“Chapter 13

Coach Robsson was inspecting the troops. It had been a busy few days and he hadn't had time to get to know the new faces on the squad. It was a quiet morning, and with a match against a team of chaos chosen scheduled for later that afternoon, he hadn't wanted to overdo things with a training session. A team-bonding session had seemed like a much better idea.
"Kornelius," he said, as he went along the line with Ebeneezer. He shook the wight's cold, dead hand with his own cold, dead hand. "You've been doing some great stuff recently. I notice you've been working on your running. That's good. Keep it up."
The wight gave a rusty nod by way of reply. Robsson smiled and moved on.
"Ivan, Sanjfrntyg, Number Eight, Celandril - all good after last week's death?"
Celandril rubbed the long scar on his torso. "It's not the first time I've been killed. Probably won't be the last either. But it hasn't slowed me down. I'm as quick and as agile as ever."
"Good show. I look forward to seeing you in action this afternoon. Berengariax, looking good."
The werewolf growled.
"I mean, looking bad," Robsson corrected himself. "Looking real baaaad."
The werewolf growled again, but Robsson took this one to be a satisfied growl. He moved on. "Tobias. I'll be looking to you to up your game a bit, now that whats-his-name has gone. You're our number one ball-handler for now. Keep practicing those passes, and make sure the new guy knows what's expected of him. And talking of the new guy, this must be him, yes?" He looked at the next figure in line.
"Jeremiah the Forsaken," the ghoul announced, offering up his hand.
Robsson looked at it and decided to go with a friendly nod instead."Welcome aboard. Settling in okay?"
"Great, thanks. Looking forward to getting out there this afternoon and showing you what I can do."
"Well, slow and steady. I don't want you getting too over-confident too soon. You're part of a team. We all pull together. And besides, if you get killed I can't afford a replacement just yet, so maybe make staying alive your number one priority - at least for this afternoon, eh?"
"Right you are, boss."
"And now we come to..." Robsson forced a smile onto his face. "...the rest of the team. The backbone, if you will." He looked at the line of zombies and tried to imagine what sort of a tormented creature it would be with them as a backbone. He turned to Ebeneezer. "Just remind me who we have here."
"Feccia," Ebeneezer said, motioning to the first zombie in line. "Been with us for a while. Used to be a rat. Bit a tomb guardian's leg last time out."
"I remember it well. Lost some teeth in the process if I remember."
Feccia opened his mouth to reveal the shattered remnants of his smile. Robsson moved quickly on.
"I know this one," he said with a smile. "Karl, right?"
"Kaaaal!"
"And who could forget good old...good old..." he looked at Ebeneezer to help him out.
"Otis. Been with us since the beginning. Coming along nicely. Good with his fists."
"And long may it last."
"O-fish!"
"Exactly.
"Richard Dirtyrock," Ebeneezer continued. Former wood elf. Pretty useless to be honest. His best achievement so far is that he hasn't died yet. Died again, I mean."
'Don't knock it," Robsson said. "It's a useful skill to have."
"And finally," Ebeneezer announced. "These two. Frederick and Mortimer. They were both victims of last week's stand collapse. I raised them both and thought we could try them out."
"I only have one spare slot for the moment," Robsson told the two zombies, doing some quick financial calculations in his head. He pointed to the nearer of the two. "Which one are you?"
"Webwik!" the zombie moaned.
"Okay Webwik...Frederick. You're hired." He turned to the other one. "You, take a hike."
"Mormimuh!"
"Whatever."


* * *


With a name like Sadistik Exekutioners, Robsson wasn't expecting to see much finesse from today's opponents. Not that you got much finesse from chaos teams anyway, but now and then they did at least produce a beastman that could chuck the pigskin, or dodge from side to side rather than run straight at you with horns lowered. But from the look of it, this lot were built to bash. They had a particularly vicious-looking mutated minotaur, four huge great blockers and a bunch of sour-looking beastmen, at least one of which was every bit as big as the blockers. Oh well, Robsson told himself, it would all be over by teatime anyway.

For Tobias the Outcast, it was all over a lot sooner than that. Not sooner had the referee blown his whistle than the Exekutioners charged forward and piled into Da Hui. The minotaur skewered Richard Dirtyrock and tossed him aside with a large chunk of his side missing, and then one of the chosen blockers blitzed Tobias - even though he no longer had the ball. Tobias didn't actually die, but his game was over almost before it had started. And with only a rookie ghoul to cover, it was going to be a tough game to win from here.

Celandril hadn't helped matters by tripping himself up almost as soon as he was handed the ball, but after a quick struggle, managed to get the ball back and keep hold of it - and stay on his feet - long enough to score.

The Exekutioners were clearly angry. They had put everything into their first assault and felt they should have been able to stop the score. On the sideline, Robsson gave a sigh. Nothing was worse than an angry chaos team who had control of the ball. And sure enough, they came out fighting, protecting the ball and making a dash down the side of the field, knocking over and then fouling Celandril off the pitch to clear their path.

Seconds later, the angry minotaur killed Feccia, requiring Ebeneezer to reach once more for his book of dark magick in an attempt to bring the corpse back to life. He succeeded, but the effort had left him drained and unlikely to be able to repeat the process should anyone else suffer a similar fate.

Meanwhile, on the pitch, one of the beastmen made a desperate lone dash for the endzone. There were no players near enough to stop him, and once again, it was the trusty lump of uneven ground just outside the endzone that saved the day. The beastman tripped and dropped the ball. There and then Robsson decided to award the MVP to the only useful sod on the entire team!

Kornelius and Ivan rushed back to cover the fallen beastman and things were looking safe. But then in a desperate and furious bid to appease the chaos gods, the beastman leapt to his feet, blitzed Ivan into the crowd, picked up the loose ball and scored. The gods clearly favoured him. Robsson hated him.

The second half began with a sneaky blitz by Da Hui, which allowed them to get the wolves and wights round into a good position to press for another score. Unfortunately, on the far side of the field, the chaos war machine was doing what it did best. The minotaur attacked once more, and this time he finally succeeded in getting the kill he'd been searching for all game. Poor Frederick, the rookie zombie, was split in two and even if Ebeneezer had been fully recovered, there was nothing he could have done to bring the lad back after that sort of mauling.

At this point it was either team's game. the Exekutioners got hold of the ball, Da Hui's blitz faltered and the match deteriorated into an ugly punching match which neither team seemed to be winning. Sanjfrntyg and Number Eight kept back from the thick of the fighting, making sure none of the chaos players made it into Da Hui's half and after a while it became obvious the chaos team were never going to score a second touchdown. The only question was whether the undead could do enough to steal a sneaky last-minute score.

But the Exekutioners were just too strong, and the minotaur was right there in the thick of the action. Robsson was convinced more of his players were going to end up the same way as Frederick and so decided to play it safe, settling for the draw. At least this way he had most of a team for his next game, and the chaos coach, JamiePS, seemed happy enough with his single score and substantial body count.

And the fans had enjoyed it, if nothing else.

Afterwards, Coach Robsson watched as Igor cleared away the remnants of Frederick into two separate sacks. Sanjfrntyg had given them a quick look-over, but there was nothing there he needed right now, and to be honest, what was there was in a terrible state anyway.
"Mormimuh!" came a strangled voice from behind Robsson. He turned to find the spare zombie from that morning. Had he been standing there the whole time, because no one had actually told him to go away? Yes, Robsson thought. Almost certainly.
"Now that is convenient," Robsson said with a smile. "Do you still want a job?"
"Mormimuh!"
"Excellent. You're hired."”