Sir Thursday (The Keys to the Kingdom 4)

'No, Troop Sergeant!'

'Right, then. I will now demonstrate the correct means of approaching a Not-Horse to fit a bit and bridle. Watch closely.'

Arthur watched closely as Terzok demonstrated how to get the harness on a Not-Horse. It looked straight forward, provided the Not-Horse cooperated, but was not quite so easy when Arthur got to do it himself. Getting up into the saddle and actually riding the Not-Horse also proved to be more difficult than he'd thought.

Six hours after the lesson began, in the cold, dark early time before the dawn, Terzok pronounced Arthur and Fred as capable as they were going to get in the time available. Which was not capable at all, but he hoped they would stay on long enough to learn from experience. Before they left, he whispered in the ears of the two Not-Horses chosen to carry them.

By this stage, Arthur in particular was so tired that he didn't care if he was tied across the saddle like a blanket. He just wanted to rest and not have to listen to – or watch – Troop Sergeant Terzok and his mustache ever again. He'd thought he was used to being exhausted and had got much better at staving off the swimming vision and loss of coordination. But now even the proximity of a sergeant couldn't stop him from swaying on his feet.

But he wasn't allowed to go to sleep. Another unknown lieutenant, this one unwounded and wearing Horde armour, arrived as the lesson concluded and announced that he would be leading them to GHQ.

'I'm Troop Lieutenant Jarrow,' he said. 'Seconded from the Horde to Fort Transformation. We'll be riding out in fifteen minutes, after I've checked your weapons, equipment, harness, and mounts. Which of you is Gold and which Green?'

'I'm Priv … Trooper Gold,' said Fred.

Arthur mumbled something that sounded like it might be 'Green'. Jarrow frowned and stepped closer to him.

'I know there's a medical advice about you, Green,' he said. 'But the file's gone missing. Are you fit enough to travel?'

'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.

'I wonder why they want us at GHQ,' said Fred. 'Troop Lieutenant Jarrow said the order came from Sir Thursday himself.'

'He probably found out I was here as a Piper's child,' said Arthur, without conscious thought.

'What?' Fred looked under his Not-Horse's belly to stare up at Arthur.

'He probably found out I was here as a Piper's child,' repeated Arthur slowly. His words had the ring of truth, but he didn't know what they meant. He just couldn't remember …

Before he could think any further, Jarrow came scrambling down the slight slope.

'Mount up!' he called softly, cupping his mouth with his hands, so his voice did not travel. 'New Nithlings!'

Nineteen

AT HER CURRENT speed of over 180 miles per hour, Suzy was only nine hundred feet and four seconds away from the door when one of the Nithlings finally spotted her. It shrieked, surprising its comrade, who crashed into the helicopter it was playing chicken with. The Nithling, invisible to the pilot, smashed through the canopy and caused enormous damage as it thrashed around the cockpit while trying to get out again. In the process it accidentally killed both pilots. The attack helicopter reared up on its tail, hung there for an instant, then plunged down into the parking lot and exploded, showering the hospital front, the surrounding soldiers, and FBA agents with burning debris.

Suzy spread her wings at eight hundred feet, the shock of their opening momentarily blacking her out. Too effective, the wings brought her to a hover within a second, still a few hundred feet above the Front Door, with two Nithlings flapping up towards her as fast as they could manage.

Suzy dove down again, straight at the Nithlings as if she were going to attack. They stopped to receive her assault, raising their tridents, but at the last second Suzy dipped one wing, slid sideways and down through the air, and landed on one foot on the hospital roof. The Front Door was right in front of her, but with the Nithlings now diving after her, Suzy didn't think there was time to knock.

She angled towards the Front Door, shut her eyes – and went straight through it.

Expecting an impact, Suzy wrapped her arms around her head. But after a few seconds of not hitting anything, she cautiously opened her eyes and lowered her hands.

She was floating, or possibly falling, in total darkness. Her wings weren't moving, but she had a sensation of movement in her inner ear. She couldn't see a thing, not even when she frantically craned her neck around to see if she could catch sight of the Front Door she'd just come through.

'Uh-oh,' she whispered. Not having used the Front Door before, she'd thought that she would just come out the other side on Doorstop Hill. Evidently it was not as simple as that.

Suzy thought about her situation for a moment, then whispered, 'Wings, shed light.'

She was relieved both to be able to hear herself and, a little later, to see herself, as the wings slowly began to glow, casting a pearly nimbus of light all around her.

Even with the light, there was still nothing else to see.

Suzy looked up, down, and all around, hoping for some indication that there was somewhere … or even something … else in this strange absence.

Seeing nothing, Suzy experimentally flapped her wings. Again, she felt the sensation of movement, but without any way to get her bearings, she couldn't be sure that anything was happening. For all she could tell, she might be stuck like a fly in jam, flapping her wings and getting nowhere.

Suzy shrugged, chose a direction at random, and started flapping her wings in earnest. A considerable time later – perhaps hours – Suzy started to wonder if she had managed to get herself seriously lost somewhere inside the Front Door, or some area in between the House and the Door that wasn't Nothing but wasn't much of anything else either.