“Let’s go,” Spinne said to Dirk.
He stood up, shaking his head at his brother as if at a small child who hadn’t learned to curb an insolent tongue. “What are you thinking?” he spat.
Spinne frowned down at Dunk. “We’ll see you on the field,” she said, “if you’re lucky.”
With that, the two Reavers turned and left.
As they walked out of the Skinned Cat, Lästiges rolled her eyes at Dunk. “Well played,” she said. “To get back the girl and lose her in the space of minutes, I’m impressed.”
“You know what I’m talking about here,” Dunk said. “You have to talk to them.”
“We’ve seen just how much good that’s done.”
“You can’t just let the Hackers kill them.” Dunk strove to keep his desperation out of his voice.
Lästiges raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at Dunk. “We’re a long way from that point yet. We’re still in the opening round, and there’s no chance the two teams will meet yet. Wolf Sports is counting on a match-up at some point in the playoffs. If—if—that hits the schedule, I’ll say something then, but not before.” Her eyes wandered toward the door, which Spinne had long since slammed behind her. “Not before.”
“By then, it might be too late. The closer they get to the finals, the less the chance they’ll listen to reason. The chance at being the repeating champions will be too much for them.” Dunk buried his face in his hands and growled in frustration. “Why will nobody help me?”
“Well, kid, just tell me what it is you need,” a greasy voice said, slithering into Dunk’s ear. “Maybe we can cut some kind of a deal.”
The thrower groaned, leaving his face in his hands. “Leave me alone, Gunther.”
“Hey,” the slimy bookie said, “would a good friend abandon another in his time of need?”
Dunk uncovered his eyes and shot the Gobbo an ironic look. The nauseating creature looked a shade greener than ever.
“Oh, whoops!” the bookie said dramatically. “I guess that’s what just happened here, isn’t it? Well, when your friends abandon you, then who’s left?”
Dunk glared at the Gobbo. “What do you want?”
“What everyone wants: gold. To get that, I want to ask you the same question: What do you want?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Dunk said. He regretted the words even as they left his mouth, but he didn’t stop talking. “If you can help me, I’ll help you.”
“That’s what I do,” the Gobbo said, phlegm flying from his rubbery lips as he chortled. He let loose a loud belch that smelled of old, fried meat. “Scuse me,” he said. “I’m a bit off my feed today. I think that last rat-on-a-stick at the game tried biting me back.” He tried to suppress another noisy burp and failed. “Anyway, how can I help you?”
“Get the Reavers to lose a game so they don’t meet the Hackers in the playoffs.”
The Gobbo rubbed his greasy chin. “That’s a tall order, kid. Last year, if you’d asked, I could have mobilised the Black Jerseys to make something happen, but someone,” he glared at Dunk here, “caused me to fumble that little operation.”
Dunk nodded knowingly. “What would you want in return?”
The Gobbo grinned. “You don’t like being on this side of it now, do you?” he said. “Needing me? What I can offer? How does it feel?”
Dunk made a fist. “Do you want to make a deal or not?”
“Sheesh!” the Gobbo said. “Can you let a guy gloat a little?” Then he turned serious. “I want you as the captain of my new version of the Black Jerseys.”
“Never,” Dunk said instantly.
The Gobbo showed even more of his teeth. “You sure you don’t want a bit more time to think that over, kid? What if I’m your only chance to keep your brother and your girlfriend alive?”
“There has to be a better way, son,” Slick said softly, his stein now on the table in front of him.
Dunk thought about this for a long moment, and then shook his head. “All right,” he said to the Gobbo. “If you can pull that off, I’ll throw one game for you.”
“Just one?” the bookie looked distressed. For a moment, Dunk worried he might belch again — or worse. “Aren’t the lives of the two people closest in the world to you worth more than a single game?”
“That’s the deal. And if you take it, I’ll throw in a bit of advice about the Hackers for free.”
The Gobbo rubbed his chin until Dunk thought he might crack it wide open. “All right,” he finally said. “It’s a deal.” He offered his clammy hand, but Dunk ignored it.
“How do I know I can trust you?” the Gobbo asked.
Dunk rolled his eyes. “Of the two of us, who would you — even you—trust most?”
“Good point, kid.” the Gobbo said. “So what’s my ‘free’ advice?”
“Consider it a down payment on the deal,” Slick said. “If you don’t produce, then you might owe us.”
The bookie sneered at the halfling, but before he could respond, Dunk spoke up. “As long as the Hackers have the Far Albion Cup, don’t bet against us.”
“That’s it?” the Gobbo said. “You’re just going to repeat that tired legend from the lady’s Cabalvision special?” He leered at her, and Lästiges squirmed away from him in her seat.
“It’s no legend,” Dunk said. “Didn’t you pay attention? Everything in that show was real.”
“Everything?” the Gobbo said, trying to peer down Lästiges’ shirt. She clasped a hand to her chest and scooted her chair farther away. Then his eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, a look of surprise on his face.
“It’s a deal. Gotta go!” With that, he slid off his chair and waddled his way in the direction of the nearest latrine, holding his thighs together the entire time.
“What a night!” Lästiges said, as she stumbled on a loose paving stone, nearly taking a spill in the dimly lit street. Dunk reached out and steadied her with an arm attached to a body only slightly less intoxicated than hers.
“You got that right,” Slick said as he scurried out of her way. “You make up with your lovers, you run them out of the bar, and then you cut a deal with the slimiest creature this side of Nurgle himself.
“By ‘you,’ I think he meansh you,” Lästiges said, wrapping an arm over Dunk’s shoulder for support. Drunk, she’d developed a lateral lisp. “I wouldn’t have done any of that. Well, maybe the firsht part — making up with our loversh — which was all my fault, thank you very much. But not the other two thingsh.”
“And thank you for that, by the way,” Dunk said. “I’m just sorry I had to go and throw a wrench into that.” He hesitated for a moment, then continued.
“But loving someone doesn’t mean much if you’re willing to let them get killed, does it? It just frustrates me that they refused to listen. Isn’t life more important than Blood Bowl?”
“Damned loser.”
Dunk spun about, nearly spilling Lästiges to the pavement as he did. They stood, he noticed, on the darkest stretch of street he’d yet seen on their stagger home. The voice — a low growl, really — seemed to have come from nowhere, as if the darkness itself had spat out the words.
“Slick?” Dunk said. “Did you have something you wanted to get off your chest?”
The halfling, white as a sheet, shook his head. “That wasn’t me, son, not with my worst cold ever.”
A low, rumbling laugh emanated from the darkness overhead. Dunk snapped his neck back to glare into the clear night sky, but he saw nothing there, not even a wisp of a cloud scudding between the tops of the buildings on either side of the street.
Then Dunk felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned about and came face to chest with a huge person dressed all in black. He craned his neck backward and found himself nose to nose with a monstrous, pale orc staring down into his eyes.
“Boo,” Skragger said.
Lästiges unleashed a scream that Dunk thought might make his ears bleed. As she did, the orc grabbed her around
her cheeks with a rough, hairy paw. His long, claw-like nails dug into her flesh as he forced her to stare into his glowing red eyes.
Lästiges stopped screaming.
“Sleep,” Skragger said, and the woman collapsed into Dunk’s arms.
“You’re dead,” Slick said, his voice constricting with terror. “We saw you die.”
The massive orc stepped back from Dunk and Lästiges and snickered. “I am dead.” He drew a long nail across his chest, pulling back his heavy, black cloak and revealing a white logo embroidered on his black shirt: a winner’s cup made of human bones and a human skull.
“You’re with the Champions of Death,” Dunk said. As the words left him, he realised their significance and recoiled in horror.
Skragger bared his jagged, broken teeth and tusks in a cold approximation of a smile. “Von Irongrad found me. Made me this.” He opened his mouth wider, and a pair of fangs sank down from behind his thick upper lip.
“Tomolandry has the Impaler working as a vampire recruiter?” Slick breathed. “Ingenious. How is the Champions’ pay scale?”
“Sucks,” Skragger said, baring his fangs. “But so do I.”
Dunk hefted Lästiges in his arms, wondering if he could outrun the vampire orc if he tossed the woman over his shoulder. When Skragger was alive, it would have been a close race, but give him the unending stamina of the undead, and Dunk didn’t see how he had much of a chance. He couldn’t just drop Lästiges and leave her to the merciless Skragger, although maybe the orc would just chase him instead. After all, he wanted to kill Dunk, right? But what about Slick too?
Skragger leaned forward into Dunk’s face. “Not here for revenge,” he said. “Not for me. For Guterfiends.”
Dunk’s jaw fell, and he nearly dropped Lästiges to the pavement. The Guterfiend family had been behind his family’s downfall. They lived in the old Hoffnung estate now, here in Altdorf. Dunk had thought he’d be beneath their notice now. They’d beaten his father so thoroughly that the man had fled town without even bidding his son good-bye. What could they want with him?
“Guterfiends got gold,” Skragger said. “Lotta gold.” He reached up and used a long fingernail to scratch a small cut in Dunk’s forehead.
Dunk held still, terrified and trapped. He felt a rivulet of blood start to trickle down between his eyebrows and along the side of his nose. Skragger watched it as it went, and he licked his lips, catching his tongue for a moment on each of his fangs.
Dunk lunged forward and drove his forehead into the vampire orc’s face. The impact stunned him as well, and he fell backward to land on the pavement, Lästiges still in his arms. Skragger looked down at Dunk and laughed, then used a pale finger to wipe the thrower’s blood from his forehead. He stuck the finger in his mouth and licked it clean.
“Tasty,” Skragger said. “Get it all tomorrow.”
Dunk stared up at the orc, his voice catching in his throat. “What?” was all he could croak out.
“See you on the gridiron,” Skragger said, his eyes burning red as his too-pale form faded into insubstantial mist that blew away on an unfelt breeze. “We got a game.”
25
“Nuffle’s balls!” Bob’s voice rang out over the PA system at Emperor Stadium, barely piercing the crowd’s roar. “Did you see that hit?”
Dunk hadn’t seen a thing, but he’d sure felt it. Something the size and speed of a stampeding bull had smashed into him and sent him skittering across the Astrogranite. Only his armour had kept him from being crushed.
“Skragger’s really giving it to Hoffnung today,” Jim said. “You’d almost think it was personal. Oh, wait! It is!”
“Sure enough, Jim. This isn’t just the first round of the Blood Bowl playoffs. It’s a grudge match! Besides the fatal encounter Skragger had with Hoffnung last year, Coach Tomolandry’s team is itching for a chance to avenge that bone-rattling loss at the Hackers’ hands in last year’s Dungeonbowl.”
“Another hit like that, Bob, and they might find themselves recruiting Hoffnung next! Maybe they can use him to replace Ramen-Tut, who turned to dust in that same game last year, in a pile-up beneath Hoffnung and the late Kur Ritternacht.”
Dunk scrambled to his feet and looked up, the ball still in his hands. He clenched his teeth, fighting through the pain, and wondered how many steps he could make before he got hit again. Then a sight rarer than an ogre with an education greeted him, and he froze in astonishment.
There, right in front of the thrower, stood a goblin dressed in a black cap and a shirt with black-and-white, vertical stripes. He had something silvery in one hand and something bright yellow in the other. As he threw the yellow thing — some kind of weighted handkerchief that sailed through the air — he brought the silvery thing up to his lips and blew a shrill blast.
“Penalty!” the goblin shouted.
Taken aback by this vision, Dunk stumbled backwards, a goofy grin on his face. Here, right in front of him, not only was there a referee but he had called a penalty on that cheap shot he’d just taken.
Then Dunk realised the ref was pointing at him.
“Unnecessary roughness!” the ref said.
“Can you believe it?” Jim said. “The call is against Hoffnung. Talk about adding insult to injury.”
The crowd booed and hissed at the call. Dunk drew some small comfort from this, even though he knew it was only because Blood Bowl fans hated anything that slowed the pace of the bloodshed on the field.
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “I think Hoffnung had it coming. After all, he did get right in Skragger’s way there. The all-star player almost tripped right over him.”
“But to get kicked out of the game for that?” Jim said. “That seems more than a bit much.” The crowed booed in agreement.
Frustrated, Dunk dropped the ball on the ground and glanced back at Skragger. The snarling vampire orc drew his hand across his own throat in a cutting gesture. A sense of relief washed over the thrower.
“Ha!” he said to Skragger. “This guy just cheated you of your revenge. You can’t kill me in front of all these people if—”
The referee scurried past Dunk then, almost knocking him over. The thrower realised then that Skragger hadn’t been making the signal at him but the referee.
“What’s this?” Bob said. “The ref is picking up his flag and waving off the call. There is no penalty!”
The crowd roared its approval.
“I don’t know how much the Champions are paying that referee,” said Bob, “but he sure seems intent on earning it!”
“No ’scape,” Skragger said, pointing a pale finger at Dunk. “Not this time.”
Dunk scooped the ball back up, turned, and ran.
The Hackers hadn’t had much of a game so far. The strategy that Pegleg pursued these days, under the auspices of the Far Albion Cup — killing enough of the opposing players to force them to forfeit the game — crashed against the shoals when it came to the Champions of Death. The Champions were already dead, which made them impossible to kill. To get them out of the game, you had to tear them apart instead, a much more involved process.
For once, Dunk wished his new team-mates were more destructive. As it was, he needed to do something fast or Skragger would be collecting his fee from the Guterfiends before halftime.
There was no way for him to stand up to Skragger toe to toe. When the orc had been breathing, he’d been more than enough to handle Dunk. Now that he had the hellish powers of a vampire as well, he’d be able to pound the thrower into a sponge, and then use him to soak up the spilled blood and wring that out into a nice brandy snifter to enjoy later with a good book.
Of course, vampires had their weaknesses as well: sunlight, running water, holy water, and wood. But where could Dunk find any of those? The sun shone brightly overhead, and it didn’t seem to bother Skragger at all. Dunk suspected the vampire orc had one of those Sun Protection Fetishes that von Irongrad was known to use. Dunk didn’t know what an SPF looked like, tho
ugh, or if he’d be able to destroy it if he found it.
Could Dunk find an aqueduct somewhere and route the water onto the field? He might as well ask for one of those spiked steamrollers the dwarf teams used to magically show up with in the end zone. He didn’t know if crushing Skragger with a machine like that would put an end to him, but Dunk would have been happy to give it a shot.
Maybe there was a priest in the crowd?
Dunk spotted an open Hacker downfield — Edgar, who was busy stomping the stuffing out of “Rotting” Rick Bupkiss while Matt “Bones” Klimesh tried to chew through the treeman’s bark — and he had his answer. In mid-stride, he cocked back his arm and rifled the ball toward Simon, who had just broken free from Gilda “the Girly Ghoul” Fleshsplitter.
The ball sailed high, but this presented no problem for the tree-man, who reached up and snagged the ball with his upper branches. Dunk looked back to see Skragger still dogging his heels, not caring at all if the thrower still had the ball or not. This wasn’t about the game anymore. At least, it wouldn’t be until one of them had to be carried off the field in pieces.
“Edgar!” Dunk yelled as he sprinted toward the treeman. “I need a hand — a branch, actually.”
“Sure thing, mate!” Edgar said. “Just as soon as I get rid of these bloody bits of walking fertiliser!”
With the zombie under his feet pounded into paste, Edgar swung a mighty branch at the skeleton gnawing at him and scattered the creature’s bones across the field. Then he turned to face Dunk and the vampire orc steaming up his wake.
“Literally,” Dunk said as he neared the treeman, “can you break me off a branch?”
Edgar recoiled in horror. “You’re a bleeding loon! Give up one of me own limbs? What would you say if I asked that of you?”
Dunk dashed around Edgar, putting the treeman between himself and the angry, undead orc. “I’d say, ‘How badly do you need it?’ ”
“Move!” Skragger bellowed as he circled around the treeman, trying to catch Dunk, the thrower always two steps ahead of him. “Move, or I’ll crush you to toothpicks!”
[Blood Bowl 02] - Dead Ball Page 24