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Rumble in the Jungle – Extract

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One

For the life of him, Dunk Hoffnung couldn’t figure out what he was still doing on a Blood Bowl pitch. At the end of the last season, he’d led his team — the Bad Bay Hackers — all the way to the Blood Bowl championship. In the course of that, he’d found his true love, repaired his relationship with his brother, and saved the Empire from Khorne the Blood God.

To top it all off, he’d reclaimed his family’s lost fortune, including the keep they’d once owned in Altdorf, the Empire’s capital. He had fame, friends, and more money than he would ever need. What else did he have to prove?

Dunk had wrestled with these doubts several times over the past week, during the first round of the Spike! Magazine tournament. Now, though, the game demanded his full attention, as the spiked ball sailed down out of the black night and into his arms, making him the primary target for the eleven armed and armoured dark elves playing for the Darkside Cowboys.

‘Hoffnung grabs the kick-off, and the final semi-final game of the tournament is underway!’ Bob Buford’s voice rang out across the stadium over the Preternatural Address system. The crowd roared to answer him, its lust for blood feeding the volume.

‘Just listen to those fans!’ Bob’s partner, Jim Johnson, chipped in. ‘There’s nothing like a pack of people screaming at the top of their lungs!’

‘Sounds like you’re talking about last night’s dinner,’ the ogre Bob said to the vampire Jim. ‘Stop it! You’re making me drool!’

Dunk scanned the situation downfield. Most of his team-mates — the ones in the yellow and green uniforms with the three-sword H logos on their helmets — raced ahead of him, converging to a point, trying to form a protective wedge behind which he could run. Meanwhile, the pale skinned elves in the black and blue uniforms came charging up the field, seeking to find a way past the Hackers’ linemen so they could rip Dunk’s heart from his chest.

Dunk spun to the left and charged up behind his brother Dirk, pump faking a pass to the right. Only one of the Cowboys got fooled. He hesitated just long enough for Spinne to smash him to the ground, and then do a little dance on his helmet with her spiked shoes.

‘Oh, that’s gotta hurt!’ Bob said. ‘I wonder if I could get her to do that to me after the game!’

‘Gee, Bob, don’t you think her boyfriend, Dunk, would object?’

‘Hey, if he wants to watch, he has to pay like everyone else!’

‘Really?’

‘Okay, I’ll let him in for half price, but just this once!’

Dunk ignored the blather over the PA. He wondered if the Cowboys’ coach had paid the pair to say things to distract him. It didn’t strike him as something the Cowboys would do. Not that they wouldn’t cheat, they just wouldn’t be that subtle about it.

Unfortunately, it worked. One of the Cowboys blazed straight past McGraw — one of the Hacker linemen — with not even a whisper of protest. Dunk gaped at the oncoming dark elf for a moment: the white dreadlocks flopping out from his helmet on all sides, the snarl on his perfect face, the muscles that were far too big to naturally fit across an elf’s shoulders.

The things that drew his eye the most, though, were the long, glittering blades that jutted out from the steel bracers protecting the elf’s forearms. One of them was covered with fresh blood.

Dunk knew then that McGraw was dead. If he didn’t move fast, he would share his team-mate’s fate. He would have liked to have called the man his friend, but he barely knew him. McGraw had made the team in the pre-tournament tryouts, just as Dunk had three years ago, and the only thing he could tell anyone about McGraw was that he thought Bloodweiser was like carbonated seal piss.

‘Whoa!’ said Jim. ‘Looks like the newest Hacker is DOA. Er-Rel Towens dropped him without even a stutter in his step!’

‘I got dibs on that fountain of blood spurting from his neck!’ said Bob. ‘The fresh stuff is best!’

‘Speaking of which, how’s that corpse tattooing campaign of yours coming along?’ asked Jim.

‘The “Dead-On Label”?’ More coaches are going for it, especially once they see how much they can get for fresh kills on the open market. They pay for those players and have to get their value out of them somehow!’

Dunk juked left again, and then raced to the right. The move faked Towens out of his left shoe, but he still kept after Dunk, snagging the green jersey with his long, thin fingers.

Dunk twisted around, hoping to wrench his jersey from the elf’s grasp, but he just reeled him in instead. The Cowboy assassin slashed at Dunk with the blade stabbing from his free arm, and the Hacker thrower put up the only thing he had to block it: the ball.

The edge of the blade skittered off the ball’s reinforced surface, its point gouging a long trail in the side of Dunk’s helmet. Dunk raised the ball before him again to fend off another slash, then another. A quick glance up the field told him he had to do something to lose this attacker soon, or the rest of the Cowboys would tackle him under a huge pile. If that happened, he’d take more jabs than a dartboard.

Dunk took the ball in both hands and smashed it into Towens’s face. The dark elf glanced up at the last second and took the point of the ball right in his faceguard.

And there it stuck.

When Dunk tried to pull the ball back, it wouldn’t come. It had got wedged into the faceguard like an axe in an old oak. Try as he might, Dunk couldn’t wrest the thing loose.

‘Get it out!’ Towens screamed. ‘For the hatred of all that’s unholy, get it out!’

From the blood dribbling down the elf’s chest, Dunk guessed that the football was wedged in more than just the helmet. Towens let go of Dunk’s shirt and began to slash at the football with his blades. They were too long for him to stab the points into the pigskin, though, and the spikes and hide repelled his attempts to saw through them.

Dunk reached for the ball again and grabbed on with both hands. He tried to plant a foot on the elf’s chest for leverage, but Towens slashed at him with his blades, and he leaped back.

‘Hold still, damn it, and I’ll get it out,’ he said.

Towens ignored Dunk’s pleas and charged straight at him, following the sounds of the thrower’s voice over the cheering of the crowd. Dunk stepped to the side like a matador and tripped Towens as he went by. The elf went face down into the Astrogranite, where the spike on the other end of the ball stuck.

It was about that time that the ogre showed up.

M’Grash K’Thragsh crushed one Cowboy beneath a massive boot with serrated spikes, then tossed another clear into the stands on his way over to reach Dunk. The hapless dark elf went sailing into the first few rows, fans scattering like cockroaches before a torch. Once the player crunched into the stands, though, he disappeared under a swarm of them.

Moments later, the Cowboy popped up on the upraised hands of the crowd, and Dunk saw him get body-passed straight towards the cheap seats at the top of the stadium. The sight sent a shudder through him as he remembered how the same thing had happened to him in his first game in this very stadium. The various awnings on the outside of the stadium had broken his fall, but the sausage vendor whose cart he’d crushed had beaten him hard enough to put him into a three-day coma.

Dunk put those thoughts out of his head as the ogre stormed up towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Dunkel okay?’ the massive, tusk-faced creature in the Hackers uniform asked.

Dunk nodded at his friend. ‘Just get the ball.’

M’Grash reached down to grab Towens by the back of the helmet, and there was a sickening snap. Dunk winced as the ogre handed him the ball with the helmet and head still attached to it. He’d got what he’d asked for, but not what he’d meant.

‘Oh!’ Bob said. ‘That’s going to leave a mark!’

‘Grave “marker”, I think you mean!’ said Jim. ‘So much for Towens renegotiating his contract, unless he plans to play for the Champions of Death! Coach Tomolandry always says any other team’s loss is his gain!’

‘What now, Dunkel?’ M’Grash started to say. The ogre had a brain the size of Dunk’s fist, which was barely enough to make his body move, much less think of where to move it. He needed constant direction.

‘Charge!’ Dunk said, pointing down the field towards the distant end zone.

M’Grash knew the drill. He led the way in front of Dunk, tearing through any foes brave or stupid enough to challenge him, while Dunk carried the ball behind him and looked for an open catcher downfield. They’d run the same play hundreds if not thousands of times before. It was simple enough for even M’Grash to grasp it, and it worked.

As they went, Dunk wrenched the football away from the helmeted head, and got up close behind M’Grash. Shielded by the ogre, he juggled the ball up under one arm and held Towens’s head out wide in his throwing hand.

Before they got twenty yards down the field, though, M’Grash fell to his knees, grabbing at his helmet and screaming as if in horrible pain.

Dunk wanted to check on his friend, but he knew that if he stopped moving the Cowboys would pulverise him. So, he scanned the pitch and spotted the team captain, a dark-skinned legend by the name of Rhett Cavre, kicking over a defender and breaking away. Unfortunately, he had two other dark elves converging on him, and a toss in that direction would be a sure interception.

Dunk cocked back his arm and hurled Towens’s head in the man’s direction, hoping it would buy them a few minutes. Without even looking to see if Cavre caught the helmeted remains, Dunk rushed to M’Grash’s side. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Oh yes, my foolish friend,’ M’Grash said, his voice thick with a Bretonnian accent. ‘I am better than ever.’

Dunk knew instantly that something was wrong. He spun on his cleats to sprint off in the other direction. Before he could get away, though, a meaty hand reached out and grabbed him around his lower leg.

M’Grash climbed to his knees, and Dunk got a good look at his eyes. They stood vacant, but for a horrible red glow. Dunk felt like someone had poured ice into his jock strap.

The crowd cheered.

‘Interception!’ Bob shouted.

‘You, on the other hand,’ the ogre said in someone else’s voice, ‘are soon to be beyond all troubles.’

Dunk wanted to scream, but he knew it would do no good. He tried to shake his leg free instead, but M’Grash’s grip only tightened on him as he laughed at Dunk’s pathetic attempt.

‘Live by the ogre, die by the ogre,’ M’Grash said. ‘Words to be torn to pieces by.’

Then Dunk knew what had happened. The Cowboys’ team owner and wizard, the legendary liche Berry Bones, must have used some kind of spell to take over the ogre’s mind. That put the undead spell slinger in the driver’s seat behind M’Grash’s monstrous body.

Dunk lashed out with his free boot and caught the ogre between the eyes, smashing his nose into his face. M’Grash dropped the thrower and clutched at the blood flowing from his nostrils.

‘Ow!’ M’Grash said. ‘You’d think that ogres would be immune from pain. They must just be too stupid to feel it.’

Dunk grimaced at the mess he’d made of M’Grash’s face. He never wanted to hurt his friend, but the wizard had made it clear that his only other choice was to die. As the ogre reached for him again, he did the wise thing and fled.

The crowd erupted in a cheer. ‘Touchdown, Cowboys!’ said Jim.

Dunk glanced up at the Jumboball, a massive crystal ball through which wizards from the Extraordinary Spellcasters Prognosticated News Network (ESPNN) broadcast images of the game, and spotted a Darkside Cowboy spiking Towens’s head in the end zone.

‘Wait a minute, Jim,’ Bob said. ‘The referee in the end zone is waving that off. Seems that’s not the ball “Itchy” Mirvin had in his hands, but it looks like he’s finally secured that starting position over Towens!’

The crowd roared, and Dunk didn’t need to look at the Jumboball to know that every finger in the stadium was pointing at him. He brought the ball up from where he’d been trying to hide it under his arm and cradled it in a proper football hold. The roar grew louder.

Dunk could feel M’Grash’s breath on his neck: hot, steamy, and smelling of the insanely spicy sauce of chimera wings. He risked a glance back and saw his friend reaching for him, the red glow still dancing alongside murder in his eyes.

Dunk put everything he had into a final burst of speed, but it wasn’t enough. The ogre’s legs were too long, and he pounded along too fast.

Dunk had raced against M’Grash in practice and had always beaten the ogre in a flat sprint. He’d long suspected his friend had been throwing the races to him, but then he’d realised what was going on. Dumb as he was, M’Grash didn’t trust the ground under his feet. He ran slower than he could have because he wanted to make sure he didn’t fall.

Whoever was in M’Grash’s head now didn’t share that fear. Assuming it was Bones, he had the ogre’s legs pumping as hard as he could.

Dunk stuck the ball out in his left hand to fake going in that direction, then cut right. M’Grash tried to follow him, but tripped on his massive feet. As he went tumbling forward, he reached out with his humongous hands spread, and one gigantic paw closed around Dunk’s leg again.

The pair somersaulted forward and flipped more times than Dunk could count. His head rattling around in his helmet almost knocked him senseless. His years of training helped him hold on to the ball despite the fact he almost lost his lunch.

They rolled to a rest at the foot of a tree, and for a moment Dunk couldn’t figure out how they’d managed to find themselves outside the stadium. Then he heard Edgar’s voice.

‘What the bloody hell’s this then?’ the treeman in the Hackers uniform asked as he leaned over Dunk and M’Grash. ‘Aren’t you two supposed to be on the same team?’

M’Grash glared up at the treeman and roared.

Dunk waved at Edgar until he caught his wide, green eyes, and then stabbed a finger at the ogre, who still had his leg in his fist. ‘Timber!’ Dunk yelled.

The treeman recognised the call and executed the play perfectly. He put his branches up tall, held himself rigid, which wasn’t hard as treemen don’t bend well in the first place, and tipped himself over onto the ogre.

M’Grash yelped in surprise and then pain as Edgar toppled over onto him, crushing the ogre beneath the treeman’s bulk. M’Grash’s hand let go of Dunk as he struggled to reach back to grab Edgar and pull him from his back. The ogre’s muscle-bound arms didn’t stretch that way though. He was stuck.

‘By all the dark gods!’ M’Grash said. ‘Get him off! Make it stop!’

Dunk scrambled to his feet and saw at least half of the Darkside Cowboys converging on him. After seeing how he’d tricked them into destroying the most important part of their star catcher’s corpse, they were out for revenge as much as for the ball. Since he had both, he made a doubly attractive target.

Dunk decided his best bet was to halve his lure. With so many of the Cowboys coming at him, the Hackers’ catchers were open. Cavre stood waving his hands in the end zone, an easy score, but Spinne jumped up and down on the opposite side of the field from Dunk. He cocked back his arm and fired a pass off at Spinne.

The Cowboys rushing towards Dunk watched the ball spiral through a perfect arc over their heads and land in Spinne’s outstretched hands. She held it high and waved it at them, taunting them, then bent over and smacked the ball on her rump. The crowd erupted at the display of cockiness, and the Cowboys switched their attention from Dunk to Spinne.

‘Wow!’ Jim said. ‘How many times do you see a Blood Bowl team pick getting the ball over sheer spite?’

‘That’s what makes the Cowboys one of the most profitable teams out there! Coach Bill Per-Sells’ ruthless fiscal discipline drills this into his players’ heads: It’s not about blood! It all comes down to the bottom line!’

‘Plus, Schönheit did a masterful job of making them mad at her. If you have to choose between revenge for a team-mate or revenge for yourself, there’s no contest!’

For the briefest moment, Dunk feared for Spinne, but he felt the same way every time she stepped on to the pitch with him. He’d got over it, mostly. He never liked putting her in danger, but she’d made it clear she expected him to treat her like an equal. In any case, he’d needed a distraction so he could deal with M’Grash.

Dunk reached down and grabbed the doorknocker of a nose ring that hung from the ogre’s nose, right where it pierced his slab of a septum. ‘Let him go,’ he snarled at the wizard within.

M’Grash stopped whining at the treeman and turned his attention to Dunk. He reached for him with a massive mitt, but Edgar slapped down his arm with a branch.

‘That’ll bloody well be enough of that,’ Edgar said.

Dunk wrenched M’Grash’s nose ring, and the ogre screamed in pain. Dunk had never heard such a horrible and pathetic sound escape his friend’s mouth.

‘Get out,’ Dunk said, ‘now! Or I rip your nose apart.’

The ogre froze. ‘You wouldn’t hurt your best friend.’

‘It wouldn’t bother my friend. Too stupid, right?’ Dunk twisted the ring slowly until it seemed like it might pull right through the ogre’s skin. ‘You, though, I’ll bet you’re smart enough to feel every bit of it.’

M’Grash growled in frustration, loud enough to hurt Dunk’s ears. Then his face went slack.

As the red light vanished from M’Grash’s eyes, the ogre looked up at Dunk. ‘Dunkel?’ he said, his childlike innocence restored.

‘Yes?’ Dunk asked, relieved to have his friend back, in many, many ways.

The ogre crossed his eyes at Dunk’s hands, still on the nose ring. ‘Let go now?’

‘Right!’ Dunk let the ring loose and leapt back, waving Edgar off.

‘About time,’ Edgar said as he rolled off the ogre’s back.

‘Touchdown, Hackers!’ Jim said. The crowd burst into screams of excitement.

‘Wow!’ Bob said. ‘I haven’t seen moves like that since last night’s dinner. Those snotlings really didn’t want to end up in your belly.’

‘For all the good it did them.’ Jim gave a cruel laugh.

Dunk pumped his fist at the crowd. It had been a rough start to the game, but they’d still come out of it well. If the Cowboys had already tried their worst tricks, they had the game in the bag.

‘Pardon me,’ Edgar said from where he’d rolled off M’Grash and on to the Astrogranite. ‘Do you think the ogre I just bloody well saved might be persuaded to give me a hand up?’

Two

‘We won!’ Dunk ducked as his brother Dirk poured a tankard of ale over his head. The cold, frothy liquid ran down Dunk’s neck and back, making him roar in mock rage. Then he gathered the younger Hoffnung up in a bear hug and growled in his face.

‘Championship game, here we come,’ Dirk grinned.

Much as he wanted to, Dunk couldn’t be angry with his brother. He was too happy about the victory to begrudge the man such enthusiastic joy.

Before he could say a word, though, M’Grash gathered the two men up into an even larger, lung crushing embrace. ‘Hackers win!’ The ogre topped off his cheer with a howl that caused everyone else in the locker room to cover their ears.

Spinne leapt up on a bench and gently pried Dunk loose from the ogre’s grasp. ‘Be gentle with him,’ she said with a smile.

‘I sorry,’ M’Grash said, his toothy grin fading.

‘I was talking to Dunk and Dirk,’ Spinne said as she reached up to give the ogre’s tender nose a pat. ‘Are you feeling better yet?’

The ogre’s grin returned, wide enough to swallow Spinne’s head. He nodded happily at her. ‘Doc help.’

‘Took half a gallon of my best materials, and three yards of sutures, but he’ll be fine,’ said a white haired, sour faced elf with a monocle over the eye not covered with a blood-stained patch.

‘Thank you, Dr Pill,’ Dunk said.

The elf growled the gratitude away, just as he always did.

‘How about the others?’ a dazzling, dark haired woman asked, as she squirmed forward between two players. As she spoke, a glittering gold ball with a hole in one end hovered before her and off to one side. Then it spun its black eye from her towards the ill-mannered apothecary.

‘I don’t speak on camra,’ Dr Pill said, regarding the hovering ball with suspicion.

‘But I’m Lästiges Weibchen, with ESPNN, and Hackers fans everywhere are dying to know the fate of Standplatz Innen, Sicheres Gegangen and Geborenes Verurteilt.’

‘If they’re dying, they’ll be in good company. Innen, Gegangen, and Verurteilt were all DOA. You can thank the Cowboy’s “hidden” blades for that.’

Dunk’s grin fell from his face, and a silence hung over the rest of the room. ‘Couldn’t you do anything for them?’ he asked. As soon as the words left his lips, he winced, ready for one of the apothecary’s biting retorts.

Instead, Dr Pill shook his head sadly. ‘They left DNZ orders, “Do Not Zombify”, so I, ah, rendered them useless to the vultures from the undead teams.’

‘Doctor,’ a low voice said from behind Dunk, ‘that should very well be enough.’

Dunk turned to see Captain Pegleg Haken standing in the doorway of the coach’s office. He held his yellow tricorn hat in his hands, exposing the top of his head, where Dunk saw that his long, curly, and inky locks had started to thin. A tall, stunning woman with bronzed skin and sun bleached hair stood next to him.

‘We’re celebrating a victory here,’ the ex-pirate turned coach said, raising his hooked hand in the air as he stepped into the room on his wooden leg, ‘which is why I prefer to leave the news of our fallen friends until the morning after.’ He glared at Dr Pill as he spoke.

‘Never weep for a Blood Bowl player,’ Cavre said. Stepping between the captain and any issue took brass, and Cavre had plenty. He had been the team captain and the coach’s right-hand man since long before Dunk had joined the team. If anyone could skirt Haken’s wrath, it would be him.

‘Aye,’ the captain said, acknowledging Cavre’s wisdom by jutting out his chin. ‘They died doing what they loved. We should all be so lucky as to carve those words on our headstones.’

‘Hear, hear,’ the players murmured. The loudest of them was Rotes Hernd, the backup thrower. She sat on the bench much of the time, waiting for Dunk to get tired or hurt, but she’d been close to at least two of the dead players.

Rotes stood as tall as Spinne, but was built broader across her shoulders. She had the arms of a thrower, while Spinne had the hands of a catcher. The two made for an excellent combination during practices, although Dunk and Spinne connected better on almost every level.

‘Who’s your friend?’ Schlechtes Getrunken, one of the backup linemen asked. With Gegangen dead, he had moved up to a starting position, something he’d been celebrating hard since the final whistle had blown to end the game.

Dunk suspected Getrunken had actually started in with his celebration well before that. Many coaches ignored a player taking an occasional nip from a bottle during a game. The alcohol helped kill the pain most players felt on the field, and the fear too.

Sometimes players went a little overboard though. Dunk recalled one game early in the previous year’s Chaos Cup tournament in which the Greenfield Grasshuggers, a halfling team, had been so drunk that they’d just laid there on the field as the Laurelorn Paladins trampled over them. Being sticklers for the rules, the Paladins had insisted on playing the game as long as Grasshuggers were still on the field, whether they were conscious or not.

Getrunken clearly had celebrated a bit too hard. He leered at the statuesque blonde, who stared the tall, burly man level in the eye and sneered at him.

‘I am called Enojada,’ the woman said, her spicy accent tinged with disgust at Getrunken’s state. ‘I have business here with your Captain Haken, and possibly with your team as a whole.’

‘I’m part of the team, baby,’ Getrunken said, slurring his words. ‘I can help you with any hole you need–’

Before the man could finish his sentence, the woman had knocked him to the floor with a sweep of her leg. Getrunken went down hard, his head cracking on the stone floor, knocking him even more senseless than he’d been. As he fell into a deep snore, she put a booted foot on his chest and leaned forward to look at the others. Her eyes dared them to retaliate, to come to their team-mate’s defence.

No one moved. Getrunken had only been with the team for just over a week, and none of them had formed much of an attachment to him yet. That rarely happened, Dunk knew, until a player survived a tournament. Then he’d bond with the others on their way back to Bad Bay, aboard the team’s cutter, the Sea Chariot. He’d then become a brother, part of the family.

Right now, they only saw a lethal woman standing over a drunken fool.

Haken cleared his throat. ‘My Hackers? Allow me to introduce Miss Ay-No-Ha-Da.’ He pronounced every syllable separately, as if the foreign word felt strange on his tongue. ‘She hails from Lustria, across the sea.’

Lästiges gasped, and the camra over her shoulder turned on the strange woman. ‘I’ve heard of you,’ she said. ‘You’re an Amazon, one of the best Blood Bowl players Lustria ever produced.’

The tanned woman smiled, showing all of her glaring white teeth. ‘That was a long time ago. I’m retired these days. I work for the AFL, the Amazon Football League, now.’

‘What brings you all the way across the ocean?’ Lästiges asked. ‘The Spike! Magazine tournament?’

‘Partially,’ Enojada said. ‘I watch the games on Cabalvision, of course, but there is nothing like being in the stadium.’

‘Why are you really here?’ Spinne asked. As she spoke, she held Dunk’s hand and gripped it tightly.

The Amazon smiled at Spinne, sizing her up. Dunk wondered if she was appraising his love for a uniform or a grave.

‘In Lustria, we have our own tournament. It is not so famous as your Blood Bowl championship, of course, but everyone in Lustria watches it. This year, the AFL has decided that we should reach out to our companions across the sea, the ones that brought the holy sport of Blood Bowl to us, and invite them to join our league.’

Alarm bells went off in Dunk’s head, starting with the words ‘holy sport’. Fanatics of any kind, religious, Blood Bowl, or otherwise, put him on edge. He remembered the priest back in Dörfchen who’d tried to sell him out to the chimera menacing that little town. That experience had capped off his opinion of organised religion. Well, that and having to save the whole of Altdorf, the seat of the Empire, from the plots of the Blood God Khorne.

Everyone in the room started to talk at once.

‘We can’t go,’ Erhaltenes Spiel, one of the starting linemen, said. ‘We have a championship to defend.’

Dirk smirked. ‘A land full of gorgeous Amazons to wrestle with doesn’t sound too bad to me.’ He elbowed Jammernder Anfäger, a starting lineman, and the younger player laughed.

Lästiges shot daggers at Dirk with her eyes. The two of them had been dating on and off for years, but their jobs kept them apart for weeks at a time. The strain on their relationship often showed, but she was too much of a professional to attack a Blood Bowl player on camra, or so Dunk hoped.

Others chipped in with their opinions, but it all came to a halt with a horrible screech. Dunk turned to see Pegleg scratching a long furrow in the team blackboard on the far side of the locker room. He kept it up until he had everyone’s attention and then scraped a little bit farther just to be cruel.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Pegleg said into the merciful silence. ‘The money is here in the Old World, not halfway across the planet in the bush leagues.’

Enojada scowled, her plastic demeanour cracking for just a moment before she restored her perfect smile. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘we expected as much. It is a pity though. The Lustrian Lusties, the team I used to play for, was very much looking forward to the honour of playing against you. Now I must face the pain of telling my team captain that you have decided she is not worth facing.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Spinne said, ‘but I don’t see how that’s our problem.’

Enojada licked her lips at Spinne as if she were a fly that had just wandered into her web. ‘Not you, of course, my darling.’ Her gaze locked on Dunk and then Dirk. ‘But she will miss seeing the men she loves so much.’

Dunk felt like he’d been disembowelled. Spinne raised an eyebrow at him, and Lästiges looked as if she might pick up a spiky bit of armour and drive it straight into Dirk’s heart.

‘Just who is your captain?’ Dunk asked, dreading the answer. He didn’t know what game this Amazon was playing, but he suspected he wouldn’t like it.

‘I thought you knew,’ Enojada said, raising her hand to her mouth in mock shock. ‘She is called Kirta Hoffnung, of course. She is your sister, no?’

Dunk didn’t need to look at his younger brother to know they’d both come to the same decision. ‘We’re going,’ Dunk and Dirk said in unison.

‘Mr Hoffnung and Mr Heldmann,’ Pegleg said, his whisper more menacing than any shout, ‘in my office.’

The ex-pirate walked back through the door in which he’d been standing, and Dirk and Dunk stormed through it. As they strode through the shocked silence of the locker room, every eye locked on them. Dunk spared a sidelong glance for Enojada, and had to fight the urge to wipe the smirk off her face. The woman might be the only link he had to his sister, but she didn’t have to be so smug about it.

Pegleg hobbled around behind his desk and said, ‘Close the door.’ Before Dunk could slam it shut, Enojada slipped in.

‘Out,’ Pegleg said. ‘This is team business.’

‘I believe I might be able to help.’

‘I think you’ve done enough, miss.’

‘Mizz.’

‘How’s that?’

‘We Amazons prefer to be called “mizz”, not “miss”.’

Pegleg tossed his hat on the desk before him. His eyes bulged like they wanted to pop from his face. ‘Get. Out. Of. My. Office.’

‘She stays,’ said Dirk. Enojada winked at him, and the man blushed. He recovered and backhanded Dunk on the arm. ‘If she knows where Kirta is, I don’t want to let her out of my sight.’

Dunk nodded. Then he looked at Pegleg, and braced himself for the man’s reaction. ‘She stays.’

Pegleg spat on the floor. ‘Fine. She should hear this too: We’re not going.’

‘We are,’ said Dunk.

‘Now, boys,’ a voice said from behind Dunk. He glanced back to see a rotund halfling, his agent, Slogo Fullbelly, peeking in through the still open door. ‘Listen to reason.’

‘Forget it, Slick,’ Dunk said. ‘If Kirta’s in Lustria, that’s where we’re heading.’

Pegleg scowled. ‘You can’t leave the team. We’re in the finals in two days.’

‘Rotes can take my place,’ said Dunk. ‘She’s been gunning for my spot for over a year.’

‘She’s not the thrower you are.’ He glared at Dirk. ‘And we don’t have anyone to replace you either. You’re both staying.’

‘We don’t need to leave until after the game,’ Enojada said. ‘That still gives us plenty of time to make it to the Tobazco Bowl.’

Dunk raised an eyebrow at the woman. ‘Why do they call it that?’

‘Our stadium is formed in the natural crater in the top of Mount Tobazco.’

‘Crater? What caused that?’

‘Well, it is a volcano.’

Dunk slapped his forehead.

‘So,’ Slick said, ‘you boys want to run off to find your sister and play ball in the middle of an active volcano.’

‘Oh,’ said Enojada, ‘it sleeps now.’

‘You mean it’s dormant?’ asked Dirk. Dunk could see he was pleased with himself for having come up with the word.

‘Yes, that is the word.’ The Amazon smiled at Dirk.

‘See,’ said Dunk, ‘safe as can be. It can’t be any worse than playing in the Dungeonbowl.’

Pegleg slammed his hook into the top of his desk, and there it stuck. ‘We have an obligation to play in the Dungeonbowl again this year. We have a contract with the Grey Wizards to represent them. We cannot back out of that.’

‘The Hackers can play. You just won’t have Dirk or me.’

Pegleg’s nostrils flared as he spoke. ‘As your little agent there can no doubt inform you, Mr Hoffnung, you have a contract with me. I plan to hold you to it.’

‘I’ll buy myself out of it.’

‘The contract is not for sale,’ Pegleg said between gritted teeth.

‘Dunk and I have plenty of money,’ said Dirk, ‘now that we’ve inherited our family estate.’

‘This isn’t about gold,’ Pegleg said.

Dunk, Dirk, and Slick gaped at him.

‘That’s the problem with players and their agents,’ Pegleg said, ‘short-term thinking. Of course it’s about the gold, but not the gold I can hold in my hand.’

Dunk squinted at the ex-pirate. ‘What did you do with Coach Haken?’

Pegleg waved him off. ‘You don’t get it, do you? Last year, we did just what we set out to do, what I’ve set out to do every year of my career: win the Blood Bowl championship.’

‘So? You should be happy.’ He stared at his coach. ‘You’re not happy.’

‘He’s never happy,’ said Dirk. ‘Maybe the night after a win. The next day, he’s back to being cranky as ever. Coach Bombardi’s the same way.’

‘I get it,’ said Slick, rubbing his chubby chin, ‘he’s after a dynasty now.’

Dunk scratched his head. ‘What?’

Pegleg sat back in his chair and regarded the others. ‘A dynasty: a legacy, a chance to build not just a winning team, but a legend.’

‘You’re getting old,’ Dirk said.

Pegleg catapulted up out of his chair and lunged at Dirk. Unfortunately, his hook was still stuck in his desk from when he’d slammed it down earlier. He’d been trying to free himself the entire time without letting anyone know, but now he’d forgotten himself and almost broken his wrist for his trouble.

Dunk stepped between Pegleg and his brother before the ex-pirate went for his cutlass. He held his hands up in front of him to try to calm the enraged man down.

‘What Dirk means, I think,’ Dunk said, taking an instant to glare at his brother, ‘is that you’re starting to think not about what you’re doing, but about how you’ll be remembered.’

‘And what in the deep blue sea is wrong with that?’ Pegleg asked, still pulling at his hook.

‘Nothing at all, but,’ Dunk said as he stabbed a finger at his head, ‘you’re thinking too small.’ He gestured towards Enojada. ‘Just think; you could coach the first team to be the undisputed champion on two continents. Haken’s Hackers would be the first team to truly be known as the best in the entire world.’

Pegleg leaned forward on his stuck hook. ‘You,’ he said to Dunk, ‘are full of shit. Beating up on a bunch of little girls halfway around the world while we should be back here kicking the tar out of serious opponents will only make us a laughing stock.’

Enojada moved so fast that Dunk saw only a blur. One moment, the desk stood between Pegleg and him, and the next it had been smashed in half. The Amazon stepped back to where she had been standing near the door, and the coach looked down at his free hook and waggled it on the end of his wrist.

‘My apologies for the “little girls” crack, mizz,’ Pegleg said. He spoke in a soft, steady tone once more. ‘But my point still stands. From the point of view of the Blood Bowl fan, Lustria is just another bush league. We’re staying here.’

Dunk scowled, and then decided to play his trump card. ‘We’ll buy the Hackers from you then.’

‘What?’ Pegleg stuck his hook in his ear and scraped it around, pulling out a good chunk of wax. ‘Could you repeat that, Mr Hoffnung? I don’t think I heard you correctly.’

‘Dirk and I will buy the Hackers from you. We can sell the keep and the rest of our holdings in Altdorf and have plenty of money to handle the purchase.’

‘The Hackers are not for sale.’ The man spoke as low as a whisper, but still growled like a mother bear defending her cubs.

Slick cleared his throat, and then spoke, softly and reverently. ‘Come on now, Pegleg, everything is for sale, at the right price.

Pegleg’s voice rose straight to a scream. ‘You’d have a better chance putting a bid in on my thrice damned soul! Now get out of my office, now!’

Three

At the Bad Water tavern down on the docks of Magritta, Sparky the dwarf bartender had a round of drinks ready before Dunk even reached the bar. The entire place erupted in cheers as Dunk, Dirk, and Spinne made their way in from the chilly night air, with Slick and Enojada in tow.

The Bad Water had become known as the Hackers’ hangout while in town, and Sparky and the bouncers there did the best they could to ensure that the crowds wouldn’t drive their famous patrons away. They had permanently roped off a few tables in the corner for the Hackers’ to sit at, and they’d emblazoned Hacker logos and merchandise over nearly every surface in the bar.

As Dunk made his way towards the bar, a trio of Darkside Cowboys fans in black and blue face and body paint leapt at him from out of the crowd. ‘Hackers suck!’ the three men said in unison.

Before Dunk could even respond, the Cowboys fans disappeared beneath a swarm of kicking legs and swinging arms, all wearing the Hackers’ familiar green and gold colours. A moment later, the battered men popped up atop the arms of the crowd and were passed straight towards the wall opposite the door.

‘Hold it,’ Sparky shouted, although no one but Dunk seemed to hear him. There was nothing to do but watch the three bodies passed straight towards the picture window and then get tossed right through it. Dunk heard one, two, three splashes as they tumbled into the seawater below.

‘I lose more windows that way,’ Sparky said as Dunk finally made it to the bar to collect the first round of drinks.

Dunk tossed an extra bit of gold on the bar. ‘To make up for the destruction.’

Sparky shook his head even as he leaned over the bar and pocketed the money. ‘You don’t have to do that. We make enough off you drinking here to cover a new window every day of the week.’ The dwarf grinned through his thick, bushy beard. ‘But I do appreciate it.’

‘Three Killer Genuine Drafts and one Halfkein for Slick,’ Sparky said. He nodded his head towards Enojada. ‘What about for your friend?’

‘She’s an Amazon.’

‘I think that’s clear.’

‘Really, from Lustria. Got anything that might make her feel at home?’

Sparky leapt down from the narrow walkway that ran behind the bar, and Dunk heard him rummaging around among countless bottles. A moment later he popped back up with a tall, thin, clear bottle filled with a golden liquid. He opened it and stuffed a green wedge into it, then slapped it on the bar in front of Dunk. The label read ‘Corpse-Rona.’

‘What is it?’ Dunk asked.

‘Piss water.’ Sparky scowled at the bottle. ‘Seal piss, I think.’

‘Seriously?’

‘How would I know it tastes like seal piss?’ Sparky held up a thick, stubby hand. ‘Wait. Don’t answer that.’

‘What’s with the green thing?’

‘It’s a lime. Sailors eat them on long voyages to stave off scurvy.’

Dunk glanced at Enojada. ‘You think she has scurvy?’

‘Nah. The fruit just makes the piss tolerable, or so I’m told. I don’t put vegetables in my own drink, and I don’t trust drinks that require them.’

Dunk nodded his thanks, picked up the tray on which Sparky had set the drinks and toted it over to his table. Dirk, Spinne, and Slick each grabbed their drinks, and Dunk handed the Corpse-Rona to Enojada, who accepted it with a wide smile.

‘I had no idea you could find such things here,’ she said. ‘This is awful.’

Dunk stared at her. She pointed at the bottle and laughed.

‘In Lustria, this is the kind of swill that no one will drink, so we export most of it. In other lands, the lure of its exotic origin sells it better than its lousy flavour does at home.’

‘Do you want something else?’

Enojada shook her head and snatched the bottle from the tray. ‘It may be the worst part of home, but it’s still home.’

Dunk sat down and decided to get right to it. ‘Tell us about Kirta.’

‘You do not waste much time with pleasantries,’ Enojada said. ‘I like that.’

‘So?’ asked Dirk.

Enojada took a sip of her beer and rolled it around on her tongue for a moment, clearly enjoying the attention far more than her drink. ‘Kirta is alive and well. She is our team captain, one of the best blitzers that Lustria has ever seen. She is a natural at it. Clearly the talents required for Blood Bowl run strong within your family’s blood.’

‘But how is she alive?’ asked Dunk. ‘We thought she’d died when the Guterfiends arranged for an angry mob to storm our family keep.’

‘She escaped,’ Enojada said with a simple shrug. ‘Alone, she found her way outside the city and made her way down the Reik until she came to the sea. When she reached Marienburg, she fell prey to a press gang that captured her and sold her to a pack of pirates.’

Dunk grimaced at the thought of his sweet, little sister among a band of ruthless buccaneers. Spinne reached out and took his hand to comfort him, and he did not push it away.

‘Some time later, she wound up sailing down the Scorpion Coast. In the temple city of Tlaxtlan, she was auctioned off as a slave and purchased by the Lusties’ owners. It was the best deal they ever made.’

‘Our sister is a slave?’ Dirk asked, his temper rising along with his voice.

‘No longer.’ Enojada’s eyes seemed a thousand miles away. ‘She proved to be a natural player, and within the space of a single year she was able to demand not only her freedom but a healthy salary.’

‘A born negotiator, eh?’ said Slick. ‘She doesn’t share that with her brothers.’

The halfling noticed Dunk and Dirk staring at him. ‘And thank the gods for that, sons, or you wouldn’t need me.’

‘Then where would we be?’ Dirk said, daring Slick to answer.

‘Now she’s the team captain, you say?’ Dunk said, trying to shift the conversation back to his sister. He ran his tongue along his lower gums. ‘It’s a great story. It really is. I only have one question.’

Enojada raised her thick eyebrows. ‘Yes?’

‘Why should we believe a word of it?’

Enojada smiled. ‘Of course, you do not know me, and I come to you with the most fantastical story possible, a story too good to be true. Why should you trust me?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You shouldn’t.’

Dunk sat back to consider this.

Enojada continued. ‘I’m nobody to you; a woman who comes to you out of the blue with a wild story about a woman you know is dead. No matter how much you care about your sister, how can you possibly want to cross the ocean just to check out my story? Especially when I have a clear motive for wanting to trick you into doing just that?’

Dunk glanced at Dirk, and then looked straight into Enojada’s eyes. ‘That about sums it up.’

‘Kirta said you would be like that. She hoped you’d be at least that canny.’

Dunk felt ill. He’d stood up to his coach over a thin hope bound up in a web of flimsy lies. He knew he’d never forget this. Pegleg wouldn’t let him.

‘So she told me to tell you this one word, to confirm my story, to let you know that it’s all true.’

Dunk waited in silence, but Dirk couldn’t take it. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

Enojada pursed her lips and spat out a single word. ‘Nunya.’

Dunk almost fell off his chair. Spinne grabbed him by the arm and straightened him back up. Dirk wasn’t so lucky and slipped off his seat to the floor.

‘What’s it mean?’ Slick asked. ‘Is that someone’s name?’

Dunk nodded. ‘Sort of. It’s what she called her doll. She had it since she could talk.’

Spinne frowned. ‘That’s an unusual name for a little girl to give a doll. What does it mean?’

‘None of your business.’

Spinne glared at Dunk. ‘I was just asking. If you don’t feel we’re close enough for you to share such information–’

‘No!’ said Dunk. ‘That’s not what I meant at all. The doll’s name is Nunya. N-U-N-Y-A. Nunya Bidness.’

Click here to buy Rumble in the Jungle

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2007.
This edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Cover illustration by Philip Sibbering.

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