“Lord Guterfiend will see you now, Mr. Hoffnung.”
Dunk stood up and followed Lehrer from the foyer and into the main house. “Surprised to see me?” he asked as he dogged the older man’s footsteps.
“Do you mean me or the Guterfiends?” Lehrer didn’t turn back to look at Dunk as he spoke. In fact, he’d studiously avoided meeting Dunk’s eyes since the guards at the keep’s gate had first presented his old student to him.
“Either. Both.”
“I knew you might try this someday. I had hoped I’d taught you better than to try something like this.”
“Like what? I don’t have a weapon on me. I’m here alone.”
“You’d have been an idiot to come any other way.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Dunk glanced around the place as they wound through the halls that led to what had been his father’s office. Most of the decorations were the same, although the family portraits had been replaced with paintings of a group of people that Dunk presumed were the Guterfiends.
They were a pale, gaunt people with wispy, greyish hair, one and all — even the children — and something burned in their eyes. Whether this was hunger, anger, ambition, something else, or a combination of many things, Dunk could not tell, but the burning looked like it hurt.
“Don’t,” said Lehrer. “You’re still an idiot. I tried to warn you away on my own, and you had to come here to push their buttons instead.”
“How do you know what I’m here for?” asked Dunk.
“I know you, kid. Better than your parents did, maybe.”
Dunk lunged forward and blocked Lehrer in the back, hurling the older man into a nearby wall. He heard a satisfying thunk as Lehrer’s forehead bounced off the plaster.
Lehrer spun around, a knife flashing in his hand. “Not bad, kid. You surprised me. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Don’t ever compare yourself to my father,” Dunk said. “He did what he did to help my family. You betrayed him.” He walked forward until the tip of Lehrer’s knife pressed against his shirt, right over his heart, daring the man to use the weapon. “You betrayed us.”
Lehrer pulled his knife away and put it back in its sheath. He glanced up at the sky through a nearby window. “Still have that wizard looking out for you?”
Dunk flashed a savage grin as Lehrer pushed past him and started down the hall again. They soon reached the main office, and Lehrer stopped and opened the door of polished oak. Dunk preceded him through it and then waited for the man to close the door behind them.
A gaunt man with even less hair than Dunk had seen in the portraits, sat in a tall, leather chair behind the vast mahogany desk that had once belonged to Dunk’s father. In Lügner’s day, Dunk had almost never seen the top of the desk. Papers, scrolls, and maps of all sorts had always covered it. Today, though, it stood empty but for the hands of the man who sat before him. They were long, thin, and white, with nails that seemed to be sharpened to points.
“Rutger Guterfiend,” Lehrer said, “may I present Dunk Hoffnung.”
The man behind the desk rose and gave Dunk a stiff bow. “I wish I could say that this was a pleasure, Mr. Hoffnung.”
Dunk spat on the polished marble floor.
Rutger gasped. “Is this how you behave as a guest in my house?”
Dunk stepped forward. “I figure I can spit on anything here I like.”
Rutger narrowed his eyes at Dunk. “And how do you ‘figure’ that?”
“It’s not your house,” Dunk said. “It’s mine.”
Rutgers eyes smouldered at Dunk for a moment. Then the man threw back his head and laughed. Dunk had never heard a sound so lacking in humour.
“We will have to agree to disagree,” Rutger said. “I think you’ll find that the Emperor will side with me on this.”
“The Emperor is man enough to admit when he’s made a mistake,” Dunk said, “like selling a man’s property out from under him.”
Rutger snorted through his long, bent nose. “It is not yours, and it never was. It was stripped from your father when his association with daemons was discovered.”
“It should then go to the eldest son,” Dunk said. “Me. I’ve never known the Emperor to punish sons for the sins of their fathers.”
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
“Perhaps the Emperor would be interested to know how you backed Zauberer’s pledge of a million crowns for my head. Being accused of dealing with daemons was enough to have my family run out of this place. I suppose it would be enough for you too.”
Rutger screwed his face up at Dunk. “Your father,” he said softly, “was a gutless coward. He had the throne itself at his fingertips, and he threw it all away over something as ephemeral and useless as his soul.”
“And those of his family,” Dunk said. “I suppose you were only too happy to put those of your children on the block.”
Rutger snorted. “If you knew the things I’ve done — and had my children do both for and with me — you wouldn’t imply such things. You’d shout them from the rooftops. One of my few regrets,” he said with a sneer, “is that I didn’t get to perpetrate some of my favourite atrocities on your family. For cowards, the Hoffnungs are a speedy lot, it seems.”
Dunk launched himself across the desk and wrapped his hands around Rutger’s throat. As he did, he felt the tip of Lehrer’s knife cut into the back of his neck.
“If you don’t put him down in three seconds, I’ll cut your throat,” Lehrer said. “If Zauberer’s lightning strikes me now, it’ll electrocute you too.”
Dunk felt the pulse of Rutger’s pounding heart coursing past the palm of his hand. All it would take would be a firm flick of his wrist and he could snap the man’s scrawny neck. Lehrer would kill him and likely be killed in turn. They’d all lie there dead together until someone came to find them, and this would all be over with.
The image had its appeal.
Dunk shoved Rutger away from him. The man staggered back into his chair, clutching his throat and coughing and hacking for breath.
Dunk turned to deal with Lehrer, but the man already stood against the far wall again, his knife in one hand, his arms folded across his chest. Dunk’s blood trickled down the knife’s blade and into Lehrer’s fist.
“State your reason for darkening my door and then be gone!” Rutger said. “You’ve wasted enough of my time today.”
Dunk ignored the blood that seeped down his back from the wound on his neck, and walked back around the desk towards the door. The cut was only superficial. He’d sustained worse in almost every kick-off return on a Blood Bowl field.
“Call off Zauberer,” Dunk said.
Rutger stared at Dunk and then laughed. “If that was in my power, don’t you think I’d have done it by now?”
Dunk squinted at the Guterfiend patriarch. “You sent him after me. You gave him the reward money.”
“I gave him nothing — nothing but a hollow promise, one that he believed and sold to the world with an authority that I could not have mustered myself. Do you really think that if I had a million crowns on hand I would trust them to that madman?”
Dunk grimaced, and then glanced around at the walls and ceiling of the office. “Look, I don’t really care about this place or the fact that you’re the filthy, daemon-worshipping bastard who lives in it. Apparently my father was a filthy, daemon-worshipping bastard too, and I’ve been trying to put all that behind me.
“That’s all I want: to put this behind me. Get Zauberer off my back. Rescind that reward. After that, I won’t cross the street to piss on this place if it’s on fire.”
Rutger leaned forward in his chair. “If I could somehow manage that, nothing would give me more pleasure, but I’m afraid it’s not as easy as calling Zauberer into my office and sacking him. He never was a stable man to begin with. Too many encounters with daemons can drive a man headlong towards madness, and he went charging off that cliff a long time ago.”
“It got worse a
fter he got his hands on the Chaos Cup,” Lehrer said. “Until then, we had some control over him — especially if we dangled the chance of your death in front of his face. He’d always had this obsession with the Chaos Cup, and we never did know why. The first chance he got to grab it, he did, and we haven’t seen him since.”
“The power that the Chaos Cup bestows comes with a price. It saps away the holder’s sanity until that price is paid.”
“How long did you hold it for?” asked Dunk. “Seems like you must have passed it around the table at dinner parties here.”
Rutger ignored him. “The cup can only be sated with the blood of your worst enemy, the one who has caused you the most pain, the most frustration, the most humiliation.”
A sick feeling grew in Dunk’s gut.
Lehrer put a hand on Dunk’s shoulder. “Kid, for Zauberer, I’m afraid that’s you.”
Dunk shrugged off his old teacher’s hand and stared at Rutger. “And you don’t have any idea where he is?”
“I’d give him up to you if I could. I’d be just as happy to be rid of him as you would, and if the two of you could somehow manage to kill each other… Well, the walls of this keep would ring with a feast the likes of which it has never seen.”
“I wouldn’t worry about looking for him, kid,” said Lehrer. “Now that you’re in Altdorf and the Blood Bowl tournament is about to begin, I’d say he’ll come looking for you.”
“What a rout!” Bob’s voice said. “I haven’t seen a massacre this bad since that scheduling accident last year pitted Mother Superior’s School for the Blind against the Underworld Creepers!”
“I think those blind kids put up a better fight than the Halfling Titans have against the Hackers today!” said Jim.
“Well, they were the only professional team that would accept a match against the Hackers in the opening round of this year’s Blood Bowl tournament. Given the fear that most players have of the Hoffnung Curse, you have to admire the Titans’ pluck.”
“They’re getting plucked, all right, like chickens! I can almost see the feathers!”
“You’re not seeing things, Jim. Those are from the pillows that Berry Butterbeer strapped underneath his armour to help cushion the blows. That last tackle from Edgar knocked the stuffing out of them!”
Dunk loved playing Blood Bowl, but after the walkover that his last game had been — the one against Da Deff Skwad — even he had to admit that this had quickly become dull. The Hackers had scored ten touchdowns in the first half of the game and another in the opening minute of the second.
Over half of the Titans had stayed in the locker room when the ref blew the whistle to start the second half of the game. By Dunk’s count, only a few of them had been hurt badly enough to keep them out of the game. Word was that the rest of the slackers had barricaded themselves in their lockers and refused to come out. That left only eight of the little guys to take on the Hackers, who were as fresh as they had been when the game had started.
“Boy, those Titans have taken a real battering today!” said Bob.
“Coincidentally,” said Jim, “that’s just how I like those little morsels: battered and with a side of chips!”
Dunk clapped his hands together as he got ready for the kick-off. At least he’d got to play today, even if it hadn’t been much of a game. He wondered how they’d find another team to take them on after this. No truly competitive team would be willing to accept a challenge from them, and this game would likely warn off any of the second or third stringers.
“Enjoying the game?” Dirk asked as he stepped up next to Dunk.
Dunk still couldn’t quite wrap his head around seeing his brother in Hacker green and gold. They had been rivals since they were kids.
To play on the same team with Dirk just seemed wrong, like it wouldn’t be fair to anyone who tried to take them on. This first game against the Titans had driven that home perhaps a bit too hard.
“An auspicious debut for the Brothers Hoffnung,” Dunk said.
“If you consider beating up children before you take their candy auspicious.”
The noise of the crowd rose as Cavre came forward to kick the ball, but the relatively quiet sound spoke volumes about how even the most bloodthirsty fans felt about the game. The ball arced high up into the air and came down like a spear, in a tight, perfect spiral. A Titan stood right underneath it, his arms reaching for it, ready to make a doomed dash towards the end zone.
M’Grash and Edgar raced ahead of Dunk, and he couldn’t see what happened next. He expected the halflings to make a valiant attempt to run the ball up the field, just like the last time, and have one of the Hackers pick him up and race into the end zone with him and the ball under his arm — just like last time.
Then the crowd let loose a collective gasp, and everyone on the field stopped — except for Dunk, who still hadn’t seen what had happened. Still running, he veered around M’Grash and almost tripped over the halfling on the ground.
Dunk started to reach down for the ball when he realised that it had stabbed right through the halfling, pinning the ball and the Titan to the ground. The gritty little guy lay there trying to pry the ball out of his midsection while his lifeblood spilled out onto the ground around him.
“Oh, no!” Bob’s voice said. “Mofo Waggins, the Titans’ long-time captain, looks to be out for the count — and maybe out forever!”
Dunk knelt down next to the Titan and put his hand on the ball to pull it out.
“And where do you think you’re going with that?” Waggins asked, clutching the ball to himself. “That’s my damned ball! I earned it with my damned life, and if you try to take it from me I’ll ram it down your damned throat and then drag your bloated carcass across the end zone by your damned thumbs!”
Dunk pulled back, surprised by Waggins’ vehemence. “I just meant to—”
“To take the damned ball from me and score another damned touchdown! I know your kind. I’ve been playing against you for years. I’ve buried more team-mates than you’ll ever have.
“You damned biggies always think of us folk as just speed bumps on your way to the end zone. Well it stops here, damn it!”
With a terrible growl, the Titan pried himself up off the Astrogranite, the surface of the fake field crumbling behind him and leaving a large chunk of it still attached to his back where the spiked tip of the ball had gone clean through him. The Hackers huddled around the little guy, admiring his refusal to let his mortal wound bring him low.
“Hey, Mofo,” Dunk said to Waggins, “do you have any last words? A final request?”
The Titan staggered forward, his face ruddy with pain as he coughed and hacked out his words. Dunk couldn’t make them out, so he leaned closer. All the other Hackers gathered around too, straining their ears.
“What was that?” Dunk asked softly.
“Eat. My. Dust.”
“What?” Dunk pulled back, but too late. Before he could shout a warning, a net spun from the finest mithril dropped down over him and the other Hackers. Waggins dodged between M’Grash’s legs and out the other side, where he had nothing but daylight between him and the end zone.
“Get him!” Cavre shouted, but he, along with all of the other Hackers, were caught in the fine-spun net.
Dunk snapped his head about and saw the other Titans at the edges of the net, pounding stakes into the ground. Then someone — another Titan, for sure — hit him behind the knees and knocked him off his feet. He tried to stand back up, but found he could only make it to his hands and knees. The netting over the Hackers had been pulled tight enough so that none of them could stand up. Even Edgar and M’Grash had been brought low.
“I can’t believe this,” Dunk said. “That little bastard is about to score a—”
“Touchdown, Titans!” said Jim. “Mofo Waggins scores!”
“I can’t believe it!” Bob said. “I never thought I’d see such a historic moment as this! Oh, those of you who have seen this will forever h
ave gloating rights over your friends who missed it. To think that we might see the Titans score their first touchdown ever against a human-based team — a top-ranked team — like the Hackers. It’s just… I’ll say it again: unbelievable.”
Dunk buried his face in his hands and wondered if the ref would make the Titans free them before the kick-off. Could he expect to spend the rest of the game in this position, watching the Titans roll in to the end zone for score after score?
Then the net came up off him, the spikes holding its moorings twanging as they popped free from the Astrogranite. Dunk turned on his back to see Edgar standing up, the net now tangled in his upper branches. The treeman leaned over to offer him a branch up.
As Dunk dusted himself off, he glared up into Edgar’s glowing green eyes. “You could have done that any time you liked,” Dunk said.
Edgar smiled down at him. “Helped you up off the bloody field? Sure thing.”
Dunk narrowed his eyes at the treeman. “What did they do for you?”
“Well,” Edgar said, “we tree-men have always had a soft spot in our hardwood for those bloody little buggers, haven’t we? It’s painful to watch them have such a hard time in a game like this — they’re so outmatched — and they had this bloody wonderful plan. I was the only hitch in the bloody thing.”
“So you gave them a pity point?”
Edgar raised his branches towards the mithril net now tangled hopelessly in his upper branches. “How do you think it looks?” he asked. “They said I could keep it.”
23
“Good news, boys,” Slick said as he hoisted himself up onto a chair at Dunk and Dirk’s table at the Skinned Cat. “Based on our record, our chances of winning, and our thorough thrashing of the Titans, we’ve made it to the final round!”
“Who are the poor victims this time? The Association for the Revolution of Self-Euthanasia?” Dirk asked as he sipped at his Bugman’s XXXXXX. He’d already had a couple of draughts of the potent ale and was riding high in his cups.
“No. We tried to get them in the opening round, but those ARSEs complained that we wouldn’t kill them with the dignity they deserved. The Galadrieth Gladiators apparently dispatched them in an appropriate manner though.”
[Blood Bowl 03] - Death Match Page 19
