“What’s going to happen to the game?” Simon said. “It’s the Far Albion Cup Final.”
Pegleg stared at each of his ex-players in turn and said. “I don’t care. The game and my new players can be damned.”
“What a stroke of luck for you, then,” Deckem shouted down into the dugout, his deadmen assembled behind him. “We already are!”
20
Deckem’s eyes glowed red as the undead player glared down at his coach and former team-mates. “Look!” he said. “A reunion of everyone I haven’t got around to killing yet.”
Dunk looked to Slick, who hefted the sack-covered cup up in his arms and tossed it to the thrower. “Run!” the halfling shouted before diving under the bench.
Without stopping to think, Dunk snatched the cup from the air and tucked it under his arm. He glanced up at the field and saw the deadmen had fanned out to block the way onto the gridiron. He dashed over to his right and hesitated as he stood before the grinning Deckem.
“Go on, mate,” Deckem said with an amused sneer. “Give it a go.”
Dunk feinted a lunge up the steps that led out of the dugout, then spun on his toes and sprinted out through the locker room tunnel, ducking around Edgar, who still knelt there. As he went, Dunk heard Deckem snarl after him and then cry out, “Get him!”
Then Dunk heard a horrible crack from the dugout, and a roar of frustration from Deckem.
“Would you look at that?” Jotson’s voice said. “Now they’re throwing benches at the Hackers from inside their own dugout! I haven’t seen that kind of team discord since the last time Khorne’s Killers played here. Worshipping a god of Chaos can wreak havoc with team unity, it seems!”
Dunk just put his head down and ran. He knew it wouldn’t be long until Deckem and his fellow deadmen came after him. While he might be able to outrun them all for a while, he would eventually tire. The living dead like Deckem had no such limitations. They’d just keep coming after him until they wore him down into the dirt.
When Dunk reached the Hackers’ locker room, he skidded to a halt. There, right in front of him, stood Merlin Olsen, his wand at the ready.
“That the cup you have with yourself there, lad?” the wizard said.
Dunk nodded. Somewhere behind him, there was another loud crack, and an inhuman wail chased after it.
“That Deckem and his blokes pounding along after you like a herd of headless orcs?”
Dunk nodded again.
“Then get out of the way, lad.” The wizard snapped his wrist, and his wand began to crackle with bright arcs of golden power. “This is about to get ugly.”
Deckem darted into the locker room then, a long, leafy branch in his arms. From down the tunnel, Dunk could hear Edgar wailing in pain. Seeing the power coursing through the wizard’s wand, though, pried his attention away from that, and he dived to one side, flinging himself along the open floor.
“You old fool!” Deckem said. “What do you think you can—?”
Every hair on Dunk’s body stood on end all at once as the crackling sound from Olsen’s wand zoomed to a quick crescendo. The sound reminded Dunk of when his brother Dirk had once thrown a hive full of bees at him while they’d been staying at the family’s country home. As the enraged insects chased him over and into the lake, they’d made a noise something like that, except it had ended with a splash into the cool, protective waters rather than an eardrum-bursting peal of thunder.
When Dunk managed to scrape himself back up off the floor, blood trickling from his ears, he looked back and saw a long line of crispy corpses starting at the entrance and flowing back into the tunnel as far as he could see. They each stood flash-baked into the positions in which they’d been at the moment Olsen’s spell had gone off, like some grisly queue of grotesque sculptures still smoking with the heat of their creation.
Olsen reached out with the end of his wand and gently tipped the lead corpse backward. It fell into the one behind it, knocking it back into the others in a horrible domino effect. As each of the bodies tumbled backward, it fell apart to ashes, leaving only fragments of charred skeletons behind.
As Dunk staggered to his feet, the wizard came over and mouthed something at him. The thrower couldn’t make it out over the ringing in his head. After another attempt, the wizard realised what was wrong and stopped trying to talk. Instead, he clapped Dunk on the back and gave him a big thumb’s up.
Dazed, Dunk wandered over to a nearby bench and sat down on it, still clutching the cup to his chest. The last thing he remembered was telling himself not to let go of it, not for any reason, not even death.
Dunk awakened in darkness with the distinct feeling that the world was swimming underneath him. He squeezed his eyes closed tight and fought against the vertigo for a moment, but it refused to go away. After a moment, he gave up and tried to open his eyes, but he discovered that something lay bound over them, keeping the light out.
For a moment, Dunk panicked, thinking to find himself bound, gagged, and blindfolded, but his hands, he found, were free, his mouth uncovered. He brought his fingers up and removed the eyeless mask of black silk.
He saw that he lay in a bed on one side of a low, cramped room lit only by a single candle that burned softly on a desk along the opposite wall. Dark, hand-polished wood panelled the walls, floor, and ceiling. A couch in crimson velvet sat against the wall nearest Dunk’s feet, along which hung long, heavy, black curtains. Only the slightest hint of daylight peeked around them, but it was enough to show the outline of the man sitting at the desk across the room, staring at the flickering light before him.
Shelves filled with books and scrolls lined every available inch of open wall. Most of these were tucked neatly away, except for a set of navigational charts sprawled across a low table that squatted in front of the couch. A capped pot of ink and a pilot’s compass served as paperweights for these on one side, ensuring they didn’t slide or slip off the table with the slow movement of the room. A full set of silver tea service, along with a pair of fine, ceramic cups and saucers, perched on the table’s far end.
As Dunk slipped out of the bed, he realised he wore only his breeches. He wondered where his clothes had gone, but at the moment that didn’t seem as important as figuring out where he had landed. He stole over to where the man sat at the table, watching — as it turned out — a crystal ball. In its glowing depths, images of a Blood Bowl game flashed by.
The players stood in a familiar stadium — the one in Kingsbury, Dunk remembered after a moment’s reflection — and they wore the purple and gold uniforms of the Royals. The man in the middle — the coach perhaps?—thrust a cup into the air in a gesture of victory.
The camra panned out over the cheering fans, then returned to a close-up of the Royals’ coach kissing the cup. It was a cheap replica of the original Far Albion Cup, a battered piece of tin that wouldn’t be used for more than catching spit in any but the toughest pubs in Albion.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Dunk,” Pegleg said, never taking his eyes from the image. “I’m glad to see that rather expensive apothecary’s efforts weren’t all for naught.”
Dunk tried to think of something to say, but his tongue caught in his mouth. He stared down at the back of his former coach’s head and coughed.
Pegleg turned slowly to face the thrower, a faint smile on his lips warring with concern in his eyes. “You can hear me, can’t you? That scurvy dog swore up and down that your ears would be fine.” When Dunk didn’t answer, Pegleg raised his voice to a shout. “CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
“Yes!” Dunk said, covering his ears at the noise. “I heard you fine the first time. I’m just a little… Where am I?”
“My quarters, Dunk, aboard the Sea Chariot.”
Dunk blinked, confused. “We’re… What happened? Where are we going?”
“One thing at a time,” Pegleg said, taking Dunk by the arm and moving him over to sit on the couch.
As the coach poured them each a steaming cup
of tea, Dunk gazed over at the crystal ball on Pegleg’s writing desk. “We lost,” he said. “I’m — I’m sorry, coach. I mean, captain.”
Pegleg frowned as he handed Dunk his tea. “Don’t concern yourself with it. It’s all over with now.”
“What happened?”
Pegleg chuckled at this. “Didn’t you see what Olsen’s spell did to Deckem and his crew? Incinerated every last one of them. We’re just lucky the rest of us had stopped to help Edgar up before following them.”
“All of you?”
Pegleg blushed a bit, which shocked Dunk. He didn’t think the captain had the capacity for embarrassment. “Not all. Some were busy keeping me from chasing after you and ripping out your eyes.”
Dunk’s gaze flickered to the captain’s hook then back to his tired, resigned eyes. “Don’t worry yourself, Dunk. I’ve given up those plans.”
“For good?” Dunk worked up a little laugh that sounded weak even to his ears.
“For now, at least,” Pegleg said with a mischievous grin.
“So what happened after the big boom?” Dunk asked, eager to get off this topic of conversation. “It looks like the Royals won.”
“By default.” Pegleg grimaced, the pain showing all the way through to his eyes. “We didn’t have any players left — except Mr. Cavre, that is.”
Dunk gaped. “What about the other guys? The living ones, I mean. Weren’t they willing to play?”
Pegleg chuckled again. “They all volunteered to go back on to the field, just as I’m sure you would have, had you been conscious. But the rules on these things are clear. You can only field the players you start the game with. Otherwise, a coach could just keep flooding a game with fresh players, right? And where would the sport be in that?”
Dunk shook his head. “I thought you’d already taken care of the referee. Who would have stopped you?”
Pegleg smiled again, this time wider than Dunk could remember seeing since they had first procured the cup. “It’s not always a matter of getting caught by the officials. If we had tried to send on anyone but Cavre, the Game Wizards would have been on us like carbuncles.”
Dunk had dealt with two such GWs during the last season, a paired dwarf and elf by the names of Blaque and Whyte. He knew from experience how tenacious they could be. The Cabalvision networks hired them to keep the game in line and give it some semblance of fairness. It was one thing to cheat — in the sense of trying to gain a small edge or get away with a cheap shot — and something else entirely to flaunt the rules in front of a game’s entire audience.
“Some of the men wanted to suit up in the deadmen’s uniforms, but these had been burnt to cinders along with their bodies. The GWs aren’t always the sharpest blades in the body, but even they can read those great numbers on the backs of the players’ jerseys.
“Cavre insisted on going out there alone of course.”
Dunk nearly choked on his tea. “And you let him?” If any one of the Hackers could take on a team by himself, it would be Carve — or perhaps M’Grash. Cavre would employ his experience and finesse to stay alive, though, while the ogre would rely purely on brute force.
“No, no, no,” Pegleg said. “It would have been a fool’s errand, Dunk, and I’d already played the fool far too often that day. I wasn’t about to let my best and most loyal player risk almost certain death on the off-chance that he could manage to make up for a ten-player deficit on the gridiron. He’s good, but not that good.”
“So you say,” Cavre said as he entered the room, “but I would have liked a chance to test that theory.” The bright light of the day spilled in behind him, blinding Dunk until his eyes adjusted to its intensity.
“Where are we?” he asked. “Have we left Albion behind?”
Cavre smiled wide, his white teeth almost as blinding to Dunk as the sunlight. “You might say that, Mr. Hoffnung. We left land behind two days ago, and the people of Albion were happy to see us go, as the scorch marks along our stern testify.”
“Is everyone okay?” Dunk pushed himself to his feet, which wobbled under him, and not just from the rolling of the sea.
Cavre nodded. “You got the worst of it. We didn’t want to have to move you, but if we’d have left you there the Albion fans would have torn you to pieces.”
“So that means we’re back down to six players again: you, Simon, Guillermo, M’Grash, Edgar, and me.” Dunk rubbed his eyes. “Barely better off than when we left for Albion. At least we don’t have to worry about the Far Albion Cup anymore.”
Cavre and Pegleg traded a guilty glance.
Dunk’s eyes flew wide. “I said, ‘At least we don’t have to worry about the—’ Ah, damn it! You still have it don’t you?” He glowered at Pegleg.
The coach put up his hands to placate his thrower. “We went through a lot to get our hands on that bit of hardware. It would have been a waste to leave it behind.”
“Also,” Cavre said, “Olsen warned there could be dire consequences if we left the cup behind. He wanted the time to deal with it himself.”
Dunk did a double-take. “He’s still here? On this ship? With us?”
“All three,” Pegleg said. “There’s no better expert on the subject of the cup than Mr. Merlin. If we want to crack how to best use it without repeating the events in Albion, he’s our best hope.”
Dunk gaped. “Here’s our best hope: throw the cup overboard.”
“Now, Mr. Hoffnung,” Pegleg said. “That would condemn that poor soul to wander this damned world until the end of time. That hardly seems fair.”
“Oh, no,” Dunk said, “to be condemned to live forever? I can think of worse fates — like getting killed, which that wizard almost managed to do to me.”
“Now, don’t get upset—”
“Why not?” Dunk asked. “If there’s ever been something for me to get upset about, I think this is it. Do we even know if Olsen’s telling the truth? Maybe that was just some sob story to get us to help him find the cup. Maybe he knew what would happen when we did. Maybe we should try tossing him overboard and see what happens.”
“Mr. K’Thragsh already did.” Cavre smiled softly. “When he found out who’d hurt you, it took three of us, including Edgar, to keep him from ripping Mr. Merlin’s head from his shoulders. Once he calmed down, we thought things were fine until Mr. Merlin somehow offended Mr. K’Thragsh.”
“M’Grash threw him into the ocean?” Dunk fought the impulse to laugh. “How’d Olsen get back on the ship?”
“Edgar went in after him,” Pegleg said. “Did you know that treemen float, Mr. Hoffnung? They might have drifted all the way back to Albion if we’d not gone back for them.”
“You should have let them.”
“Mr. K’Thragsh was willing to give it another try. Edgar stopped him, but the treeman wasn’t fast enough to keep the ogre from trying to rip off the wizard’s head instead.”
“And he’s still here?”
“Not through any lack of effort on Mr. K’Thragsh’s part, I assure you. Had he been able to murder Mr. Merlin, we’d have had a lovely funeral at sea by now.”
Dunk frowned and sat back down on the bed, his head in his hands. After a moment, he looked up at Pegleg and Cavre. “That cup,” he said, “it’s poison. You know that. Why do you keep it around?”
Cavre started to answer, but Pegleg stopped him. He leaned forward and stared into Dunk’s eyes. “The cup is but a tool, Dunk, albeit a very powerful one. If we can master it, think of what we could do with it.”
“Think of what could happen to us — what almost did.” He scowled. “Is this one of those ‘sharp, pointy bits of metal don’t kill people — people kill people’ arguments?”
Pegleg smiled. “Something like that, but there’s more. If we can figure out how to harness the cup’s power, imagine what it would mean for the team. We’d win every game. We’d never lose a player again.”
Cavre nodded. “You have seen many of your team-mates die, Mr. Hoffnung, but you hav
e not been with the Hackers for long. Of those we have left, only Mr. K’Thragsh and myself have managed to complete more than a single season.” He sat on the couch across from Dunk and reached out to him with his dark eyes. “I’ve lost many a friend over the years, Mr. Hoffnung. In one sense, I’m used to it. I’ve been around long enough to know it’s all part of this game. But if we could stop that — if there’s even a chance to do so — then I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t take it.”
“There’s a better way to avoid getting killed on the gridiron,” Dunk said. He got to his feet and staggered toward the door. When he reached it, he turned back to Pegleg and Carve and said. “Just don’t play.”
21
“I don’t like this,” Dunk said as he gazed out over the Hackers’ practice field in Bad Bay. “Not one bit.”
“I know, son,” Slick said, fanning himself. “I’ve never liked tryouts much. It wears me out just watching these things.”
“Don’t you have a chance to sign new players though?” Dunk asked.
Slick shook his head. “I’m a one-player kind of agent. Unless I can get two or more players on the same team, it’s too hard to follow them around and give them the kind of help they need. Even I can’t be in two places at once.”
Dunk looked down at the halfling. “Have you tried to recruit anyone else on the Hackers?”
Slick rubbed his hands together. “Most of them already have adequate if lesser representation. However, as a complete novice to the game, I generously took Edgar under my wing and helped him negotiate his contract with the Hackers.”
“You didn’t let Pegleg pay him in maple syrup, did you?”
Slick scoffed. “And what would I do with my fifteen percent of that? I love syrup as much as the next halfling, but that’s a lot of pancakes.”
“I thought you got ten percent,” Dunk said. “That’s what I pay you.”
Slick shrugged. “Edgar’s a treeman. He doesn’t understand money at all and has little use for it — or so he thinks. He was happy to pay me a bit extra to work as his financial advisor as well.” He looked up at Dunk, a glint in his eye.
[Blood Bowl 02] - Dead Ball Page 20
