The Grinning Butcher raised his right arm, flexing the
muscles in his hand. As he tried to clench
his aged, calloused fingers into a fist, bolts of pain shot from his wrist to
his shoulder and he knew that his best Blood Bowling days were behind him. He snarled, spitting hatefully onto the pitch
before wiping spots of stray saliva from his pink beard. It would not be a good day.
He looked around the stands. The roar of the crowd was somewhat muted
today, the ferocious brays of the home fans tempered by the ragged groans of
the rather ill-looking Ravens fans.
Necro supporters certainly weren’t what they used to be. This once-mighty Warrior of the Blood God would
at one time have relished sullying the virtue of countless necromantic fans,
with their faux-black hair, their heavy eyeliner and – most importantly – their
voluptuous chests that could smother the life out of a randy
Bloodthirster. But those were the good
old days, before the fads changed, the girls got fat and the vampire teams
lured them away with their moping lamentations on the miseries of an immortal
life. Now all that sadly remained were
hordes of mindless zombies who, if they had the faculties at their disposal to
be completely honest with themselves, didn’t have the faintest idea where their
own feet were, let alone any sort of clue as to what everybody in the stadium
was cheering about.
Indeed, the Horrors fans found plenty to cheer about as
their newest signing, the minotaur Ermintrude Gayhammer, roared onto the pitch,
scenting the blood of a werewolf. As
soon as the ball was kicked-off to the Pink Ones, the Gayhammer thundered
across the turf, tearing out chunks with its great hooves, straight for the
wolf-man. While the minotaur pounded his
way through the necromantic front line, the rest of the Horrors huddled around
the ball and waited to see how the situation would play out.
The Ravens fans groaned as seventeen tonnes of angry bull
managed to catch ‘Howling Mad’ Murrdok Von Drakk by the tail and launch him
flailing across the pitch. The snapping
of broken bones as the werewolf landed was drowned out by the ferocious brays of the
man-goats. Their celebrations were
quickly silenced though as the wolf-man defiantly stood, his bones mending
themselves before their very eyes. Von
Drakk was alive and well, though thankfully out for most of the rest of the
first half.
With the wolf out of action, the Horrors decided it was time
to make their move. Sadly, getting
carried away while clutching the ball, the Drowned Lover ran in completely the
wrong direction in order to lay a heavy punch in the face of an ambling zombie
who had ‘looked at him funny’.
Once they had calmed down, the Horrors succeeded in forcing their
way down the field with the ball, managing to whittle away most of the first
half and denying the Ravens any hope of an equalizer before half-time.
By the second half, the Horrors had grown in confidence;
they were leading by one touchdown, they had the entire team still alive on the
pitch and Ermintrude was proving to be a fine investment. But as the Ravens lurched onto the field for
the second half, the Horrors realised to their dismay that the necromantics had
been keeping a little something back...
The crowd was silenced by the roar of a chainsaw as Hack
Enslash marched out to join the Ravens on the pitch and it was clear from the
start that his churning blade had the minotaur’s name written all over it. Barely a second had passed after the whistle
blew before Ermintrude was nose-down in the turf being dragged bleeding from
the field on a stream of his own blood.
In a rage of blood-lust, Hack Enslash ploughed on into the rest of the Horrors, lopping off the arm of the Oozing Gash with one wild swing of his
chainsaw. Luckily, the warrior was tough
enough not to need too much attention from the Horrors’ apothecary, who managed
to successfully sew the limb back on.
The real controversy of the match came when Me? the zombie
laid an apparently foul block against the Weeping Widow. After some violent protestations to the
referee from the Horrors coach, along with many cutting insults from the
players, the official resolved the situation by holding down the wronged
man-goat while the offending zombie stamped on his head until he stopped
twitching.
That was the last time anyone argued with the ref.
Aside from the Weeping Widow’s unfortunate death, the rest
of the match seemed to go completely in the Horrors’ favour. Despite the Ravens taking possession at the
start of the half, and then being particularly vocal with their fists
throughout, their game plan fell foul when the wight carrying the ball was
tripped as he tried to dart away from a scrum of man-goats. The Blushing Doxy, Concubine of Slaanesh,
easily scooped up the flailing ball and threw it to Grull-Maggath, the Drowned
Lover, who scored a second magnificent touchdown in the final stages of the
game.
Their chances of victory evaporating before their glazed and
vacant eyes, the rest of the match became an exercise in vengeance for the
Ravens, who took every opportunity to try and kill off their opponents.
The Grinning Butcher was sent hurtling backwards through the
air by the fist of a flesh golem, landing face-skywards in the dirt. Before his hand was destroyed and the
subsequent foul infections of Nurgle had taken their toll, the blow would
barely have tickled him. Now he lay
staring at the stars which wheeled overhead, a weak and crippled old man, all
use having abandoned him.
But as he stared upwards, the moon above grew red and
something in the air changed. Thunder
cried out, though the sky was cloudless and, from nowhere, a searing bolt of
pink lightning pierced his chest. All
was blackness and agony and the scream of tortured souls. And then there was stillness.
He awoke at dawn to find the rest of the team looking down
at him. He was still lying in the middle
of the pitch and, but for his team-mates, the stadium was empty.
‘We thought you dead,’ grunted the Drowned Lover.
‘Aye,’ he agreed.
‘What with lightning and all,’ explained the Broken Oath.
‘Aye,’ said the Butcher.
‘And your legs,’ he
added.
‘Aye.’ The Grinning Butcher sat
up. ‘What? What you sayin' 'bout my legs?’
The team shuffled nervously, staring at their hooves.
‘What’s wrong with my legs?’
The Butcher looked down.
‘Oh,’ he said.
They were glowing.
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