[Blood Bowl 01] - Blood Bowl

by Matt Forbeck - (ebook by Undead)

  It was Dunk’s turn to smile faintly. “That’s fine.” He knew from watching his father that such a percentage was customary. The only trick was making sure the halfling’s fingers weren’t so sticky that he took more than his share, but that was a problem for another time.

  “Next: where are we going?”

  “Again,” Slick smiled, “an easy one: we’re off to Magritta, where the upcoming Spike! Magazine Tournament is to be held at the end of the month.”

  “Magritta?” Dunk’s face fell. “I thought you said the Hackers were from Bad Bay.”

  “They are, and that’s where I’ve just come from. Pegleg is desperate for new players, so I’ve been trailing along in their wake, looking for just the right person.” The halfling fixed Dunk in a hungry tiger’s gaze. “Lucky me.”

  “Who’s Pegleg?”

  “Captain Pegleg Haken is the team’s coach, an ex-pirate who lost both a leg and a hand at sea.”

  “Sounds like a tough customer.”

  “You’d have to ask the sea creature that ate those missing parts.”

  “So why Magritta?”

  Slick finished off the last of the bacon and started packing up. Dunk considered complaining about the meagre portion of the breakfast he’d been served, but didn’t want the halfling dipping into his stores again. If they were going to Magritta, the supplies would have to last them at least until they reached Bretonnia. After that, they’d have to cross all of that nation and most of the Estalian Kingdoms too, which meant either an ocean voyage, a trip through the distant Irrana Mountains, or a long trek around them.

  “The Hackers need new players, and that’s where they’re holding their try-outs.”

  “Isn’t that cutting it a bit close to the time of the tournament?” Dunk started helping Slick pack everything up.

  “Welcome to the world of Blood Bowl, son. More teams lose out at tournaments from a lack of healthy players than on the pitch. They’re disqualified before they face even their first opponent. You’re only allowed sixteen players on a roster, but you need to be able to put at least eleven players on the field. That doesn’t leave much room for error, given the injury rates in this game.”

  Dunk stopped checking Pferd’s saddlebags to stare at the halfling. “Just how dangerous is this?”

  Slick frowned. “Haven’t you ever seen a game?”

  Dunk shook his head. “Most of what I know comes from my little brother Dirk. He always loved Blood Bowl.”

  “Well, good on him, then,” Slick said, the frown still marring his chubby cheeks. “I don’t want to lie to you, son. This is a dangerous game. People get maimed or killed all the time. It’s part of the sport.”

  Dunk nodded solemnly, not meeting the halfling’s eyes. “I knew I didn’t like it for a reason.”

  “Don’t worry about it, son. A brave lad like you can handle it. It’s not any more dangerous than poking around in a chimera’s lair by yourself.”

  Dunk flexed his injured shoulder as he mounted Pferd. “I wasn’t too fond about how that worked out either.”

  Slick scurried atop his four-legged barrel of a pony. “Gold and glory,” he called after Dunk as he prodded its back to keep up with Pferd. “You won’t find that in a cave!”

  The trail through the Grey Mountains was uneventful. As they rode down out of the range, the stark beauty of the mountains clashed with the lush green of the fertile plains beyond. Dunk stared out at it wordlessly for hours while Slick prattled on.

  The halfling, it seemed, could hold forth on any subject endlessly. Slick was prepared to opine at length no matter what the topic or how little he knew about it, even in the absence of any rejoinders from Dunk.

  At first it annoyed Dunk, but once he got used to it, he found he almost liked it. He’d grown up in a busy household. There was rarely a dull moment in the family’s keep. Over the past months Dunk had led a solitary life, as he’d never been able to find himself the crew of stalwart companions he’d always romantically imagined would join him in pursuit of fame and fortune. The rank cowardice of others hadn’t stopped him, of course, but he had missed the sound of another person’s voice.

  Slick supplied that in spades.

  “Where to from here?” Dunk asked, cutting-off the halfling in mid-sentence. He had no idea what Slick had been babbling about anyway.

  “Straight for Bordeleaux,” Slick said, pointing directly toward the setting sun. “Right on the shore of the Great Western Ocean. Pegleg took the Hackers by sea to Magritta, sailing through the Middle Sea and down around Bretonnia and Estalia to where Magritta sits on the Southern Sea. If we hustle, we can meet the boat at Bordeleaux and hitch a ride for the rest of the journey.”

  “And if we miss them?”

  Slick dug his heels into his pony, sending the rotund creature cantering forward just a bit faster. “Best not to let such issues arise,” he called back over his shoulder at Dunk.

  The duo’s trail led them through the most fertile of Bretonnia’s lands, the farmland that sprawled between the River Grismerie and the River Morceaux. These were names that figured large in the legends Dunk loved. As they rode along, his mind wandered back over the exploits of Sir Leonid d’Quenelles and the brave pack of fighting souls he’d led into battle after battle.

  In Dunk’s youth, he’d hoped that he would one day find himself following in the footsteps of his heroes, at least metaphorically. He never imagined he’d actually follow their geographical paths.

  The people of the Two Rivers Basin, as they sometimes called themselves, were friendly enough. The sight of a warrior like Dunk often put them on the defence, but Slick’s charisma put them at ease soon enough. No one could possibly see the little person perched on his enormously fat steed as a threat, and anyone who travelled with such a happy creature couldn’t be all bad, it seemed.

  When the pair finally reached Bordeleaux, they’d been riding hard for over a week and had put over five hundred miles behind them. And Dunk was thoroughly sick of his travelling companion.

  “Are we there yet?” Dunk asked for what must have been the hundredth time.

  The testy tone of Slick’s response suggested that he was ready to expand the size of his circle of friends, too. “Not quite,” the halfling said, taking a swig from the seemingly bottomless wineskin he kept with him at all times. He’d taken every opportunity to refill it along the trail, and there had been plenty. The vineyards of Bretonnia were widely acknowledged to be among the finest in the worlds, with most of the vintners’ production flowing into Bordeleaux to be shipped throughout the Old World and beyond.

  “I’ve gotten you to the big city,” the halfling said, spreading his arms out toward the sprawl of buildings, streets, towers, and even castles that comprised Bordeleaux. “Isn’t that enough?”

  Below them, the River Morceaux cut a line through the centre of the city, passing through the last of the series of locks that allowed barges and smaller ships to roam the river’s upper reaches. At the last of these, the river spilled beneath the Bordeleaux Bridge. It stretched across the watery span in the shadow of the Governor’s Palace and the Bordeleaux Fortress, the two largest and most magnificent structures that Dunk had seen outside of Altdorf. They stabbed into the midday sun as if to grasp that fiery orb, and the lesser buildings around them looked as if they hoped to push them to succeed in their ancient competition.

  “I thought we were heading for Magritta,” Dunk said.

  “There’s time enough for that, son,” Slick said as he slung his wineskin into its home over his back. “We may have a few days yet before the Sea Chariot arrives, possibly a week or more.”

  “Or we might not,” Dunk said. “I’d rather we got to the docks and asked after the ship before we settled in somewhere.”

  “Of course,” Slick nodded, shading his eyes with his hand as he scanned the shores below. In the distance, a cluster of seagoing ships gathered on the south bank of the river, just to the west of the massive bridge. Their sails fl
uttered in the same easterly breeze that ruffled through Dunk’s hair. “But there’s little chance they beat us here. They would have had to make — oh, burnt beef!”

  Dunk stared in the same direction as Slick, craning his neck toward the docks on the river’s other side. “What’s wrong?”

  “They are here,” Slick said, grimacing. “They must have found a tail-wind straight from the Realms of Chaos.”

  The halfling pointed toward the docks. “You see that cutter there, the one with the green and gold flag?”

  Dunk squinted down into the distance and spied a dark, little ship moored between a pair of frigates. It bore a single mast, rigged fore and aft, set back toward the rear of the ship. Its headsails fluttered into the wind as the sailors below hauled them into the breeze. The banner that flew from the top of the mast bore a trio of white swords forming a massive H, emphasized by a pine-green block H underlying them, all centred on a field of brightest yellow.

  “It’s the Hackers all right,” Dunk said, panic creeping into his voice. “It looks like they’re getting ready to set sail.”

  Dunk turned to Slick to ask what they should do, but the halfling had already given his pony, which Dunk now knew was known fondly as Kegger, his heels. The round and graceless halfling bounced along atop the galloping butterball at top speed, his legs in his stirrups the only thing keeping him from flying off like a shot from a cannon.

  Dunk spurred Pferd after the halfling and quickly caught up with him. “Go — on—with — out — me!” Slick hollered, his voice jerking with every bounce on Kegger’s back. “I’ll — catch — up!”

  Dunk nodded and gave Pferd his head. The stallion charged forward through the congested streets of Bordeleaux, people scattering out of his way, warned by Pferd’s galloping hooves and Dunk’s desperate cries.

  6

  As Dunk reached the docks, he shouted for the ship to stop. He could see that the sailors had yet to cast off the mooring lines, but it would only be a matter of moments before they did.

  “Ahoy, the ship!” he cried. When he saw scores of heads turn his way from dozens of ships, he changed his call. “Ahoy, Sea Chariot!” he called at the top of his lungs. “Ahoy!”

  It hadn’t occurred to Dunk that as much as he and Slick wanted to get to the Sea Chariot before it set sail, there were others who would prefer they didn’t. That’s why the pile of barrels that rolled in front of him was such a surprise. The large kegs of wine were waiting to be loaded onto a nearby sea barge for transport along the coast, but someone cut them loose directly into Dunk’s path.

  Pferd reared back and nearly threw Dunk as he tried to avoid being crushed under the heavy barrels. Somehow the young warrior managed to hold on until Pferd brought all four hooves safely back down on to the wooden docks.

  “That’s far enough, I think,” a voice came from the other side of the barrels.

  “Do yourself a favour and forget about that ship,” called another.

  A pair of mostly toothless, half-shaven faces peered over the top of the impromptu barrier and grinned at Dunk. “A team like that’s got no place for you, mate,” the uglier one said. The duo waved their longshoremen’s crating hooks meaningfully.

  Dunk snarled and ran Pferd back along the docks the way he’d come. When Slick spotted him, the halfling howled, “The — other — way!”

  Dunk ignored him as he spun his mount back about and spurred him on toward the barrels that blocked his way to the Sea Chariot. With a final burst of speed, Pferd leapt up and just cleared the top of the barrels. He would have clipped the heads of the two dockworkers, but they threw themselves to the decking as the horse bounded through the air.

  Past the barrels, Dunk rode up to the Sea Chariot, crying, “Hold! Hold!”

  The sailors with the mooring lines in their hands looked toward the bridge for direction. There, standing just before the hatch to the captain’s quarters, stood a tall, proud man. Beneath his golden tricorn hat trimmed in forest green, his long dark hair cascaded in curls onto the shoulders of his long, crimson coat which he wore open over a ruffled white shirt and black leggings. His face might once have been handsome, in more carefree days but now it wore openly the burden of his responsibilities, marring his once-charming features. Where his right leg had once been, he now stood upon a steel-shod shaft of wood running from the knee down. A viciously shaped and sharpened hook stabbed from his left sleeve where his hand had once been. This was no doubt Captain Pegleg Haken, in what was left of his flesh.

  Pegleg’s eyebrows curled at the sight of the young man on the ebony horse racing towards his ship, and he stroked the end of his greasy, black goatee with his good hand. He waved his hook at the sailors at the mooring lines and said calmly, “Belay casting off yet dogs. Let’s see how this plays out.”

  Relieved, Dunk called up to Pegleg. “My thanks. Hold but a minute more until I can find—”

  Dunk turned to see the two dockworkers now accosting Slick. The halfling had tried to work Kegger around the barrier of barrels, but the pair of thugs had easily intercepted him.

  “We’re not letting another one get past us, mate,” Dunk heard one of them say to Slick.

  “We might have to slit your throat just to make an example of you,” the other growled. “After all, we have a reputation to uphold round these parts, don’t we?”

  “Back off of him,” Dunk said as he rode up behind the two men. He reined Pferd to a halt and slid from his saddle in one smooth motion, landing before the thugs as they turned to face him.

  “Right,” the uglier one said, a gap-toothed grin on his face. “Looks like this is our lucky day, don’t it?”

  “Got that right,” the less ugly one said, swinging his hook before him, taking cuts out of the air at every turn. “This one’s head will make a right fine trophy, won’t it?”

  “Run!” Slick shouted as he and Kegger scrabbled for the safety of the other side of the barrels. “Get on the ship! I’ll catch up with you in Magritta!”

  “See,” the ugly one said to his friend. “I told you this was one of them, didn’t I?”

  “That you did,” said the other. “I owe you a pint.” He crept toward Dunk, his crate-hook before him and a wicked grin on his face. “We can pay for it with what we take from his corpse, can’t we?”

  Dunk reached for his sword, and realised once again that it wasn’t there. He’d had cause to regret this many times since leaving his blade back in the chimera’s cavern but particularly now. He grabbed his hunting knife instead.

  As the less-ugly thug lashed out at Dunk with his hook, the young warrior stepped inside the man’s reach and grabbed his arm, causing the murderous tip of the hook to sail wide. Then Dunk slashed out with his knife and felt its glistening blade part the thug’s throat separating it from his chin.

  As the first thug’s life spilled from his throat, Dunk swung the dying man’s now-flaccid arm wide toward his uglier friend. The errant hook slapped into the man’s head, point first, embedding itself in his grimy skull. The thug’s eyes rolled back up into his head as he staggered backwards and fell, nothing but the whites staring back at the young warrior who had dispatched him so easily into the afterlife.

  Dunk stepped back to witness his handiwork. Both of his assailants lay dead at his feet, the blood from the first one’s throat forming a rapidly spreading pool that lapped at the young warrior’s scuffed boots. Neither even twitched.

  A round of applause burst out from the deck of the Sea Chariot. Dunk looked back to see the crowd of people arrayed on the cutter baying their approval of his lethal skills.

  “You, young sir,” Pegleg called out to Dunk, “are welcome to come aboard.” He turned to his first mate, a tall, buff sailor with chocolate-coloured skin. “Get us underway as soon as that man, the halfling, and their mounts are aboard.” With that, he entered his quarters and shut the door behind him.

  Dunk glanced over at Slick, who gave him a big, grinning thumbs up. “Wonderful work, son!” he sai
d. “What a great way of displaying your considerable talents. Sometimes a little showboating really pays off.”

  Dunk smiled weakly as he looked down at the two corpses whose blood stained his boots. He’d never killed anyone before, he realised.

  All those countless hours of training, of sparring with Lehrer, with Dirk, with anyone else he could find, they’d all paid off. He just wasn’t sure he liked what they’d bought.

  The first mate welcomed Dunk and Slick aboard as they led their mounts up the gangplank. “The name is Cavre,” he said, pronouncing it ‘carve’.

  “Good to see you again, Fullbelly,” he said to Slick, as he shook his hand. The halfling’s hand disappeared inside Cavre’s massive grip. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Permit me to introduce Dunk Hoffnung,” Slick said, “a talented young player with plenty of promise. One of the best natural throwers I’ve ever seen.”

  “That’s high praise,” Cavre said as he shook Dunk’s hand. Despite the man’s obvious age — he was greying at the temples and his hands and arms bore many small scars — his hands were as soft and warm as a newborn’s belly.

  “Not the Cavre,” Dunk said respectfully. The tall man laughed, and it was a sound that brought a smile to the lips of all that heard it.

  “I thought you didn’t follow the game,” Slick said to Dunk.

  “Even I’ve heard of one of the greatest blitzers in the game.”

  Cavre blushed, his skin turning even darker. “You flatter me, Mr. Hoffnung. I just move the ball down the field.”

  “Which is more than most players can say,” Slick said.

  “There’s no trick to it,” Carve said. “Just do what you’re supposed to do, and do it well.”

  Dunk handed Pferd’s reins to a square-jawed man with short, dark hair and a black strip of a tattoo that wrapped around his head and covered his eyes. A blond-haired man with a similar tattoo took Kegger’s reins and they led the mounts into the ship’s hold.