“Here’s the ship,” Jonnen said, sketching out a diagram that resembled the top deck of the Fanatic. He placed the four masts in their places and outlined the space between the forecastle and the bridge.
“We play here. To score a touchdown, you just have to touch the wall or the stairs leading up to the forecastle or the bridge. Six players on a side fits well. We play with those numbers all the time.”
“What about the rigging?” Pegleg said, “and the masts? Are they in play?”
Dunk stared at the ex-pirate. Jonnen’s proposal intrigued him enough to draw him out of his funk, but Dunk couldn’t believe he was actually going to consider it.
“Anything above the main deck is in play. We seal off the lower decks to prevent problems. We used to let the game move into there if the ball fell through, but we called that off after nearly sinking the ship.”
“You still have to touch the wall to score, though, so getting too high in the air doesn’t help much.” Pegleg scratched his beard as he talked. “This could work.”
“It does,” said Jonnen. “We play it on every voyage.”
“What about gear?” Dunk asked. “Armour, pads?”
“They’re for wimps,” Jonnen said in disgust. “We play real Blood Bowl. The ball’s the only thing with spikes on it, and your bodies are your weapons.”
“How many of your customers do you lose doing this?” asked Slick.
Jonnen waved off the halfling’s concern. “Everyone pays in advance. For a few extra coins, we tell their next of kin they died scoring a touchdown.”
Slick grunted, impressed.
“What happens if someone falls overboard?” asked Dunk.
Jonnen grinned voraciously. “The sea serpent usually gets them.”
“That beast follows you all around the seas?” asked Pegleg.
Jonnen laughed. “Enough fans fall off to keep him well fed. It puts him on our side in any battle.”
“Or chase,” Dunk said, remembering how the creature had pulled them into the maelstrom.
“Do we play to points or to the clock?” asked Cavre.
The orc looked at the man, impressed. “Points. First to make two scores more than the other wins.”
“That’s not a lot of margin for error,” said Dunk.
“It’s a hard game, and we play it short-handed. We used to try for two full halves, but we never finished a game. Every one of them called for a lack of players on the field.”
“Sounds like you all suck.”
All eyes turned to Dirk, who’d given voice to the insult. The man shrugged. “What? We’re talking about a bunch of out-of-shape wannabes with delusions of competency. Let’s play. They won’t survive the first series.”
“You’re insulting our host, Mr. Heldmann,” said Pegleg. His tone left no room for doubt as to his disapproval.
Dunk knew what Dirk was doing. He hoped to get Jonnen and his team angry, so they’d do something stupid. Dunk winced at the thought.
Jonnen glared at Dirk. Then he threw back his head and said in a calm and exacting voice, “You are a guest on my ship, Heldmann, so I will let that comment slide. Much as the Reavers’ coach let you slide every time your precious Hackers beat you silly. If I’d been your coach, I’d have disembowelled you as an example to the others after the shoddy performances you turned in.”
“You wouldn’t have the guts,” Dirk said. He pointed at his belly and ran a finger along it, as if opening it up with a blade. “Guts. Disembowelment. Get it?”
Dirk said all this without a smile, and no one else laughed either.
When Jonnen spoke again, he was all business. “You play this game, and we’ll get you to Lustria. That’s the bargain.”
Dunk hesitated for a moment. It seemed insane to risk the team on a gambit like this, but it couldn’t be worse than a regular game, right? Unless he wanted to go all the way back to the Old World and charter another ship, there didn’t seem to be a better way.
Jonnen leaned in over Dunk and whispered menacingly in his ear. “It’s either that, or the lot of you walk the plank.”
Dunk stuck out his hand, and Jonnen shook it. “Then it’s a deal,” Dunk said. “Game on!”
15
“They’re just a bunch of fans,” Dunk said. “We can take them.”
Pegleg smirked. “This is their home field, Mr. Hoffnung, and it’s an unusual one. That gives them more of an advantage than you might think.”
“Jonnen wasn’t kidding about his clientele,” said Dirk. “I recognise at least half a dozen retired players in the stands. You can bet he’ll put out an all-ringers team.”
Dunk scowled. “The decision’s been made. This gets us what we want, despite the risks. Let’s take advantage of it.”
“Plus, there’s the threat of death hanging over our heads,” said Spinne.
Dunk stared at her. He hadn’t mentioned Jonnen’s murderous comment to anyone. “How did you know about that?”
“He threatens everyone, all the time,” said Cavre. “He’s promised to kill me half a dozen times.”
“And you’re still here.”
“He was serious at the time, every time. There’s a reason he’s called ‘Mad’, you know.”
“Who’s playing?” Dunk asked, turning to Pegleg.
“Oh, you’re going to let me do my job now, are you, Mr. Hoffnung? How very kind of you.”
Dunk grimaced. He hadn’t wanted to step on Pegleg’s toes, but he knew the man would have negotiated their passage home and left it at that. Still, he had no desire to supplant Pegleg as coach. He knew that the job was beyond him, and he needed the man’s expertise. If anyone knew more about football and sailing ships than Pegleg, except perhaps Jonnen, Dunk didn’t know of him.
“I’m sorry,” Dunk said, in as heartfelt a tone as he could manage, and left it at that. Pegleg had never been much for sentimentality.
Pegleg nodded his acceptance, and got to work. “Hoffnung, Heldmann, Schönheit, Edgar, K’Thragsh, and Cavre, you’re in. The rest of you, sit tight with me on the bridge. We might need you at a moment’s notice, and I’ll need every set of eyes I have to watch for more of Jonnen’s treachery.”
He stuck his hook out. The players each stacked a hand on it. Dunk slapped his on last.
Pegleg looked at each of the Hackers in turn. “This is no ordinary game,” he said. “If we lose, the chances are good that the survivors will get fed to Jonnen’s sea serpent. We win, and we’ll establish a dominance that will force the orc to keep his part of the bargain.
“Play like your lives depend on it. They do.” He paused for a moment. “One, two, three.” The entire team shouted as one: “Go Hackers!”
“We have the home-field advantage,” Jonnen said generously. “We’ll kick-off.”
Dunk knew better than to think that the orc would do them any favours, but he assented with a nod. A wide dwarf dressed in nothing more than a kilt and boots, and a gallon of yellow and blue paint, held the ball in his hands and booted it high into the sky.
Dunk instantly saw the problem. First, with so little field available, the kicker could hang the ball high enough for the rest of his team to rush under it before it hit the deck. Second, the rigging made it almost impossible for the ball not to get caught in something, keeping it stuck in the air even longer.
By the time the ball came down, the fans would be able to attack each of the Hackers several times. Since the ball would be deep on the Hackers’ side of the field when it came down, they had to keep an eye on it. If it fell into a fan’s hands, it would be an easy few steps to score a touchdown.
As Dunk had predicted, the ball got tangled in one of the sails on the mizzenmast, and he had to wait for it to come down to him. While waiting, he saw a barrel-chested Norscan wearing a horned helmet bearing down on him. M’Grash made to intercept the man, but he whirled around the ogre with the grace of a barbarian warrior. He would be on Dunk long before the ball arrived.
Dunk feinted to t
he left, and then charged to the right, all the way over to the gunwale. The Norscan gave chase, his beard, braided in separately dyed blue and silver strands, flapping in the breeze as he charged forward.
“You’re going down, Hoffnung!” the man shouted as he dived straight at Dunk, his arms outstretched in a classic tackling pose.
Dunk spun about and hammered the man in the throat. As the Norscan gasped for breath, he hauled him up by his official Lapland Lions jersey and tossed him overboard. The man howled all the way down, until a distant splash cut him off.
A moment later, the sea serpent burst from the water’s surface, the Norscan clamped in his monstrous jaws. The man was already dead, blood seeping from his mouth and the dozen fresh holes punctured by the serpent’s teeth.
The sight made Dunk want to vomit, but he didn’t have the time for that. He had to get back to the game, or he and his friends would share the Norscan’s fate.
Dunk turned and saw the ball tumble out of a sail just above the mizzenmast. A ratman in a Skaven Scramblers uniform leapt up and plucked it out of the air. Edgar swatted at the creature with his branches, but he only succeeded in knocking the skaven closer to his goal.
The skaven squealed in triumph as he tucked the ball under his arm and dashed the last few feet towards the bridge. Dunk charged at him, but it was too late. The creature slapped his dirty paw against the wall under the bridge, and somewhere a whistle blew.
The fans in the forecastle went wild. “Hac-kers suck! Hac-kers suck! Hac-kers suck!”
Although a sizeable number of the fans wore Hackers gear and colours, none of them stood up to the others. In fact, most of them joined in their nasty cheer.
Dunk scowled as they set up for the next kick-off. Since the fans had scored, the Hackers would receive again.
Pegleg roared at them from the bridge, where he stood with the rest of the Hackers and their friends. “You are down one to nothing, you scurvy dogs! You must score the next point. If you do not, you lose.”
“You lose, you die!” the fans at the forecastle chanted. “You lose, you die!”
The dwarf in the Dwarf Giants body paint held up the football again and gave it another mighty boot. It sailed up into the rigging, where it stuck. The spikes on the ball had jammed through the sail on the main mast and were wedged there.
Dunk and the rest of the Hackers stared at it for a moment, wondering if it would work itself loose in the breeze, and fall down. Then Dunk spotted the skaven fan clambering up the rigging, and he realised that this had all been part of the fans’ plan.
Dunk charged over to M’Grash, who still stood gaping up at the ball. He tugged on the ogre’s elbow and shouted his name, but it did no good. He was too focused on the ball for any of Dunk’s efforts to get through to him.
Finally, Dunk punched his friend in the arm.
“Ow!” M’Grash said, staring down at his best friend with a hurt look. “Why Dunkel hurt me?”
“I’m sorry, M’Grash,” Dunk said, pleading with his friend for understanding. “So sorry, but if we don’t get up there to get that ball, we’re going to lose.”
M’Grash followed Dunk’s finger up to spy the skaven getting closer and closer to the ball. Cavre had started to scramble up another part of the rigging, but the skaven had too much of a head start. He’d clearly get to the ball first.
M’Grash nodded. “Need throw?”
Dunk clapped his friend on the shoulder. He’d thought of that first too, but he didn’t trust the ogre’s accuracy. He’d get Dunk close enough to grab the ball, for sure, but after that he’d probably come crashing down onto, or maybe through, the deck.
Instead, Dunk pointed at the main mast and said, “Shake that thing as if its an apple tree.”
A glint showed in M’Grash’s eyes, and the ogre stepped over and wrapped his mighty arms around the mast. He swayed back and forth with it for a moment, getting the feel for it. The fans in the forecastle started to laugh.
Then M’Grash put his back into it and gave the mast a good shake. The entire ship vibrated with his efforts, and the laughter stopped. The mast shook like a reed in a hurricane, and the ball came tumbling down.
The skaven came right after it, involuntarily. M’Grash’s move had knocked the creature from the rigging, and he fell to the deck with a sickening crunch. Cavre, knowing how M’Grash treated an apple tree when he was hungry, had stopped climbing around for long enough to hold on for his life. He had managed to keep his grip, barely.
As the ball tumbled to the deck, Dunk stretched up and snagged it out of the air. He scanned down the deck and saw a ragged elf wearing an Elfheim Eagles replica helmet trying to knock Spinne off her feet. Since she’d been watching the ball instead of the elf, he’d got in a cheap shot that had sliced open a shoulder. Like the professional she was, though, she still scrambled to get open.
Dunk spied a clear angle beneath the sails, and he fired off a bullet of a pass. It zipped just over the outstretched fingers of a pair of the fan players and fell into Spinne’s good arm. Then she spun around and stabbed the spike on the end of the ball at her opponent’s helmet. It jabbed right through the cheap material and into the elf’s brain.
The elf shuddered his life away as Spinne yanked back the ball and made a mad rush for the forecastle. She reached it and stabbed the ball into the wood, where it stuck.
The fans went nuts. A handful of them reached down from the forecastle and pulled Spinne up to their level. Chanting, “Pass her back! Pass her back!” they body-passed her towards the bowsprit.
As they did, the sea serpent jabbed up through the water in front of the ship. The beast curled its neck in anticipation of its next meal, which the fans were about to deliver.
Dunk launched forward, determined to save Spinne. She’d realised what was about to happen and had started to fight against it. Although she could have taken on any five of the fans in even an unfair fight, many times that number shared the forecastle with her. Even M’Grash might have a hard time defending himself against them.
Dunk refused to just let the fans toss the woman he loved overboard to her death. He stiff-armed a pair of red-and-black-painted humans that tried to get in his way, and then used the dwarf kicker as a stepladder to vault over the railing and onto the forecastle’s deck. As he stood at the edge of the crowd, though, he could see he would be too late.
“No!” he shouted. “NOOOO!!!”
The fans cackled at his dismay, and Spinne was pulled right up to the bowsprit. He could not reach her in time.
Instead of trying, Dunk reached down and snatched the football from where it still stuck out of the wood below him. Then he turned and shouted at Jonnen.
The orc stood on the gunwale near where the fans were about to throw Spinne off the ship. He held on to the rigging with one hand and egged the fans on with the other, lending his howl to theirs. Red faced as he was, he looked like he’d never had so much fun in his life.
“Make them let her loose!” Dunk shouted.
The old orc indulged in a massive belly laugh. “Why would I do that? This is what they came for: blood, danger, death! This is Blood Bowl at its finest.”
Another moment, and Spinne would be tossed to her doom. There was no more time for talk.
Dunk cocked back his arm and fired the ball straight at Mad Jonnen. “Would you look at that?” were all but the last word to come out of the orc’s mouth.
The ball caught the orc right in the chest like a shot from a cannon. The impact knocked him back off the railing, and he went tumbling into the sea. As he fell, he said one last word, “Boom!”
Every one of the fans on the deck froze. The sea serpent, which had been drooling over the prospect of fresh Spinne for dinner, dived after the turkey-leg laden Jonnen instead.
Before Dunk could say a word, and he had plenty of time but none came to mind, M’Grash leapt up onto the forecastle next to him. The ogre slapped away everyone within arm’s reach, and then bellowed, “Put Spinne dow
n!”
The crowd between M’Grash and the bowsprit parted, and the fistful of fans still holding Spinne up near the railing set her down gently and respectfully. They dusted her off as they put her down, stepped away and motioned for her to go to Dunk before the ogre killed them all.
Dunk ran to Spinne, who tottered on her feet. She’d lost a lot of blood from her shoulder wound, and her skin looked white where it was not covered in crimson. She leaned into him as he gathered her in his arms, doing everything she could to not collapse entirely.
“What about the game?” one of the fans asked.
“The game is over,” Dunk said, his tone as sharp as a blade. “We win. I claim this ship in the name of the Bad Bay Hackers.”
“What if we don’t care to go along with that?” a surly man said in a Bretonnian accent.
Dunk looked at M’Grash and jerked his head at the man. The ogre reached out and swatted the Bretonnian overboard.
“Any other questions?” Dunk asked.
“When’s lunch?”
Dunk looked at M’Grash, but the ogre just shrugged.
“Soon,” Dunk said. Then he cradled Spinne in his arms and carried her off the deck atop the forecastle. When he reached the main deck, he stopped. Spinne’s breathing was shallow, and she’d started to shiver. He’d seen people like this before, and he knew he’d lose her if he didn’t do something soon.
“Is there an apothecary in the house?” he shouted. He bent to his knees and laid Spinne down on the deck. Then he yanked off his shirt and set about tearing it into strips to bind her wound. “Anyone?” he said.
“Quit your whining,” a familiar voice said. “I just had to get my bag.”
“Dr. Pill?” Dunk said, goggling at the elf. “How? You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Thanks for noticing.” The apothecary knelt next to Spinne and opened his black bag. “That’s more than the rest of the team seems to have done.”
“I thought you went down with the ship.”
[Blood Bowl 04] - Rumble in the Jungle Page 12