Throughout it all Garr had played in a dream-state, making minimal tackles and going down far too easily. He could feel the crowd’s dismay resonating throughout the stadium. This wasn’t him. It wasn’t how he wanted to be remembered.
But he was afraid. Even as his heart soared at every successful Nordlander touchdown, so his mind quailed at Squimper’s presence. He could imagine the mysterious sorcerer’s dilemma – the Rangers were still competing, but it was through their own grit and determination, and not through their main blitzer’s skills. Gruber was filling in well, winning two touchdowns on the trot. It stung Garr – he still felt strong; Squimper’s charms were holding. But he knew that as soon as he made a point-winning move that could change.
The match ground on. Krapnugg was furious at the change of pace, driving himself from one flank to the other on a personal crusade to regain the initiative. At one point he went toe-to-toe with Dumpf, staving in the ogre’s snot-choked nose before the huge player simply picked him up and flung him. The impact furrowed the double-skull crest painted into the centre line and threw up a great arc of glistening rainwater.
The Boyz brought on fresh black orc blockers, momentarily stymieing the Rangers’ comeback. Rife responded by ordering deliberately brutal tackles on the goblin wingers the Boyz used as their catchers. By the time the whistle blew after a particularly vicious tackle by a black orc on Gruber, both teams were neck and neck on touchdowns. The last, decisive turn of the game started with the ball in the Rangers’ possession.
‘Make or break,’ Rife said as the surviving members of the team huddled up. ‘Dig deep one more time, Rangers. You know what you have to do.’ He looked at Garr as he spoke, holding his gaze properly for the first time since the change of tactics. The blitzer found himself looking away, towards the crowd. Towards Squimper. The sorcerer was perfectly still, head turned towards him, seemingly oblivious to the brawling spectators surrounding him. Garr swallowed and looked back at Rife. The bestial chanting of the East End Boyz, working themselves into one final game-frenzy, rose over the crowd’s tumult.
‘Let’ss play ball,’ Garr said.
The whistle shrilled. The teams launched themselves forward, one last time. The second subbed-on blitzer, Welf, snatched up the ball from the kick-off and threw himself towards the right-side wide zone. The Boyz responded in force. Garr, holding a rear line behind Welf, felt his lizard thigh twinge again. This was it. Break point. He wasn’t going to be allowed to interfere.
But in that moment, seeing his bruised and bloody teammates going forward around him, seeing Dumpf ploughing into a black orc and Torvern dragged down beneath two shrieking gobbos, Garr knew that interfering was exactly what he was going to do.
He was Garr Greyg, the greatest player in Nordlander history. He was going to win this one.
He ran. He ran harder and faster than he ever had before, his new limb powering him forward, spurred by a burst of raw energy that caused the crowd, already ecstatic, to start screaming manically. He was gaining ground on the front line as it continued to struggle with the greenskins, the damp air rent with screams, bellows and crunches. He saw Welf, ahead, try and weave round an orc lineboy, only to collide with something coming the other way – the wall of muscle and rusting green-and-white iron that was Krapnugg.
Welf crumpled. Krapnugg bellowed. The ball rose in the air, its spikes gleaming. Garr lunged. He felt pain sear through his body. But he was laughing, grinning. The ball was in his grip. And he was in Krapnugg’s.
The greenskin snatched him by both shoulder guards as he plucked the tumbling ball from the air. Garr grunted as the pain in his leg returned. Krapnugg laughed, butcher’s breath choking him.
‘Puny lil’ thundaboy. It’s game over.’
Garr said nothing. Teeth gritted, he slammed the ball into Krapnugg’s face. There was a wet thump as one of the spikes punched through the greenskin’s sole eye.
The orc bellowed and let go. Garr found himself falling, the ball still in his hand, Krapnugg’s eyeball impaled on one spike. The pain of his own injuries throbbed through every nerve ending. With the last of his strength, he tossed the ball over Krapnugg’s head. Up, up and over, spinning, to where Vulf was making his run. The last turn, the last point.
The catcher snatched the ball from the air and leapt, green hands grasping impotently at him. With the Cabal Vision feeds flashing around him, he soared into the end zone.
Touchdown. Game over. Victory.
Garr was only vaguely aware of the carnage unfolding around him. He hit the ground hard, vision swimming. His ears were ringing. He managed to get himself up onto his elbows, where he could see the nearest stand. See where Mister Squimper had been. The cloaked figure was moving, stumbling for the exit, even as the rest of the crowd surged past him in the direction of the pitch. He didn’t get far. A big shape rose up from the throng and snatched at the encumbered wizard – Nog the ogre, his blunt features contorted with fury. Garr had told him, in no uncertain terms, that if anything happened to him he was to grab the old man in the white cloak sitting a few rows down.
Except Squimper wasn’t an old man at all. As Nog lunged the cloak came away, pulled apart by the frantic activity within. Two shapes burst out – hunched, scrabbling and grey-furred. They both squeaked shrilly as they were snatched by Nog. Garr suddenly remembered where he’d smelled the supposed old wizard’s stench before. The Burrow Scrapers, before the season split. Ikkit’s Backscratchers, from the lower leagues. The Warpfire Wanderers, from the Chaos Cup. They were skaven – vicious, dirty, cheating ratmen. He should have known from the start they’d be the ones behind the match fixing. They must have been hoarding a small fortune in their burrows.
For a moment Garr, still wracked with pain, wondered where said burrow could be, then realised they’d probably never find out where when Nog, agitated by the ratmen’s wriggling and scratching, brought both their horned heads together with all his considerable strength. There was a gristly crack, audible even over the berserk crowd. Garr slumped back, drained and barely conscious.
That was when the dugouts exploded. The dwarfs of Longbeard MineCorps had been waiting almost two weeks to get revenge on the greenskins that had knocked them out of the playoffs. Nor had they been idly passing their time – for days the hardy stunties must have been mining a tunnel from the nearest brewery basement to the underbelly of the Thunderdome. Once they were underneath the opposition dugout, they’d packed their excavation with every barrel of gunpowder their illicit Bugman knockoffs could buy.
The few greenskin coaches, backroom staff and substitutes not atomised by the blast immediately launched themselves into Rife and the stunned Nordlander bench beside them. Rife was struck down almost immediately, his feathered cap trampled into the dirt. As the thunderclap echo of the explosion bounced back from the shuddering stadium’s flanks, the spectators took it as the signal for a full-on pitch invasion. Barricades were smashed down, and within seconds the field was playing host to a riot. Above, almost unnoticed, the scoreboard proclaimed victory – and a return to the Majors – for the Rangers.
Gar was dimly aware of Krapnugg stumbling past. The huge greenskin was experiencing the nearest thing to fear his race could ever know – blinded, he was worse than helpless. He was useless. The orc’s single eye was probably still impaled on the ball grasped in Vulf’s hand as he was hoisted by the victorious Nordlanders through the crowd. Garr managed to find the strength to lift his scaled leg as Krapnugg staggered past. The orc tripped and, wailing, slammed face-first into the churned-up dirt that had once been the pitch. Garr, now delirious, realised he was giggling. The leg wasn’t so bad after all. With a bit of training, and a few more stitches, odds were he could make it work.
The prize money combined with the crowns the ratmen had already given him would be enough to placate Grizmund. The fame from that last-gasp promotion win was bound to garner him plenty of marks in publicity
tours and autobiography reissues. As he slipped once more into sweet, familiar unconsciousness with a smile on his mud-splattered face, Garr’s last thought was a prayer to Nuffle that he wasn’t about to be trampled to death. That sort of outcome really would have been a fix.
About the Author
Robbie MacNiven is a highland-born History graduate from the University of Edinburgh. His hobbies include reenacting, football and obsessing over Warhammer 40,000. He has written the Deathwatch short story ‘Redblade’, and the Warhammer 40,000 stories ‘A Song for the Lost’ and ‘Blood and Iron’ for Black Library.
Dirk Hoffnung takes to the field for four epic novels covering his career in that greatest (and most deadly) of sports: Blood Bowl!
A Black Library Publication
Published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-283-7
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