“Chapter 8

Coach Robsson looked proudly down at the programme for today’s match. By chance they’d found a scribe down in the village who was happy to knock them up before each game. He was an artist really, but times were hard and a paying job wasn’t something you turned your nose up at, so he’d set to work as soon as the gold coins had slipped into his pocket.

The programme was a thing of beauty. The lettering was elvish-level fancy, he’d managed to spell every name right, including Sanjfrntyg, and he’d even included a couple of sketches from one of the practice sessions he’d taken to coming along to. But none of this was what made Robsson proud. He already knew what his players looked like, and most days he could even remember how to spell Sanjfrntyg. No, what drew his eyes to the programme were two small words at the top of page 2 - Home Team.

Home. Team. How great it felt to be able to say that at long last. After weeks on the road, living out of the back of a wagon, going from town to town and being treated like dirt, finally they had a base, a place where they could train properly, a place to retreat to whenever the angry mobs became a bit too angry and the pitchforks and torches started being waved in their general direction, a place where they could put up banners and bring in sponsorship and where they could allow concession stands that sold rat-on-a-stick, or tunics with the team logo on them, or fancy programmes.

The last page of the programme was given over to the visitors. American War Machine, a chaos chosen team coached by robocoyote were to be today’s opponents. Robsson would have liked an easier, softer, team for Da Hui’s first home game - after all, the locals didn’t want to see another home team crushed into the dirt on their first outing - but he’d been so eager to try out the field, he’d told Ebeneezer to get anyone he could, as long as they were guaranteed to turn up and play with only a single day’s notice. Chaos, of course, were always guaranteed to turn up, they tended to love the more physical aspects of the game that much - blood for the blood god, and all that.


* * *


“Hold on a sec,” Robsson said, striding purposefully over to where Coach robocoyote was setting up a portable sacrificial alter beside his team’s dugout. “The programme - nice, isn’t it, by the way - clearly states you only have an eleven-man team, but I count twelve of you.”
“Oh,” robocoyote replied, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He’s just someone I picked up with the inducement money.”
“The what?”
“Well, your guy was so desperate to book us, he offered us a sweetener if we agreed to forego the usual scheduling delay. I said sure, go ahead.”
“What, you mean to say we paid you to hire an extra player to play against us?”
“Yep, that’s about the sum of it.”
Robsson looked at the chaos players. One of them was standing off to one side with a blanket draped over his head so that his face was hidden. Even so, there was something worryingly familiar about him…
“Hmph,” was all Robsson said. He was not happy.

Kick off. Da Hui were receiving. Tobias the Outcast fumbled the catch as usual and it was left to Silas the Unclean to sort out the mess and get running with the ball. Up front, Ivan the Terribly took out one of the beastmen with his first punch and the golems did their usual job of moving the line slowly forward into enemy territory. It was looking to be a good start.

Suddenly there was an ominous chug-chug-chug sound from behind the chaos line, followed by the tell-tale growl of a chainsaw starting up. The mysterious chaos player threw off his blanket and charged forward and Coach Robsson felt his bowels do a somersault.
“Max Spleenripper,” he cursed. “Of course.” He glared at Ebeneezer. “If anyone dies as a result of this - dies even more, I mean - it’s on you.”
Ebeneezer tried to look innocent. He looked about as innocent as a halfling with sticky fingers in a pie shop.

Luckily Da Hui scored quickly, with Silas throwing a quick pass to Tobias, who ran it in. But as the chaos players set up to receive the kick, Robsson noticed that Spleenripper was still on the pitch.
“What?” he screamed. “Ref! Are you blind?”
The referee stopped in front of Robsson. He was a sour-faced man who had the look of a former player - the look involved a lot of scars, a permanently puzzled expression and, in the case of this particular referee, an eye patch. “I’m keeping an eye on him,” he said.
“Well it’s the wrong eye!” Robsson screamed. “You should have sent him off after the score.”
“I did send him off. But now he’s back on.” And with that he blew his whistle and the game continued.

The rest of the half was slow and tough, with neither team managing to get the upper hand. American War Machine kept hold of the ball, but there was nowhere to take it, and the half ended with a mass of players from both teams all scrabbling around in the dirt at midfield. Still, Robsson told himself, at least all his players were still there.

Max Spleenripper left during the half-time show - a group of local kids banging drums and blowing whistles while they walked around in a circle - and possibly because of the half-time show. That was the good news. The bad news was that Robsson noticed robocoyote scarifying something on his portable altar. He couldn’t see what it was from across the pitch, but it was definitely wriggling before it went on, and was definitely not wriggling after everything turned red. It might have been a goat, Robsson supposed. Or possibly one of the child musicians.

Either way, the gods were obviously pleased with their offering and it was a refreshed and determined chaos team that took to the field for the second half. They bashed, and kicked, and punched, and gouged, and slowly but surely, the undead line began to crumble. Robsson did what he could, shouting encouragement and easily-understood instructions, but it soon became clear that American War Machine were going to score and there was nothing Da Hui could do about it.

First though, it seemed the chaos players wanted a bit more blood for the blood god. With the ball safely downfield, even too far for the werewolves to reach, the chosen blockers spent some time hitting anything they could in the hope that some of it might die horribly. Fortunately, nothing did, and just as the final whistle blew, the beastman known as Red Death scored the equaliser.

“Well,” Coach Robsson said with a shrug. “We didn’t loose.”
“And we didn’t loose any players either,” Ebeneezer said with obvious relief.
“Still…” Robsson was disappointed, he couldn’t deny it. Last week’s draw had felt like a win, this week’s felt like a loss. He’d wanted to give the locals something to cheer about with their first home game and it hadn’t really ended the way he’d hoped. Still, right from the start he’d known this was going to be a long journey, and he shouldn’t really be so disappointed after what the team had already achieved. They had their own stadium, they had coffers with gold in them, they had some fans, and they even had a good surfing beach nearby. Surely that was enough to make even the grumpiest of Bloodbowl coaches happy, wasn’t it?

No, it wasn’t. He wanted a home win as well!”