"I'm just tired, sir," said Arthur. "Very tired."
He was so tired that he wasn't entirely sure that he'd actually said anything aloud. And he was also confused about where he was and what he was doing. Surely if he was meant to be going anywhere, it was school. School with Leaf and Ed.
Arthur shook his head. What was this school he could see in his mind's eye? Who were Leaf and Ed, and why were they looking down at him with the blue sky behind them?
"Have you shown these two the Horde method of carrying wounded, Troop Sergeant?" asked Jarrow.
"No, sir!" snapped Terzok. He looked at Arthur. "Should I sling him up, Troop Lieutenant?"
"Yes, do," said Jarrow.
Three Not-Horses had been readied for the ride ahead and were standing patiently outside the stable door. Terzok took what appeared to be a large canvas bag with leather straps and steel buckles from behind the stable door and hung it between two of the Not-Horses. Muttering something to them quietly, he buckled one side of the sack to the left-most Not-Horse's saddle, and the other to the Not-Horse in the middle. Thus strung, it made a kind of hammock between the two mounts.
"This here's a double-ride sack," said Terzok. "Not-Horses are able to perfectly match each other's stride, unlike other mounts. But the double-ride sack's only to be used when ordered, because the mounts can't gallop with it fixed."
Arthur stared at the sack between the two Not-Horses. He was so tired it took a few seconds for him to understand that it was for him.
"How do you get in?" asked Fred.
"If you're fit enough to climb in, then you should be riding," said Terzok. "If you're not –"
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?"
"What do we do if we're separated from you, sir?" asked Arthur.
"Give the Not-Horses their heads," replied Jarrow. "They'll find the nearest friendly force. But so you know, we're headed today for tile two hundred and sixty eight/four hundred and fifty seven. It's scheduled to move at dusk to a position only ten miles from the Citadel. We're currently on tile two hundred and sixty five/four hundred and fifty nine. We're going to go east for three miles and then south two miles. The tiles east are bare hills, grassy steppe, and jungle with clearings; go south from the jungle and you get a ruined city and then lake and marsh, which is the tile we want. We'll have to be extra vigilant in the jungle, the ruined city, and the marsh. Easy to be surprised in all three, and hard to ride away. We'll take another thirty minutes" rest and then ride. I'll stand watch on the rise there. Keep the harness on our mounts, but you should give them a rubdown. Don't want them to rust."
Arthur and Fred obediently got wire brushes, cleaning cloths, and bottles of solvent from their saddlebags and began to work on the knee joints and other areas where the Not-Horses were prone to rust. The creatures nickered and whinnied slightly, enjoying the attention, and Arthur found himself warming to them. Out here in the field, with the sunlight dimming their red eyes, they seemed altogether different from the cold, ruby-orbed beasts of the dark stables.