He wasn’t that troubled, though. His forces were in the corner of their current tile, and a quick sprint in any one of two directions would get them on tiles that were moving to fairly safe areas.
‘Something strange about that column,’ muttered the sergeant. ‘Looks like they’re transporting something. They’ve got a whole chain of Not-Horses.’
Corbie raised his perspective glass. Not-Horses were valuable livestock, creatures that had been copied from Earth horses and then half-bred and half-manufactured in the Pit by Grim Tuesday. Since Grim Tuesday’s fall, there had been no new supplies of Not-Horses, much to the annoyance of the Moderately Honourable Artillery Company and the Horde.
But down below, the Nithlings had more than two hundred Not-Horses harnessed up to a giant twenty-wheeled wagon that was at least sixty feet long. On the wagon was … Corbie lowered his glass, rubbed his eye again, and took another look.
‘What is it?’ asked the sergeant.
‘It looks like a giant spike,’ said Corbie. ‘A sixty-foot-long spike made out of something very strange. It’s dark, and it doesn’t reflect light at all. It must be some kind of –’
‘Nothing?’
‘Yes, I think so. Sorcerously fixed Nothing. But why transport it into the Maze? What would be the point, since they’re never going to know where it will end up –’
Corbie stopped talking, put the telescope on a rock, and quickly opened his Ephemeris, flicking through the pages till he found the appropriate table, cross-indexing the day with the tile the Nithling Not-Horse train was on.
‘That tile moves right to the centre of the Maze tonight,’ said Corbie. ‘Grid five hundred/five hundred.’
‘There’s nothing special there,’ commented the sergeant.
‘Not that we know of. But I’ve heard mention of a famous problem they set at Staff College called ‘The Five Hundred/Five Hundred’ … the Nithlings must know where that tile is going. And they must have known where all the other tiles have been going, to get that thing this far.’
‘But they couldn’t get hold of an Ephemeris without it exploding,’ said the sergeant. ‘Could they?’
‘We never thought they could be organised either,’ said Corbie. ‘But they are, and they’re being led by someone who knows the business. Here, take this and see if you can see anything else.’
He handed the perspective glass to the sergeant and took out a small ivory stand and a lead soldier from the pocket of his quiver. The figure was of a colonel in the Regiment, all scarlet and gold. As Corbie put the model colonel in position on the stand, its colours grew brighter and lines sharper and then it was like a tiny living version of the real officer, far away at GHQ.
‘Colonel Repton!’
‘Hello, Corbie! Another informal report?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll be reporting to Captain Ferouk, but it’ll take time for this news to get from him through channels, so I thought you’d better hear this and try to get it to Sir Thursday directly –’
The little model colonel grimaced when he heard this but nodded for Corbie to continue.
‘We’ve spotted a major Nithling column at tile seventy two/eight hundred and ninety nine, which is escorting an enormous wagon drawn by over a hundred Not-Horses. On the wagon is a sixty-foot-long, ten-foot diameter object pointed at one end that appears to be made from Nothing, though its shape is consistent. I can only describe it as a giant spike, sir. The thing is, that tile will move at sundown to tile five hundred/five hundred, and I –’
‘Did you say tile five hundred/five hundred?’ Colonel Repton sounded alarmed. ‘Would you describe the spike as obviously sorcerous?’
‘Yes, sir!’
The figurine visibly paled.
‘I must inform Sir Thursday at once! Wish me luck, Corbie!’
The figure stiffened and was once more merely lead.
‘Better wish ourselves luck,’ said the sergeant, handing the glass back to Corbie and picking up his bow. ‘There are another three squads moving out towards us. They’re definitely going to attack.’
Fourteen
‘ I THINK I just remembered something,’ said Fred. ‘About my old job. I remember separating the flakes of gold!’
‘That’s good,’ said his friend Ray Green. ‘I still don’t remember much. I dream about it, though, and it’s on the edge of my mind as I wake up. Then I open my eyes and it’s gone.’
‘It’ll come back,’ said Fred. ‘It usually does eventually. Most of it.’
Ray frowned. ‘The thing is, I have this feeling that I need to remember quickly. That there’s something really important I have to do.’