“Shut up,” Dunk said coldly. “I’ve been taking your shit for months now, but that just ended when you tried to kill me. You listen to me now.”
Dunk waited for those words to sink in. When Kur nodded slowly, the rookie continued on.
“I’ve been letting M’Grash keep you off my back, but that’s done too. I don’t need him around for that. I’m trained in a half-dozen ways to kill a man, and I’d be happy to try them all out on you.”
Dunk placed the tip of his blade over Kur’s heart and leaned forward. “I want you to think back to earlier today, if you can manage it. I took you down with a single blow. I can do it again any time I like.
“I’m faster than you, stronger than you, and better looking than you. I’m better than you in every way. The only reason you still have your job is that I haven’t tried to take it.”
Dunk paused here for a moment and glared into Kur’s eyes. “But I want to make one thing absolutely clear. You shouldn’t be afraid of M’Grash. You shouldn’t be afraid of Pegleg. You shouldn’t even be afraid of Skragger.
“No, you dumb son of a bitch,” Dunk whispered. As he spoke, he sheathed his blade with one smooth move, his eyes never leaving Kur’s rattled orbs. Then he leaned forward and pushed Kur back flat on the bed with a single index finger.
Dunk turned to leave then. As he reached the door, he looked back and spat at Kur. “You should be afraid of me.”
26
A few weeks later, Pegleg stormed into the morning chalk talk and made an announcement. “I just got word that the Chaos Cup is being held in Mousillon in one week. If we get the Sea Chariot underway today, we can just make it.”
The players all stared at their coach with blank faced.
“Well?” Pegleg said. “What are you all waiting for? Move out!”
That afternoon, as the tide pulled out, so did the Sea Chariot. Dunk and Slick stood at the rail with M’Grash sitting beside them. Most of the other players avoided Dunk these days. After his incident with Kur, Dunk started keeping to himself more and more. He worried that the team captain would try to kill him during a weak moment, so he promised himself not to have any. With the exception of Slick and M’Grash, he didn’t know he could trust any of them to not take Kur’s side over his. The only exceptions were Cavre and Pegleg, but keeping the Hackers going gave them enough troubles of their own.
“Ever been to Mousillon?” Slick asked.
M’Grash and Dunk looked at each other, then both shook their heads.
“It’s an evil place, son, if ever there was one. Some call it ‘the City of the Damned’ and once we get there you’ll see why.”
“Full of daemons?” M’Grash asked, a bit of a tremor in his voice. The ogre wasn’t afraid of much, but magic, especially dark magic, always set him on edge.
“Nothing so spectacular, I’m afraid, but sometimes more sinister,” Slick said. “Something went wrong with the city a few generations back. It used to be a wonderful place, nestled there next to the River Grismerie. Then it got hit with something like a dozen earthquakes in the space of a month. It never really did recover.”
“That’s it?” Dunk said. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Wait until we get there. When a place like that doesn’t come back, there’s always a reason.”
The Sea Chariot swung through the Middle Sea and sailed north into the Great Western Ocean. Then it made its way into the Bay of Hope and up the River Grismerie until he reached the quay at Mousillon.
Even from the river, Dunk could tell that this was a city with troubles. Not one of the houses or buildings he saw bore a lick of paint. Most of the once-proud roofs were either caving in or had already fallen. A number of towers that once stabbed proudly into the sky now reached up like broken fingers.
In the city, the people were just as dour and colourless as their homes. Many of them wore little more than rags, and even the best-dressed people wore clothes that even M’Grash would have turned up his nose at. Voluminous hoods and cloaks seemed to be the style here. Everyone wore them: men, women, and even children.
Dunk thought this was odd, especially when he saw a mother carrying an infant swaddled in such a garment. As the child began to cry, though, a prehensile tongue at least a foot long slipped out of its hood and snagged a hapless deerfly from the air. It stopped crying then.
“The taint of Chaos is strong here,” Slick said, sticking close to Dunk. “Any one of these people could bear mutations from exposure to its unwholesome essence.”
“Any?” M’Grash said, looking at all the hoods around them. “All!”
“Dirk said he’d be here at Ye Olde Salutation,” said Dunk. “Any idea where that is?”
Slick pointed to a sign hanging over the door of a run-down inn down a broken street off to the left. It showed a hand making an obscene gesture. “They may have changed the sign since the earthquakes,” he said. “I was here before that once, and it was a much friendlier place.”
Dunk led the way to the inn, weaving his way through people in hoods of all sizes. Only a few were not wearing the dark garments, but since they were such large people walking around with such beautiful members of their race, Dunk could only guess they were other Blood Bowl players and even cheerleaders.
Inside, the Sal, as Dunk later learned the locals called it, was just as depressing as it looked from the outside. The tables were all warped and crooked, and the stools were just as low and mean and often sported fresh splinters. Black candles illuminated the common room, but just barely. It was the sort of place in which a local could doff his hood and still stay hidden from prying eyes.
After ordering a round of drinks — a local brew called Mutant High Life — from a three-eyed bartender, Dunk asked if he’d seen anyone that looked like Dirk and Spinne. The man pointed him toward the back of the dim and smoky room. As Dunk turned to leave, he noticed the man’s thumb was split in two like a devil’s fork.
“Have a seat,” Dirk said as Dunk, Slick, and M’Grash walked up and set down their drinks. They all shook hands with him and Spinne, who gave Dunk a hug, friendly, but nothing more. “Sadly, we’re not alone here.”
“Who’s the problem?” Dunk said, peering into the surrounding gloom.
“At first, I thought it was Skragger. I think he’s been following me around town ever since we arrived. He really has me spooked.” It struck Dunk that for his brother to even admit he was “spooked” meant he was probably truly terrified.
“Who is it then?”
“I knew you’d show up here eventually,” said Lästiges as she emerged from a nearby booth. “These two always attract the most interesting sort of garbage, kind of like flies but in reverse.”
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Dunk said.
“Or you’ll kill me, just like anyone else who gets in your way?”
Dunk narrowed his eyes at the reporter. “That means what?”
“I know how the Hoffnungs work. You never let anything or anyone get in the way of what you want. And now I have proof.”
Dunk shook his head. “You can’t. I didn’t do it.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have proof, son,” said Slick. “Evidence isn’t always honest.”
Lästiges smirked at that. “I have incontrovertible proof that Dunk here killed most of the other prospects from his recruiting class and that he brought down the roof on the Reavers and even killed Ramen-Tut.”
Dunk waved her off. “No proof of a plot to kill the Emperor?”
“Give me time.”
“Look,” Dirk said as he stood up to talk with Lästiges, “this is my brother. I’ve known him all my life, and he’s just not capable of these things.”
Lästiges eyes flashed hot and then icy cold. “The facts don’t lie.”
“But people lie about them all the time,” Dirk said. He looked around the pub. “Can we all go someplace a bit nicer to talk about it?”
“Is there such a place in town?”
/> “I have a few ideas.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Dunk said. “I don’t have anything to prove.”
Dirk rolled his eyes. “I just think it might help if the lovely young Lästiges got to hear our side of the story.”
“Certainly,” the reporter said, eyeing Dirk. “It should make for a good laugh.”
“That’s just the lack of bias I’ve come to expect from the media,” Dirk said as he took Lästiges by the arm and led her from the pub.
Slick raised his eyebrows at Dunk as the two left, but Dunk ignored him. He was about to say something to Spinne — he didn’t know what — when another repulsive figure shambled out of the gloom.
“I thought she’d never leave,” Gunther the Gobbo said as he oozed onto the stool that Dirk had vacated.
“What is he doing here?” Spinne asked.
“So, kid,” the corpulent Gobbo wheezed at Dunk through his greasy mouth, “It looks like you’re turning into a real up and comer. Killing Ramen-Tut? That was brilliant!”
“That was Kur,” Slick said.
The Gobbo waived the halfling off. “Whatever. It was a good move, and it shows our little prodigy’s ability to be in the right place at the right time.” At this point Gunther’s smile grew impossibly wide as he focused his watery eyes on the rookie, and Dunk wondered if maybe Mousillon was the creature’s hometown. “And that’s just the kind of service I’m interested in renting from you.”
Spinne threw the contents of her stein at the Gobbo, drenching him. He smiled at her as he strove to lick as much of the beer from his face as he could with his unusually long tongue. “Don’t you worry, sweetie,” he said to her, still smiling. “I’ll get around to making you an offer next.”
Spinne’s arm lashed out and grabbed the Gobbo around the collar of his hooded cloak. He gurgled as she stood and wrenched him out of his seat. “Stay away from him,” she said. “He’s not your kind of player, and he never will be.” Then she shoved him so that he fell and skidded off into the gloom again.
Dunk heard the Gobbo scrabbling away, but as the creature left he called out. “I’ll get back to you later, kid, when you have a better selection of company. We’ll do lunch!”
Spinne tossed her stein in the direction of the voice. Dunk heard a satisfying cry of pain come from where the stein went. He hoped it was Gunther’s voice and not someone else’s.
“Thanks,” Dunk said to Spinne in a tone that was anything but grateful. “I’ll be sure to run all of my acquaintances past you for approval.”
“He’s scum,” Spinne said. “You don’t want to have anything to do with him.”
“What gives you that right?” Dunk asked. “Sleeping with me to get under my brother’s skin?”
Spinne gasped in anger. Looking down at her hands, she realised she’d already thrown both her beer and her stein, so she just steamed at Dunk instead. It was the kind of look that could peel paint from walls, had there been any left in this town. “No,” said Dunk, who was feeling meaner all the time. Was it the beer talking already or just the air in this damned town? “Maybe it’s the way you hide behind your contract so you can’t repeat your mistake.”
Spinne grabbed Slick’s stein and threw the beer in it at Dunk. The rookie dodged out of the way, and before Spinne could follow the beer with the stein, Slick snatched it from her hand.
“Think what you like,” Spinne said. Dunk thought he saw tears welling up in the woman’s eyes, but it could just have been from the odd conglomeration of smells in the pub. “I’ll leave you alone from now on.”
With that, Spinne spun on her heel and disappeared into the darkness.
Dunk looked into his beer for a moment, then handed it to Slick and took after the Reavers’ catcher. “Spinne!” he said. “Wait!”
“Thanks, son,” Slick said as Dunk left. “I like a client who knows how to take care of his agent.”
Outside the Sal, Dunk spotted Spinne marching away up the street.
He started after her, calling for her to stop, but she only moved faster.
He caught up with her as she raced through a door beneath a sign that read ‘The Mousillon Tentacles Hotel.’
“Hold it!” said Dunk as he followed Spinne into the dimly lit lobby.
The place was made of crumbling bricks that seemed to be covered with a glowing green mould. “Please! I want to apologise.”
“For what?” Spinne asked.
Dunk paused a moment, hoping that Spinne would help him out here. He knew he’d behaved badly, but now that she was angry with him, bringing her down was sure to be tricky.
Spinne just glared at him with her blazing blue-grey eyes, daring him to say the wrong thing.
“For being a complete ass,” Dunk said. “I thought maybe there could be something between us, and well…”
“You decided to make sure that could never be.”
“No,” Dunk said, confused. “Wait. I thought we were already at that point.”
Spinne frowned at him. “Only as long as we’re both players who play by the rules.”
Dunk smiled nervously. “What Blood Bowl player ever paid attention to the rules?”
“Exactly!” Spinne said, throwing her hands up in frustration. She spun on her heel again and headed up to her room.
“So, wait!” Dunk said as he chased Spinne up the stairs. “Are you saying there’s a chance for us?”
Spinne stopped in front of a battered door, a tarnished key in her hand. “Anything can happen, Dunk. It’s like Blood Bowl. Sometimes, success is a matter of how much you want it.”
She stuck the key in the lock. “So,” she said seriously, “how much do you want it?”
Awash in a mixture of relief and uncertainty, Dunk said the only thing that popped into his head. “More than anything.”
“That,” Spinne said with a smile as she turned the key and shoved open the door, “is the first step.”
As the door swung open, Dunk’s jaw dropped. Spinne looked at him, confused at his reaction, then turned to see what had stunned him so. As she did, she let out a little scream.
Dirk and Lästiges lay on the bed in the room’s far corner, entangled in each other’s arms.
At breakfast the next morning, Dirk said, “My roommate was in my room. I knew Spinne’s place was empty.” He grinned at Dunk. “I didn’t think you’d drive her out of the pub that quick.”
“Shows how well you know her, I suppose.” Dunk sighed over his meal. Despite ending up alone in his own bed, he’d not slept much that night.
“Look,” Dirk said, “Spinne and I have had a fling or two before — mostly drunken celebrating after a big win — but there’s nothing there. We’re team-mates.”
“Thanks,” Dunk said. He wanted to sound depressed and sarcastic, but he was having a hard time pulling it off. Dirk’s words sparked just a bit of hope in his heart again. After Spinne had kicked everyone out of her place last night, he had thought his chances with her had been ruined. Now he wasn’t so sure. Just how bad do you want it? he thought.
“Think Lästiges is going to get over it?” Dunk asked. After being kicked out of Spinne’s room, the reporter had slapped Dirk in the face. “I think she’s under the impression you were just using her to get her off my back.”
“What makes you think that?” Dirk said with a not-so-innocent smile.
“I think it was the part where she slapped you and said, ‘You were just using me!’ But I might have read that wrong.”
“I prefer to think of it as a happy coincidence.” Dirk said, grinning devilishly. “Sleeping with a beautiful woman will help my brother? Just call me an altruist.”
27
The Hackers played three games over the course of the next week and won two. The loss had been a heartbreaker against the Oldheim Ogres. The creatures had physically outmatched the Hackers, but Kur and Cavre had kept their team in the game until the very end, when Percival Smythe had been crushed in a pile-up after catching a pass near t
he end zone.
Pegleg had forgone a funeral after seeing Percy’s body. “He went how he would have wanted to,” the coach said, wiping away a single tear with his shining hook. “Besides,” he pointed down at the ground where the pile of ogres had pressed Percy straight through the turf, “he’s already buried.”
Despite the loss, the Hackers made it into the semi-finals against the heavily favoured Chaos All-Stars. The morning of the game Slick said to Dunk, “The Gobbo gives them a three-point spread, which is more than I suspected. Are you sure you didn’t take him up on his offer?”
“You just want your cut,” Dunk said with a smile.
Slick stuck out his open hand, ready for a bag full of gold to fall into it. “You’re a great player, son, but this is business.”
“I know,” Dunk said, “but I don’t do business that way.”
“Bah!” Slick said, but Dunk saw the halfling smiling as he walked away.
* * * * *
As the Gobbo predicted, the All-Stars pounded the Hackers hard. The All-Stars’ captain, Schlitz ‘Malti’ Likker, a mutant minotaur with six horns on his head, kept M’Grash on his heels the whole first half. Kur threw two interceptions, and a cheap shot from Baron Redd the Damned put Cavre down for the rest of the game with a case of skin rot.
At half-time, the Hackers assembled in their dugout, ready for one of Pegleg’s traditional “you bunch of losers” rants. Instead, their coach told them to turn their attention to the field. “Orcidas has something going on, and since they’re hosting this party, all us guests have to play along.”
“What’s happening, coach?” Guillermo Reyes asked, the pockmarks from one of the All-Stars’ tentacles still pink and puckered across his face.
“They’re milking every last bit they can get out of one of their top endorsement contracts by ‘honouring’ him with a ceremony during half-time,” Pegleg snarled.
“Who is it?” Kai Albrecht asked, still scratching the rash he’d broken into after getting coated with the green goo that passed for one All-Star beastman’s blood.
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