The hall ended in a wall of water. It stretched from floor to ceiling, and it splashed as M’Grash thrust his right arm through it.
“Hold breath, Dunkel,” the ogre said. Dunk did as he’d been told, and M’Grash scooped him up and charged into the water.
Dunk opened his eyes in the water, which was as clear as that in a nobleman’s pool. He wondered for a moment if it was all just an illusion, and he thought about testing it by trying to breathe. Then he saw the corpse of a dwarf dressed in a Giant’s uniform float by, and he decided against it.
Dunk couldn’t tell where they were going, but M’Grash seemed to know. He moved without hesitation, pushing himself and Dunk through the water on his powerful legs.
In Dunk’s limited experience, ogres weren’t much good at thinking, but if you gave them a clear task — like “let’s get to the end zone”—they put everything they had into completing it. M’Grash set to his job like a starving dog to a fresh steak. Dunk had no doubt they would get through the water in record time.
As the doorway on the opposite side of the room came wavering through the rippling water, Dunk spotted something large and grey coming towards them like a rocket. The face full of huge, vicious teeth told Dunk that this was the largest shark Dunk had ever seen. It looked like the thing might have been able to swallow him alive, and he had no doubt it would tear M’Grash’s flesh to tatters with its traplike maw.
Dunk tapped M’Grash on the shoulder and pointed towards the shark. The ogre shouted out in fear, losing most of the air he’d held in his lungs. A warm, yellow cloud formed around the ogre’s waist, but thankfully M’Grash kept moving forward and left it far behind.
Before the shark could strike at them, something thick and brown charged into the water through the doorway and met the prehistoric monster head on. The shark snapped at it with its massive jaws, but Edgar’s trunk was too wide around for the creature’s teeth to find purchase on it, and his bark protected him from the deepest scratches.
Dunk and M’Grash burst out of the standing wall of water and into the room beyond, the ogre hacking and gasping for air. While Dunk’s lungs held far less than M’Grash’s, the thrower hadn’t panicked when the shark had appeared, and he was the better off for it.
“Hold it right there,” Dunk said after helping pound the water out of M’Grash’s lungs. “I think I spotted something back there.”
Dunk stuck his head back into the water and opened his eyes. He was right. There, just off to the left of the doorway, a wooden chest rested among a stand of seaweed. If M’Grash hadn’t made such a wake behind him, shoving aside the weeds as he went, Dunk doubted he’d ever have seen it.
Dunk peered around and saw that Edgar had shoved one of his branches straight down the shark’s gullet and was flinging the hapless creature all around, as if his own arm was just a shark from his elbow down. Since Edgar didn’t need to breathe in the way that the other players did, the water posed no threat to him. This meant he could tackle the shark with an aplomb any other player had to envy.
Seeing no other threats, Dunk shoved his way into the wall of water and plucked the chest from the weeds. Then he turned and hauled it back into the airy room where he’d left M’Grash.
When Dunk broke through the water, a horrible roar assaulted his ears. He blinked the water out of his eyes and saw a Dwarf Giant standing across the torch-lit room. Unlike the other Giants, this one wore a large pack on his back and dark goggles over his eyes. His black beard, which bristled like a chimney brush, had been cropped short, and he carried a torch in his hand, from which ran a hose that attached to the bottom of the tank.
“Nuffle’s smoky joe!” Jim’s voice said. “Weber ‘Toasty’ Grilmore has caught up with Hoffnung and K’Thragsh. Let’s see how they handle him and his legendary flamethrower!”
The dwarf pointed the torch at Dunk — who now noticed that the end of it hissed at him — and said, in a voice that came from lungs that seemed to breathe through a burning pipe, “Give me that chest. You have until three.”
Dunk hesitated.
“Three!” the dwarf yelled as he pulled a lever on the bottom of his torch. Fire leapt from the tip of the torch like a hungry dragon, reaching for Dunk and the chest in his hands.
The heat singed Dunk’s skin and hair. If he hadn’t already been soaking wet, he might have gone up in flames right there. Being waterlogged gave him an extra moment to live, and he used it to do the only thing that came to mind: he shoved himself back into the watery room.
The fires that had been starting to smoulder on Dunk went out immediately as the cool waters enveloped him. He glanced backward to see that Edgar had split the shark in half and left the carcass floating in the water. Other, smaller sharks, which Dunk hadn’t noticed before, dived into the tendrils of blood as they curled out from their massive cousin and churned the water with their maddened feeding on the fresh-made chum.
Dunk knew he had to stop Edgar from walking into the airy room. He didn’t want to face a flamethrower himself, but it turned him pale to think about what such a weapon would do against a treeman like Edgar, waterlogged or not. Being underwater, he could not speak and would somehow have to signal his warning, and perhaps some kind of plan.
Before Dunk could attempt this, M’Grash came splashing in from the room beyond, his skin ablaze, the water turning to steam as it smothered the fires on the ogre. Edgar caught M’Grash before the ogre could float to the ground, but when the treeman turned the blitzer over, Dunk saw that the ogre’s face was already turning blue. In his haste to get away from the flames, M’Grash must not have taken a breath before leaping into the water. If Dunk didn’t do something soon, his humongous friend would die.
Dunk sprinted out of the water and into the room, where he found Grilmore working a pump handle that came out over his shoulder from the tank on his back.
“Back for more, eh?” the dwarf growled. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Don’t!” Dunk said. “If you want this so badly, you can have it.” With that, he tossed the chest high in the air. It bounced once, and then rolled to a stop under Grilmore’s raised boot.
“Wise for a beardless one,” Grilmore grunted. “Now git!”
The flamethrower spat fire at Dunk once more, and he dived backward into the water behind him to avoid it. Once safe in the cool liquid, he glanced back and saw M’Grash grasping at his throat, strangling on a lack of air. The ogre only had seconds left.
Dunk pressed his nose up to the edge of the water and peered through it into the room beyond. There he watched as Grilmore leaned over and opened up the chest.
The first explosion smacked into the dwarf and sent him flying backward. He landed on his tank, hard, and it sprang a leak, but Grilmore was as tough a dwarf as they came. The blast only stunned him, and he shook it off before he’d even stopped rolling.
Dunk cursed his luck. All the dwarf had to do now was camp out there in the room and wait. In scant seconds, M’Grash would have to charge back into the room for a breath, and Grilmore would flash-fry him that same instant.
But it seemed as if the dwarf was a bit more stunned than he had let on. As Grilmore pushed himself to his feet, he used the hand that held his torch on a tube. It touched the black, viscous fluid leaking from the tank and raced along it until it hit the reservoir.
The second explosion filled the room with raging fire. The shock-wave smacked into the water and drove Dunk flipping backward and deeper into it. The water actually receded from the doorway from the force of the blast. When it rebounded back, it overwhelmed the magic keeping the water from plunging through the portal, and it surged through and into the room beyond.
The coursing water dragged Dunk, Edgar, and M’Grash into the room where Grilmore had just been. There was nothing left of him, from what Dunk saw, but a few shreds of his armour attached to the flamethrower’s burst-open tank.
The flood carried the three Hackers through that room and into the next. There, Dunk sp
ied Spinne, who had been facing off against a white-bearded dwarf racing along on a steam-powered bicycle. She had managed to grab onto a torch sconce as the waters raged through the room in a flash flood, but the dwarf hadn’t been so lucky. The wall of water had knocked the bike flat, and since he was strapped to it, the dwarf had been sucked under the swirling mess.
“The river of lava is next!” Spinne said. “Then the end zone!”
“Thanks!” Dunk said as the water dragged him past her. “I love you!”
“Isn’t that just too damn cute, folks?” Jim’s voice said. “It just makes you want to gag yourself with a snotling’s toes.”
Dunk cursed at the announcer as the new-made river dragged him from the room. Before he could even complete his sentence, he found himself in the room with the lava river — or at least in the room where it had been.
When the water hit the lava, it transformed into steam that curled into the air and filled the room until it was thicker than any fog. It might have been hot enough to parboil anyone nearby when it first hit, but by the time Dunk and the others got there, the lava was submerged three feet below the water line.
The water carried Dunk straight over the river — which still glowed through the cracks forming in the dark crust of cooler rock that had formed on the lava’s surface — and deposited him on the other side. When he regained his feet, he turned back to see M’Grash and Edgar stuck on the river’s other side. Being heavier than Dunk, they would have scraped the skin right off that river of lava and maybe been burned to death. Edgar had figured this out and managed to catch himself in the hallway leading into the room, and he had caught M’Grash too before the ogre went sailing past or through him.
Dunk waved at the others, and then dashed towards the end zone, just on the other side of the portal ahead of him. Before he could reach the room, another dwarf stepped out into the now-receding waters and stood his ground in front of the doorway.
“Give me the ball,” the dwarf snarled at Dunk. He had no strange weapon in his hands, he sat astride no vicious vehicle, but he didn’t need any of these things to exude danger.
The dwarf stood taller than any dwarf Dunk had ever seen — and nearly as wide. He wore his beard in a forked braid, and his head had been shaved, leaving behind only a high-crested, bright orange fan of hair straight down the centre. He bore tattoos on nearly every inch of his body, and he wore no armour, only leather straps fitted with spikes, wound around his arms, chest, knees, and fists.
Dunk yelped, and threw his arms wide to show that his hands were empty.
“Where is it, manling?” the dwarf asked, stalking closer to the thrower.
Dunk stepped to one side and pointed back at Edgar and M’Grash standing on the other side of the river of lava. They’d already started for the stone bridge that arced high over the river, and they would be there in seconds.
The dwarf raced off to take on the others, and Dunk didn’t care to lay odds against him, despite the fact he faced an ogre and a treeman together. Something in Dunk rebelled at leaving his friends to face such a foe on their own, but he had a job to do as part of the same team on which they played.
Dunk spun on his heel and dashed into the room where the Hackers’ end zone sprawled. Once there, he reached under his breastplate and pulled out the flattened football. He held it up to the camra standing in the corner, and smiled for the viewers at home.
“Hoffnung scores a touchdown!” Jim’s voice said. “Wake up, Bob, you ancient sot! You just missed one hell of a game! The Hackers win!”
14
That night, Dunk settled into a cosy corner of the House of Booze with Spinne, Slick, and M’Grash. The place hadn’t changed much since they’d been there two years ago, although Spinne hadn’t been with them then. She’d just survived a cave-in during a Dungeonbowl game, which had killed four of her team-mates.
Dunk had later learned that M’Grash had been responsible for that cave-in, something he didn’t think he’d ever share with Spinne. He glanced at the two of them chatting happily with each other over their drinks, and decided that perhaps it was for the best.
Dunk had visited a number of taverns in Barak Varr — the dwarfs took great pride in their drink and sampled and shared it often — but the House of Booze was still his favourite. He liked Ye Olde Trip to Araby — the oldest tavern in the dwarf kingdoms — too, but he and Dirk had been banned from it two years ago when they’d torn the place apart in a brotherly brawl.
The carved stone ceilings of the House of Booze arched higher than those of a cathedral, and Dunk realised that the place served as a church in a sense. The patrons who came here worshipped no gods, but good friends, food, and drink — and not necessarily in that order. From the clouds of smoke that collected under some of the highest arches, Dunk knew that some of the people were here for a good pipe instead.
The best thing about the place was the way it welcomed people of all stripes. The private booth at which the four sat stood open at one end, but each of the benches on the other three sides could be adjusted to different heights. Slick sat up high on one wing, Dunk and Spinne sat at a standard height in the back, and M’Grash sat down low on the other wing. None of them had to hunch over or stand on a stool, and they could enjoy their fare and each other in comfort and peace.
Dunk raised his stein of Torin Oakencask’s Deep Shaft, a black brew concocted in the farthest depths of the dwarf lands. Rumour had it that the brewmeisters used actual ore in the drink’s production. Dunk didn’t know if that was what made it thick enough to stand a knife in, but he liked it.
“To the Hackers,” he said. “And to victory.”
The others all joined in, clanking their steins together. Here, even M’Grash had a stein of his own, instead of his usual barrel with the top torn free. It was so large that Slick could have bathed in it — and later in the night might have been tempted to try.
“Winning,” M’Grash said. “It beats losing.” The skin on his arms and face had already started to heal over. Dr. Pill had given him something to help the process along and to take care of the pain, and it seemed to have worked. M’Grash had been nothing but smiles all night. Nothing fazed him for a moment. Even when he’d tripped over that group of orcs on the way in, he’d just kept walking, not even noticing that he’d crushed one under his heel.
“I like that,” Slick said. “I think I’ll have that put on a T-shirt with your face on it. I’ll give you ten percent.”
“Deal,” M’Grash said. He grinned so hard the skin on his face split again, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Shouldn’t he have had his agent negotiate that for him?” Spinne asked the halfling.
“Of course!” Slick nodded to Spinne and Dunk, and then turned back to M’Grash. “As your duly appointed representative in all matters financial, I urge you to take the T-shirt deal, M’Grash. It’s a good bargain for you, and I can vouch for the licensee’s honour and integrity personally.”
M’Grash furrowed his brow and then looked at Dunk for advice. The thrower smiled gamely and nodded. The ogre reached out to shake hands with Slick, a grin on his face. “Deal!” he said as the halfling’s hand and forearm disappeared in his fist.
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” Spinne asked. “I’d like my agent to be more independent than that.”
Slick put on a look of mock dismay. “Sweetheart,” he said, “first, you’re talking about agents. Honesty and agency are not synonymous.
“Second, what could be more honest? I proposed and executed the deal here in the presence of my client and gave both him and his good friends the chance to comment and even intercede. How many other agents do you think bother going to that kind of trouble?
“Most agents would just set up the T-shirt deal with an old pal and never let their client know who they were really negotiating with. Not so with Slogo Fullbelly! I’m as above board as an agent can get.”
Spinne squinted her eyes and frowned at Slick, but Dunk and M�
�Grash laughed along with the halfling. After a moment, she joined in with them as well.
Dunk took a pull from his stein. As he savoured the rich, bitter flavour, he smiled. Here he had the three people who mattered most to him in his life — except Dirk, of course, who seemed to have cut himself out of Dunk’s life. Despite that, Dunk felt happy, and he wanted that feeling to last.
Then someone pushed a tall stool up to the far side of the table. Stuck in the back of the booth, Dunk couldn’t see who it was that meant to join them. He heard whoever it was climbing the ladder built into the back of the seat.
When the newcomer’s head cleared the table, Dunk dropped his beer. Fortunately, this happened often enough in the House of Booze that the dwarfs had designed the steins to right themselves if possible, and this one did, letting only the barest dribble of the Deep Shaft spill over its edge.
The man who sat in the stool across the table from Dunk looked older, but no wiser. His clothes looked as if he’d been sleeping in a nest of hungry rats, and he smelled something like that too. Somewhere along the line, his nose had been broken, and it had healed poorly, leaving it with a downward bend. His hair might have been greyer — a great deal more white showed in his scraggly beard — but Dunk couldn’t be sure of its colour under the layer of filth the man wore with a comfort borne of long companionship.
“Hello, Dunkel,” the man said, his voice a bit rougher too. “How have you been?”
Dunk didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. His tongue refused to work. All he could do was sit and stare at this ghost from his past come back to haunt his present.
Spinne and Slick stared at Dunk for a moment, waiting for him to say something, anything. M’Grash, ever oblivious, took a long draught from his beer and then waved at the man.
[Blood Bowl 03] - Death Match Page 11
