by Guy Haley
‘Cheeeeeaaaaaatsssss!’ bleated something in the beastcrowd. Outraged, the herd in the stand rushed forwards. The barriers gave way with a series of rotten cracks. The beastmen spilled onto the pitch and into the goblin section of the stand. Shouts and screams and snatches of merry song rent the air as the entire stadium exploded into violence. Within seconds everyone was fighting everyone else. Minotaurs battled the heaving monstrosities the Grotty Stealers had become. Beastmen fought goblins. Goblins fought each other.
‘Nooo!’ wailed Diglit. The tingling sensation moved to his head. He felt things bursting from his scalp. All of a sudden his view of the world changed as eyes opened on the newly sprouted thatch of stalks crowning him.
Behind him – the sensation of being able to look in every direction at once made Diglit nauseous – Hoppo the halfling was staggering through a gap in the fence of the grounds. He was aghast, wringing his fat hands together. ‘I’m too late!’ he wailed. Spying Diglit, he came trotting over, dodging piles of snotlings enthusiastically emulating their biggers and betters by punching each other in the face.
‘What has you done to me!’ shrieked Diglit.
‘I told you to eat only one. There’s warpstone pepper in that pie! I sell to everyone, you see, even the skaven!’
‘What? Why hasn’t it done this to you?’ wailed Diglit.
‘I’m a halfling, aren’t I? Warpstone doesn’t have much effect on us. But even I have to take precautions. It’s dangerous stuff. I mean, what I do isn’t exactly legal. Why do you think I was baking in an alleyway at three o’clock in the morning?’
‘So why did you give me one?’
‘Because you looked sad,’ said Hoppo. ‘And they are damned tasty.’
Diglit slumped. This was a disaster. Then, from the corner of his many new eyes, he saw the ball lying, ignored, in a tussock of grass at the edge of the pitch.
Maybe not a disaster. Maybe not at all. He stood taller. He could see everything. He flexed his new limb. Catching the ball wouldn’t be a problem any more, because Diglit had gone from having one too few hands to one too many.
With a sudden whoop, Diglit ran for the ball. He’d never lost the knack of running. He was a goblin, after all. It paid to be able to run away. The bending of this instinct so that they ran towards things rather than away is the most remarkable thing about goblin players, but is sadly overlooked.
Diglit ignored Hoppo’s shouts to return and scooped up the ball with his new pair of hands. As he legged it towards the Bovine Brawlers’ end zone, his head filled with possibilities. The touchdown he scored a moment later was the first realised, but Diglit was thinking bigger.
Chaos teams won the major leagues frequently, and they had plenty of mutants in their squads.
About the Author
Guy Haley is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Pharos and the Warhammer 40,000 novels Baneblade, Shadowsword, Valedor and Death of Integrity. He has also written Throneworld and The Beheading for The Beast Arises series. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in Warstorm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.
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
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Wayne England.
Hoppo’s Pies © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Hoppo’s Pies, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Blood Bowl, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78572-602-6
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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