Dunk almost hoped the Hackers would lose to Da Deff Skwadd. Then he wouldn’t have to go through with his plans for the final game. Of course, he’d then be on the run with a huge bounty on his head for whatever might be left of his miserable life.
When the game came around, Dunk sat in the same spot as always. The other fans around him were just as rabid as he was about the game at this point, and they suited him fine. When the Hackers took the field at the start of the game, the Hacker Backers almost knocked each other out by cheering too hard. They were so worked up they all spent the entire game standing on their seats, screaming for more touchdowns and orc blood — not necessarily in that order.
It wasn’t too far into the game when Dunk felt something tugging at his leg. He looked down to see Slick standing there in front of his seat, desperately beckoning him to sit.
Dunk slipped to his seat immediately. He knew that something horrible must be wrong if Slick had risked coming into this section of the stands. “What is it?” he asked.
“Blaque and Whyte are here, son,” the halfling said.
“I figured they would be,” Dunk said. “But how are they going to find me up here?”
“They were down in the dugout at the start of the game, questioning people. Kur wanted to give you up so badly I thought he’d start making up stuff in the hopes it would be true. The GWs were too sharp for him though and ignored him right away. Then I heard them say they’d start scouring the stands today. Blaque mentioned the Hacker Backers, and I knew I had to warn you.”
Dunk closed his eyes in frustration and then opened them. “Did it ever occur to you,” he asked the halfling, “that they might have known you were listening?”
Slick gasped. “They said that so I would hear them? And then…” The halfling’s face threatened to turn Hacker green. “Oh, dear.”
Dunk popped up from his seat to peer around the stadium like a prairie dog in a sea of drunk, violent, and over-decorated people. As he craned his neck around, he saw the tall dwarf Blaque stomping down the aisle to his left. He glanced the other way and saw the short elf Whyte prancing down the aisle to his right. The two were matching time perfectly, and they would converge on his seat in mere seconds.
Dunk dunked back down and hissed at Slick. “Let’s scatter! They can’t follow us both at once.”
“They only want you, son,” Slick said as he slapped a thick hand over his face, miserable with grief. “I’m worthless.”
“If I do manage to get away, and I’m going to go for it right now, they’ll go after you next. Now that you’ve shown that you’re in contact with me, you’re not safe either.”
A look of horror dawned on Slick’s shamed face as the truth of Dunk’s words hit him.
“Someone your size shouldn’t have too much trouble hiding here for a few minutes. They’re going to chase me out of here. When that happens, that’s your chance.”
“What are you going to do, son?” Slick said, putting his hand on Dunk’s arm.
“I’m making this up as I go,” Dunk confessed.
Blaque appeared at the end of the aisle, over Slick’s shoulder. Dunk looked back and saw Whyte completing the pincer move from the other side. With the vast sea of people crowded around them, there was nowhere for the rookie to run.
Dunk jumped up and smacked the man next to him, a barely standing brute who’d tottered his way through every game so far, loyally screaming his lungs out for the Hackers. The man glared back at Dunk, who suddenly realised the man hadn’t just had the Hackers’ logo painted on the side of his shaved head. It was tattooed.
“What do you want?” the man screamed in Dunk’s face, spittle flying as he spoke.
Dunk raised one knee and shouted. “Give me a boost, pal! I’m going over!”
The drunk fan smiled and laced his fingers together in front of him. “About time someone round here finally showed some bloody team spirit!” He shouted with a grin.
Dunk put his boot in the man’s hands and then jumped up. As he did, the man pulled upward, shoving Dunk high into the air. “Body pass!” The drunk shouted as his hands came over his head.
The people all around turned their heads in time for them to toss up their hands and catch Dunk. The rookie breathed a sigh of relief as he felt a dozen hands cradle him for a moment. He’d seen crowds that were just too drunk or mean to care drop people instead of grabbing them, and the last thing he needed was to land headfirst on the stone steps right in front of Blaque and Whyte.
The crowd beneath him started to pass him up toward the top of the stadium, just as they had during Dunk’s first game. Visions of hurtling over the top of the Emperor Stadium flashed through his head as he spotted the GWs turn tail and head back toward their aisles. If they couldn’t catch him now, they’d just follow him until it was safe.
Dunk reached down and grabbed one of the fans holding him. It was a tall burly man with a blood-red mohawk and a set of piercings that followed cheekbones sharp enough to cut diamonds.
“Leggo, deader!” the man shouted. “You’re going over!”
“No!” Dunk insisted. “I got up here for one reason only. I want to kiss a Hackette before I die!”
The Hackettes were the Hackers’ squad of professional cheerleaders. They were uniformly gorgeous in the kind of way that Dunk couldn’t really fathom but from a distance. He’d never even stood close to them, for two reasons. First, they only showed up at real games, and Dunk was either in the dugout, on the field, or nursing a possible concussion at those times. Second, Pegleg absolutely forbade even a conversation with these ebullient young beauties for fear it would distract the players from the task at hand; winning the game.
The fans all around Dunk roared with approval at his choice of how to end his life. They all suspected that the security guards that protected the ladies would tear Dunk into tiny bits. The burly guards, often washouts from one Blood Bowl team or another, or a former player who’d taken one too many blows to the head, were rumoured to be testy because they supposedly had to be castrated to take the job, although Dunk had no proof that this was true. He hoped that whatever the reason, the guards would be in a less-than-murderous mood when he landed before them.
Being passed down toward the field went faster than being pushed toward the top. As Dunk slid along the raised hands of the people in front of him, he looked back to see Blaque and Whyte turn around and then race down after him. As they got closer to the bottom rows, they had to fight their way through the rowdiest of the spectators, people who had left their seats to stand at the bottom of the aisle and were strong and tough enough to maintain their positions against all rivals.
Dunk grinned, but as he reached the restraining wall that supposedly kept the fans from the field, he braced himself. The last of the fans, the ones who were standing in the front row, right in front of the lovely Hackettes, gave him the kind of heave-ho that only comes with lots of practice and tossed him straight over the heads of the guards.
Two of the ladies linked their arms together and caught Dunk as he hurtled into their midst. He smiled at them as they set him down gently. They returned the favour with dazzling grins.
“My undying thanks,” Dunk managed to say.
“It happens all the time,” one of the women said, a stunning blonde with bright blue eyes. “Someone isn’t paying attention and his friends decide to send him for a ride.”
“We used to beat the guys senseless,” a ravishing brunette with an amazing tan said. “Then one of them managed to tell us it wasn’t his fault.”
A mind-blowing redhead stepped up and said, “Since then, we’ve been a bit gentler with the guys. After all, who can blame them for wanting to get a closer look?”
The rest of the women giggled. Dunk wondered if the stadium had suddenly gotten a lot warmer or if it was just him.
“Of course, we’re not really the ones you should be worried about,” the blonde said. “It’s them.”
Dunk turned to see a pair of guard
s charging toward him. They looked like they’d been castrated that morning and were looking to take out their aggravations on someone.
“Hey, ladies,” Dunk said, pointing up towards Blaque and Whyte, who had just managed to finally fight their way through the fans on the other side of the restraining wall. “You see those two guys with the Wolf Sports robes? Network executives.”
The cheerleaders squealed with delight and charged toward the two Game Wizards, sweeping the guards back with them. The two men were charged with protecting the women, so they went along with them rather than chasing down Dunk.
The rookie smiled to himself as he raced toward the tunnel that led to the team locker rooms. In less than a minute, he lost himself in the maze of passageways that riddled the underside of the stadium and left Blaque and Whyte and the rigged semi-final game far behind.
33
Dunk watched the rest of the game in a sports pub he picked out at random, a place known as the Spiked Ball, and then stuck around for the second game too. The Reavers handed the Giants their heads — sometimes literally. This meant the Hackers would end up playing the Reavers in the finals, just as Dunk had hoped.
Dunk wanted to meet with Slick somewhere, but he didn’t dare go to Slag End or to Slick’s hotel. The GWs would follow the halfling around if they could find him, and Dunk just couldn’t take that risk. He thought about going to the Skinned Cat to see some familiar faces, but he feared the Gobbo might show up there. He didn’t want to see Gunther until the final match.
Dunk had a week until the next game, and he spent most of that time working out and moving around a lot. Since the GWs had seen him in his fan costume, he had to change his look again. He washed his head clean and got rid of his replica jersey. Soon he hoped to be wearing the real thing again.
In Beggars Square, Dunk picked up a new outfit: the simple brown robes of a monk and a fist-sized football carved from wood and spiked with blackened nails, Nuffle’s holy symbol, hanging from a rough length of jute around his neck. Dunk pulled the hood low over his head as many of the penitents did during these wild days in Altdorf to serve as an example of restraint. They stood out like bears in a beehive, but everyone in town considered them sacrosanct and left them alone. No one ever bothered one of Nuffle’s own, especially during the Blood Bowl tournament, for fear of jinxing both themselves and their favourite teams. As long as Dunk didn’t run into some other monks who tried to drag him along to services in one of the churches that spotted the town, he would be just fine.
The night before the big game, Dunk set his plan into motion. To guarantee a loss for the Hackers, he’d have to play for them, and that meant getting back on the team. It wasn’t going to be easy to arrange, but Dunk didn’t see how he had a choice.
Still dressed as one of Nuffle’s monks, Dunk strolled into the Jaeger Inn, one of the handful of first-class hotels located near Emperor Stadium. The teams who played in the Blood Bowl tournament stayed in these places, so much so it was almost impossible for anyone else in the area to take a room here.
Dunk walked straight to the Jaeger’s private dining hall and let himself in. The doors were guarded, but when he pulled back his hood for an instant to reveal his face, the sentries were so stunned they let him in. He was still a part of the Hackers after all.
Inside the dining hall, Pegleg was just finishing a toast when Dunk walked in and stood at the foot of the table. Every eye in the room turned to look at the man in the monk’s robes, unable to see who he really was under his hood. The murmur of voices in the room fell silent.
It was Pegleg, standing at the head of the table who broke the silence. “To what do we owe this honour, good brother?” he asked. “Are you here to tell us that Nuffle himself has blessed our efforts and that we can expect him in our dugout tomorrow afternoon?”
The rest of the Hackers laughed nervously at this. Then all fell silent again.
Dunk reached up and drew back his hood, exposing his face and head. The collective gasp almost sucked every bit of air from the room.
“Mr. Hoffnung,” Pegleg said, “welcome back.”
No one else said a word. Down at the far end of the table next to Pegleg, Slick gave Dunk a hearty smile and wave.
“It’s good to be back,” Dunk said.
“It’s a pity you can’t stay long,” Kur said as he stood up from his spot halfway down the table. “We have no place for murderers here.”
The rest of the team burst into peals of nervous laughter at this. When they were finished, Dunk spoke.
“I heard you might need another thrower for the final game.”
Kur sneered at the rookie. “We’ve gotten this far without you, punk. We don’t need anyone’s help, especially not yours.”
Dunk smiled knowingly. “That’s not what the papers are saying, especially after those three interceptions you threw against the Da Deff Skwadd. Those Orcs picked you off more often than they picked their noses.”
“That was all part of my plan,” Kur said, although Dunk was sure no one in the room, Kur included, believed it. “I just put the ball deep into their territory so we could take it from them there. Those moronic Orcs never stood a chance. I could have taken on the whole lot myself.”
Dunk had seen Kur say the same thing on Cabalvision in an on-field interview with Lästiges after the game. “I think the Orcs would love to see you try that,” he said.
Kur stepped away from the table. “Isn’t there a fat bounty on your head?”
“Better that than to have a bountiful, fat head like yours.”
Kur strode toward Dunk and stood in the rookie’s face. Their eyes met and locked. They were still the same height, but Dunk had filled out over the course of the last year and was just as broad across the chest as the veteran. The week’s worth of stubble on his head made him look harder than his shaggy locks ever had. He was more than ready to stand toe to toe with Kur.
“I’m claiming you for your bounty,” Kur said. Dunk thought he detected a hint of desperation behind the veteran’s bravado, and he smiled.
“Sorry, old man,” Dunk said. “You have to catch me first.”
Kur’s hands snaked out and caught Dunk by the collar of his robe and held him fast. “That’s easily enough — ow!”
Dunk smashed his forehead into Kur’s sharp nose, smashing it flat. Despite the shock and pain, Kur refused to let go of Dunk’s robes, even as the blood poured from his face.
Dunk threw up his arm and bent over, letting his robes slip right over his head. Kur, who’d been trying to hold Dunk in place, staggered backwards and fell into the end of the table, striking the back of his head on its edge.
Kur grabbed the back of his head and brought his hand around to his face. It was coated with blood. On his knee now, he glared up at Dunk and snarled. “I’ll skin your skull!”
All eyes in the room went to Dunk, who stood framed in the doorway, wearing a Deff Skwadd jersey. “Give it a try,” he said with a cocky smile. Then he turned and fled.
Dunk raced down the hall and out the front door of the Jaeger Inn. As he ran down the brightly lit boulevard, dodging back and forth through the people milling about the crowded streets, he could hear Kur stomping after him.
Dunk charged around the next corner and then another, each time far enough head of Kur that the rookie could still be seen but not caught. As Kur got closer, Dunk ducked through a rough door, over which hung a sign that depicted an elf’s decapitated head.
A pair of hands grabbed at Dunk as he raced through the dimly lit place, but he spun away from them, just as he’d been trained to shake a tackle. Dunk smiled at that, knowing that Pegleg would have been proud.
Dunk raced down a corridor and stopped dead in front of a pair of double doors that barely hung on their hinges. In the room beyond, he could hear plates and steins clanging, accompanied by rough words and off-key songs. For a moment he worried that he’d lost Kur at the door, that he’d not been able to shake the bouncer as Dunk had. Then he saw
the starting thrower appear at the end of the hallway.
“Nowhere to run?” Kur said, venom dripping from his voice. Dunk saw that the man had the punch-dagger from his belt in his fist. Fresh blood dripped from its blade.
Dunk stepped back until he had both hands on the doors behind him. He pressed back against them and felt them give.
“You’re as dumb as you are weak,” Kur said as he stalked down the hallway. “First, you take the fall for all those killings, including some that I committed. Then, you show up at our dinner to ask for your job back when there’s a 20,000-crown bounty on your head.”
“I didn’t realised they’d upped it,” Dunk said.
“They made an even better change too,” Kur said as he came within striking distance and brought his blade high. This was it, Dunk knew as he leaned back into the doors behind him and braced for the attack.
“Now,” Kur said, “it’s ‘dead or alive’.”
Kur roared as he charged at Dunk and drove his bloodied blade home. Dunk grabbed Kur’s arms as he stepped back into the room beyond. Then he spun and used Kur’s momentum to throw the man behind him with all his might.
Kur sailed through the air for a moment before he came crashing down into a battered dining table. He landed in the remnants of a platter of roasted boar and skidded along the length of the table until he came to rest near the head.
Kur looked up to see more than a dozen gruesome, green-skinned creatures with rough, tusk-filled mouths gaping wide at him as they glared down through wide, yellow eyes. The room had fallen silent, except for one slurred voice in a corner somewhere rasping out the last refrain of a drinking song.
[Blood Bowl 01] - Blood Bowl Page 26