‘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 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,’
