The voice carried like a foghorn, if foghorns usually emanated from a place just beneath your codpiece.

"OOLLLLLLLRIGHT! LISSSTEN UP, LADIES, BECAUSE I DON'T AIN'T GOT MUCH TIME FOR THIS AND IF YOU DON'T PAY ATTENTION I WON'T AIN'T DON'T GOT NO TIME FOR YOU IN MY TEAM EITHER I AM EDWYRD KETTLEBELLY, YES, THAT'S OF THE LEGENDARY CLAN KETTLEBELLY and I am here to whip you into...whip you into…"

Edwyrd stopped walking. His lips continued to move for some time, intent on finishing their speech just as they'd previously arranged.

Just ahead of him, on the swampiest and most battered pitch of the green, the Orctown Oldboyz, deaf to his entrance, continued to beat the living snot out of each other.

A big red thing with a gaping mouth of glinting white teeth bounced joyously back and forth through the melee, savaging shoelaces and dribbling something that smoked and sparked. Two of the team's blitzers, tusked and leathery, were laying merrily into the prone thrower with their hobnailed boots. A much larger, shambling green-skinned monster was attempting with some amount of success to eat the ball.

Edwyrd gazed at it ruefully. He was pretty sure it was a troll. And he was supposed to slay trolls, technically speaking. He just wasn't quite sure how you were supposed to go about it.

Slowly, he removed the scrumpled-up note from beneath his chainmail vest and stared at it, to check he hadn't got the time or the date wrong.

Old Ghoul's Green, Playing Field Nineteen, Midday. Team will be there. Put them through their paces! Leopold Bruckheimer

Nowhere did his new boss's memo mention orcs. Or trolls. Or the big red indeterminate thing, which had now stolen a player's helmet and was using it to hit another player vigorously in the groin.

Edwyrd turned and gazed back over the other playing fields, where the distant teams were busy practicing passes, throwing the ball back and forth, tackling, and running. Blood Bowl practice, in short.

It was obvious now what must have happened. These greenskin hooligans had seized Playing Field Nineteen - his team's playing field - for themselves, and his new comrades had simply moved to another pitch. He'd go and join up with them now, and they'd have a good laugh about this silly, minor misunderstanding.

Yes, that was probably it.

He was just turning to go when a voice said, some distance above his shoulder,

"Come to watch the fun, have you? You've picked the right time for it. Dok McKlowd over there's been testing out a new fungus-beer-powered jetpack and I think today's going to be the day it finally explodes."

Edwyrd found himself staring up into the grinning face of a madman; a wiry, ash-stained face, filled with spiky red hair that protruded from every possible angle and out of every possible orifice. A pipe, precariously clutched between the creature's few black teeth, smoked and billowed softly.

The apparition nodded at him, and, tucking its faded crimson robes around it, sat down cross-legged on the wet grass and began to watch.

After a moment, it produced a bagful of McMurty's Famed Potato Segments and began to munch on them.

"Um," Edwyrd said. "Um."

His fellow spectator glanced back around at him, made a sympathetic noise, and offered him a crisp.

"No," Edwyrd said. "No, thank you. Look, I'm supposed to be coaching a team on this pitch, so I really must insist that…'

The human's thick ginger eyebrows creased suspiciously.

"Coach?" he asked.

Edwyrd felt a little relieved.

"Yes!" he said. "Yes, exactly! So I really must insist that, uh, your...players…"

"Bruckheimer send you?"

Edwyrd's heart sank into his boots.

"...he did," he managed, weakly.

The human's face split into a grin; the pipe lurched downwards, spilling red ash, as he extended a hand for Edwyrd to shake.

"Bloody good to see you," he said. "Bloody good. Bruckheim said he might be sending somebody new. We've had a bit of trouble finding anybody, you know. Name's Fourtooth. Bright Wizard. Team apothecary. Pleasure's all mine."

"Edwyrd," said Edwyrd, "and you- listen, are you telling me you're responsible for healing these monsters?"

"Monsters?" Fourtooth repeated, mildly. "Oh, the Oldboyz. Well, it's an easy job, you know. Orcs don't like to admit that they're injured. So I just wait until the end of training and then patch up everyone who's lying out cold on the ground...oh, good hit, Grobb! Good hit!"

He began applauding wildly as an orc went flying up into the air.

Edwyrd stared at him.

"I'd like to speak with them," he said. "Do they...I mean, when do they finish training?"

Fourtooth plucked thoughtfully at his beard.

"Oh," he said, "usually it's when all of them are out cold, bar one. And even then, usually he'll knock himself out with a few punches to the face, out of solidarity. That's probably not much good to you, mind."

"No," Edwyrd said, very carefully. "Probably not."

"Listen," said Fourtooth. "Why don't I call the captain over and the two of you can get introduced? Him and me have had a certain rapport ever since I let him sew my scalpels into his helmet for the Tribal Leegs play-offs."

Edwyrd began,
"I don't think that's a very good-"

The wizard cupped his gnarled, tobacco-stained hands together.

"OI! WAZ!"