The Great Betrayal by Nick Kyme Page B

saw only darkness. ‘How far have we walked?’ Taking off a leather gauntlet, he ran his hand along the wall of the tunnel and then licked his fingers. ‘Tastes familiar.’
    ‘Zaki,’ said Snorri, using the Khazalid word for ‘mad wandering dwarf’. During the long walk in the dark, his mood had improved and the dour silence between them ebbed until all was well again. Destiny, his to be specific, was still on the dwarf prince’s mind, however. ‘You are probably right, cousin. The old fool was likely senile.’ He tilted his head, thinking. ‘Then again, the words of a runelord are not easily ignored. Are we still lost?’
    Pain flared in Snorri’s jaw. He grimaced, staggered by a sudden blow. Glaring at his cousin, he asked, ‘What was that for?’
    Morgrim was big, even for a dwarf. His father was bulky too, from a lifetime spent in the mines. Broad of shoulder, stout of chest and back, he had a chin like an anvil and a head like a mattock. Snorri was leaner, though still muscled, and surrendered half a foot in height to his cousin. Bare-knuckled, strength for strength he would not prevail against him.
    ‘It was either that or I hit you with the hammer,’ said Morgrim.
    ‘I’m just glad you didn’t butt me with that bloody helmet of yours.’ Snorri rubbed at his chin, wincing at the slowly swelling bruise. ‘Take my bleeding eye out with one of those horns. Big buggers. What was it, a stag?’
    ‘Beastman. Much larger than a stag, cousin.’ Morgrim smacked his fist into his palm. ‘Are you done talking about destiny, or do you need some more sense knocking into you?’
    Snorri held up his half-hand; the bandage was dark crimson but the wound had clotted. He slowly nodded.
    ‘Me one-handed, weakened from blood loss and being almost buried alive... Reckon you’d have a decent chance of beating me.’
    ‘Aye,’ said Morgrim, unconvinced it would be any sort of contest, and slapped his hand against the wall. ‘See this?’
    Snorri did.
    ‘I know what stone is, cousin.’
    Morgrim glowered at him. ‘Use your eyes, wattock . I know this place. We are no longer lost.’
    Snorri frowned, and regarded their surroundings.
    ‘How can that be? We’ve not long been…’ His voice tailed off, claimed by the darkness which was lessening by the second. Ahead, the crackle of brazier fire resolved on a breeze redolent of shallow earth and the upper world.
    A dwarf’s nose can discern much in the subterranean depths. He can tell the difference between the deep earth where he makes his hold, that which harbours veins of gold or precious minerals, and shallow earth, the loamy soil best for crops and farming. Unless he is one of the skarrenawi , those who ‘live under sky’, a dwarf has no interest in such things, but he knows earth and can tell it apart.
    Other smells, carried by the breeze, drifted into being. There was grass, leaf, stone dried by the sun, the scent of animals and warm water.
    Morgrim nodded as he saw the recognition in his cousin’s expression. ‘It’s the Rorganzbar .’
    ‘Cannot be,’ said Snorri. No matter how hard he stared at the way they had come, he couldn’t find the doorway through which they had entered the tunnel. ‘We were far from the northern gate.’
    ‘During the fight, we could have got turned around?’
    Snorri raised an eyebrow, dubiously. ‘And ended up over fifty miles in the wrong direction? Are you sure that helmet of yours didn’t take a heavier hit when the cave collapsed? Perhaps you hurt your fist on my jaw and the pain of it has addled your mind?’
    ‘How else would you explain it?’
    Taking a last glance at the darkness behind them and the firelit shadows now glowing ahead, Snorri said, ‘I cannot.’
    The Rorganzbar was the name of the northern gates that fed into the upper world from the Ungdrin Ankor. Such passageways were falling out of use, for dwarfs had little need for what lived above ground, but they were fashioned anyway during times