“We had nothing to be ashamed of.” Dunk surprised himself with how angry he sounded.
Lehrer shook his head. “You still see your family through the eyes of a child. It’s time to grow up, kid.” With that, he turned and slinked back into the shadows. “Good luck.”
Dunk thought about following the old man, but if Lehrer wanted to leave he wasn’t sure how he could stop him.
“Just know one thing,” Lehrer’s voice called back through the darkness from somewhere further down the alley. “It wasn’t your fault, kid. Not all of it.”
30
That night in the Skinned Cat, Dunk just wanted to be left alone with his thoughts. This was the kind of place where hard people drank hard drinks and gave each other plenty of space, which suited Dunk just fine. In his younger days, he’d heard many a tale about the place, most of which seemed too fantastic to believe. The only thing that he’d been sure of was that he never wanted to set foot in the place, yet here he was.
As Dunk finished off what he’d promised himself was his last stein of the horribly potent dwarf draught Bugman’s XXXXXX, the only thing he was closer to was leaving his dinner in the gutter outside the pub. He’d turned Lehrer’s advice over and over in his mind, but he couldn’t figure out a way to make it work.
“Pin the blame on someone else.” It sounded like a fine notion, but Dunk couldn’t think of where to begin. The only obvious people to shift the blame to were either his friend (M’Grash) or dead (the Broussards).
There was Kur, of course. Not only had he let Dunk share the blame for Ramen-Tut’s death but he’d tried to kill the rookie too. Dunk didn’t think he’d shed a tear for the veteran thrower if he were to take the fall for all those murders. Still, it wouldn’t be simple to make that happen.
The easy way to handle it would be to give up M’Grash. The ogre had been responsible for enough of the mayhem that it wouldn’t be hard to make the rest stick to him. Dunk didn’t want to try that quite yet though. The ogre had been a friend to him when he needed one and had saved him from Kur more than once. He even owed his spot with the Hackers to M’Grash.
Dunk wished he could leave the blame with the Broussards. How he’d explain their own deaths and all those who came after though, he didn’t know. Sure, the dead sometimes walked, and even played Blood Bowl, as he’d seen with the Champions of Death, but this would be a long stretch.
Dunk had given up and was motioning for the bartender to bring him another pint of the Bugman’s when the last person he’d expected to see slipped into the other side of his booth.
Gunther the Gobbo smiled across the dagger-scarred table at Dunk. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, kid,” he said. “I never thought I’d find you in a dive like this.”
Dunk fought an urge to shove the table into the Gobbo’s greasy, overfilled gut and crush him with it. “How did you find me at all?”
The Gobbo grinned as wide as an alligator. “I read, kid, and I know a little bit about you.” He leaned over the table and nearly drooled on the wood. “Don’t be so surprised. The kind of business I’m in, it’s my job to know as much as I can about hot new talent like you.” He winked at the bartender. “And to know as many different kinds of people as I can. You never know where the next star player’s going to crop up.”
“What do you want?” Dunk said, glancing around the place nervously. He didn’t see any sign of Blaque and Whyte, but he was ready to flee at the first sign of them.
The Gobbo slapped his clammy, wart-covered hand on the table, and Dunk nearly leapt from his skin. The bookie laughed. “A little jumpy there, aren’t you, kid? No need for that. I’m here to help you.”
“Like you did at the Chaos Cup?” Dunk said.
The Gobbo chuckled at that. “You’re not going to hold that one against me, are you? How was I to know you’d chase out there after Zauberer? That little madman told me he’d be wearing a disguise.”
“Then what was he doing out there?” Dunk asked suspiciously.
“He was going to kill Skragger, of course,” the Gobbo said. “I thought you were smarter than that kid.”
“But why?” Dunk hated even talking with the Gobbo, but his curiosity had to be satisfied. This just didn’t seem to add up.
The Gobbo folded his hands in front of him on the table. A pint of Bugman’s appeared in front of Dunk, while the barmaid slid a massive stein of Bloodweiser in front of the bookie.
“Ever heard of a dead pool, kid?” The way the Gobbo leered at Dunk, he was sure it was something horrible, but he had to shake his head.
“It’s a kind of bet based on a list of famous names, a pool in which the gamblers wager on which of the names will die next. With the right crowd, you can end up with a lot of money on the line.”
“And Skragger’s name was on that list?”
The Gobbo nodded. “This is a list for Blood Bowl players only, and he’s been on it forever. I put a ton of money on the guy back when he was a rookie, and I’ve just been letting it ride ever since. Can you imagine how he managed to survive all those years?
“Do you know how many Blood Bowl players make it to retirement? About one in ten. It’s even harder for the better players. They set themselves up as targets, and everyone wants to take them down. Skragger was the biggest target there was.”
The Gobbo stopped for a moment to throw back the entire stein of Bloodweiser in one gulp. “Another Blood for me!” he shouted at the bartender, who pointed at the barmaid already coming their way with a refill.
“By his last year, Skragger was at the top of most dead pools. A lot of people lost money on him. They pulled theirs out when he made it to the end of the season, but not me. I just let it ride. In fact, I doubled what I had down.
“Most people just thought it was a long-term investment. After all, he’s got to die sometime, right? Probably in a violent way, knowing him.”
“And now you stand to gain a lot if he dies.”
The Gobbo shook his head. “Not anymore. Now that everyone knows someone’s gunning for the guy, they all leaped on his name too. If he dies this year, the take will be split so many ways I’ll lose my shirt.”
“Sorry to have ruined your year,” Dunk said deadpan.
The Gobbo cocked his head at the rookie. “Don’t worry about it kid. There are more bets where that one came from. In fact, that’s where you come in.”
“Here it comes.”
The Gobbo grinned wide enough for Dunk to wonder if the bookie ever cleaned his teeth. “I need someone like you to work for me.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever play Blood Bowl again.”
“You leave that to me. With enough gold to grease the way, anything can happen.”
Dunk goggled at the man. “You could buy off the GWs?”
The Gobbo winced. “Maybe, maybe not. Everyone has his price. Besides, there are lots of ways for a resourceful fellow to get what he wants.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Black Jerseys?”
“Shhh!” The Gobbo put a fat finger in front of his mouth, then leaned forward again and said, “Let’s just say I think you’d look good with a black shirt under your Hacker green.”
“What’s in it for me?” Dunk asked.
“Besides getting the GWs off your tail?” The Gobbo stared at Dunk incredulously. It didn’t suit him. There was so little about him that was credible in the first place.
Dunk shook his head. “How do I know you’re not just setting it up so you can turn me in? Is there a bounty on me already?”
“Five hundred stinking crowns,” the Gobbo said with a snigger. “You don’t have to worry about me, kid. Adding another name to my little metateam’s roster is worth far more than that.”
“Metateam?”
“Zauberer came up with it. You know how wizards are with words. Or maybe you don’t. Anyhow, it’s a team made up of parts of other teams that covers them all like a blanket.”
“Which is how you make sure the games come out the wa
y you need them to in order to give you the most profit.”
The Gobbo nodded. “You’re not as slow as you look, kid.” He leaned forward again, whispering this time. His breath smelled of verdigris.
“Let’s quit dickering around here, kid, and get down to business. The Black Jerseys make a lot of money for me and from me. If you don’t end up working for us, then you’ll be against us.”
Dunk held up a hand. “Are you saying there are Black Jerseys already on the Hackers?”
The Gobbo gave Dunk a sardonic grin. “What do you think, kid?”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“Insurance, kid. I always like to have a backup plan or three. After all, that guy gets hurt, then where am I with the Hackers?”
Dunk sat back. “I don’t know. I’m thinking of washing my hands of all this and leaving the game behind. There’s always Albion, or the New World.”
The Gobbo shook his head. “Don’t do that, kid. You got one hell of a career here. You’d be throwing it away.”
“It looks to me like it’s already gone.”
“I can fix that. Let me outline a deal for you.”
Dunk nodded to show he was listening.
“Smart money — okay, my money — is on your Hackers making it into the Blood Bowl finals this year.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a Chaos cultist. The trick is that the Hackers will then lose the game. I need you in there to help make sure that happens.”
“But I can’t play in the game. If I show up in the stadium, the GWs will grab me for sure.”
“If you manage to pull it off, I’ll make that problem disappear. Plus, you’ll be on my salary from there on out. That game alone could make you fifty thousand crowns.”
The number nearly took Dunk’s breath away, but he focused on the GW problem instead. “That money won’t do me any good if I can’t spend it.”
“I have the perfect patsy for you. I’ll even provide the evidence for Blaque and Whyte to nail him to the stadium wall.”
“Who is it?” Dunk asked.
“Zauberer, of course.”
Dunk smiled despite himself. Then he heard his voice say, “All right, I’ll do it.”
Dunk spent the next month holed up in a number of different inns. He kept changing his address every few days, just in case someone recognised him. Luckily, in a city the size of Altdorf there were plenty of places to stay and thousands of other transients for him to hide among.
While he waited for the Blood Bowl to roll along, Dunk did his best to stay in training. Although he couldn’t get in any practice time without raising suspicions, he spent much of his days working out in whatever room he was staying in at the time. He wanted to be ready for the big game when it came along, and the grunts and growls he made tended to convince the others staying in the inn that it wasn’t worth bothering the lunatic down the hall.
Every now and then, Dunk wandered down to the Altdorf Oldbowl, the home stadium of the Reikland Reavers. Eventually, he saw what he wanted: a home game coming up the next week.
The ceiling of the halfling inn known as Slag End was so low that Dunk had to enter on his knees. In a city as cosmopolitan as Altdorf, there were many places like this, but Slag End was the closest to the Oldbowl. Dunk suspected he’d find who he was looking for there, the night before the Reavers’ home game.
Slick sat in a dark corner in the main parlour, smoking a pipe that was nearly as long as he was and sipping at a mug of Teinekin Beer. When he saw Dunk walking over to him on his knees, the halfling let the pipe drop from his mouth and said, “Esmerelda’s sacred pots, son. Is that you?”
Without waiting for a reply, Slick leapt to his feet and charged into Dunk’s outstretched arms. The two embraced for a moment, then Slick pulled back to look at Dunk. “How have you been? Where have you been? You look good — great even! Sit, sit, and tell me everything!”
Dunk squeezed himself into the corner next to Slick’s chair, refusing a seat himself, as they were all too small to hold him. “My apologies, son. It’s the reason I come here, most big folk won’t but it makes it hard to entertain such guests. Come, let’s go someplace else.”
Dunk refused. “This is fine, Slick. I need to talk, and I can’t stay long.” With that, he told Slick everything that M’Grash had told him and what he’d been doing since, including the offer that Gunther the Gobbo had made to him and the fact that he’d accepted it. Throughout it all, Slick sat and puffed on his pipe, blowing the occasional ring but mostly just listening and taking it all in. Later, Dunk would realise that this was the longest he’d ever seen the halfling stay quiet when there was a conversation to be had, but that fact made it clear that Slick was giving his words his full attention.
“I knew it,” Slick said when Dunk was done. “That ogre always worried me. He’s a good one to have on your side, to be sure, but he’s trouble too. Ogres don’t have any sense of morals, no way to tell right and wrong. M’Grash’s childhood may have ‘humanised’ him a bit, but he’s still an ogre beneath it all.”
The halfling looked over at Dunk. “You did the right thing by coming here, though. Those GWs were ready to hang you from the gates of the nearest stadium. They need to make an example out of someone, and you’re at the top of their list.”
It was here that Slick became grave. “You should consider handing them M’Grash,” he said. “It’s the simplest way out of this. Everything else involves too much risk.”
“I can’t do that,” Dunk said. “That ogre did everything out of loyalty to me and the team. The only people he killed were the Broussards, and that couldn’t have happened to a better pair of bastards.”
“Son, this isn’t about loyalty. It’s about two of the most important things in life: money and breathing. Blood Bowl has made us both wealthy, but you can’t enjoy money without breathing, and you can reverse that, and it’s just as true!”
Dunk shook his head. “I won’t allow it. Loyalty, friendship, has to count for something. I won’t sell out M’Grash to save my own skin. Money’s not that important to me.”
Slick gasped at this. “Spoken like someone heady with the possibilities of youth!” He waved his hands at himself. “Look at me. I’m not a young halfling anymore. I don’t have much in the way of talents, and my only skills centre around smoking, drinking, and the gentle art of conversation, particularly in convincing coaches to hire players for a bit more than they’re really worth.”
“Is that more important than a friend’s life?” Dunk asked. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to hear Slick’s answer.
“You should ask M’Grash that. He seems happy to let you take the blame for what he did.”
“And if he came forward? The GWs would still pin all the other killings on me. Then we’d both be in for it.”
“You might be able to pin it all on him.”
“Or not. I’d rather try that with someone else. That way if I blow it, at least I’m not hurting a friend too.”
Slick shook his head as he stood up and approached Dunk. In the cramped quarters, the move made Dunk more than a little claustrophobic.
“He’s your friend, not mine. As your agent, I feel compelled to inform the GWs about all of this and establish your innocence. For your career, it’s the right thing to do.”
“Keeping me and M’Grash away from the GWs is good for the Hackers over the long term. That’s good for my contract too. It makes it a good investment for you.”
“I don’t know, son,” Slick said. “It sounds like a good theory, but I’m more worried about the short-term. If the GWs catch up with you, what’s going to happen to you?”
Dunk smiled softly. It wasn’t the money that Slick was worried about after all.
“Well.” Dunk sensed that Slick wanted to do the right thing but needed a good excuse for it. “What if M’Grash was your client too?”
Slick furrowed his brow for a moment, then sat down. “That’s a mighty good question, son, bu
t it’s moot, isn’t it? Why would he make me his agent?”
“He doesn’t have one now, and I’ll bet Pegleg screwed him on his contract,” Dunk said, warming to the idea. “Just think of the gains you could make for M’Grash, and your percentage.”
“Of course,” Slick said, instantly warming to the idea. “Do you think you could get him to do that?”
“Hey, he’s my friend, right?” said Dunk. “Besides, I’d say he owes me a favour or two.”
31
A few weeks later, Blood Bowl fever hit Altdorf hard. Throughout his years of living here, this was the season that Dunk had hated most. Hundreds of thousands of ‘people’ of all races descended on the city, swelling it nearly to bursting and straining its normally bountiful resources to the limit.
Most years, Dunk would simply hole up in the family keep and avoid the craziness around the big event as much as he could. After all, even walking across town could turn from a simple jaunt into an epic quest. It just wasn’t worth going outside.
In those days, the roar of the crowd and the chants of the fans roaming through the streets terrified the young Dunk and annoyed his teenage self. For weeks after, he’d hear, “Here we go, here we go, here we go,” echoing in his dreams.
This year was entirely different.
Dunk couldn’t wait for the Blood Bowl tournament to begin. It would be three weeks of open games arranged by the team coaches, followed by a semi-final round and then a final round for the big prize: the Blood Bowl trophy and the lion’s share of the half-million-crown purse. It was also Dunk’s chance to redeem himself if everything went to plan. It was an insane, risky plan, of course, but it was all he had, so he clung to it like a rabid fan to a stray football.
At Slick’s advice, Dunk had shaved his head bald and painted it so it looked like a Hacker’s helmet. “You’re hiding in plain sight,” the halfling said. “Who would think the fugitive thrower from the Bad Bay Hackers would walk around dressed up as one of its biggest fans?”
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