It was not merely a cavern ahead of the two dwarfs, where the tunnel met its end. It was large and it was a warren infested with rats.
Snorri could hardly contain his excitement.
‘Are you ready, cousin?’ He brought up his axe level with his chest and clutched it two-handed. There was a spike on the end of it that could be used for thrusting, a useful weapon in a tight corner. For the last mile the dwarfs had been forced to stoop, and the prospect of standing straight was abruptly appealing. At least, it was to Morgrim.
‘As ready as I was when you defied your father’s wishes, slipped your retainers and dragged me along on this rat hunt.’
‘See,’ Snorri explained, inching closer to the cavern entrance, ‘that’s what I like about you, Morgrim. Always so enthusiastic.’
Snorri touched a finger to the talisman around his neck, muttered, ‘Grungni…’ and peered around the edge of the tunnel.
Several large rats were gathered in the middle of a vaulted chamber. It might once have been the old entry hall to Karak Krum. Gnawing frantically at something, chattering to one another in high-pitched squeaks and squeals, the creatures seemed oblivious to the presence of the dwarfs.
‘Are they wearing rags?’ Morgrim was so incredulous he shone the lantern closer.
‘Hsst!’ Snorri hissed, scowling at his cousin. ‘Douse the light!’
Too late, Morgrim shuttered the lantern.
One of the rats looked up from its feast, fragments of calcified bone flaking from its maw as it screeched a warning to its brethren.
As one the others turned, snarling and exposing yellowed fangs dripping hungrily with saliva.
Snorri roared, swinging his axe around in a double-handed arc.
‘Grungni!’
The first rat fell decapitated as it lunged for the dwarf, its head bouncing off the slabbed floor and rolling into a corner. At the chamber’s edges it was dark, so dark the dwarfs could not see much farther than the glow of the lantern.
Snorri cut open a second, splitting it from groin to sternum and spilling its foul innards, before Morgrim crushed a third with his hammer. He battered a fourth with a swing of the lantern, the stink of the rat’s burning fur enough to make him gag as it recoiled and died.
‘Two apiece!’ Snorri was grinning wildly, his perfect white teeth like a row of locked shields in his mouth, framed by a blond beard. The heritage of his ancestors was evident in the sapphire blue of his eyes, his regal bearing and confidence. He was prince of the dwarf realm in every way.
Morgrim was less enthused. He was looking into the shadows at the edge of the chamber. It was definitely the old entry hall to Karak Krum. Mildewed wood from thrones and tables littered the floor and a pair of statues venerating the lord and lady of the hold sat in cobwebbed alcoves against the east and west walls, facing one another. Sconces, denuded of their torches, sat beneath the statues, intended to illuminate them and the chamber. They were all that stood out at the periphery of the hall, except for the glinting rubies now floating in the darkness.
Morgrim cast the lantern into the middle of the chamber where it broke apart and flooded the area around it with firelight. Scattered embers and the slew of ignited oil illuminated a truth that Morgrim was aware of even before he had unhitched his shield.
‘More of them, cousin.’ He backed up, casting his gaze around.
Snorri’s bright eyes flashed eagerly. ‘A lot more.’
The dwarfs were surrounded as a score of rats crawled from the darkness, chittering and squeaking. To Morgrim’s ears it could have been laughter. ‘Are they mocking us?’
Snorri brandished his axe in challenge. ‘Not for long, cousin.’
His next blow cleaved a skull in two, the second caving a chest as the rat reared up at him. Snorri killed a third with a thrown dagger before something leapt onto his back and put him on one knee.
‘Gnhhh… Cousin!’
Morgrim finished one off with a hammer blow to the jaw, and broke its back as it fell mewling. He then kicked ash from the sundered lantern in the snout of another, before using his shield to batter the rat that was clawing and biting at Snorri’s back.
Scurrying and scratching rose above the din of blades and bludgeons hitting flesh, the squeals of dying rats.
‘Bloody vermin,’ Snorri raged, throwing another rat off his arm before it could sink its teeth in.
A score had become two score in a matter of minutes.
Morgrim smashed two rats down with his shield, staved in the head of a third 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
