[Blood Bowl 03] - Death Match

by Matt Forbeck - (ebook by Undead)

“Where do you think you’re going with him?” Lügner asked, standing up behind the table. Dirk shoved himself away from the table and tried to stand, but fell back in his chair. Slick followed after Dunk.

  “Somewhere no one will find him,” Dunk said, “until I want them to.”

  24

  “The Bright Crusaders score!” Bob’s voice said. “That puts them in the lead, one to nothing!”

  Dunk swore. He hadn’t brought his best game to the field today. The meeting between his father and Lehrer had him preoccupied, and he just couldn’t seem to keep his mind on the action.

  “That so-called Hoffnung Curse hasn’t been much help to the Hackers today,” said Jim. “I don’t think Hoffnung has even touched the ball yet!”

  “That’s one way to avoid a mad sorcerer’s wrath!” said Jim. “Personally, I’ve found that burying yourself underground for a century or so works fine. You’d be surprised how short the memories of mortals can be.”

  “I prefer tearing them limb from limb, myself,” said Jim. “But as you know, that’s just not always possible. Every news organisation in the Empire has been scouring the land, hunting for Zauberer, hoping to score an exclusive interview with the man, and so far we’ve all turned up zilch. It’s not hard to see why Hoffnung might just have to live with the curse — at least until the wizard comes for him!”

  “Tell me, Jim. Do you think it’s better to confront your fate as soon as possible, or to avoid it for as long as you can?”

  Jim laughed. “I’ve always thought it best to put off for now what you can face another day!”

  “Well, then you might want to get a head start out of here, my massive friend. According to our security camras, I see your mistress’ husband stomping up the aisle in Section 30 and heading our way!”

  Dunk trotted back to the Hackers’ side of the field to wait for the kick-off. He stared down the field at the Bright Crusaders, resplendent in the dazzling sun; the light reflecting off their suits of armour, which had been polished to a mirror finish.

  At first, Dunk had wondered how the Crusaders managed to keep their armour so clean given how hard a game Blood Bowl could be. Then he noticed that the team’s coach — Father E. A. “the Padre” Matten — kept substituting the dirty players off the field so that a team of cheerleaders dressed in black and white habits could restore the soiled players’ shine.

  The first time the Crusaders had taken the kick-off, they had squibbed it into the stands. The fans had squirted it back out at the Crusaders, and they had driven it all the way down the field and into the end zone. Every time Dunk had come near the ball, the Crusader holding it had thrown it away. He hadn’t been able to get within ten yards of the spiked pigskin.

  This time, he refused to let the same thing happen again. When the Crusaders lined up to kick the ball, he raced forward instead of hanging back. The kicker squibbed it again, but when the ball popped back out of the stands and into the field, Dunk was right there, ready and waiting for it. He leapt up and snagged the ball from the air.

  “Hoffnung has the ball!” Bob’s voice said. “Now we’ll see how well the Padre’s plan stacks up!”

  Dunk tucked the ball under his arm and ran for the end zone. He expected the Crusaders to dive out of his way. They might have wanted to play by the rules, but that didn’t mean they wanted to be turned to ash on the spot.

  When the first Crusader came at Dunk, he almost stopped and let himself get hit. He thought, on first blush, that the Crusader was a man, but the armour had large bumps on the chest, presumably to protect large breasts, and the back fringe of a wimple hung out from under the back of its helmet. The fuzzy moustache on the lady’s lip, and the shoulders that many a lineman would kill to have, threw him off.

  “Leave it to Sister Mary Mister to break the tacit injunction against harming Hoffnung!” said Lästiges’ voice. “I’ve been following her career for years, Bob, and she’s never been one to let something like a daemonic curse stand in her righteous way.”

  “Repent, sinner!” Sister Mister bellowed as she thundered after Dunk. Her stomping treads shook the Astrogranite beneath her so hard that Dunk wondered if she were somehow half-ogre — or maybe full. “Hold still, and I will send you directly to Nuffle for judgement!”

  Dunk dodged left, and the large lady lurched right past him. Then he saw an open hole and cut right to surge down the field. M’Grash got in front of him to provide blocking and smashed down two linemen who came his way. Unfortunately, those Crusaders tripped M’Grash up as they went down, and Dunk found himself without protection again.

  “It looks like only Brother Mother stands between Hoffnung and the goal line now!” said Bob. “Will Mother martyr himself for the cause?”

  To Dunk’s mind, there was no question Mother would try to tackle him. Instead, he needed to smack this Crusader down hard and fast. Perhaps then Zauberer wouldn’t need to zap him to smithereens.

  Brother Mother was the skinniest Blood Bowl player Dunk had ever seen, a young man with a figure that could only be described as girlish. As they grew closer, Dunk marvelled at the man’s lips and eyes, which looked as if they’d been abused. The eyes were sunken into dark, shaded holes, and the lips shone redder than fresh blood. It took Dunk a moment to realise that Mother wasn’t hurt. The man wore make-up — and lots of it.

  Mother stretched his arms wide, and Dunk wondered if he should stiff-arm the weakling out of the way or just spin out of his grasp. Then an image of the last person who’d tackled him filled his mind, and he found that he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let Mother even touch him.

  Dunk jinked to the right and then ran to the left, hoping to find daylight. Mother followed his every move, not fooled for even an instant. Seeing that he couldn’t get past the Crusader, Dunk looked for an open Hacker, but he couldn’t see a single one.

  So Dunk did the only thing he could think of. He turned and ran away from the end zone.

  “Has Hoffnung turned coward?” Bob’s voice asked. “Are the Hackers’ new colours yellow and yellow?”

  “I don’t think so, Bob,” said Lästiges’ voice. “In his own twisted way, I think Hoffnung is trying to save the Crusaders’ lives.”

  “On a Blood Bowl field?” Bob said. “Now that’s blasphemy!”

  Dunk shut all the chatter out and looked for some way, any way, to get rid of the ball. That’s when Brother Mother hit him.

  The tackle caught Dunk just behind the knees and brought him down clean. As he bounced off the fake stone surface, the ball bounced free from his hands. Not caring what happened to it next, Dunk reached back and grabbed Mother by the helmet.

  “You moron!” Dunk said. “You just killed yourself!”

  “Yea, though I sprint through the Darkside Cowboys’ Stadium of Darkness, I will fear no evil,” Mother said. “Nuffle does windsprints by my side. Where there is only one set of footprints on the Astrogranite, that’s where he carried me!”

  “He should have carried you to the nearest asylum and left you there!”

  Mother tried to pull himself from Dunk’s grasp, but the thrower kept his death grip on the Crusader’s faceguard. Mother kept pushing away anyhow, somehow hoping that the far stronger Hackers would give up before he did.

  “Don’t you get it?” Dunk asked. “As soon as you walk away from me, you’re dead.”

  Mother gave Dunk a serene smile with his ruby-painted lips. “My faith is my shield and my armour.”

  “All the other victims wore armour too,” Dunk said. “None of them made it to the sidelines.”

  “You are faithless,” Mother said. “Those of us who have accepted Nuffle into our lives as our own personal saviours do not fear death. When this game is over, can I discuss the emptiness in your soul with you? Perhaps I can leave you with some literature?”

  “Crusaders score!” Bob’s voice said.

  “You see,” Mother said. “It’s not too late to join the winning team — at least in spirit.”

 
“Would you just listen to me?” Dunk asked. “Pull your head out of your damned sacred rulebook for one minute so I can get through to you?”

  “Pull my head out?” Mother said with a satisfied grin. “That’s an excellent idea.”

  Before Dunk realised what Mother meant, the Crusader reached up and undid the strap on his helmet. His head slipped free from Dunk’s grasp on his faceguard, and the rest of his body followed along right after it.

  “No!” Dunk shouted as he fell backward, Mother’s helmet still in his hands. “Come back!”

  “There’s no reason to go back,” Mother said as he started towards his dugout. “With Nuffle on your side, you’re always on your—”

  The crack from a bolt of ebony lightning drowned out Brother Mother’s last words.

  Tears of utter frustration rolled down Dunk’s cheeks as the wind blew Mother’s ashes back at him. The Crusader’s blackened armour hung there in the air for a moment, held together by little more than memories. Then it came crashing down into a clanging heap.

  “Dunkel okay?” M’Grash asked as he trotted up behind Dunk, who sat there on the Astrogranite, hugging his legs to his chest.

  Dunk shook his head. “No, big guy,” he said. “I’m anything but all right.”

  “Okay, Dunkel,” the ogre said. He reached down and scooped Dunk up in his arms like an infant. Looking down at the man cradled against his chest, M’Grash said, “Dr. Pill make everything all right.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with you,” said Dr. Pill.

  “You are the worst quack excuse for a physician I’ve ever seen,” said Dunk, clutching his back. It felt fine, but he wasn’t about to let the apothecary know that.

  The gaunt elf with the eye patch scowled at Dunk. “If I tell Pegleg that you’re faking an injury—”

  “Then I will tear out your spleen and stuff it down your throat with my bare hands,” Dunk said. “If I can somehow manage to work my way through the pain.”

  Something banged away in a large locker in the corner, one of those custom-made for gigantic players like Edgar or M’Grash. Dunk ignored it.

  “What in Nuffle’s re-broadcast warning is making that noise?” Dr. Pill asked, scratching his chin.

  “It’s nothing,” Dunk said. “Leave it alone.”

  “I think it’s coming from the ogre’s locker.” The apothecary crept towards the locker’s red, steel door as if he could sneak up on it.

  “He likes to leave livestock in there for an after-game snack.”

  Dr. Pill turned to sneer at Dunk in disgust.

  “Hey,” Dunk said. “He gets hungry after a big game. Are you going to be the one to tell him to wait until dinner?”

  “Pegleg isn’t that much of a savage.”

  “He doesn’t eat any of it,” Dunk said.

  Dr. Pill turned back towards the banging locker. The noises coming from inside it grew louder, faster and more insistent. A sign on the front of it read “KEYP OWT — DAYNIER!” in M’Grash’s crude scrawl.

  “However,” Dunk said, “Pegleg does believe in giving the food a fighting chance. He picks out the meanest, nastiest critters he can to give M’Grash a challenge. Sometimes the vicious little buggers manage to get out and run wild through the place. A few of them even get away.

  “Some aren’t so easy to deal with though. There was that massive, rabid badger Pegleg stuck in there one time. That bugger killed two rookies and maimed a third before M’Grash finally crushed its skull.”

  Dr. Pill looked at Dunk as he reached the locker and cocked his ear so that it almost rested against the metal. “You’re lying,” he said.

  “Okay,” Dunk said, “you got me.”

  Dr. Pill hesitated for a moment, his hand on the locker’s handle.

  “It was a wolverine.”

  Dr. Pill scowled. Before Dunk could stop him, he yanked open the locker in one swift move.

  For a moment, nothing happened, and Dunk breathed a sigh of relief. Then a bound and gagged Lehrer toppled out of the locker and landed on his face. The prisoner looked up at Dunk and Dr. Pill and let loose a muffled scream.

  “Oh, dear,” said Dr. Pill. “This won’t do at all.”

  “Hold on a moment,” said Dunk. “I can explain.”

  “I certainly hope so. You and your accomplices have done an awful job of this.” The apothecary stared down at Lehrer with a critical eye.

  “That’s true. I — What do you mean?” Dunk was confused.

  Dr. Pill pointed down at the ropes holding Lehrer’s limbs. “These are tied all wrong. In another hour or so, he’d have been able to wriggle out of them all by himself.”

  Dunk blinked. “Ah,” he said. It was the most intelligent thing he could think of at the moment.

  Dr. Pill went over to a black leather case on a nearby bench and unfolded it. His back to Dunk, he rummaged around inside it. First, he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. Then he grabbed and shook something hard.

  “Ropes are such crude devices anyhow,” he said. “I prefer a proper hog-tying for restraints myself, when pressed to rely on such measures. However…”

  The apothecary turned around and displayed a large syringe in his hands. He watched the sharpened tip of its wide-bore needle as he pushed a drop of clear, but pungent fluid through it. “There are such excellent chemical alternatives that one need hardly ever bother.”

  Dr. Pill walked over to Lehrer. Tears ran down the man’s face as he whimpered into his gag. “Hold still,” the apothecary said. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt a great deal.”

  25

  “Here’s to the Hackers!” Slick said, raising his tankard in a toast. The others gathered around the table in the Skinned Cat cheered in accord.

  “And here’s to making the final match of the Blood Bowl Tournament!” said Guillermo. More cheers followed.

  “Ah, it’s not that big a deal,” Dirk said with a grin.

  Dunk put one arm around his brother’s neck and ruffled his hair with the other. “Just because the Reavers do it every year doesn’t mean it’s not great for us. And you’re a Hacker now!”

  “Go Hackers!” M’Grash crowed. The ogre leaned back and downed the rest of the keg of Killer Genuine Draft he’d been powering through. By Dunk’s count, this was the ogre’s third.

  M’Grash leaned back further and used the heel of his hand to pound the last drops of ale out of the keg. Then he set it back down on his lap and grinned from ear to ear. Had Dunk not been the best of friends with the ogre, he might have fled from the table right then. As it was, a few of the others clutched the backs of their chairs as if they might toss furniture behind them in an attempt to trip up the ogre as they fled.

  Then M’Grash unleashed a monstrous belch that shook the tavern’s walls. After that, his grin was, if anything larger and happier. It faded only a bit as he tipped back over in his chair and landed with a thud that made the building tremble.

  “Out cold before he hit the floor,” Edgar said. The treeman stood next to the table instead of sitting, as his body would not bend in the middle. Fortunately, the main room of the Skinned Cat was tall enough to accommodate him, although his upper branches brushed the ceiling. “Bloody ogres can’t handle their bloody drink for bloody anything.”

  “It’s just good that you’re here, old friend,” Slick said to Edgar.

  “Of course it is.” The treeman scowled down at halfling. “I’m the only one of this bloody pack of tree-swinging mammals that has a bloody prayer of hauling his gargantuan carcass home, ain’t I? What in hell did you lot bloody well do before I came along?”

  “Mostly we left him where he fell,” said Dunk.

  “It is not like we had much choice in the matter,” Guillermo said.

  “Oh, who’d dare to not ‘let a drunk ogre lie’?” asked Slick.

  “Do we know who we’re playing yet?” Dirk asked. Sometimes Dunk’s younger brother surprised him with how seriously he took his job — and the game.

 
“Right here, Mr. Heldmann,” Pegleg said as he limped into the room, Cavre at his side. He waved a scroll in his good hand and gave it to his team captain to read.

  Cavre unfurled the scroll and read its contents silently. Then he spoke. “The other semi-final game was between the Chaos All-Stars and the Badlands Buccaneers.”

  “We know all that. What happened to the broadcast?” Dirk asked. “We were watching it here on the giant crystal ball when it went black.”

  Pegleg nodded. “Since it was a game that Mr. Hoffnung wasn’t involved in, Mr. Zauberer took the chance to destroy every camra in the place.”

  “Nuffle’s masticated mouth guard,” Slick said. “Why would he do that?”

  “Apparently it was an attempt to get each and every one of the game’s sponsors up in arms,” Pegleg said. “The tournament organisers were nearly crucified in front of the stadium on those nice new lights the Guterfiend family paid to have installed after the post-game riots last year. They made scores of other improvements to the place as well.”

  “The Guterfiends?” Dirk and Dunk said together.

  Pegleg nodded. “I know about the troubles your family’s had with them, but they did something good with their money there at least.”

  Dunk shook his head. “I don’t believe it for a second. The lamps are probably all filled with explosives.”

  “Or death rays,” Dirk said, nodding his head.

  “Or a bunch of bloody fairies trapped in those bloody, little glass balls and forever forced to shed bloody light on their evil masters’ command.”

  Everyone craned their necks to stare up at Edgar.

  “What?” he said. “Now don’t tell me you lot are a bunch of bloody fairy lovers.”

  The others all decided to ignore him.

  “So that’s all that happened?” asked Dunk. “Just a bunch of ruined camras?”

  “To you, Dunk, those are ‘just a bunch of ruined camras’,” said Cavre. “To Ruprect Murdark, that’s the loss of hundreds of thousands of crowns in advertising dollars.”