T w e n t y S i d e d

“I should tell you,” says the games official, “that you can’t actually ask a question so many times that I invent new league rules.”

“But–look. Does the idea that we’re starting the league all over again because some paperwork got misplaced not strike you as just a little bit stupid? Suspicious? Fraudulent?“

“Paperwork is important. Without it, how do we know who won a match?”

“I personally have no problem remembering that. I actually remember who wins our matches before we’ve had them. But what I’m getting at here is–because the paperwork is mysteriously misplaced, the elf coach gets to field a brand new team?”

“He can’t start the season with two dead players, can he?”

“They’re dead because I killed them! I worked very hard to do that!”

“I know, and we appreciate heart and pluck as much as the next multinational corporation. Wasn’t that the whistle just there?”

My teeth grind like keystones on a halfling barbecue smoker, but I make for the stairs. Halfway up I turn and say, “Can I ask you something?”

“I would love that.”

“Wood elves? You’re supposedly impartial–should I be nervous?”

“Normally I’d say yes, that wood elves are formidable adversaries and you should be nervous.” He spits his tobacco. “But for a halfling coach like yourself, I ask this rhetorical question: are wood elves a brisket?“

Wood elves. Look like young gods, play like young gods, smell like randy skunks.

Of the eleven cocky bastards on the field at least half have some kind of specialized ball-handling trainingâ€"they’ve drilled at catching or throwing or kicking, and are entrusted to perform these tasks (sometimes called “playing Blood Bowl”) consistently. Then there’s his two wardancers, which prove a theory I’d been working on : when a Blood Bowl player has an enormously stupid haircut, it’s time to grease up the wheelbarrow, break out some old shoes, and put the digger on standby.

I’ve bought a brusier of my own with this match’s inducement money: a third treeman with a name too dumb to remember. He’s apparently a pretty well-known player. Since he’s willing to contract with my no-names I’ve concluded that he’s either an actual patron saint of lost and very stupid causes or he’s not so hot after all. I’m not going to ask anything too strenuous of him. Just, you know, killing elves so hard every organic avacado for a thousand miles rots.

The ref’s getting the coin toss prepped. My esteemed elven colleague is already on the scene and pauses between bon and mot to give me a roguish wink, which I return with both eyes, slowly, two or three times.

“Heads or tails?” says the ref.

“Heads,” I say.

“Heads it is.”

“Well. Not a good look, is it?” I say. “Game’s not even started and I’m already winning.”

“Dear,” says the elf, “that’s why you’re winning.”

And then it’s time to play.

They kick to meâ€"high, hard, and fast, and while you were reading those words half his team has snuck past my line like they want to get the ball first. At the last possible moment, my team remembers their training, or that they had training, and halfling legs begin to pump. Like I asked them until it sunk in, they don’t rush the ballâ€"they rush around it, forming a cage. They’re pretty good at that move. It doesn’t ask them to do anything they’re not comfortable with, like touching or otherwise handling the game ball. Only once that cage is in place does Sancho Greenbottle swallow his nerves and make a go at scooping the thing out of the grass. And it’s good! He’s safe forever now.

Or until the bars of my cage are replaced by two wardancers traveling cleat-first towards his skull. Whichever happens firstâ€"oh, shit, guess what.

When I open my eyes Sancho is wandering in circles with stud marks on his cheek, Pervince is doubled over losing his lunches, and an elf thrower is boogeying in my end zone while the crowd goes wild. I need to open my eyes less often.

1-0.

Second verse, same as the first: they kick off and fire a cannonball into my deep left side. My trees don’t even watch it landâ€"they just do what they’re paid to and push as many elf linemen as far into the dirt as soil mechanics allow while my boys knit a meat sweater around the ball and his boys come up hard to take it. Pervince bumbles up and scoops that ball off the pitch with angry elves breaths away from him, halfway down the wrong side of the fieldâ€"no time to waste. He takes his chances. A few halflings push away the elf blocking him and he’s off. The treemen are too far away and once he starts running I know exactly what is going to happen: he is going to trip himself up running too hard, stumble, and fumble the ball into elf hands.

I’m not religious, but when that doesn’t happenâ€"when Pervince stumbles breathless against a tree’s flank and a ragged Lunchbox forms man by man around himâ€"I think to myself: dark gods, what are you up to now? What part of this shitshow is appealing to you and who do I gotta kill to keep you happy?

But that important tactical consideration will have to wait, because the Lunchbox isn’t completeâ€"not enough halflings make it to box off the howling wardancer and blitzer who gnash through to menace Pervince. Meanwhile, outside the box, any halfling with pretentions of blocking elves from joining the party are taken as personal insults and put at the end of a bloody rainbow. It’s not safe to do a tree fling if an opponent can reach out and grab the halflingâ€"it’s never safe to do a tree fling, it’s preposterously stupid under these circumstancesâ€"but I don’t see where I’ve got a choice.

“Treeman! Do that fling thing!”

I need a catchier name for it.

Pervince is scooped up off the pitchâ€"the wardancer is flying after him, flyingâ€"her claws scrape the air inches from his leg, the tree hurls Pervince, and he tumbles, tumbles…

Lands.

Boos are stuck in the crowd’s throats, and it isn’t until the very moment Pervince hobbles over the goal line they’re freed.

1-1.

Nearly finished with the first halfâ€"and tied. I’d be relieved, except there’s still some time left and elves can score in about one struggling halfling heartbeat. Their coach catches my eye and smiles a characteristically thin, withholding elven smile.

My kickoff bites deep into their field, but the thrower scoops it up like that’s actually the basic thing you do in this game and he runs it somewhere safe. Meanwhile he’s mobilizing his boys to set up the line of passing and handoffs I’ve come to recognize as the elven pain train. A wardancer apparently gets irritated with how many halflings she’s not disassembling and scrambles, alone, to support the catchers…

I’m not sure what my boy Halfred does, exactly. I can only guess it’s something to do with a doughty halfling ankle and a top-heavy and fast-moving elven body, but it ends with a hole the shape of a wardancer through the topsoil. My boys seize or at least paw the initiative and stumble to derail his pain trainâ€"but that thrower is moving like late lightning and the ball is on my side of the field in moments. His runner is heading for the goal lines and nimbly dodges a clumsy halfling tackle…

…wait. He didn’t?

I’m still grappling with the implications of a reality where not one but two elves are impeded by halflings in a single day, but my halflings, who among their strong suits do not have the burden of introspection, put together a credible attempt to keep the ball where it is. A short-term measureâ€"for a short-term problem. The whistle blows. Half time.

“Speech time, guys.”

They nod somberly. I note this and demonstrate considerable agility as a coach by adjusting my pep-talk to their current game-awareness.

“Guys, we’re not losing. We’re actually tied.”

They look at each other. They look at the scoreboard.

“Is that legal?” pipes Polo.

“Get out there. Do what you do, but, you know, good. Whenever possible. Let’s see if we can prevent him from winning.”

“And maybe win ourselves?” asks Pervince.

“I like the way you’re thinking! No. Do not try that. Stall him, for fuck’s sake.”

Something interesting is going on in the bleachers. Apparently games between elves and halflings attract a very particular sort of crowd. I won’t make ugly demographic assumptions, but let’s just say I see a lot of fake elf ears and a lot of bloodied halfling dolls up there. Whatever personal demons they’re exorcising through watching beautiful people murder little fat losersâ€"well, those demons apparently haven’t caught enough hell today. The lack of dead halflings has triggered what in technical Blood Bowl terms is called a “riot.” By the time the ref gets our teams back on and hands us the ball to kick off, a chunk of the latter half of the game has been lost to crowd control.

Ready to go. Pervince kicks offâ€"ball ends up in elven thrower hands, which is the absolute worst place in the world for it to be. He builds the pain train in no time flat while my boys make a game effort to get the ball, but he’s pulled his thrower too far back–we can’t even reach him in time. Normally that’d be a good thingâ€"who wants the ball to be close to your side? Only thing is…these are elves. And I can’t cover them all.

The ball travels three quarters of the pitch in a couple hot seconds. Fake elves in the stands cheer their blackened little hearts out.

2-1.

Their turn to kick off, and they drop the ball just inside the line and to my far rightâ€"and through what I’m presuming is the coincidence of the century, Halfred’s hands happen to be out and open and catch it. He books for the treemen, who had already started kicking elves before they knew it was exactly what I needed from them. All across the field, halflings are racing to get a Lunchbox together. All across the field, elves are racing to steal my lunch. We both sort of win. My halflings surround Halfred, and one of his elves boots his way up with an eye on ruining Halfred’s day.

I wish I could have seen Pervince’s face. I think I could have revolutionized the field of halfling psychology if I’d just got a glimpse of the flash of hormones that precede what happenedâ€"Pervince jumping the elf from the back, legs-up, spikes-out, and knocking the stunned elf to the ground. It looks physically impossible. It probably is, but my team doesn’t have the wit or inclination to solve that riddle right now. My treeman dives for the now-clear Halfred, winds up, lets him tumble…

He lands it.

He runs.

He scores.

2-2.

Our turn to kick off. Pervince punts and it skips over the line and into their hands. The coach is not kidding around now: he knows just how to play it, and that’s to go with his natural inclination. Elven glory, halflings gory.

There’s a few technical actions that push my halflings backâ€"or rip them apartâ€"and by the time my halflings are getting up or running around the violence he’s got his thrower where I can’t reach him and a network of catching elves spread out where I don’t want them. I shoot a look at the vendorsâ€"they’re packing up stands, throwing out leftovers, drinking up half-empties. This match is a kiss from over. If I can just keep stalling for–

Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass.

3-2.

The crowd is blowing out their throats and waving bloody halfling banners like this game is a sacrifice to some pie-hating god. There’s barely a breath of time left in the game. A little more than I would need for one halfling to painfully leg the ball down an empty field.

We were going to lose.

I catch one break. I don’t know if it’s elven arrogance, the assumption I got lucky, or the educated guess that I’m screwed, but he punts the ball almost right to Halfred again. It’s a routine massacre. My Lunchbox formsâ€"the usual elf blitz punches throughâ€"I manage to push the attackers backâ€"I bite my fingernails–my treeman leans down and throws…

Halfred flies. Halfred lands.

About five feet away.

Shit.

Halfred opens his eyes to find he’s on the exact other side of the wall of elven and halfling misery he’d just created. The other side of the pitch is very far away indeed. He has no friends out here and a couple of elves with nothing to do but stop him, plus every elf from the line who can run faster than he canâ€"which is everyone.

He starts running and makes it about two thirds of the pitch with two wardancers and a thrower poised to sack him. Pervince breaks from the mob with a war cry and legs as far as he can to cover one of his wardancers guarding the end zoneâ€"challenging her, or trying to block her, I don’t know. She’s not even the closest wardancer to Halfred. That would be the one who, with the help of a thrower, has now run Halfred right up along the sidelinesâ€"and kicked him straight over them.

Elf-supporters break from the stadium. Halfred, dazed, looks up through the eye holes of his helmet to see a hundred fake elf ears and unrealized fantasies bearing down on him like a meteor before everything, all being well, goes black. The ball? Gone.

Thrown back in.

To Pervince Potatoe. Miracle of shitty miracles.

He’s actually within range of the end zone–but barely. The wardancer looks down and sees he’s got the ball clutched in his little halfling hands with about four seconds left to scoreâ€"she sends a kick screaming at him, and he yelps and barrels under her leg and plunges up the field, running scared, running off-balance. He’s going to fall over. He has an excellent chance of falling over.

He doesn’t.

3-3.

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