[Blood Bowl 02] - Dead Ball

by Matt Forbeck - (ebook by Undead)

  “Illegal use of a weapon! The ref is accusing Hoffnung of using that chainsaw to kill Gimlet!”

  “You can’t do this!” Dunk screamed into the ref’s face. He pointed down at Gimlet. “It’s his chainsaw. He killed all those people!”

  The tall, thin elf sneered back at the Hacker. “So you say. You see it your way, and I’ll see it mine. But only mine counts.”

  Rage threatened to explode Dunk’s head from the inside. A red veil dropped down over his eyes, and the next thing he knew he found himself chasing the ref back up the field.

  The crowd loved it.

  3

  Dunk never caught up with the referee. The dark elf ran with the grace of a gazelle — which probably explained how he’d survived so long as a referee — and Dunk’s armour and injuries slowed him down. He kept pace with the ref until they reached the Hackers’ end zone, on the opposite end of the field from all the carnage, but as he crossed the goal line his rage lost its battle with his legs, which refused to run any more.

  Dunk bent over and grabbed his thighs as he tried to suck more air into his lungs. As he did so, the crowd booed. The fans had tasted plenty of blood today, but it had only made them hungry for more. To Dunk, it seemed they wanted the referee dead as much as he did.

  “The crowd is not happy about this!” Jim said.

  “No, Jim, they’re not. I haven’t seen a referee show such a blatant disregard for the rules and for any sense of fair play since the Athelorn Avengers played the Dwarf Giants.”

  “Bob, that was only last week!”

  Dunk raised his head and stared up at the Jumboball. Images of Gimlet’s death flashed through it. Then he saw the referee racing away from him, thumbing his nose first at Dunk and then the crowd.

  The sequence played through again, although more wobbly this time, and Dunk — enough air in his lungs at last — stood up to glare at the ref. He considered chasing after the corrupt dark elf again, but the way his vision had been shaking he didn’t think he was up for it. As he stared at the ref, though, he realised there was nothing wrong with his vision.

  “I think the fans have a plan for revenge here, Bob,” Jim’s voice said.

  “Sure,” Bob said, “but do you think they’ve really thought this through?”

  “They wouldn’t be Blood Bowl fans if they had. Look at that Jumboball shake! The fans up there in the cheap seats are going to get more than nosebleeds if they keep that up!”

  Dunk peered up at the far end zone and saw the Jumboball juddering like — well, like the spiked football had in Henrik’s head. A sense of dread filled him, but before he could give it voice, the wooden stand that held the boulder-sized crystal gave way with a crack he could hear clear across the stadium.

  The ball hung there in the air for a moment before spilling forward onto the people standing in the seats beneath it.

  The crowd howled in pain and fear as the ball began to roll down the inside of the stadium’s bowl, crushing both the slower fans and the stands from which they sought to scramble. It picked up speed as it went, and it reached the Astrogranite in mere, bloody seconds, busting through the low restraining wall meant to keep the fans from making easy grabs at unwary players.

  When the Jumboball entered the All-Stars’ end zone, the players still stuck in the remnants of the pile-up around the ball realised something was wrong. Dunk saw Gigia stand up and try to pull a wounded Milo out of the massive thing’s rolling path, but he was too injured to do more than slow her down. Andreas tried to pitch in to help, but he only doomed himself as well. The red-stained crystal smashed all three Hackers beneath its rolling bulk.

  A number of the All-Stars went down too, as the Jumboball didn’t take sides in this, the first game it had ever entered. It just kept rolling along, oblivious to the destruction it left in its wake.

  Dunk peered past the ball, forgetting the treacherous referee in the face of this new threat. He saw Cavre and Simon racing away from the ball, running north, toward the Hackers’ dugout. With any luck, they would be safe.

  In the centre of the field, Karsten and Guillermo sprinted toward Dunk at top speed. If they were hoping to outrun the monstrous crystal ball, it seemed they were doomed to lose. The two linemen realised this and turned right, heading toward the All-Stars’ dugout.

  Dunk breathed a sigh of relief and started for the Hackers’ dugout himself. First he headed north, planning to hug the edge of the field to keep as far from the Jumboball’s path as he could.

  To Dunk’s amazement, the Jumboball veered off to the left, forging a new path that would intercept Karsten and Guillermo long before they made it to the relative safety of the All-Stars’ dugout. Dunk was sure that any Hackers who literally landed in their foes’ laps were in for a savage beating, but at least they’d survive that. Probably.

  Dunk shouted a warning to Karsten and Guillermo, but the roar of the crowd at the Jumboball’s abrupt change of course drowned out any hope of his friends hearing him. Despite this, the two Hackers glanced back to see where the Jumboball was and found it hot on their tail. Guillermo shoved Karsten to the left and took off to the right himself, splitting them so that the Jumboball would pass between them and roll right into the All-Stars’ dugout.

  This dugout, like the Hackers’, featured a set of steps that led down into the ground. Tall players standing on the broad floor could look out over the field at about eye level. Others could achieve the same effect by climbing a few steps.

  A concrete roof angled back to protect the occupants of the dugout from the fans in the stands behind it. Riots seemed to break out in just about every game, and when they did the players could dive right into their dugouts to avoid thrown beer steins, rotten tomatoes, and even rusty knives.

  Dunk wondered if the roof would be enough to stop the Jumboball. Or would the massive sphere crush the structure and everyone in it? As much as he hated to see people die, a part of him felt that if any team deserved such carnage it was the Chaos All-Stars.

  The Jumboball ground to a halt before it reached the dugout. It hesitated there for a moment and then veered left.

  “Wow! Have you ever seen anything like that, Bob? Talk about playing on an unlevel field.”

  “Uh, no. Never! It seems like that rogue Jumboball has a mind of its own.”

  Dunk wondered for a moment if he was seeing things. Then he spotted a familiar face in the All-Stars’ dugout: Schlechter Zauberer.

  Dunk had last seen the middle-aged wizard at last year’s Chaos Bowl, in the middle of the same game at which he’d killed the bull-headed Likker. He wore the same midnight-blue robes with bluish-white piping that highlighted their edges, and the same polished silver skullcap that glinted in the midday sun. He waved a wand that resembled the blackened thighbone of some large bird, and the Jumboball followed his gestures.

  Although Dunk had almost made it to the safety of the Hackers’ dugout, he saw only one course of action. He sprinted across the gridiron to rip Zauberer’s wispy white beard off his receding chin.

  “Dunk!” Pegleg called after him. “Get back here, damn your meaty legs!”

  The thrower ignored his coach’s pleas, pretending he couldn’t hear them over the crowd. It wasn’t hard to do.

  As Dunk neared the All-Stars’ dugout, a pair of benchwarmers leapt from the dugout and charged at him. The first, a twisted lizardman bearing two massive tails, threw back its head and hissed a challenge at Dunk. A pair of eyeballs twisted on the end of its long, sinuous tongue as it slipped in and out of its toothy maw.

  The second creature worried Dunk more. The stone-skinned troll stood twice as tall as the Hacker and bore spike-knuckled fists, each as large as Dunk’s head. It bellowed at the thrower as it lumbered toward him, smashing holes in the Astrogranite for emphasis.

  The crowd cheered. Dunk glanced to his left to see Karsten’s flattened remains come slipping off the backside of the Jumboball, which had just run him over. The ball came to a halt, then backed up, running ove
r Karsten again and heading straight for Dunk.

  Dunk looked back toward the All-Stars’ dugout and saw that the lizardman and troll were coming at him like a pair of runaway battlewagons. He turned and ran in the other direction. Zauberer would have to wait.

  For a moment, Dunk thought he had a chance. Despite the troll’s long strides, he could outrun him in a fair race. The lizardman, though, wasn’t going to give Dunk a chance. The lizardman couldn’t run any faster than Dunk, but he was fresh off the bench. Dunk’s legs felt like he wore lead anklets that became heavier with every step.

  And then there was the Jumboball.

  “This is amazing, Bob,” Jim’s voice said. “Hoffnung seemed to be hunting for an epic death with his charge into the All-Stars’ dugout, but at the last moment he lost his nerve.”

  “It’s one thing to die,” said Bob. “As a vampire, I know all about it. It’s something else to be torn to pieces and eaten. Chaos trolls like Krader there have been known to do that.”

  “That’s if Sseth Skinshucker doesn’t get a hold of Dunk first. As we know from last year’s Blood Bowl qualifying rounds, Sseth doesn’t like to share.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone swallow a halfling whole like that before. I understand it took him the better part of the week to digest poor Puddin Fatfellow.”

  “True, although I hear the Greenfield Grasshuggers took longer than that to select a new captain!”

  These words spurred Dunk on toward the All-Stars’ end zone. As he leaped over the pile of dead bodies near where Gimlet fell, he heard a low rumbling noise under the maddening roar of the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the Jumboball bounce along over the corpses only a dozen feet behind him. Sseth and Krader had veered off to the south to give it room to pass, but they still kept pace.

  “Ooh! It looks like the jaunty Jumboball is going to win that footrace instead, Jim.”

  “It could be — but wait! We have a new entrant into the fray!”

  Dunk snapped his head around to see what Bob could mean. As he did, he saw M’Grash come stampeding in from the Hackers’ dugout and hurl himself into the Jumboball’s spinning side.

  Despite the ogre’s size, the Jumboball stood more than twice his height. This didn’t faze him for a moment. He lowered his shoulder and smashed his spiked spaulder flat into the massive crystal. A loud crack rolled through the stadium like instant thunder, and the ball’s path skewed south.

  Sseth leapt out of the way on his powerful haunches. To Dunk it looked like the lizardman’s tail propelled him out of the way. The troll, however, wasn’t so fortunate. Krader roared in protest before the Jumboball rolled over him, crushing him behind it as it smashed into the south stands.

  Dunk skidded to a halt then ran back around to where M’Grash stood, holding his bruised shoulder. “What did you think you were doing?” the thrower shouted. “You could have been killed!”

  To Dunk’s surprise, the ogre blushed. “Me sorry, Dunkel,” he said, lowering his eyes. “Didn’t want Dunkel to die.”

  Dunk’s heart fell. M’Grash had the brains — and the moral framework, sadly — of a two-year-old. He hadn’t considered the risk to his own skin. He’d only known he had to save his friend’s life.

  Dunk clapped M’Grash on the arm. “It’s all right, M’Grash. Actually, it’s better than that.” He leaned over to peer up into the ogre’s weepy eyes. “Thanks.”

  “Mean it?” M’Grash said as he wiped his eyes, a half-proud smile spreading across his face.

  The thrower nodded. “Damn right. If not for you, I’d be—”

  Dunk had to stop talking when Sseth’s tail knocked him clear past the ogre to land face first atop the pile of chainsaw-savaged cadavers.

  “Wow!” said Bob. “You don’t see cheap shots like that every — wait! Yes, I guess you do!”

  “Too true, Bob,” said Jim, “but that was a classic of the genre. The Cabalvision networks will be playing that one on the highlight feeds all week long.”

  Dunk pushed himself to his knees, his battered back painfully protesting. He looked down and saw a body in a green and gold uniform beneath him. He had to squint, but it looked like Kai. Just three feet to his left, he spotted Percy’s severed head staring out at him through his intact helmet.

  To Dunk, this had long since stopped being a game.

  He stood up and cheered as he saw M’Grash grab Sseth by his long, green-scaled tail. The ogre leaned back and started to spin around, swinging the lizardman around by his extra appendage. After a half-dozen rotations, M’Grash let go and hurled Sseth right over the Jumboball and into the south stands.

  “So, Jim, what do you think the chances are of Skinshucker making it out of there alive?”

  “If the Gobbo was here, he’d lay six to one odds, Bob. Ooh! It looks like the fans might be putting Skinshucker’s last name to the test. That’s gotta hurt! I haven’t seen that many scales ripped off someone since my wife’s last trip to the spa!”

  Before Dunk could run over to M’Grash to congratulate him, a sound like the bellow of a wounded dragon came from behind the Jumboball. The gigantic crystal dislodged from where it had come to rest against the crushed restraining wall separating the field from the stands. As it rolled to the right, Krader appeared from behind it, pushing himself up from where he’d fallen.

  As Dunk watched, the troll’s battered skin and broken bones reknit themselves together. The crowd gasped, then cheered with delight.

  “With their regenerating powers, Bob, it’s hard to keep a good troll down.”

  “Or a bad one for that matter, Jim!”

  Dunk looked down at his feet and spotted the end of the chainsaw sticking out through Gimlet’s armoured corpse. It would certainly make a better weapon than the thrower’s bare fists.

  Dunk flipped Gimlet over and dragged the chainsaw out of his corpse. He’d never seen anything like this before, some strange amalgam of sorcery and alchemy, he guessed. Still, if a creature like Gimlet could run it, then perhaps Dunk could too.

  He fumbled with the contraption for a moment until his hands found the proper grip on it. How had Gimlet turned the thing on? Dunk had been too far down the field to see the chainsaw start up.

  “It looks like Hoffnung has decided turnabout is fair play, Bob.”

  “Too bad no one engraved a set of instructions on the side of that thing!”

  Dunk cursed and glared up at the announcers’ box, high above the stadium’s north flank. It was bad enough he couldn’t figure out the damned thing without disembodied voices mocking him in front of thousands of people.

  Then an odd thought struck Dunk. He turned the chainsaw over on its side. There, just under the left handle, someone had scratched a set of instructions: “Grab left handle. Pull chain with right.”

  Dunk looked at the serrated chain running along the outside of the blade. He couldn’t imagine anyone would want to grab that to get the thing going. Not even a Chaos worshipper like Gimlet could be that willing to risk his fingers every time.

  “Try the T-grip,” Guillermo said.

  Dunk almost leapt from his armour at the sound of the Hacker’s voice behind him. He swung the chainsaw around to smack the man but managed to recognise him in time. “Where in the Chaos Wastes did you come from?” he said.

  Guillermo tossed a thumb back at the stands. “Been hiding in the crowd.”

  Dunk scowled as he looked for this ‘T-grip’ Guillermo had mentioned. “They didn’t pass you up over the edge?”

  “Too busy watching the show.”

  Guillermo tapped a fist-long wooden dowel dangling from the right side of the chainsaw’s handle. Like most of the rest of the machine, it was stained with fresh blood. Dunk reached down and grabbed it with his right hand. Bracing the chainsaw in his left hand, he hauled back on the T-grip with all his might, and the smoke-belching beast roared to life.

  Dunk nodded his thanks to Guillermo over the machine’s deafening roar and turned to see Krader and M’
Grash pummelling each other to death. The ogre seemed to be getting the worse of it, which was no surprise. The troll had a couple of feet of height on him and countless pounds. Worse yet, Dunk could see every wound M’Grash inflicted on the troll was already healing. The same couldn’t be said for the half-dozen gashes Dunk spotted in the ogre’s hide.

  “Let’s finish this!” Dunk said, charging forward with the chainsaw buzzing in his hands.

  As he approached the massive combatants, though, he saw the Jumboball start to move again.

  “Gee, Jim,” Bob’s voice said, “that hardly seems fair.”

  4

  The crowd roared at Bob’s joke as Dunk turned to face the twenty-foot-tall crystal ball rolling toward him. Then he did the only thing he could think of, and charged straight at it.

  Dunk knew that if he tried to run the ball would outpace him before he could reach safety. It would have done so before if M’Grash hadn’t stopped it, and the ogre was too busy to lend a hand right now. So he ran straight at the thing, hoping it wouldn’t build up too much speed before he reached it.

  As Dunk neared the Jumboball, he dived to the right. He misjudged the ball’s size, though, and it clipped his shoulder as it rolled by him, sending him sprawling to the ground.

  Dunk wrestled with the chainsaw as he fell, refusing to share Gimlet’s horrible fate. He landed on his back, holding the machine over him in his outstretched arms, its vicious teeth whirring only inches from his face.

  “I think Hoffnung’s taken too many blows to the head today, Bob,” Jim said.

  “Lots of people have underestimated the Hoffnung brothers before. Remember how Dunk’s younger brother Dirk pulled out that win in last year’s Blood Bowl final?”

  “Are you kidding? That was the best Blood Bowl I’ve seen since the glory days of Griff Oberwald. Somewhere in a dark corner of hell, Reavers’ founder D. D. Griswell is still smiling about it!”

  Dunk scrambled to his feet and saw that the Jumboball hadn’t got far. It had stopped rolling away and stood hesitating only a few feet away from the Hackers’ thrower. As it started toward Dunk again, he launched himself forward and stabbed the chainsaw’s roaring blade into it.