[Blood Bowl 01] - Blood Bowl Read online

  Gastwirt reached out and grabbed Dunk by the shoulder, his injured one, which felt like a lance rammed through the warrior’s arm. He cried out in protest and shrugged free, but the innkeeper just grabbed his other arm instead.

  “Your hand put this wheel in motion,” Gastwirt snarled at Dunk. “You placed your bet, and now it’s time to pay up.”

  Slick stepped in from the hallway and slipped in between the two men. “You can’t send him out there,” the halfling said. “That beast will rip him apart.”

  The innkeeper’s hand let go as Dunk wrested his other arm away. Gastwirt leaned down to shout into Slick’s face. “This bastard you’ve befriended went out last night and enraged that carnivorous creature. If we don’t give it what it wants, it’ll kill us all!”

  Slick nodded as he considered this for a moment. Then he turned back to Dunk and said, “He’s got a point, son. Sorry about all this, but you’d better go.”

  “What?” Dunk said. As he spoke, something heavy crashed onto the inn’s roof, and dust and clods of dirt cascaded down from the ceiling. “I’m not going out to face that thing.”

  Dunk turned to Gastwirt. “You and your friends sent me off to die. You can all rot!”

  Slick patted Dunk on the back of his leg. “Come now, son, there’s no reason for us all to die, right?” His tone sounded as if he were trying to convince Dunk to take a walk with him in the rain. “There’s no way for you to get away from that beast, so you might as well go face up to it like a man. Think of the children.”

  “What children?” Dunk asked, goggling at the halfling.

  Slick shrugged. “It’s a town. There have to be children here, right?” He looked to Gastwirt for some help.

  “Loads of children,” the innkeeper said. “Normally you can’t walk around here without tripping over them. They’re orphans, too, the whole lot of them. A pitiful bunch to be sure.”

  Dunk snarled at the blatant lies. Still, he thought there did have to be some innocents in this town, and he couldn’t be the cause of their deaths.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll go. Wish me luck, you cowards.”

  Slick clapped Dunk on the back of his thigh and favoured him with a rueful smile. “A man like you has no need for luck, son. Just go out there and face your fate.”

  The chimera cried out for Dunk again. Shaking his head, the young warrior shoved past the halfling and pushed the innkeeper out of his way. He wasn’t doing anyone any good stuck in this room, least of all Pferd.

  As Dunk stormed into the inn’s empty common room, he heard the innkeeper behind him quietly say, “Ten crowns says that beast eats him for breakfast.”

  “You, sir,” Slick said, “have yourself a bet.”

  Dunk didn’t know why the halfling would be willing to wager on him. He would have bet against himself if there had been any way to collect. Still, the thought that someone — anyone — had any kind of confidence in him encouraged him.

  When the building’s shutters rattled again with the chimera’s roar and the beating of its wings, Dunk knew, however, that confidence wouldn’t get him far. “Can you at least loan me a blade?” he called back at the innkeeper. He turned to see Gastwirt and Slick had followed him from the room, perhaps eager for the show soon to come.

  The innkeeper, mindful of his bet, Dunk suspected, just shook his head. Slick, on the other hand, disappeared behind the bar that ran along the room’s north wall. A moment later, something long and sharp came flying over the bar to stab into the floor near Dunk’s feet.

  “Every barman has one,” the halfling said as he rematerialised from behind the bar.

  Dunk pulled the weapon from the floor and examined it. The sword was short, about half the length of his own blade, and it looked as if it had been used more often as a kitchen utensil than a weapon. Still, it beat using his bare hands. He hefted the thing in his hand and headed for the door.

  Pferd stood there in the early morning light, straight, tail, and unperturbed. The black horse’s reins remained wrapped around the hitching post. He whinnied a short greeting to Dunk but showed no signs of fear, as if the creature still whirling somewhere overhead was little more than a sparrow with a poor attitude.

  Dunk remembered how he had chosen Pferd for his own. One night, a fire had broken out in his family’s stables. Trapped, some of the horses had panicked and run deeper into the flames. They had all perished, but Pferd had stood his ground until the guards rescued him. He alone had survived.

  “That’s the horse I want father,” the young Dunk had said the next day. “That’s a beast you can count on.” He had not once regretted making the request.

  Scanning the skies above as he left the shelter of the inn, Dunk slashed out with his borrowed blade to cut loose Pferd’s reins. The blade bounced off the hitching post, leaving the leather leads intact, the weapon’s edge too dull to split them.

  Dunk cursed as he reached out and loosed Pferd’s reins with his other hand. “Where is that thing, boy?” he asked. The horse didn’t respond.

  As he moved past Pferd and into the open street, Dunk used the sword to shade his eyes as he searched for the chimera among the low, dark clouds scattered by the stiff breeze that swept down from the mountains that day. He saw nothing up there, not even a lone bird. Dunk allowed himself a moment of hope that the creature had tired of hunting for him here and had flown off for other parts, but he quickly quashed it. Hope made a man lose focus, he knew, and that could be fatal.

  “You’ll need this, son!” Slick shouted from the doorway of the inn.

  Dunk glared over at the halfling to see him wrestling with the sharp end of the massive spear that had hung over the mantel in the inn’s common room, dragging the bulk of its length behind him. “Get back in there,” Dunk ordered Slick as he dashed over and snatched the spear from him. “That thing could snap you up without stopping to chew.”

  “You’re welcome!” Slick said, the sly grin never leaving his face. “I hope you’re better with a spear than you are at expressing your gratitude.”

  Dunk started to come up with a snappy reply, but a loud noise from down the street saved him from having to make the effort. He whipped his head around to see the chimera pulling a holy icon from the steeple of the local temple. A man in red, priestly robes dashed out of the place, a gaggle of worshippers hot on his heels, all screeching louder than even the chimera above them. The heavy, stone icon crashed to the ground behind them as they raced up the street.

  “You!” the priest said, pointing a thick finger at Dunk. The man’s corpulent face was red with the exertion of having managed to dash from the church before all of his followers, despite the fact he’d been standing at the altar in front of them. His round blue eyes glared at Dunk from under bushy, white eyebrows. “This is all your fault!”

  “Sod off!” Dunk spat. He’d had enough of priests for a lifetime. He gave the gods their due, of course, but he had little time for the parasites who fed off the reputations of their chosen deities by purporting to bring their messages to the masses.

  The priest’s face flushed even redder, and Dunk thought, perhaps even hoped, that the man might keel over right there with a stopped heart. Instead, the priest waved his terrified congregation after him, saying. “That’s who the beast wants, dead or alive! Let’s give him to it!”

  As the priest charged at Dunk, the young warrior swung around the dull end of the spear and caught the holy man squarely in the chin. The priest collapsed in his robes like an item of laundry falling from a washing line. The others behind their religious leader froze in their tracks.

  Dunk brought the sharp end of the spear around to bear on the handful of temple-goers staring at him. He didn’t want to hurt them, but he feared they didn’t share the same concern for him. The best way to end this altercation would be to stop it now. “All right,” he snarled at those facing him, his voice dripping with menace. “Who’s next?”

  “We are!” the chimera yowled in a trio of unnatural
voices. Still atop the temple, it spread its bat-like wings wide and launched itself straight at Dunk, its paws and hooves ready to pummel and pound the young warrior into the dirt.

  Dunk dived to the left as the creature came at him and it sailed harmlessly overhead, the tips of its claws finding no mark. It squawked in frustration as it curled back up into the open sky. The townspeople looked up after the thing, then looked at each other and scattered, each racing for a different hiding place, hoping that the chimera would choose to chase easier prey.

  The priest scrambled to his feet, blood trickling from his mouth, the same colour as his robes. He glared at Dunk and yelled, “Kill the stranger!”

  It was only when the priest looked around to see who would follow him that he realised he was alone. His eyes narrowed on the tip of the spear which Dunk pointed at him, and then he too turned and fled straight back down the street.

  Dunk loosed a mean laugh until he saw the chimera’s winged shape swing around towards him at the end of the street. The beast rolled into position and hung in the sky for just a moment before plummeting into a dive straight down the length of the road.

  Dunk’s first instinct was to simply jump into a building. He noticed that Gastwirt had shut his inn’s front door behind him, leaving Slick pounding desperately from the outside in an effort to get back in.

  As Dunk looked about for another path of escape, he noticed that the chimera’s angle of dive would take it down far short of his position. For a moment, he thought the creature had misjudged the distance or simply wanted to skim the edge of the earth and rip him from below, but then he saw its real target: the priest.

  The holy man realised this at about the same time Dunk did. He turned around immediately and started sprinting back in Dunk’s direction.

  The priest glanced left and right madly, snapping his head all about. His parishioners had not only abandoned him, they’d locked their doors behind them. No matter where he turned, there was no help to be had.

  Dunk hated to see a man cry like the priest — who wailed in desperate terror. He hefted the mighty spear that Slick had given him and took careful aim. It was heavy but well balanced. With luck, it would fly straight and true.

  “No!” Slick said as he tried to crush himself into the narrow shelter offered by the frame of the inn’s door. “Don’t do it, son! That priest is dead anyway! Save yourself!”

  Dunk snorted to himself, not sparing a second to glance back at the halfling. His target zoomed toward him at top speed. Armed only with the spear, he was only going to get one chance at this.

  Dunk cocked back his arm, his shoulder flexing against the strain. Then he stepped forward and hurled the spear with all his might.

  The chimera bore down on the priest mercilessly, all three of its heads reaching for the man at once, their jaws thrown wide open to expose gaping maws, each filled with a set of vicious teeth or fangs.

  The priest screamed, offering up a quick prayer for mercy from the gods.

  Dunk’s spear shot forth and stabbed into the snake-head, straight through its fanged mouth. It rammed up through the roof of the thing’s mouth and pierced its brain from below. It kept going until the thickening shaft caught in the snake-head’s skull.

  At that point, the spear’s momentum snapped back hard against the chimera’s own, whipping the creature’s middle head back and up along its serpentine neck. The creature went tumbling backward over itself, the spear pulling it along until it embedded itself in the compacted dirt of the street, pinning the creature there by its killed head.

  The priest looked up from where he had fallen to his knees in the final moments of the chimera’s pursuit, ready to make peace with the gods and plead for guidance into the afterlife. He saw nothing but open sky above him, and turned back to see the chimera pinned in the middle of the street like some massive insect in a particularly horrid collection.

  “Praise the gods!” the priest said. “They have saved us all! Thanks be to them in their wondrous wisdom!”

  “How’s that?” Dunk said.

  The priest looked back to where the unarmed warrior stood in the street, naked to the waist. He tried to speak, but no words escaped his lips.

  “I saved you,” Dunk said. Behind the priest, the chimera’s remaining heads roared and bleated in fury and frustration. “Kill you aaall!” The goat-head said as the lion-head loosed another blood-curdling cry.

  The sight of the wounded beast seemed to bring the priest back to himself, and he fixed Dunk in a baleful glare. “That creature,” he said, “would never have bothered us if not for your interference.”

  Dunk couldn’t believe his ears. He shook his head as if to clear out the lies. “You told me it was a dragon! A weak and old dragon! You sent me to my death!”

  The priest snarled back at the young warrior. “Your arrogance sent you on your path.” A cold laugh escaped him. “You think you would have done any better against a dragon?”

  Dunk gritted his teeth in frustration. “I just saved your entire town from a menace that has plagued it for generations. The least you owe me is your thanks.”

  “Really?” the priest said. “We should thank you for destroying the balance of power in this region?”

  Dunk gaped at the godly man.

  “That creature you just maimed, is the most powerful in the area. While we lived in its shadow, it kept us safe from threats of all sorts: brigands, carrion, Orcs, even real dragons. Now, here we are, exposed to the world around us and every horrible thing in it. You’ve just destroyed this town.”

  Dunk fell to one knee and put his head in his hands. The man’s words were madness, he knew, but they were the last thing he’d expected. He’d slain the beast, hadn’t he? Where was the glory? As for fortune, the only thing he’d seen in the creature’s cave had been mounds of bones. Dunk supposed that a chimera had little use for diamonds and gold.

  Where had it all gone wrong?

  A small hand came down on Dunk’s shoulder. He turned to see Slick looking him square in the eye. At this level, the Halfling didn’t look nearly so much like a child.

  “That’s gratitude for you, son,” Slick said. “But it gets worse.”

  Dunk shook his head at the halfling. None of this made any sense to him.

  “How?” he said. He’d thought it was a rhetorical question.

  Slick nodded down the street. Dunk looked up to see the townspeople poking their heads out of their homes, spotting the still-howling chimera, and then pointing their fingers at Dunk. He couldn’t hear their words, but he didn’t care for the tone of their voices.

  “Son,” Slick said, “don’t stick around to find out.”

  4

  It was almost dark before Dunk dismounted from Pferd and set up camp for the night. There were no other inns in this part of the Grey Mountains, not this close to the Axe Bite Pass that led through the highest peaks on its way to distant Bretonnia. It was not a safe place for lone travellers at night, but Dunk was sure that Dörfchen would have been even less hospitable.

  Dunk was still stunned at how the people of that ill-fated and ungrateful town had responded to how he’d saved them from the monstrous beast that had fed upon their populace — and good-hearted strangers, it seemed — for untold years. He knew that there were bad people in the world, the near-destruction of his family in Altdorf bore stark testimony to that, he just hadn’t realised everyone was that way.

  Everyone but me, he thought. He had suspected that the citizens of Altdorf, corrupted by living in the very heart of the Empire, in the actual seat of the Emperor’s power, were perhaps a special case. Those raised in such an environment could fall so easily into crime and violence, just like his younger brother Dirk.

  Like many in Altdorf, though, Dunk had fancied that the people of the country, were blessed with a simpler outlook on the world, one that made them more kindly and innocent. To find out he’d been so wrong was yet another blow to his already fragile view of the world.

&nbs
p; When Dunk heard a set of hooves clip-clopping up the mountain trail, his heart leapt into his throat. He’d been a fool to start a fire here, it seemed, but he’d been cold and hungry and too depressed about the state of the world to worry about things like brigands or worse. He hadn’t seen another person since he’d left Dörfchen and so had tossed caution to the wind.

  Dunk drew his long hunting knife, the only weapon he had left on him after losing his sword in the chimera’s cave. He had thought about circling around town and going back for it, but the thought of the chimera freeing itself and coming home to find him in its lair once again had kept him out.

  Dunk glanced around but quickly saw there was no place for him to hide. The mountain sloped away sharply from the wide trail, both up and down, but no trees grew on this rocky terrain, only a feeble bush or two, hanging on to this small strip of level ground as best it could.

  Dunk stood and held his knife before him, putting the fire between him and whatever was trotting up the trail toward him. It was a moment before the rider drew close enough for Dunk to be able to pick its shape out of the surrounding darkness. It was waving at him.

  “Hallo!” the rider called. Slick Fullbelly, dressed in a dark green cloak and a suit of golden-brown tweed that barely contained his eponymous gut, and riding a small, dirt-coloured pony built like a barrel. Slick smiled broadly towards the fire and the young man that stood behind it. “I was hoping that it would be you!” He showed all his teeth.

  Dunk strode around the fire, sheathing his knife as he did. The halfling was many things, but not, he hoped, a threat. He beckoned Slick to come and join him by the fire.

  Slick drove his tubby pony up to the edge of the fire where it ground to a halt. He looked as though he would have had to split his legs exactly apart to fit them around the creature. The saddle sat on the pony’s back like a child’s cap on the head of an ogre. It seemed the only thing keeping it in place was the way the saddle was strapped tightly enough to cause the pony’s fattened flesh to bulge around it on all sides. While this might have seemed cruel with another mount the pony just took it in stride, its natural cushioning protecting it from any discomfort.