[Blood Bowl 01] - Blood Bowl

by Matt Forbeck - (ebook by Undead)

  The spirits were high among the hopefuls, although the players were more subdued. During the middle of the meal, Pegleg, who had been wandering around the camp all morning, came by and whispered something in Cavre’s ear. The two men were on the other side of the fire pit, and try as he might Dunk couldn’t hear a thing they said to each other. For a moment, he thought they might be looking at him, but it happened so quickly he told himself it was his imagination.

  In the afternoon, the hopefuls played a full scrimmage game against the players. The professionals whipped the amateurs like orc stepchildren. Several of the hopefuls limped off the field, or were carried off, injured. Those who were left grinned openly. It left them fewer competitors for the four spots available on the team.

  “You’re doing great, son,” Slick said during a break in the action. “There’s really only one person you have to beat for that thrower spot.”

  “I know,” Dunk said, as he tossed back a tanker of water, swished it around in his mouth, and spat it out. “Luc,” he said, as he glared over at the Bretonnian with the golden teeth.

  Luc noticed Dunk looking at him and stalked over toward the young warrior, his lip curled in a savage sneer, exposing his fake, yellow teeth. “Give up now and leave, Imperial. I’m the Hacker’s next thrower.”

  “Save it for someone who hasn’t seen you piss yourself in front of M’Grash,” Slick said, stepping between the two.

  Luc looked down at the tubby halfling and laughed. “Still letting others do your fighting for you?” he said to Dunk. “On the pitch, it’ll be just you and me.”

  Time in the scrimmage was winding down. Cavre had been swapping Luc and Dunk out for the thrower’s position the whole game. Luc had made a few fine throws, but he’d also hurled three interceptions. The professionals mostly had their way with the hopefuls, as was to be expected. They were eager to take the newcomers down a peg or two, and it caused some of the amateurs to become frustrated and make even worse mistakes.

  Dunk was used to this land of pressure. Back in Altdorf, Lehrer had arranged for him to spar against only the best in the Empire, and the opponents received bonuses if they beat the young warrior. Dunk had taken many losses at the hands of Lehrer’s friends, but over time he’d become a better swordsman for it.

  After the professionals scored yet another touchdown, the hopefuls lined up to receive the kick-off once again. Dunk was way back with Luc, who stood on the other side of the field from him.

  Cavre kept time on a stopwatch. Before the kick-off, he looked at it and said, “This will be the last chance. The next touchdown ends the game.”

  Dunk rubbed his hands together and waited for the kick. It sailed down the field, over the heads of most of the players and angled right for him. He stretched out his arms and caught it with both hands, just as Cavre had taught him.

  Dunk knew exactly what he wanted to do as soon as he got the ball. The trick was finding enough time to pull it off. He looked down the field and saw the professional linemen charging straight toward him. Meanwhile, their catchers hung back to cover the amateur catchers racing for the end zone.

  Dunk tucked the ball under his arm and dashed off to his left, toward where Luc was standing. “Block for me!” he said to the Bretonnian.

  “Of course,” Luc said, venom dripping from his tongue. He stepped forward to put himself between Dunk and the oncoming linemen. Then, at the last second, he dove to the side, letting the professionals past.

  Dunk was not only ready for this, he’d planned for it. With the professionals charging for Luc, he’d feinted moving behind the traitor and then dashed back to the right.

  The professionals weren’t fooled for long though. Karsten and Henrik swerved past Luc and chased right after Dunk. The young warrior gazed downfield, hoping that one of the catchers had managed to get open. He saw a young man from Albion, Simon Sherwood, racing for the right corner of the end zone and waving his arms wildly.

  Dunk heard Karsten and Henrik’s boots stamping across the field behind him, growing closer with every step. It was now or never.

  Dunk cocked back his arm and put everything he had into hurling the football down the field. The worst part was concentrating hard enough to ignore the sound of the two stocky linemen as they stormed up behind him. As he released the ball, they hit him as one, knocking him flying to the turf.

  Still under the two linemen, Dunk craned his neck to the left and stared downfield. Through all of the players now charging back down toward the other end of the field, he could see the corner of the end zone he’d targeted, and Simon sprinting toward it at top speed. The only player between Simon and the ball was the terrifyingly tall M’Grash, but when he looked up to see where the ball was, he hesitated, tripped, and fell. The ball arced down out of the sky as if it were skating down a rainbow, and landed right in Simon’s outstretched hands.

  Pegleg let loose a blast on his referee’s whistle and threw his hand and hook in the air, signaling a touchdown and the end of the game.

  The amateurs went wild, shouting and screaming as if they’d just won the Blood Bowl itself. Some of them raced back, grabbed Dunk and hoisted him upon their shoulders so they could parade him around the field. The professionals stood back and watched the whole thing, smiling unabashedly at the hopefuls’ joy in the game.

  “Not bad, Mr. Hoffnung,” Cavre said to him as Dunk was carried past. “Your team lost 5 to 1, but that was a fine play.”

  Dunk grinned widely and glanced over at Slick. The halfling tossed him a thumbs-up.

  When the celebrating died down, Cavre called out. “Congratulations to the prospects for a game well played. You can’t fault your enthusiasm.”

  A round of cheers went up from the professionals, who seemed pleased to have such a solid group of hopefuls trying to join their team. They and the prospects gathered closer to Cavre to listen as he spoke.

  “As you know,” the blitzer said, “we have only four spots available on our team. I wish that we had more, but those are the rules. Those of you who don’t make it, don’t be discouraged. The way this game is played, there are more openings on many teams every week, and we’re sure to have more by the time this tournament is over.”

  The gathered crowed laughed nervously at that.

  “So, as soon as Captain Haken gets here, we can get on with… ah, there he is!” Cavre pointed to his right, and the crowd assembled around him parted to let Pegleg through.

  The look on the captain’s face was dead serious, and the smiles left the faces of all those who saw him. He limped through the crowd and said, “A moment of your time, Mr. Cavre.”

  The blitzer excused himself, and he and the captain walked off toward the city’s wall and spoke in hushed voices.

  “What do you think they’re on about?” Simon asked Dunk. The two had been shoved together ever since the big play.

  “I don’t know,” Dunk said.

  “My guess,” said Milo Hoffstetter, the hulk of a man from Middenheim who’d been campaigning hard for the blitzer spot, “is they figured out who the killer is.”

  Dunk felt someone tugging at his shoulder. He looked down to see Slick trying to pull him from the crowd. “What is it?” Dunk asked.

  “I need to talk with you,” Slick said.

  “What about?”

  “Now, son.”

  Dunk looked around and realised everyone else was watching him and Slick. He shrugged at them. “He’s not really my father, you know.”

  The players all shook with laughter at that. Meanwhile, Dunk slipped away from them and after Slick.

  “What is it?” he asked the halfling. He’d never seen Slick so agitated. His colour was a bit off and Dunk thought he could see him sweating, something Slick had confessed to hating so much that he would only consider it in life or death circumstances. “They’re just about to announce who made the team,” Dunk said, hoping that would cheer him up.

  “That’s the least of our concerns,” Slick said.

&nb
sp; These words stunned Dunk. He’d never known the halfling to put anything above Blood Bowl. For the past few weeks, preparing Dunk to make the team had been the only thing that Slick had concerned himself with.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  Slick looked up into Dunk’s eyes, searching there for something. “No,” he said, almost to himself. “You didn’t do it, did you? You don’t have it in you.”

  “What in Morr’s secret names are you talking about?” Dunk’s heart had just about stopped. He was so focused on Slick, he didn’t hear the step-tap, step-tap, step-tap behind him until a gleaming hook fell on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Hoffnung,” Pegleg said.

  Dunk whirled about to face the captain. As he did, the hook sliced through the shoulder of his shirt and drew blood from his skin. “What is it?” he asked. He saw the captain, Cavre, and everyone else in the camp all around him now, all eyes intently on him.

  Pegleg reached into his long, crimson coat and drew out something bound in a white cloth. As he unwrapped it between his hand and hook, a long knife with a serrated edge appeared. It was covered with blood from end to end.

  “This is the blade that killed all those hopeful souls in the dark of night,” the captain said, like a judge intoning a life sentence “I found it in your tent.”

  11

  The crowd surged around Dunk, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe. “You can’t be serious,” he said, trying to stay calm. “I didn’t do this! I wouldn’t!”

  Pegleg held the knife in his hands as if gauging its weight. “That may well be, Mr. Hoffnung,” he said, his eyes never wavering from Dunk’s. “But this is a hard game for hard people, and some of them will do anything to get their first team contract. I’ve seen men do worse for gold, to be sure.”

  “Pegleg,” Slick said. “Captain. I’ll vouch for this boy’s character. I slept in his tent all night and didn’t hear a thing.”

  The captain gave the halfling a mirthless smile. “I know you’ll understand, Mr. Fullbelly, that I can’t really take the word of a man’s agent. Your bias here is clear.”

  “But, Captain—”

  Pegleg cut off Slick’s words with a wave of his hook. Then he gazed at Dunk again. The young warrior thought he saw a hint of sadness in the man’s eyes.

  “I didn’t do it,” Dunk said again. Even as the words left his lips, he could see that they were falling on deaf ears.

  “Some coaches,” Pegleg said, “would appreciate your drive. Anyone willing to kill a dozen people in cold blood could be a real asset on a Blood Bowl team.”

  Dunk started to relax a bit, but then he saw Pegleg hand the bloodied blade to Cavre and begin fingering his hook.

  “Others would kill you on the spot, cut you into pieces, and throw those into the sea.”

  Dunk swallowed hard at that and quickly assessed the crowd. He was outnumbered nearly thirty to one, and he didn’t have a weapon at hand. The Blood Bowl regulations had forbidden him from bringing even his knife onto the field.

  The looks on the faces around him ranged from anger to disbelief. Two of the hopefuls, though, were grinning: Luc and Jacques. Were they just happy to see him go, or was there something more damning behind those hateful smiles?

  “So,” Dunk said, summoning up every bit of courage he had and wondering if he could outrun everyone else here. He was sure that Cavre could catch him in a straight sprint, but if he kicked the blitzer in the knee before taking off he might have a chance.

  “So,” he repeated again, looking straight into Pegleg’s eyes, “what do you plan to do with me?”

  Pegleg grimaced for a moment, then waved off in the direction of the tents full of the dead. “Those people knew what the risks were when they tried out for the team. If they didn’t die in the camp here, there was a good chance they’d have never made it past their third game.”

  The captain stared hard at Dunk. “However,” he said. “I can’t have myself and every other member of this team fearing every moment for their lives. Cutthroats can’t go around cutting the throats of their own kind.”

  Dunk didn’t like where this was heading. “So?” he said.

  “So, you’re off the team.”

  Most of the people in the crowd gasped. Luc and Jacques snorted out hard, mean laughs. Cavre frowned. Dunk saw tears welling up in M’Grash’s eyes. Slick all but wept.

  “I was never on it.” Dunk feared he was pointing out the obvious.

  “You would have been,” said Pegleg, “if not for this.”

  Slick wailed openly at this, and he somehow found himself in the arms of M’Grash, who cradled the halfling in his monstrous arms like a fussing baby as he stifled his own sobs. Dunk started to say something to Pegleg. He thought that he should make some kind of a speech to punctuate a grand exit. Instead he just said, “Fine,” turned, and left.

  “It’s not over, son,” Slick said. The halfling’s eyes were dry now, although the smoke in the pub, a dark, cheap place known as the Bad Water, irritated them something fierce. The place was packed wall to wall with Blood Bowl fans in town for the tournament. “The Hackers were just our first option, not our last. Look at it this way. We got a free ride to Magritta out of them!”

  The thought did little to comfort Dunk, try as he might. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for Blood Bowl,” he said.

  Slick, who was more than a little drunk at the moment, slapped a hand on his chest in shock. “Not cut out for Blood Bowl?” he gasped. “You, son, are the most natural talent I’ve ever seen in this game, maybe that the game itself has ever seen. If not for this dirty trick some scoundrel played to keep you off the team, you’d have been a definite. You’d have gotten the top starting salary, to boot.”

  With that, Slick’s eyes began to tear up again, and Dunk felt obliged to reach over and pat the halfling on the back. This kind gesture nearly knocked the unbalanced Slick off his extra-high barstool.

  Dunk reached over to steady Slick and his stool. When he had succeeded, he noticed that someone was standing behind him and watching him. He turned to see an attractive young woman with long, auburn hair and dark black eyes that seemed to suck in everything they saw.

  “Can I help you, my lady?” Dunk said in a tone that purposefully betrayed the fact that the answer to this question should only be “no.”

  “Are you Dunkel Hoffnung?” the woman said with a twinkle in her eye and a half-smile on her ruby-painted lips.

  “Who’s asking?” Slick said, instantly seeming sober now that he had something to take his mind off the events of the day.

  “Lästiges Weibchen,” the woman said, “on special assignment from Spike! Magazine.”

  Slick stood up on his barstool to seem as tall as possible. It wobbled under him a bit but he was able to right it without help from Dunk. “You hear that son? Spike! Magazine is on to you already. I told you that you were fated for great things in this game.”

  “Interesting things, for sure,” Lästiges said, keeping her eyes drilled to Dunk.

  “What’s special about your assignment?” Dunk asked, returning the reporter’s gaze without flinching.

  “Have you ever heard of Dirk Heldmann?” This wasn’t a question, Dunk knew.

  “Who hasn’t?” Slick answered. He looked over at Dunk. “The team captain of the Reikland Reavers. They haven’t had a blitzer that good since Griff Oberwald’s playing days. That’s the problem with human teams,” he said to Lästiges as an aside. “Too short-lived to ever build a real dynasty.”

  “Your name,” Dunk said to the woman. “ ‘Weibchen.’ That’s from Marienburg, isn’t it?”

  “You should know, Mr. Hoffnung,” Lästiges said through gritted teeth.

  Dunk shook his head. “We don’t want to talk to her, Slick,” he said. “She’s nothing but trouble.”

  “How dare you?” Lästiges said, her dark eyes flashing. “After what your family did to mine—”

  Dunk turned his back on the woman and picked up his stein of K
iller Genuine Draft. “It was business,” he said, “and it was before my time.”

  Lästiges ground out a little growl. “Well, if you won’t talk with me, I’m sure Dirk Heldmann will. Spike! Magazine is dying to know what the Reavers’ top scorer thinks about his big brother being accused of murder.”

  “Khaine’s bloody teeth!” Slick said, turning to Dunk. “Dirk Heldmann is your brother?”

  Dunk slammed back what was left of his beer and turned back to talk to Slick and Lästiges, his eyes glowering at her. “When he announced he was going to take up Blood Bowl, our parents disowned him. He changed his name before his first game.”

  “Word is your family sent him off to play Blood Bowl for his own safety,” Lästiges said with a vicious grin. “After they imploded in such a terrible mess, anyone could understand why he’d want it that way.”

  Dunk considered throwing his beer at the woman, but his stein was empty. He signalled the bartender for another in case the urge struck him again.

  “Nice to see the press is as fair and impartial with Blood Bowl as it is with real news,” Dunk said. “I don’t have anything to say to you.” The bartender slipped over another stein with the initials KGD chiselled on it in what were obviously supposed to be dwarf runes. It was a fairly drunk dwarf responsible for these runes, though. “I think you should leave.”

  “Really?” Lästiges said with mock surprise. “After what’s been happening with you lately, I thought you might want all the friends you can get.”

  Dunk frowned. “I’ve been banned from the team. What else can they do to me?”

  Lästiges threw back her head and laughed. “You see those two over there?” she asked, tossing her lustrous hair toward a far corner of the pub where two people sat, dressed in black robes. One was the shortest elf that Dunk had ever seen — thin and pale, with white-blond hair and proud, angular features — but a foot shorter than most other elves. The other was the tallest dwarf Dunk had ever seen; stocky and swarthy, with soot-black hair and a rough-hewn face, but a foot taller than most other dwarves.