Doctor Who: Ultimate Treasure (24 page)

And he shouted and begged until finally one of the giants condescended to look down at him from his eminence. 'What a poor little man you are. What's your name?'

And he couldn't remember any more. He was nobody. He was nothing.

A great foot was raised above him and descended, grinding him under its heel.

Arnella was hopelessly entangled in the middle of the thorn bush. The more she struggled, the deeper the thorns bit. Only by staying absolutely still did she make the pain go away, and then the bush supported her in surprising comfort. She called out for help but nobody answered, which made her angry rather than frightened.

After a while she began to feel thirsty, but she could not reach the flask in her pack. Then she saw a bunch of plump grapes hanging from a wild vine that grew through the thorn bush. Why hadn't she noticed it before? The bunch was just by her head and she had only to turn to bite one off. It was delicious and she ate some more, but the bunch did not diminish. The grape juice was like wine, and she began to feel light-headed.

Then came the flapping of many wings.

Dark shapes flitted out of the darkness and settled on the bush. She could not make out their exact forms, only their red eyes alive with hunger. She twisted away from them but the bush held her fast. The creatures closed on her, probing with their tiny sharp fangs, their needle proboscises and leechlike mouths. They fastened to her exposed neck and wrists, or stabbed delicately through her clothing with exquisite pain. They gorged off her lifeblood, but did not suck her quite dry.

After what seemed like hours they departed in another flurry of wings, leaving her weak and trembling, her clothes stained richly with her blood. And she knew they would be back the next night and the next. She had to eat the grapes to sustain herself and to feed the parasites, and as long as she did so she would not die.

The thorn bush would protect her from all other dangers save these. It was her shield and her prison.

And that was her fate and she would never escape. She began to scream.

'You ran away from them again,' the voice taunted Falstaff from out of the darkness. 'Just like you always do when there's any real danger.'

'But I am trying.' he protested, puffing and putting his back against a tree.

'Are you? Or is this all another sham? You were searching for your honour, remember?'

'Honour, what is honour? A word. What is that word? Honour.

What is honour? Air. Can honour set a leg, or take away the grief of -'

'Enough. I've heard it all before. When are you going to find some lines of your own?'

'Where have you heard this before? You have the advantage of me, sir. Who are you?'

'Can't you guess? When are you going to stop hiding?'

'Hiding? Hiding from what?'

'How about this?'

A sword stabbed out of the darkness. Falstaff parried more by luck than judgement. The blade appeared again out of nothing and he hacked wildly at it while trying to edge around the tree.

But the blade wouldn't let him.

'Running away again? What happens when you can't run away? Will you stand and fight at last? Have you the courage?'

The blade was weaving about him, but now he thought he could see a vague shadowy form beyond it. But however he cut and thrust he could not seem to touch it. And he was tiring. He was going to die.

'Frightened of delivering the winning blow? Frightened of committing yourself perhaps?'

Falstaff made one last desperate thrust. Somehow it got behind his opponent's guard and he felt his blade sink home. The other blade instantly dropped to the ground, leaving him with his own transfixed. And for the first time he saw who he had been fighting.

His own contorted body was skewered on the end of his blade, its features frozen in a mask of horror.

But why was there no blood? Why did his doppelganger not collapse but instead hang on his blade as light as a feather?

With a trembling hand he reached out and touched the face of his image - and it crumpled like paper. The whole body was a mere shell.

'Ah,' said the voice, 'an empty man. More deceptions. You have found yourself it seems.'

'That's not me!'

'Isn't it? Have you looked closely recently?'

Falstaff clutched at his own chest, feeling his fingers sink into nothing. He tore his coat open, but there was only empty blackness within. And hanging there a grubby label bearing his real name.

As fast as Qwaid, Drorgon, and the Doctor tore and cut at the roots with their knives and bare hands, more sprang up to take their place. The severed ends lashed and writhed about like white worms; even Drorgon's strength could not break the thicker roots. Slowly their feet and lower legs were becoming further tangled in the clawing roots, which began to tighten, cutting off their circulation.

Qwaid used his pistol, set on a narrow beam, on the roots about his feet. Wet earth exploded in a scorching cloud of steam.

Scalded, Qwaid yelled out and dropped the gun, which fell beyond his reach.

In desperation Drorgon turned his cannon downward. 'Don't do that - you'll blow your legs off!' the Doctor shouted.

'We're dead anyway!' Drorgon snarled.

'Then try it against the trees behind us first. Maybe they're controlling them!'

Drorgon twisted around and blazed away at the gnarled trees that clumped at their backs. A trunk exploded in a shower of splinters. Several of the roots at their feet lashed about wildly, then fell limp.

Again, said the Doctor.

Bolt after bolt smashed into the spinney of trees. Severed branches fell to the ground, slowly contorting before they were still. More roots fell away, and one by one they managed to tear their feet free, only to fall helplessly on to their faces.

Lower legs numbed from the crushing force of the roots, they could only crawl away across the tussock grasses until they felt the melancholia of the mud flats descend upon them. When they shone a torch back to see if the root things were pursuing them, they saw they no longer writhed, but merely stood torn and burnt in the midst of churned earth. Beyond them shattered tree stumps smoked slightly, looking quite innocuous. Slowly, as they rubbed life back into their legs, it became harder to believe they had ever been anything else.

'Was it something real,' Qwaid demanded, 'or was it a mind trick?'

'A bit of both, perhaps,' the Doctor said, 'but I wouldn't like to say exactly what or how.'

Faintly, from the depths of the forest, came the sound of a scream, either of pain, or fear they could not tell. The Doctor started forward automatically but Qwaid restrained him.

'If they're having a taste of what we've just been through, that's their problem. You work for me, remember?'

In the reflected torchlight, the Doctor's face tightened into a mask of contempt. 'One day you'll learn there's more to life than your own selfish ambitions, Qwaid. But will it be too late?'

'I'll risk it,' Qwaid retorted. But his eyes shied away from the Doctor's angry gaze.

They remained where they were, alert but uneasy, until the sky greyed with the first light of morning.

The first flush of dawn was just beginning to tint the sky when Peri opened the TARDIS door and carried out Red's breakfast.

The great beast rose and stretched, then nuzzled against her in a friendly fashion. As she watched it eat she wondered if her plan was feasible. Could she really expect this animal she had known for only a few hours to take her where she wanted to go? Yet she sensed somehow that she could rely on him. At least his owner hadn't turned up in the night, and none of the locals, who seemed to have everything around here pretty much taped, had raised any objections. She had to assume it was at least permissible to make the attempt.

Peri had replaced her supplies and pack from the TARDIS's stores, and now saw there were convenient eyelets on the back of Red's saddle to fasten it securely. She didn't like the idea of leaving the TARDIS unlocked, so when she was sure she had taken everything she needed, she pressed down the door control plunger on the console and dashed out before the inner double doors could swing ponderously shut.

As on the previous evening, the stirrup flap lowered to help her mount, and soon she was seated in the saddle again. She patted the great body under her. Now I want you to go through the wood where all the signposts are. I can remember part of the way -'

But Red was already trotting off across the glade in the direction she wanted. How did he do it? Had the Gelsandorans bred a type of animal that could respond to mental commands?

It was no more fantastic than many other things she had already experienced. Peri tried to relax in the high-backed saddle and not worry about it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth she told herself. Especially when it has teeth as sharp as this one.

* * *

He'd wasted several hours the previous night in a fruitless search before he realised where the girl might have gone. It had then taken him a while to get his own bearings and strike the parkland around the Gelsandoran town, before finding his way to the landing fields. He'd kept well clear of Dynes's ship, hoping not to pick up another camera drone. The lock of Thorrin's craft had defeated him. He'd need his full toolkit to crack it. That left the Doctor's ship. He'd found the right glade but had boggled at the odd box shape sitting in it. It had to be a shuttle pod; the main craft must still be in orbit. He would have investigated further but for the massive and all too familiar form that lay beside it. He'd fingered the butt of his pistol, but had decided not to risk taking his revenge just now. Besides, he wasn't sure his gun would be powerful enough to deal with something that size, and merely wounding it and making it angry hadn't seemed like a very sensible idea. And so he had waited for dawn.

Should he follow them, or find the
Falcon
and see if he could override the cut-offs Alpha had installed? How long could he pretend to Qwaid and the Doctor that the girl was still unconscious?

Then a flash of light caught his eye. A brilliant but slow meteor was cutting lazily through the still dark eastern sky. Even as he watched it with natural appreciation, he saw its nucleus grow brighter and its tail foreshorten.

Hey, this was a big one.

The tail vanished altogether and the nucleus appeared to become stationary in the sky, but growing steadily brighter.

Suddenly it seemed to be heading straight for him!

Gribbs threw himself to the ground. The meteor flashed dazzlingly overhead and vanished behind the trees. Any sound of impact was lost in the earsplitting sonic boom of its arrival, which hammered the earth under him, before climbing back up into the sky and gradually receding to a distant rumble.

Cautiously, when he was sure he was not going to be showered by impact debris, Gribbs picked himself up and looked about him, trying to work out where it had hit. Over he treetops he could just make out a thin thread of grey smoke rising to catch the first light of day.

He checked its bearing on his object compass still set on he
Falcon's
signal. As far as he could estimate, the meteor had come down not far from the ship. It would be just his luck if it had been damaged by a freak chance like this.

Anxiously he set off through the woods.

Myra saw the meteor from the dead forest as it cut its sparkling arc across half the dawn sky.

She was lying on her back staring up through the stark branches of a tree. Very slowly the events of the previous night fell into place, and with a sudden rush of horrified recollection she sat bolt upright. She was half clothed, filthy with mud and shivering with cold, but she was alive!

Fearfully she examined herself for any sign of disease lesions, but her skin was smooth and sound once more. Had it ever been otherwise? A nightmare - it had all been a nightmare! No, she corrected herself, something worse than that. It had to have been the Gelsandorans doing, playing on her greatest fear. Now, with her head clear, she remembered that sporiform necrosis took months to prove fatal, yet last night she had believed without question that it was spreading and killing her in minutes.

Suddenly she understood how the lost seekers had come to be on the mud flats, trapped between the nightmares of the forest and the monsters of the valley.

Her pack was still lying where she had cast it aside. With it and a pool of clean water she hastily made herself respectable once more. Then she set off to find the others.

Drorgon examined the muddy footmarks in the blackened ground.

'They all scatter here.' he pointed. 'Run in all directions. Which one we follow, Qwaid?'

Qwaid looked about at the charred swathe the fire had cut through the forest, then glanced at the Doctor. He had his hands in his pockets and was staring about keenly.

'Well, Doc? Any suggestions?'

'I'm afraid my boy scout spooring skills are somewhat rusty.

But it does occur to me that if a group of people have become separated in these conditions, they will try to find each other again by signalling in some way, so if we simply stay quiet and listen -'

A distant hail floated through the trees to them.

' - then we might learn where they are.'

Voices, which had so mysteriously failed to carry the night before, now enabled them, gradually, to reassemble. Nobody asked what they had each suffered, nor volunteered any details of their own, but Myra could read in their faces that it had been as bad for them as herself. Arnella fell sobbing unashamedly into her uncle's arms, while Brockwell looked at her with a very curious expression. Thorrin's face was haggard, and Myra thought his hair was actually greyer. They could feel the menace of the forest still pressing close about them, but it was bearable by daylight and in company.

Eventually only Falstaff was unaccounted for.

'We cannot afford to waste time in a search,' Thorrin said after they had called his name for some minutes. 'Either he'll follow our trail, or else return to his ship. He knows the hazards now, so he should be safe enough.'