Then Arthur rounded the corner and he saw two things. The first was a door, as he’d hoped. The second was a group of Fetchers who were sitting or lying in the snow in front of the door, very like a pack of dogs waiting for dinner to be brought out. There were eight of them, and as Arthur stopped, they all leaped to their feet, jowls wobbling, fierce eyes fixed upon him.
Arthur didn’t hesitate. He lunged at the closest Fetcher, even as the others bounded forward. The rapier barely touched it, but the Nithling dissolved into a waft of black smoke and Arthur swung his weapon viciously to the right, the blade sweeping through another two Fetchers as if they were no more solid than the smoke they turned into at the merest touch of the Key. Arthur stamped his foot and advanced on the remaining Nithlings, who growled and circled around to try to get behind him, all of them now intensely wary of his sword. Arthur foiled that by charging up to the wall. Swivelling to place his back against the bricks, he made small thrusts at the Fetchers as they feinted attacks, none of them daring to follow through with a real assault.
Then the biggest, ugliest Fetcher with the least-dented bowler hat spoke, in a voice that was half-growl, half-bark, but clear enough.
‘Tell the pack, tell the boss.’
A smaller Fetcher turned and darted away, even as Arthur dashed forward and slashed at it and the leader. The small Fetcher was too fast, but the leader paid for its inability to speak and move at the same time, the point of the rapier tearing through the sleeve of its black coat before making coat, hat, and Fetcher disappear in a puff of oily black vapour.
The three remaining Fetchers whimpered and backed away. Arthur let them go, since he hadn’t caught the small one anyway. The trio retreated facing him for twenty or thirty yards, then spun about and ran, disappearing into the blur of snow.
A sharp, metallic noise behind and to the left made Arthur himself spin about. The noise came from the door and for a moment he thought it was some weapon being readied behind it. Then he saw there was a metal-lined mail slot in the middle of the door, and the cover of it was flapping.
Arthur pushed the cover open again with the point of his rapier and tried to look inside without getting too close. He was rewarded by the sight of someone recoiling back from the other side, and some muffled sounds that were probably swearing.
‘Open up!’ commanded Arthur.
Four
LEAF FELT HER stomach do a weird flip-flop as she opened her eyes. The line of sleepers still marched on, wandering along a wide corridor roughly hewn out of a dull pink stone, lit every few yards by dragon-headed gas jets of tarnished bronze that spat out long blue flames across the slightly curved ceiling. Leaf tried to keep her place in the line of sleepers, but as she took a step she almost lost her balance, her arms windmilling in a most wide-awake fashion.
For several seconds Leaf staggered forward, trying to regain her balance and act asleep at the same time. It took her several more steps to realise that it wasn’t some sort of inner ear problem. Experimenting, she pushed off a little harder – harder than she intended, overcompensating for her bed-weakened legs. She shot up several feet and almost collided with one of the gas jets in the ceiling, even though it was at least nine feet from the floor. Avoiding the flame, she pushed the sleeper ahead of her.
While this confirmed her hypothesis that she was somewhere with lower gravity than Earth, it unfortunately also attracted the attention of the Denizen guards behind her. Two of the final four guards rushed at her, while the others continued on with the few sleepers who were at the end of the line behind her.
Leaf didn’t have time to do more than stand up and look back before the duo gripped her arms and hauled her out of the line to stand on one side of the passage. She let her arms go slack, shut her eyes, and let her head hang, as if she had gone back to sleep, but the Denizens weren’t fooled this time.
‘She’s awake,’ said one. Though she was dressed in the same grey business suit and trench coat as all the others, Leaf could tell from her voice that she was female.
‘Maybe,’ said the other, male Denizen. ‘What do we do with her if she is?’
‘Look it up. Have you got a copy of Orders and Procedures?’
‘I was working on the binding last night and I put it under a rock to press it, and then I forgot which rock it was under. Can I borrow yours?’
‘I’ve been gilding the initial capitals,’ answered the female Denizen. ‘It’s on my worktable.’
‘I suppose we could ask Her …’ Leaf couldn’t help but shiver; from the way the Denizen said ‘Her,’ it was clear he was talking about Lady Friday.