“Chapter 15

With The Lion and the Unicorn missing the game, the front line was fairly weak, and even more so when compared to the three great hulking brutes facing them. Caged Loons were a team of chaos pact – the fourth the White Men in Black Suits had faced in their first fifteen games no less – and to bolster their ranks, they had also chosen to hire Ugroth Bolgrot and his chainsaw. Coach Robsson suspected this was going to be one of those painful and expensive games where all his winnings would be used up on hospital fees and new replacements.

But there were a lot of chaos teams about. The fans liked to watch them and coaches found them easy to use. Not always easy to win with, but certainly easy to coach. “You, hit that one! You, see if you can hit both of them!” And so on until there was no more time left, or no more opponents left. Coach Robsson shrugged. Coaching a chaos team, pact or otherwise, was not something he was ever likely to do. He’d promised his mother while she was strapped to the sacrificial altar that he would never get mixed up with the forces of chaos and so far, he never had. Not in twenty five years of BloodBowl coaching had he ever considered coaching a chaos team.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t play against one, which was fortunate really as so many of the teams available to play were chaos, or chaos pact, or chaos dwarf, or chaos whatever else. Offer someone the chance to suddenly sprout tentacles or mutate their arm into a vicious pincer and you’d have no end of volunteers. Still, chaos players were not generally the brightest candles on the altar and as long as you could stay out of arm’s, or tentacle’s reach, then beating them was not too hard.


* * * * *


“My gods,” said Music for Evenings in mock surprise. “It’s the three Brothers Dimm! Are you here to play BloodBowl, or do a nice little dance for us?”
The chaos front line regarded him. Painkiller, the minotaur, charged forward in a fit of sudden rage, ignoring the fact that the game had not technically begun. Perhaps wisely, the referee chose to wave them on rather than try to penalise several hundred pounds of rabid flesh and restart. Painkiller piled into the cheeky wood elf, only to find that he was no longer where he had been a second before and unable to stop, he happily ploughed on into the secondaries beyond. Stonecold, the troll simply stood still while he tried to work his way through Music for Evening’s sentence word by word. The fact that the game had begun seemed to mean nothing to him. Only Late, the ogre, appeared to have any control over his actions, glancing round before taking a careful swipe at one of the journeymen Coach Robsson had been forced to hire in for the match. Robsson made a note to warn his players about him. An ogre that could think before hitting was a dangerous weapon.

With One More Cup of Coffee sitting out the match, the passing duties had been handed to the new catcher, Hayride to Hell. He began by effortlessly scooping up the ball and then promptly dropping it at his feet. Fortunately, none of the Caged Loons were close enough to capitalize on the mistake and Hayride was able to atone for his mistake by trying once more, this time successfully, and he threw the ball to The L&N who ran it in for a quick score. As the players set up for the next kick, Music for Evenings began again.
“Hey, troll. Do you even know we’ve just scored? In fact, do you even know what you’re doing here?”
This time the referee was able to get the whistle blown before the chaos team surged forward, fists, teeth and chainsaw tearing into the wood elves. But for once the White Men in Black Suits seemed to be able to avoid the worst of the punishment and they set about launching a counter attack against the weaker elements of the chaos team. And to prove his words were not just empty insults, Music for Evenings even began causing some injuries to the hapless marauders whenever the three big guys were out of revenge range.

After his first unsure moments, Hayride to Hell settled down and began to show the kind of poise and agility Robsson liked in his catchers. He completed another pass and even ran in a touchdown himself after finding himself conveniently placed to collect a fumbled pass from the chaos thrower. And not to be outdone by his new apprentice, One More Cup of Coffee ran in another two touchdowns, just to rub salt into the chaos wound.

“Bah!” grumbled Coach Moses as he shook hands with Robsson after the match. “I should have stayed in bed today.”
“Or perhaps sacrificed something bigger,” suggested Robsson with a smile. “Those chaos gods can be terribly fussy about these things sometimes.”
Moses nodded.
“Another game like this and it’ll be a player I’ll be offering up. Useless pack of… useless things!”

Coach Robsson could sympathise. There were many times he’d felt the same about his own players. But not today. Today the whole team had played well, despite missing two of their key players, and it was a victory worth celebrating. However, out of common decency he wouldn’t start the celebrations until Coach Moses had left.
“You stink!” shouted Music for Evenings at the departing coach. He had a large tankard of mead in each hand and several garlands of flowers draped around his neck.
“And in more ways than one! Any time for a rematch, losers!”
Coach Robsson sighed. So much for common decency he thought to himself. Ah well, I guess the party’s already begun. And he wandered off in search of two tankards for himself.

”