“Chapter 12

Coach Robsson was taking a break from team practice in order to do something much more important - cheerleader practice.
“Give me a D!” he called out.
“Gaaaaa!” came the reply.
“Give me an A!”
“Gaaaaa!”
“Give me an H!”
“Gaaaaa!”
He gave up. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, getting a couple of zombies to be Da Hui’s new cheerleading squad, but now that he thought about it, maybe zombies weren’t exactly the thing. They couldn’t really dance, they clearly couldn’t chant, and to be honest, they didn’t really look…enticing, the way other teams’s cheerleaders did.
“So listen,” he asked Ebeneezer, who had also come along to watch. “What do other undead teams do about something like this?”
“Well, to be honest, I think a lot of them just don’t bother. I mean, take khemri, for example. Nothing but bones. How are you supposed to tell the players apart from the cheerleaders? Could lead to all sorts of problems in the changing room. The shamblers? They have the same problems we do. But vampires? Well, they have the opposite problem, of course.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. You ever seen a vampire who wasn’t surrounded by a posse of buxom wenches?”
“Good point. Hmmm.” Robsson’s mind had begun to wander off.
“And talking of khemri,” Ebeneezer continued. “That’s who we have this afternoon. Oi Kleopatres. Newish team. Bones still quite white and fresh, but don’t let that deceive you, they already have a few wins under their belt and there’s a lot of them, so be careful.”
“Any cheerleaders?”
“Are you going to ask me this before every match?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Well as a matter of fact, yes.”
“Excellent.”


* * *


“Give me a D!” Robsson shouted.
“Gaaaaa!” came the reply.
“Oh, what’s the point? Just watch the match.”
Da Hui had received the kick and everything was going to plan. Silas the Unclean scooped up the ball and set off at a sprint, the rest of the team pressing down the left side to give him plenty of cover. The khemri tomb guardians were tough but slow, and Robsson was hoping his ghouls would outrun them before they were able to stagger across the field. Things were looking good.
“Things are looking good,” he told Ebeneezer.
Ebeneezer grimaced. “Don’t say that, the gods are listening.”
“So?”
CRUNCH! SPLAT!
One of the tomb guardians had broken through the defence and swung a bandaged fist so hard at the ghoul that it broke his helmet in two, and almost did the same to his skull. Needless to say, the ball came loose.
“Get it!” Robsson shouted, more concerned for the ball than for his injured player. “Not you!” he bellowed, as one of the khemri skeletons ran in and took the ball. “I meant one of my guys!”
But most of his guys seemed to be flat on the ground, with tomb guardians all around them, and in no position to do anything about the pair of skeletons now stumbling towards Da Hui’s endzone.
To be fair, Berengariax and Celandril both leapt up and dashed as fast as their legs could carry them towards the skeletons, but it was a race they were never going to win. Robsson hoped Valbron - the khemri coach - was foolish enough to try and waste some time by stalling. That would give the werewolves time for a desperate blitz and would serve the stupid bone-bags right for delaying. He’d seen it happen many times, and he’d even pulled off a late recovery or two himself. Oi Kleopatres scored while he was still remembering past glories. 0-1
“Oh.”

And that’s how it was at the half. Ebeneezer had a quick look at Silas. He shook his head, but it didn’t seem to do any good, and he shook his own head.
“Nothing I can do for this one. Ghouls aren’t really my department. Too much brain still in there - though not quite as much now as there was at the start of the match. I’ll get Igor to keep an eye on him.”

Meanwhile the Oi Kleopatres cheerleaders were rattling their bones on the far side of the pitch. Robsson watched for a minute and gave a shudder. “It’s just wrong,” he said. He looked at his own cheerleaders. They were standing perfectly still - as still as the grave, so to speak - and staring off in the wrong direction. “Just wrong.”

The match continued, and it was even more brutal than the first half. Both teams pressed forward and the centre line became a mass of rotting flesh and sun-dried bone, with neither side giving an inch.
Something glinting in the sunlight caught Robsson’s eye. He looked closer.
“Oi!” he shouted. “That bloke’s got a sword!”
It was true. One of the khemri team had snuck a sword onto the field and was now busily waving it around at anything that came too close to him. Unfortunately, that was Celandril.
SWISH! SQUELCH!
“Oooh, that’s gotta hurt,” Robsson said as the skeleton drew his bloodied sword out from the wolf’s torso.
“Not really,” Ebeneezer said. “Not now, anyway. That looked pretty fatal to me.”
Robsson sighed. “Fair enough. Well, see what you can do.”
Ebeneezer cracked his fingers, stretched his arms and grabbed his necronomicon. “Be right back.”

Back on the field of battle, things finally started to go Da Hui’s way. In return for the death of Celandril, Number Eight singled out the skeleton who had scored the earlier touchdown and tore him apart - literally tore him bone from bone - until he exploded in a puff of dark magick and crumbled to dust.
“That’s more like it.” Robsson shouted.
Then the usually quiet and retiring Feccia dashed forward and sank his teeth into the leg of a nearby tomb guardian, losing a few teeth in the process but coming away with a leg bone for his trouble. The tomb guardian toppled over and was trampled in the crush of bodies all around him.

But somehow, Oi Kleopatres still had the ball, and one of their more agile skeletons managed to run right through the Da Hui defence - with support - and set up for another score. Berengariax charged after him, but was brought up short and there was nothing but an empty field between the dashing skeleton and the second touchdown for Oi Kleopatres. Nothing except an uneven patch of ground right in front of the endzone, right in front of the ball-carrying skeleton…
THUD! SPLAT!
‘Yes!” screamed Robsson, as the unfortunate skeleton not only tripped over and dropped the ball but also succeeded in twisting his ankle bones and tumbling off the field.
There was a chance to score. It was a slim chance - about as slim as a khemri cheerleader - but it was all Da Hui needed. Berengariax grabbed the ball, ran up and handed it off to Kornelius who was waiting at midfield. Kornelius sprinted forward. The endzone was in sight…
“What in the nine hells and all the rest of it?”
Robsson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. One of the skeletons had dodged away from his marker and run in for a last-gasp blitz against Kornelius. Clearly, Kornelius couldn’t believe it either, because the skeleton knocked him flying. Not only that, he then had the nerve to pick up the loose ball and start to run with it!
He made it as far as Sanjfrntyg, who fortunately knocked him over with a lucky swipe of his arm. Kornelius recovered his senses, picked up the loose ball and ran. He was too far from the endzone to score, but with a final burst of speed he managed to hand the ball over to Ivan the Terribly, who ran it in for the equaliser.

“Wow,” Robsson said as he shook hands with Valbron. “That was intense. Closer than a khemri shave, eh?”
“The gods were certainly smiling down on you today,” Valbron said. “I really thought I had it in the bag there. If it hadn’t been for that bit of loose turf…”
“Anyway,” Robsson said, quickly changing the subject. “The fans seemed to love it. Plenty of winnings, too. Help pay for a few new bones, eh?”
“And a new werewolf, yes?”
“Actually, no. Our necromancer has managed to patch him up. He’ll be just fine. Which is more than I can say for that stupid ghoul though. He got up and wandered off somewhere during the second half. No one can find him now.”
“Oh well,” Valbron said. “Not to worry. I’m sure you can find another one easily enough.” He seemed in a hurry to leave so Robsson said farewell and agreed to a rematch at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Robsson watched as the khemri team and their new fans set off back to their desert realm. One of the new fans looked familiar…almost like a slightly confused looking ghoul, but from this distance it was hard to tell. And anyway, Valbron was right. He could find another one easily enough - and maybe this one would be a passer!”