me for that.”

  “How did you manage that?” Lästiges asked. She sounded like she was interviewing a player at a game.

  Dunk glanced over his shoulder and saw the camra hovering there still, taking in everything. He’d forgotten it was there.

  “Yesss. Your deviccce there helped me convinccce the others that you are in fact a messsenger of the godsss, sssent down to remove the twisssted sssoul of Rat Sssloberssston from our midssst. The ssspectacular murder would have been enough, but the floating, burning globe put the heat in the blood.”

  “Uh, great,” said Dunk.

  “How did you protect your people from their god?” Lästiges asked again.

  The lizardman snorted through his four nostrils. “Poissson,” he said, “just a little bit every day, enough to keep Ssslobertssson ill and dependent upon me to maintain his rule for him.”

  “You fed Slobertson poison?”

  Stallwell opened his mouth, and a set of fangs popped down from behind his upper row of teeth. These dripped a green and viscous substance that made Dunk ill to look at it. The priest folded his fangs back and flicked his tongue in amusement at the reactions of Dunk and the people in the cage.

  “A little nip, where no one would noticcce it, onccce per day.”

  “Where?” Lästiges asked. Dunk squirmed in his boots, not wanting to know the answer.

  “Sssquare in his monsssstrousss asss.” Stallwell put a claw on Dunk’s arm. “And thanksss to you, mysssteriousss ssstranger, I will never have to do that again.”

  The second priest arrived with the Lizard’s Claw. He knelt before Dunk and presented it to him as if it were the hand of a dead god being given to a living deity. It looked like it had been severed from a gigantic lizard-man centuries ago, and Dunk feared to touch it in case it crumbled to dust in his hands. When he accepted it, though, it felt indestructibly hard and far heavier than he would have guessed. It also smelled of failure and rot. It seemed a fitting
gift for the bokor who had demanded it.

  Stallwell hissed another set of orders to the second priest. He sprang to his feet and tapped a number of other lizardmen on their tails to come and help him with his latest task. They immediately set about brining the scorched ramp into place and releasing the prisoners from their cell.

  “You don’t want this?” Dunk said, holding the Lizard’s Claw between him and Stallwell.

  “It is an artefact of untold and uncontrollable power,” Stallwell said. “I have no need for sssuch a thing and would prefer it be taken away ssso that it could not be usssed againssst me. I will tell my people that thisss is what you came for and isss the priccce for their livesss.”

  “What else will you tell them?”

  “That you are leaving me in charge and will return if they do not obey my every word.”

  Dunk surveyed the lizardmen once more. Scores of them filled the chamber, mostly as immobile as statues. Those that moved did so with inhuman strength and speed. He had no doubt that if Stallwell could rally their courage they would be able to tear every warm-blooded creature in the room to meaty shreds in a matter of seconds, and there would be little that could be done to stop them.

  “Sounds like a deal to me,” Dunk said.

  26

  The sunlight felt like magic as Dunk stepped from the temple through the secret door to which Stallwell and his minions had led their warm-blooded guests. After the cold, clammy constriction of the tunnels under the temple, the sensation of being outside, with a warm breeze on his skin, delighted Dunk. He pulled Spinne to him, and they grinned at the day.

  Then they wrinkled their noses at the stench that assaulted their nostrils. Behind them, Slick gagged at the smell, and the others complained loudly of the stink. None of the lizardmen with them said a thing.

  Dunk knew the source of the smell, and a moment later a patrol of zombies confirmed it. The walking corpses surrounded the lizardmen and warm-bloods, shambling out of the jungle shadows to form a densely packed semicircle around the temple’s exit.

  Stallwell stepped up, ready to order either an attack or a retreat. Dunk stayed the priest with a gesture, raising his hand for everyone to wait. The zombies maintained a respectful distance, waiting with the patience of the dead as others thrashed through the undergrowth behind them.

  Baron Somebody emerged from the thicket a moment later, an entourage of comparatively well-preserved zombies arranged around him. He bore a look of extreme surprise and delight, and his voice boomed louder than ever when he spoke.

  “Strangers! I did not hope to see you again, much less so soon! I had decided to spend the day collecting food for myself. My zombie friends are terrible cooks.”

  “We have your claw,” Dunk said, holding the mummified lizardman’s hand before him like a trophy.

  “That you do! Thank you so much, strangers.” The fat man put out his hand for the artefact. A thin line of drool ran down his chin. His time living with nothing but zombies had destroyed any self-respect he might once have had.

  Dunk hesitated for a moment. He considered using the Lizard’s Claw himself. With it, he might be able to destroy not only Baron Somebody and his zombies, but also Stallwell and his lizardmen too.

  He felt the claw twitch in his hand. It wanted him to use it. It called to him, and images of unbridled power surged through his head.

  Dunk pushed the thoughts aside. Such promises triggered suspicion in him, not greed. He didn’t trust the claw and wanted nothing to do with it.

  He didn’t mind giving it to Baron Somebody though. He pitched the bokor the claw with an underhand motion. The fat man bobbled the claw in midair and dropped it on the ground. He tackled it with his entire bulk, making sure that it could not somehow crawl away on its fingers or find its way into the possession of someone else.

  Baron Somebody pushed to his knees and held his prize aloft in triumph. The talons on the claw sparkled in the tropical sun, glinting as if thirsty for blood.

  “Foolish strangers! You had the means of escape in your hands! Now you have handed me the means of my triumph!”

  “Way to go,” Dirk said to Dunk, who never took his eyes off the zombie master.

  “We had a deal,” Dunk said to Baron Somebody. “We got you your claw. Now let us go.”

  “Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! You idiots! Now that I have the Lizard’s Claw, there is nowhere to go, nowhere that is safe. The entire world is mine!”

  “Really?” said Jiminy, stepping forward. “And just how is one brittle, old, lizard’s hand going to pull off something like that?”

  “Right,” Spinne said, catching on. “Just how is some fat, ugly, old excuse for a second-rate priest for a third-rate religion going to manage ruling the world? If your prayers haven’t been answered yet, I don’t see how that’s going to do it.”

  Lästiges pointed at the man’s belly and snickered. “Perhaps he talks so loudly to make up for other, ah, inadequacies.”

  Dunk smirked, and he saw Baron Somebody’s features contort with rage. The last thing the bokor had expected on the verge of achieving his wildest dreams was to be mocked.

  “You do not understand the powers you trifle with. I will grind this entire world under my boot, and all will tremble with fear at the mention of my name! Finally, everyone will know the name of Somebody!”

  Jiminy couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s mighty ambitious for someone who’s been a real nobody. I’ve lived around these parts for years, and I’ve never heard your name except as part of a joke.”

  “The joke is on you now,” said the bokor, “you and all your breathing friends. I will suck the life out of this world and swallow it whole!”

  Spinne giggled, pointing at the man’s belly again. “It looks to me like you’ve already got a good start on that.”

  “I have had enough!” Baron Somebody held the Lizard’s Claw high in his hand. “I wish for the ultimate power over death!”

  As the words left the bokor’s lips, Dunk winced. He didn’t know what to expect, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. After a moment of painful waiting, though, he began to relax. He stared at Baron Somebody, who stood smacking and shaking the claw in an effort to make something happen.

  “Are you sure that thing’s on?” Dunk asked.

  Baron Somebody turned and shook the claw at Dunk like a mother scolding a child, with a dead hand. “This is the claw of the great wizard lizard Wecna Lecna! The ancient lich-ard invested various parts of his corpse unspeakable powers! His head, his tail, his claw! These are the unholy trilogy of his might!”

  “Guess he wasn’t using any of those,” said Jiminy, “especially and particularly his head.”

  “You fools! You will pay for your… Bah! This thing is useless! Wecna Lecna was useless, nothing more than a myth to frighten bad children.”

  Baron Somebody hurled the Lizard’s Claw to the ground, and it bounced away, almost as if it could flip through the air under its own power. As it crawled into the undergrowth, a shadow fell across the land. Dunk craned back his head to see a small, black storm cloud hovering overhead in the otherwise pristine sky.

  “Oh!” The bokor’s face fell, and his eyes hunted the ground for the dead hand he’d discarded. “No!”

  A bolt of bright blue lightning as wide as a building cracked into the ground, right where Baron Somebody stood. The blinding flash and the deafening crack of thunder that resulted from it dazzled Dunk for a moment. He blinked his eyes, but the only thing he could see was the silhouette of the fat bokor framed in the pillar of light.

  When Dunk’s vision and hearing finally cleared, he saw a pile of glowing ashes where Baron Somebody had stood. The Lizard’s Claw had disappeared entirely, and the zombies that had stood all around them had collapsed to the ground like marionettes with snipped strings.

  “I guess the moral here is to not mess with things you don’t understand,” said Dirk.

  “If that were true we’d have died a long time ago,” said Dunk.


  “Look around,” said Dirk. “How many of us do you see left from when we started out on this voyage?”

  “I don’t understand any of it,” said Lästiges. “What just happened?”

  Jiminy spoke up. “The moral of the Lizard’s Claw is, ‘Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.’ I’ve been singing songs about it for years, and none of them ever seem to turn out right for the poor folks who end up with the damned thing.”

  “I thought it had been stuck in the bottom of the Temple of Gloom forever,” Slick said as he trotted over from where he’d been hiding in the lush undergrowth. “How did you know about it?”

  Jiminy grinned. “Far as I know, it’s been wandering around forever. Who knows? Shoot, could be there’s two of them.” He eyed the lizardmen who’d come to the surface with Stallwell. “Maybe four.”

  Stallwell shook his head. “There is only one, and we have not had it in our posssesssion for long. It appeared in the sssack of a group of treasure huntersss one day. They had wissshed for it to lead them to untold richesss.”

  “And did it?” asked Slick, his ears perking up.

  Stallwell flicked his transparent eyelids open. “The Temple of Gloom turnsss a tidy profit every year, mossstly trading in the goodsss ssstripped from the corpssses of thossse who attempt to raid our home. They found their richesss. They alssso found their doom.”

  “And you gave it to Rat Slobertson,” Dunk said, understanding dawning on him.

  “Our fearlesss ssslann leader was getting on in yearsss. He wasss ready to retire. He usssed his firssst wisssh to asssk for sssomebody to be sssent to relieve him of hisss dutiesss.”

  Dunk glanced over at the steaming pile of ash. “And Somebody did.”

  27

  “What the bloody hell kept you so long?” Edgar said as Dunk, Spinne, Dirk, Lästiges, Slick and Jiminy stumbled out of the jungle and onto the island’s western beach. The treeman had been standing at the water’s edge, shading his eyes with his branches and scanning the treeline.