Dunk threw himself down on the ice and tried to grab on with his entire body, but no part of him could find purchase. He clutched at the ice with his hands, hugged it with his body, and kicked at it with his feet, but it ignored his every attempt to cling on. He wound up on his rump, stomping the heels of his cleated boots into the ice zipping past underneath him, but he couldn’t even manage to slow himself down.
Dunk looked up and saw a trio of birds circling overhead, carrion eaters waiting for their next meal, no doubt. He turned over on his belly and tried to ram the spikes on the various parts of his armour into the ice too, but the slick surface proved impenetrable. Nothing worked.
Then the ice disappeared, and he found himself sailing out into open space, nothing beneath him but a mile of crisp, cold air. He looked down and saw how the wall of the mountain curved away from the precipitous edge. About a quarter of the way down, the snow and ice gave way to bare rock. Near the bottom — still far away, but already rising fast — the rock plunged into a lush and fertile valley. Down there, Dunk could see tiny white dots moving about, and he realised they were cattle.
An eagle’s cry split the open air, cutting through the sound of the wind rushing through Dunk’s ears. He tried to look behind him to see what might have made the noise, but he only succeeded in sending his body into an uncontrolled spin.
It took Dunk a full ten seconds to re-stabilise himself. Once he did, he was too dizzy to understand anything he could see. Then a great fluttering of wings surrounded him, and he found himself clinging to a feathered tree trunk.
Dunk peered around the side of the trunk and saw a giant eagle’s head staring back at him over its shoulder. “Relax,” the creature said. “I’ll have you back on the ground in no time. You didn’t think they’d just execute you like that, did you?”
Dunk decided that this would be the perfect time to pass out. The last words he heard were, “By the way, you lost.”
“Is it true?” Dunk woke up with the words on his lips. He was in his room in the Hackers’ official inn again, in bed, alone, but not as alone as he’d hoped.
“Yes,” said Dr. Pill, who leered at Dunk as he stood up from where he’d been sitting on the couch at the other end of the large room.
Dunk stared at the apothecary. “What happened?”
“You slid off the tallest cliff in the world. A giant eagle rescued you. Your team lost.”
Dunk groaned.
“Really, what chance did Spinne and Guillermo have all by themselves? As it was, they tried so hard that I had to put stitches into both of them.”
“Stitches? Is Spinne all right?”
“She’s fine,” Dr. Pill said with a bemused grin. “A few minor slashes on her upper right bicep. She’ll be back at full capacity in no time.”
“What about the others?”
“Cavre bruised himself trying to get out of that chest. He took some splinters when he succeeded, but it was already too late.
“I got to Edgar in time to save most of his bark. You might see him wearing a long sheet like a toga for the next few weeks, but don’t comment on it. It makes him self-conscious.
“Once the game ended, M’Grash finally figured out that he should grab on to something. He nearly pulled one of the floating rocks out of its spot when he hit it. Nothing but minor bruises for him, though. He’s tougher than a bag of rocks and nearly as smart.”
“And Guillermo?”
“Took six stabs from elf armour spikes and nearly bled to death, but I got to him in time. He’ll be fine soon enough.
“Now, how do you feel?”
Dunk ran his hands over his body, taking inventory as he went. “I feel fine,” he finally said. “Nothing damaged but my ego.”
Dr. Pill nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t have a potion powerful enough to help with that.”
The door to the room opened, and Spinne and Slick came in. “Dunk!” Spinne said as she dashed over to the bed and took him in her arms. She held him for a long time without saying a word. Then she sat back and caressed his face as she spoke.
“Thank Nuffle I couldn’t watch you falling off that cliff while it happened,” she said. “I think my heart would have stopped dead.”
“Mine almost did,” said Dunk. “I’m just glad those eagles were there.”
“I’ve already filed a protest with the Colleges of Magic’s Dungeonbowl Steering Committee,” Slick said. “They shouldn’t be able to do something like that to a professional player like you. Sure, it makes for great Cabalvision, but it’s hardly fair, is it?”
“I didn’t realise Blood Bowl had to be fair,” said Dr. Pill.
“Life’s not fair,” Slick said. “We play games to make it better. We can’t just abandon that whenever the mood suits us.”
“So will anything come of your complaint?” Dunk asked.
“Not a chance,” said Slick, “nothing directly, at least. It might make us look less pathetic to sympathetic members of the Grey Wizards’ sponsoring team, though, and that might mean getting invited back next year.”
“I don’t know,” Dunk said, shivering as images from sliding down the mountain flashed through his head. “I could give it a miss, I think.”
“Bollocks!” Slick said. “Now, son, that’s no way for a champion to talk.”
“Champions win games,” Spinne said, holding Dunk’s hand. He could see the stitches on her upper arm. They looked clean and well matched, healing already. “We lost.”
“But you’ll all live to play another day,” Dr. Pill said. “That’s more than most teams can manage, especially in Dungeonbowl. That’s how I lost my last job. I was working for the Moot Mighties when they lost every single player in just one game against the New Albion Patriots.”
“Don’t the Mighties have a total loss at least three times a year?” asked Slick.
“This one was worse. Their coach and manager were killed too, along with about half the fans in the stands.”
“The Patriots did that?” Dunk asked.
Dr. Pill shook his head. “It was Free Spiked Ball Day for the first five hundred fans. It all went downhill from there.”
Dunk winced. Then he looked to Slick. “What’s the plan from here?” he asked. “Do we stick around for the final round of the tournament?”
“No, son, we’re heading home. Back to Bad Bay as soon as you and the others are fit to travel.” He looked to Dr. Pill.
“We can leave with the next tide,” the apothecary said.
“Any truth to the vicious rumour going around that we’ll see Pegleg at the wheel of the Sea Chariot as we pull out into the bay?” Spinne asked.
“As many truths as you care to seek,” Dr. Pill said with a mysterious grin.
“Can you translate that for the less enlightened?” Slick asked.
“Yes.”
“Yes, you can translate or — oh, never mind!”
“I am hopeful that Captain Haken has overcome his irrational fear of water,” Dr. Pill said. “However, I must caution that the relief he experiences from this may cause him to experience an overwhelming sense of confidence that may not be entirely grounded in reality. We should take great care to keep watch over him to ensure that he does not overextend himself and expose the entire ship to danger.”
Slick glared at the apothecary, “Just in time for a long ocean voyage.”
“Come on, Slick. We’ve made this same trip many times before,” Dunk said. “What could go wrong?”
17
“Jolly Roger off the port bow!”
Dunk shaded his eyes to peer up at Guillermo in the crow’s nest, tipping back and forth high above the Sea Chariot’s main deck. The lineman’s arm stabbed off to the left of the ship’s nose. Dunk brought his head down in that direction and saw what Guillermo had spotted first from his higher vantage point: a ship sailing towards them from the horizon, a black flag flapping from its mast.
Dunk couldn’t make out the flag’s design, but if Guillermo — who had a s
pyglass up there with him — said it bore a skull and crossbones, Dunk believed him.
Dunk climbed up to the bridge where Pegleg stood, squinting through his own spyglass at the oncoming ship. Cavre, who had the wheel, craned his neck to look back at the captain, waiting for his orders.
“Are those really pirates, coach?” Dunk asked.
“Aye, they are, Mr. Hoffnung,” Pegleg said. Try as he might, Dunk couldn’t read the man’s tone. Instead of fear, it bore something else. Anticipation?
“Orders, captain?” Cavre asked.
“Steady as she goes, Mr. Cavre.”
“But captain, she’ll catch us for sure at this rate.” Dunk checked the other horizon and saw that they weren’t far from Estalia’s western coast. A wide, sandy beach beckoned from that direction, and Dunk pointed towards it. “If we hurry, we can reach dry land before they catch us. Then we might have a chance.”
Pegleg brought down his spyglass, collapsed it, and stuffed it into one of the pockets of his long, green, velvet coat. He adjusted his bright yellow tricorn hat, which seemed to be mostly made of holes now. “I’m aware of where the shoreline is, Mr. Hoffnung. Steady as she goes.”
With that, Pegleg limped off the bridge and disappeared into his cabin. Dunk stared after him, hardly noticing when Slick and Spinne climbed onto the bridge next to him.
“What’s happening, son?” Slick asked.
“I don’t know,” Dunk said. He looked to Cavre, whose face carried a world of worry. “Shouldn’t we do something? That ship looks like it could eat the Sea Chariot alive.”
“The captain knows what he’s doing,” Cavre said.
“Are you sure about that?” Spinne asked. “This is the first time any of us have seen him outside of his cabin anywhere but at dock or on dry land.”
“Dr. Pill’s treatment seems to have been effective, wouldn’t you say?”
Slick frowned. “Are we certain that the treatment doesn’t have any side-effects like, perhaps, insanity?”
Cavre kept silent, his mouth a thin, grim line.
As the pirate ship grew closer, Dunk could make out some of its details. It was huge, twice the size of the Sea Chariot, and it had a row of oars sticking out from either side. These were held up from the water at the moment, but Dunk could see how they could be put into service at a moment’s notice.
When Dunk got a good look at the ship’s masthead, his stomach shrank into a tiny knot. It had been carved to resemble a bloody daemon with snakes for limbs and eyes. Dunk squinted at the crimson lettering just under that, running parallel with the rail. It read “Seas of Hate”.
“We have to get out of here,” Dunk said to Cavre. “We have to outrun them or we’re all doomed.”
“I have my orders.”
Dunk grabbed the wheel, testing Cavre’s grip on it. “You can’t follow those orders. The captain’s gone mad.”
“Do you hear that?” Slick asked, a hand cupped to his ear, which he’d cocked in the direction of the pirate ship. “It sounds like hissing.”
“Look,” Spinne said to Cavre, “I understand your loyalty to Pegleg. He’s our captain and our coach, but now is the time to question those orders. Forcing himself out of the cabin has clearly unbalanced him. We need to turn tail and see if we can outrace that ship.”
Cavre gave hard looks to all three of the others in turn. Then his shoulders slumped and he nodded gently. “All right,” he said. “What do you propose we do? No one knows this ship better than Captain Haken. We need him and his support.”
“We’ll have to live without it,” Spinne said.
This talk of mutiny made Dunk uncomfortable, but he couldn’t see any other way around it. Unlike the others — except perhaps the now-haggard Cavre — he knew what hungered for them on that ship and what would happen to those who were captured. To risk meeting such daemons seemed to be insane.
“Belay that, Mr. Cavre!” The captain came stalking out of his cabin, shoving a wheeled rack of cannonballs before him. “Mad or not, I have a plan. We’ll never outrun that ship. Once you see the Seas of Hate, your fate is sealed. Your only chance is to fight.”
“With what?” Dunk called down at the ex-pirate. “We may be a great Blood Bowl team, but half us of don’t know how to handle a sword and even fewer have ever fought on a moving ship.”
Pegleg doffed his tricorn hat, exposing his long, black curls to the sun. With a wink and a grin, he waved the hat at the rack of cannon-balls squatting next to him. “Why, with these, of course! You don’t think I’d jeopardise the safety of my team without a plan, do you?”
Spinne gaped at the man. “You did this on purpose?”
Pegleg grinned. “Suffice it to say, Miss Schönheit, that I knew that there was a significant chance that this particular ship full of daemonic pirates might take a stab at procuring for themselves the substantial reward placed on Mr. Hoffnung’s head.”
Dunk’s eyes popped wide open. “How’s that? I thought that’s why we sailed out of Barak Varr under cover of night. You had us under strict orders not to tell anyone our schedule, our route, or our destination. How could they have found us?”
“They are daemons, Mr. Hoffnung. I suppose it’s not beyond them to use magic.”
Slick peered down at the captain from over the bridge’s railing. “But they didn’t, did they?”
Dunk stared at his agent, not understanding what the halfling meant to imply.
“No, of course not,” Pegleg said. “They didn’t have to. I told them.”
Spinne gasped.
“Don’t be so shocked,” Pegleg said. “I did what I had to do to get those devils right where I want them.” He rubbed his chin, bemused. “I’ll admit that I didn’t expect to see them until we were closer to Bad Bay, but no matter. I’m as happy to send them into the briny deep here as anywhere.”
“Dr. Pill told you to do this,” Dunk said. “Didn’t he?”
“All part of the solution to my hydrophobia. In order to surmount your fears you must confront them, after all.”
“Or inflict them on others at least,” said Slick.
The hissing from the other ship grew louder. Dunk peered out at it again and saw that the masthead had come to life. It looked as if someone had taken one of the snake-daemons Dunk could now see gathering on the foredeck, grown it to the size of M’Grash, and then lashed it to the ship’s prow. The long snake-arms whipped before it in the wind, reaching out for the Sea Chariot.
Dunk had no doubt that when they finally found purchase on the ship’s deck the other daemons would use those arms as part of a boarding action. The Hackers would then find themselves fighting for their lives against a well-armed crew of daemons.
Images of the daemons crashing his engagement party flashed through his head. Dunk felt like he might vomit, but he clamped down on his stomach and went to go find his sword.
“Where do you think you’re going, Mr. Hoffnung?” Pegleg reached out with his hook and snagged Dunk by the sleeve as he tried to walk past.
“To get my blade. I’m not going down without a fight.”
Pegleg shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”
Dunk glanced back at the onrushing Seas of Hate. “I think they might disagree with you.”
Pegleg tapped one of the cannonballs with his hook. They were covered with strange runes arranged in odd patterns. Each of them seemed to have three thick holes bored into one side.
“With these enchanted cannonballs on our side, Mr. Hoffnung, we have the advantage.”
The captain’s calm demeanour irritated Dunk. Seeing the creatures that had killed his father and tortured him for so long — badly enough that he’d chewed off his own hand and lost his leg in the escape — how could he be so placid?
“You forgot one thing, coach,” Dunk said, panic creeping into his voice. “We don’t have a cannon on board!”
“Ah,” Pegleg said, holding up his hook, “but we don’t need one.” He glanced up over Dunk’s shoulder. �
�Ready?” he asked.
“Ready, coach,” said M’Grash.
Dunk turned and gaped at the ogre. M’Grash grinned down at Dunk as he cracked his knuckles. Did Pegleg think that the ogre could take on an entire ship full of daemons with nothing but his bare hands?
“Fire at will,” Pegleg said. The captain took Dunk by the elbow and steered him to the gunwale facing the Seas of Hate, close to the stairs leading up to the bridge and out of M’Grash’s way.
The ogre reached down and hefted one of the cannonballs in his hands. Then he stuck his two middle fingers and his thumb into the three holes drilled in the ball of enchanted, cold iron. This left his other two fingers splayed out along the surface of the ball, where they fit perfectly along the symbols engraved there.
“See the formation of the hand, Mr. Hoffnung? Some call a hand held like that a mark of Chaos. It’s an integral part of the activation of the ball’s magic.”
Dunk just stood there stunned. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
M’Grash stretched his arms out above him, the cannonball perched in his monstrous mitt. Dunk couldn’t recall ever seeing such concentration on the ogre’s face. It made him seem more dangerous than ever.
M’Grash took a huge stride forward and swung the ball down and back behind him as he did. The players crouching behind the ogre on the other side of the ship, watching the scene play out, suddenly scattered, fearful that the ball might come back at them.
Then M’Grash took another smooth stride towards the Seas of Hate. As he did, he swung his mighty arm forward and released the cannonball.
The massive piece of iron sailed into the air, arcing like a rainbow. As it went, it fizzled and hissed as if angered — no—as if hungry.
The snake-daemons on the Seas of Hate all watched the cannonball in unison. They’d been laughing at the ogre and the others in the Sea Chariot up until then, contributing to a mad symphony of hisses. Now, they fell silent as they stared at the missile of cold iron coming straight towards them.
[Blood Bowl 03] - Death Match Page 14
