He picked Arthur up under his arm, walked to the front of the horses, and shoved him in the open end of the sack, armour, weapons, and all.
‘If the soldier being carried is very badly hurt, you do up these laces here,’ instructed Terzok.
‘But I don’t want to be –’ Arthur started to say.
‘Silence!’ snapped Terzok. ‘You have been ordered to ride in the sack! Now go to sleep!’
Arthur shut up and wriggled around so the hilt of his lightning tulwar wasn’t sticking in his hip quite so much, and reached down to untuck a fold of his mail hauberk that was bunched up on his thighs.
Then, because a sergeant had ordered him to, he shut his eyes and fell asleep.
It was not a deep sleep at first. Through slitted eyes, Arthur was dimly aware of activity around him, as Troop Lieutenant Jarrow checked over the Not-Horse’s harness. Then the sack he was in began to jiggle up and down and the steel claws of the Not-Horses’ toes struck sparks on the flagstones outside the stable for a moment, before becoming muffled as they walked onto the dusty bare earth. The jiggling increased as they broke into a trot, then became a kind of swaying roll as the two Not-Horses carrying the sack changed pace into a perfectly matched canter.
As the Not-Horses continued to head out of the fort at a steady pace, Arthur sank into a deeper sleep and began to dream.
He was standing in a vast, marble-lined room, surrounded on all sides by incredibly tall Denizens, each easily twelve feet tall, measured by their relationship to the piles of weapons, armour, and Nithling bodies beneath them. Yet despite their height, Arthur was taller still, looking down on them from a position of lofty eminence. He was looking at a ring on his finger, a crocodile ring that was slowly turning from silver to gold. Only the last portion of it remained silver, and as he stared, it too turned to gold. The tall Denizens began to applaud and Arthur felt himself grow taller still, until he was suddenly no longer in the marble-lined room but was a giant standing above a green field that a little voice in his mind said was the school oval. Children were running around his feet, pursued by dog-faced creatures that he somehow knew were called Fetchers. Then he was suddenly child-sized himself, and the Fetchers were twice his size, pinching and grabbing him. One tore the pocket from his school shirt and took the book that had been in it.
‘Got you!’ said a horrific, rasping voice.
Arthur shrieked and woke up, threshing about in the grasp of something leathery and horrible. A vicious creature had taken The Compleat Atlas of the House!
That’s it. The Compleat Atlas of the House. I had The Compleat Atlas of the House. My name is Arthur Penhaligon. I am the Rightful Heir.
Arthur tried to hold that thought, but it slipped away. He gave up on it, opened his eyes, and looked around. He was still in the double-ride sack, but the Not-Horses were standing still. The sun was coming up, a thin sliver of its rosy disk showing above the ochre-red hills to the east. Stunted trees with pale trunks and yellow triangular leaves were dotted around, too sparse to be called a forest.
Fred was standing in front of Arthur, massaging the insides of his thighs and muttering something about the iniquities of Not-Horses. Troop Lieutenant Jarrow was sitting on a nearby stone, consulting his Ephemeris.
It was very quiet, the only sound the whirring breath of the Not-Horses and the occasional tap of their toes on a loose stone as they shifted their weight.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Arthur sleepily. He pushed his arms out the top of the sack and pulled himself part of the way out. He would have fallen the rest of the way if Fred hadn’t caught him and restored his balance just long enough for both of them to collapse under limited control.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Fred indignantly. ‘You get to snore your way across half a dozen tiles, while I wear the skin off my thighs and bruise my tailbone – that’s what’s happening.’
‘That’s what has happened,’ corrected Arthur with a smile. ‘What’s happening now?’
‘We’ve stopped for a rest,’ said Fred. He tipped his head towards Troop Lieutenant Jarrow. ‘That’s all I know.’
Jarrow closed his Ephemeris and walked over. Arthur and Fred scrambled to their feet, stood at attention, and saluted.
‘No need for that – we’re in the field,’ said Jarrow. ‘Are you fully rested, Green?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Arthur.
‘Good,’ said Jarrow. ‘We have a fair way to ride, and there is a strong possibility we may have to run from New Nithling forces.’
‘New Nithlings, sir?’ asked Arthur.
‘That’s what we’re calling them now,’ said Jarrow. ‘We’ll avoid them wherever possible. Just stay close to me and stay on your mounts, and we’ll outrun them. They haven’t got any cavalry.’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘Or at least we haven’t seen any yet. Any questions?’