“No one,” Cavre said. “We’re not playing.”
Dunk almost dropped his spoon. “Then why are we going there?”
Cavre smiled. Dunk realised what a great player the assistant coach must have been. After nearly fifteen years of playing Blood Bowl, he was not only still alive, he even had all his own teeth.
“We’re going to watch and to learn. We just hired a quarter of our team last week, as you know, and many of the others have only a year or two under their belts.”
Cavre clicked his tongue “It’s a rebuilding year. Not so coincidentally, Mr. Hoffnung, we have a winter training camp set up on the north coast of the Black Gulf, in one of the lands of the Border Princes. We’ll train there hard until the Dungeonbowl, and when that tournament is over, we’ll head back toward the Empire and hope we’re in the right place when the location of the Chaos Cup is announced.”
“You don’t know where it is?” Dunk asked, surprised.
“No one does. It’s kept a secret until a week or two before the event. That way, no one can disrupt it.”
“Does that work?” Dunk asked, rubbing the back of his head, which was still a bit tender.
“Not really,” Cavre said. “Most of the time the fans do more damage than any invading army ever could.”
The two fell silent for a moment, and Dunk gazed up at the stars sparkling overhead. Cavre was right about the winter. Even this far south, he could feel it getting colder. He imagined Altdorf would be covered with snow already. The thought of his home town coated with a virginal layer of white made him homesick. He remembered running snowball fights with Dirk along the battlements of the family’s keep, even though there wasn’t much of a home left there to go back to.
“Have you seen Mr. K’Thragsh yet?” Cavre asked.
Dunk looked up to see the blitzer smiling at him softly. “No. Is he all right?”
“Your ‘accident’ shook him up a bit. He’s lost a lot of team-mates over the past few years, and he thought you might be the next one. I think he’s taken a real shine to you. He checked in on you more than anyone besides Mr. Fullbelly.”
Dunk snorted. “I suppose it’s better to have the ogre with you than against you. I have to say, though, I thought an ogre would be…”
“Less sensitive?”
“That’s it.”
Cavre nodded. “Mr. K’Thragsh is a special case. Years back, an Imperial army wiped out his entire village when he was just an infant. He was the only survivor.”
“That’s horrible.”
“They were eating the people in the neighbouring village.”
“Ah. So what happened to M’Grash?”
“The army’s commander couldn’t bear to kill an infant in cold blood. He picked up little Mr. K’Thragsh, who was probably already as big as Mr. Fullbelly, and brought him to the village. A woman who’d been widowed during an ogre attack took the baby ogre in and raised him as her own.”
“Amazing,” Dunk said. “So, why did you ask about M’Grash?”
Cavre jerked his head toward the ship’s stern. The ogre stood there, perched behind Percival Smythe, the catcher and sometimes pilot. When he caught Dunk’s eye, he jumped for joy and nearly knocked Percy off the bridge. Dunk felt the ship sway with the ogre’s movement.
“You’d better get over there before he capsizes the ship,” Cavre said.
Dunk put his empty bowl in the dishes bin as he walked down the deck to get the biggest hug he’d ever had in his life.
Once the team settled in at their winter camp, Pegleg drove them hard. “I’ve never seen such a flabby and useless lot outside of Stir-land!” he liked to roar at them. Slick tried to protest this slander against his people, but a wave of Pegleg’s hook convinced him to let the issue lie.
Dunk took to the training as if his life depended on it. After his experience in the Spike! Magazine Tournament, he was sure that it did. If he didn’t get better and smarter at this game, he knew it would be the death of him. Despite his initial discomfort about joining a Blood Bowl team, he wasn’t ready to be murdered for it.
As the weeks wore on, Dunk found himself becoming not only a member of a team, but a family. The constant hours spent together forged the Hackers into a unit much stronger than the sum of its parts.
As with all families, though, there was some friction. Kur treated Dunk like an uppity child he felt compelled to humiliate at every turn. Dunk wasn’t sure why the starting thrower disliked him so much, but he wasn’t about to give in to the torture.
When, for what seemed like the fortieth time that day, Kur tripped Dunk as he raced past him while running a throwing route, Dunk leapt to his feet and belted Kur in the teeth. As soon as he did, he regretted it.
Instead of falling down, Kur just smiled at Dunk and pulled out one of his own front teeth. Then he made a fist around the tooth and pummelled Dunk with it.
Dunk’s combat training had been with swords, not fists. He was faster than Kur, but he couldn’t seem to get his arms up fast enough to block the taller man’s hail of blows.
“Dumb kid,” Kur growled as he administered the beating like a malicious headmaster. “If you want my job, you’re going to have to take it from me.”
Under other circumstances, Dunk might have told Kur the truth, that he didn’t really want his job, that he was content to wait on the bench and serve as a fill-in only when Kur couldn’t manage it. Instead, he lashed out with his fist. His gauntlet cut the starting thrower across his forehead, splashing blood into his eyes.
Startled at how much damage he’d done, Dunk stopped, holding his fists before him to defend himself. He watched as Kur wiped the blood from his face, clearing his eyes with his fingers. Then the veteran of countless games snarled at Dunk.
“You cut my face,” he said. “I’ll cut your throat!”
Before Kur could close with Dunk to land another blow, a massive hand swept through and smacked him away. Dunk’s head snapped up to see M’Grash standing between him and Kur now, growling at the veteran like a hungry lion.
“Stay away!” the ogre said to Kur, threatening him with a fist as big as Kur’s head. “Hurt Dunk, kill you.”
Kur got up slowly from where he’d been knocked to the turf. Everyone else on the team, including Pegleg had stopped to watch the fight. All eyes followed Kur, but no one spoke a word.
The veteran passer spat blood on to the ground. “Your monster friend won’t always be there for you.”
“Hold it right there, Mr. Ritternacht,” Pegleg said, cutting Kur off. “You keep your rivalries on the field. If I hear different, then you’ve seen your last day on this team.”
Kur glared at Dunk, then bit his tongue and stomped off the field.
Dunk looked up at M’Grash and said, “Thanks, big guy.”
The ogre patted him on the back. After weeks of this, Dunk was braced for it and managed to stay on his feet. “Anything for friend,” M’Grash said. “Anything.”
20
Ye Olde Trip to Araby was the kind of pub that Dunk thought he would have loved if he’d been born a dwarf. The bartender, a stubby creature, even for a dwarf, claimed that the place was the oldest known watering hole in all the dwarf kingdoms. It got its name from the fact that it was the last place dwarf warriors would stop for a drink before heading off to war against the soldiers of Araby in an effort to put an end to their jihad.
Unlike many of the other places Dunk had seen since entering the mostly subterranean city of Barak-Varr, the Trip was little more than a series of interconnected holes in walls. Most of the city featured the stunning, legendary architecture of the dwarfs, who were unparalleled in their skill with cutting and carving stone. The keepers of the Trip, however, had left the place pretty much the same over the centuries. Each chamber was little more than a natural cave with a levelled floor, a few torch-filled sconces on the walls, and scattered sets of low-slung tables and chairs. These were big enough for humans to sit at, but they were clearly meant for dwarfs ins
tead.
Dunk had come here shortly after arriving in town because he’d heard that the Reavers often met here when they were in town. The Grey Wizards were sponsoring Dirk and Spinne’s team in the Dungeonbowl, so Dunk figured he had a good chance of finding his brother here.
Shortly after waking up on the Sea Chariot, Dunk realised that he had never warned his brother about the murderous Skragger’s threat. He promised himself he would do so at the first chance, so as soon as the Hackers arrived in Barak-Varr, he found his way to the Trip.
Dunk had never been in a city like this before, or in any dwarf settlement for that matter. There were dwarfs in Altdorf, of course, and Dunk had visited their pubs there to sample their legendary brews, but those places were only faint echoes of what he’d already seen here.
The docks of Barak-Varr had been lined with ships, many of which were fitted with paddles and mighty engines that drove them via steam. The city itself was carved into the faces of the cliffs that surrounded the Blood River as it spilled into the Black Gulf. From a distance, the cliffs looked like pock-marked cheese, but as the Sea Chariot grew closer, Dunk could see elaborate windows, doors, and balconies carved in and around the holes. High above, a flag of royal blue and a glittering gold axe and pick fluttered in the wind, declaring this place a home of dwarfs.
“It’s the only major port the dwarfs have,” Slick had explained. “They mostly live under mountains, and you don’t get a lot of boat traffic there. They use those paddleboats to ferry goods up and down the Blood River to Everpeak, high in the Worlds Edge Mountains. That’s how the people of Karaz-a-Karak get the supplies they need to survive. The rest of the world gets dwarf-made crafts and beers in exchange.”
“All the dwarfs I knew in Altdorf would spit if you mentioned the sea. Some of them wouldn’t even cross the bridge over the River Reik. I’m surprised they have a port like this at all.”
“So are most of the dwarfs who don’t live here. They think the dwarfs of Barak-Varr are mad. They call them ‘sea dwarfs’, which is about as low as a dwarf can get. The ones who live here, though, they wear that title proud. They point out that there’s money to be made trading goods here by the sea, and I’ve yet to meet a dwarf who didn’t understand that kind of lure.”
A cheer from the largest of the pub’s caverns went up again. This was where the Reavers were having their last dinner before the tournament started tomorrow, the bartender had said, but attendance was by invitation only. The pair of burly dwarfs flanking the doorway had kept Dunk at bay, so here he sat at the bar, nursing a delicious Gotrekugel’s winter ale and waiting for Dirk to emerge. Dunk had sampled this beer in Altdorf, but it was miles better here. He wondered if it simply didn’t travel well or if the Imperial dwarfs were secretly (and not nearly so masterfully) brewing it themselves.
“Hey, stranger,” a voice said from behind Dunk, “buy a girl a drink?”
Dunk turned to see Spinne standing over him as he squatted on a short stool in front of the dwarf-sized bar. His heart melted like an icicle in a dragon’s breath, and he smiled warmly at her.
Spinne reached out and caressed his cheek with her hand. “It’s good to see you again,” she said. “After that match in Magritta, I was afraid I’d lost you.”
Dunk rubbed his head as he remembered that fall. He shuddered inwardly at the thoughts that sprang into his head.
“I never meant to hurt you,” she said. Then she caught herself. “Well, not that badly.”
“Forget it,” Dunk said. “Not remembering you were coming up behind me was a rookie mistake. It’s my fault as much as yours.” He wasn’t sure that was true, but he knew he wanted her to believe it. Then he added with a laugh, “It won’t happen again.”
“Well, well, well,” said a voice Dunk remembered far too well. He turned to see Lästiges emerge from a dark hole near the bar like some kind of a monstrous trap spider delighted to see not one but two victims come top close to her lair. “It seems the rumours are true,” she said, innuendo dripping from her red-painted lips.
Spinne stepped back from Dunk immediately. “There’s nothing going on here,” she said, giving Dunk’s cheek a playful slap. “I’m just checking up on the health of a once and future victim.”
“That’s not what my sources tell me,” Lästiges said, still gloating at her good fortune. “I can see the headline now: ‘Black Widow Risks All for Rookie — and Loses Big!’ ”
“There’s nothing wrong with what we have,” Dunk said defensively. He didn’t see why Spinne would show this reporter any respect, much less fear.
“There’s nothing wrong with nothing,” Spinne said, nodding in agreement. “After all, it’s common knowledge that the Reavers’ contracts forbid the players from establishing relationships with members of other teams. It’s a firing offence,” she said, looking right into Dunk’s eyes.
Lästiges smirked at this. “I have eyewitnesses that saw and then heard the two of you cavorting about during the Spike! Magazine Tournament. I’m sure my editors would love to run a feature about this sort of thing. Sex really does sell, you know.” She looked Dunk up and down as if she could have eaten him alive, right there. “Combine it with the violence of Blood Bowl and, oh, my!”
“I wasn’t a Blood Bowl player that night,” Dunk said.
“What night?” Spinne said as she tried to surreptitiously grind her foot down on Dunk’s toe. He rescued his foot and continued on.
“I didn’t sign my contract until the next morning. Spinne didn’t do anything wrong.”
The door to the Reavers’ private room flew open. There was a roar of laughter and a tall figure stood silhouetted in the doorway.
“I hear I have family waiting out here for me,” Dirk said loudly. From his tone, Dunk could tell his brother had been drinking. A lot. “Brother!”
Dunk rose from his stool and met Dirk halfway between the door and the bar. They embraced with a hug in which it seemed each was trying to squeeze the breath out of the other as they pounded each other on the back.
“It’s good to see you again, Dunk,” Dirk said. “Until I saw you go sailing over the top of that stadium, I don’t think I realised how much I missed you.”
“Thanks,” Dunk said. “I think.” Then he remembered what he’d come there for.
“Dirk,” he said, “I have a warning for you from a black orc by the name of Skragger.”
“That old windbag,” Dirk said, noticing Lästiges and waving at her. “What does he want?”
“He came and attacked me at the Hackers’, camp on the opening day of the Spike! Magazine Tournament. He said that if you broke his annual record for most touchdowns scored he’d kill you and everyone related to you.”
“Do you really think he could manage that second part? Maybe we’d be better off letting him try. Maybe he’d be the one to finally find our father again.”
Dunk frowned. “I don’t see how it would matter, if he kills us first.”
Dirk grimaced playfully at Dunk, one eye still on Lästiges. “Don’t let that old loincloth shake you, Dunk. He’s harmless. I hear he does this kind of thing every year.”
“He’s only killed three people so far,” Lästiges said.
Dunk glared at the reporter. “Only three.”
“This year.” She gazed at Dirk with her hungry eyes and drank him in. “I’m sure a couple of young bruisers like you two could handle him.”
“He knocked me around pretty well,” Dunk said.
Dirk blushed for his brother and slapped Dunk on the back. “I’m sure he caught you off guard.”
Dunk shrugged off Dirk’s arm. “Don’t talk to me like that,” he said, letting his irritation show in his voice. “You always do that. We’re fine until I admit to a flaw, and then you’re so superior.”
Dirk flashed a knowing smile at Lästiges, who giggled at it. “I can’t help what I am,” he said, grabbing Dunk’s shoulders and shaking him playfully.
Dunk shoved him away. “Don’t,” he sa
id coldly. “I don’t need any more favours from you. I know how you got Slick to do your dirty work for you. Trapping me to play this game just so you can parade yourself in front of me showing how successful you are.”
Dirk frowned. “So it’s like this again?” he said. “That’s gratitude for you. I thought maybe we were old enough to get past all that, but it’s all the same, isn’t it? I get myself set up in a new career, a new group of friends, and you can’t stand it. You get jealous and just have to show everyone that the oldest Hoffnung is always the best.”
Dunk couldn’t believe his ears, which grew redder and redder as Dirk spoke.
“You can just forget that,” Dirk said. “This isn’t the keep, and Lehrer isn’t around to protect you. This is Blood Bowl. It’s a killer’s game, and you just don’t have it in you to beat me at it.”
“He’s a lover, not a fighter, I suppose,” Lästiges said, putting her hand on Spinne as she spoke, interrupting Dirk’s rant. The younger brother stared at her, confused as to what she could mean. Then he saw the horrified look on Spinne’s face, and the truth stabbed him in the heart.
“You didn’t know?” the reporter giggled cattily. “How tasty! Your older brother has been sleeping with your lady friend here.”
Spinne turned pale as the snow that Dunk used to play in with Dirk when they were kids. “You thrice-damned bitch,” she breathed. Then she turned to Dirk, whose face was as red as a gargoyle’s eyes. “Please,” she said to him. “I was going to tell you.”
Dunk stared at Spinne, trying to figure out just what was going on. He wasn’t looking at his younger brother when he struck.
“You bloody bastard!” Dirk roared as his fist slammed into Dunk’s face, knocking him back into the bar. “How dare you!”
Dunk wanted to talk this over with his brother, who he loved deeply, despite the problems that had torn them and their family apart over the past few years. He wanted to sit down with him over a couple steins and figure out his history with Spinne and just what she’d been thinking about playing with their hearts. He wanted to do this peaceably and calmly, most of all.
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