The Great Betrayal by Nick Kyme Page A

of spilled oil and the moth-eaten rag still attached to it adding to its flammability.
    Snorri didn’t hesitate – his grip was already failing – and hurled the firebrand into the expanding pool of oil. It went up with a loud, incendiary whoosh , throwing back the rats clustered around it. Clutching their eyes, they squealed and recoiled, opening a path to the stairway.
    Once he was sure his cousin was behind him, Morgrim was running. He didn’t bother to pull his hammer, and even threw his shield into the furred ranks of the rats to buy some precious time to flee. Snorri outstripped him for pace, his armour lighter and more finely crafted, and he reached the stairway ahead of Morgrim.
    ‘Down!’ shouted Snorri.
    Still running, Morgrim replied, ‘What if the way isn’t clear?’
    ‘Then we’re both dead. Come on!’
    The dwarfs plunged headlong down the stone steps, heedless of the way ahead, the way behind bracketed by flames. As swiftly as it had caught light, the lantern oil burned away and went from a bonfire to a flicker in moments.
    The rats were quick to pursue.
    Halfway down the stairs, which were broad and long, Snorri pointed with his maimed hand. Even in the semi-darkness, Morgrim could see he had lost one and a half fingers to the rat bite.
    ‘A door, cousin!’
    It was wood, probably wutroth to have endured all the years intact and bereft of worm-rot. Iron-banded, studs in the metal that ran in thick strips down its length, it looked stout. Robust enough to hold back a swarm of giant rats, even rats that wore armour and carried blades.
    Snorri slammed against it, grunting again; the door was as formidable as the dwarfs had hoped. Morgrim helped him push it open, on reluctant, grinding hinges.
    The rats were but a few paces away when the dwarfs squeezed through the narrow gap they had made and shut the door from the other side.
    ‘Hold it!’ snapped Snorri, and Morgrim braced the door with his shoulder as the rats crashed against it. He could hear their scratching, the enraged squeals and the squeaks of annoyance that could not have been a language, for rats do not converse with one another. Frantic thudding from the other side of the door made him a little anxious, especially as he couldn’t see Snorri any more.
    ‘Cousin, if you’ve left me here to brace this door alone, I swear to Grimnir I’ll–’
    Carrying a broad wooden brace, Snorri slammed it down onto the iron clasps on either side of the doorway.
    ‘You’ll what?’ he asked, catching his breath and wiping sweat from his glistening forehead.
    Off to seek easier pickings elsewhere, the din from the rats was receding.
    Snorri smiled in the face of his cousin’s thunderous expression.
    After a few moments, Morgrim smiled too and the pair of them were laughing raucously, huge hearty belly laughs that carried far into the underdeep.
    ‘ Shhh! We will rouse an army of grobi, cousin…’ Morgrim was wiping the tears from his eyes as his composure slowly returned.
    ‘Then we’ll fight them too! Ha! Aye, you’re probably right.’ Snorri sniggered, the last dregs of merriment leaving him. Wincing, he looked down at his hand and became abruptly sober. ‘Bloody vermin.’
    ‘I have never seen the like,’ Morgrim confessed. He pulled a kerchief from a pouch upon his belt.
    Snorri frowned at it. ‘What’s that for, dabbing your nose when you get a bit of soot on it? Are you turning into an ufdi ?’
    Morgrim’s already ruddy cheeks reddened further. ‘’Tis a cloth,’ he protested, ‘for cleaning weapons.’
    ‘Of course it is,’ Snorri muttered as his cousin proceeded to wrap it around his bleeding hand. His smirk became a grimace as Morgrim tied the cloth a little tighter than necessary.
    ‘For now, it will suffice as a bandage,’ he said. He looked at the dark stain that was already blossoming red all over the kerchief. ‘It’s a savage bite.’
    ‘Aye,’ Snorri agreed ruefully, ‘I’ve half a mind go back in there