The Great Betrayal by Nick Kyme

with his hammer. ‘There are too many. And big, much bigger than any rat I’ve ever seen.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ Snorri chided. ‘They are just rats, cousin. Vermin do not rule the underway, we dawi are its kings and masters.’
    Despite his bullishness, the prince of Karaz-a-Karak was breathing hard. Sweat lapped his brow, and shone like pearls on his beard.
    ‘We must go back, get to the tunnel,’ said Morgrim. ‘Fight them one at a time.’ He was making for the cavern entrance from whence the dwarfs had first come, but it was thronged with the creatures. A mass of furry bodies stood between them and the relative safety of the tunnel.
    ‘We can kill them, Morgrim. They’re only rats.’
    But they were not, not really, and Snorri knew it even if he would not admit this to his cousin. Something flashed in the half-light from the slowly fading lantern that looked like a hook or cleaver, possibly a knife. It could not have been armour, nor the studs on a leather jerkin – rats did not wear armour, or carry weapons. But they were hunched, broad shouldered in some instances, and some went on two legs, not four. Did one have a beard?
    ‘The way back is barred, we must go forwards,’ said Morgrim, the urgency in his tone revealing just how dire he thought the situation to be.
    Reluctantly, Snorri nodded.
    The two dwarfs were back to back, almost encircled by rats. Eyes like wet rubies flashed hungrily. The stink of wet fur and charnel breath washed over them in a thick fug. Chittering and squeaking wore at the nerves like a blunt blade working to sever a rope.
    ‘Remember Thurbad’s lessons?’ Snorri asked. A slash to his cheek made him grimace but he cut down the rat who did it. ‘Little bastard, that was a knife!’
    Morgrim’s voice suggested he was in no mood for an exam.
    ‘Which one, cousin? There are many.’ He kept the rats at bay with his shield, thrusting it against the press of furred bodies trying to overwhelm him. His hammer was slick with gore and he had to concentrate to maintain his grip, thankful for the leather-bound haft.
    ‘Choose your battlefield wisely.’
    ‘Our current situation would suggest we did not listen very well to that particular lesson, cousin.’
    Snorri grunted as he killed another rat. Dwarfs were strong, especially those that descended from the bloodline of kings, but even the prince’s fortitude was waning.
    ‘We can’t fight a horde like this in the open,’ he said, swiping up a piece of broken wood with his off hand.
    Morgrim was trying not to get his face bitten off when he said, ‘And you could not have thought of this before we were surrounded?’
    ‘Now is hardly time for recriminations, cousin. Do you have any more oil for that lantern?’ he asked, preventing any reply from Morgrim who didn’t bother to hide his exasperation.
    ‘A flask.’
    ‘Smash it.’
    ‘What?’
    Each reply was bookended by grunts and squeaks, the swing and thud of metal.
    ‘Smash it, cousin. There.’ Snorri pointed. ‘Next to the stairway.’
    ‘What stairway? I can see no–’
    ‘Are you blind, cousin? There, to your left.’
    Morgrim saw it, a set of stone steps leading further into darkness. The prospect was not an inviting one.
    Snorri was still pointing with the piece of wood. ‘We can – arrrggh! ’
    Morgrim dared not turn, but the sound of his cousin’s pain made him desperately want to.
    ‘Snorri?!’
    ‘ Thagging rat bit off my fingers… Throw the chuffing flask, Morgrim!’
    It was risky to stow his hammer, but Morgrim did so to take the flask of oil from his belt and toss it. The heavy flask sloshed as it arced over the bobbing rat heads and smashed behind them in a scattering of oil and clay fragments.
    Despite his wounding, Snorri still clutched the piece of wood in his maimed hand and thrust it into the dying embers of the lantern fire the dwarfs had rallied next to. Dried out from the many centuries down in the abandoned hall, it flared quickly, a spattering