Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [105]
'Don't worry...' Its voice was warm in my ear. 'We have the other two heathens.'
'Let me go!' I shouted.
'Or what?' it asked, amused. Small droplets of its spittle rained down upon my face. I tried not to gag.
'Or I'll . . . Look, what do you want with us, anyway?'
It cocked its head slightly.
'You will see the light,' it said.
'Oh, great. And this will happen when?'
'Worry not, human. The ceremony of innocence will soon begin.'
Before I could move, it reared up on its wing tips and wrapped its tail tightly around my rib-cage. Springing into the air, it spread its wings wide and flapped, gaining height rapidly. I tried to take a breath but the damned thing was holding me too tight. The world stared to fuzz out, like static on an open comm-link. Air buffeted my face as the rakshassa's wings clutched at the air and pulled us aloft, but I couldn't seem to get any of it where it would do the most good. I tried to prise the segmented coils of its tail apart, but they were unmovable. I hit out at its cold, hard body but it didn't even seem to notice.
And then a gust of wind caught us and it shifted its grip on me slightly.
Enough to breathe. I sucked in great gulps of precious air, too concerned with staying alive to bother about the sudden and catastrophic turnabout in our fortunes. After a few minutes of that, after my heart settled down and stopped threatening to jump through my chest, I took a look around.
And wished I hadn't.
The camp was a small blot on the landscape. Below us, and slightly to one side, another rakshassa soared upwards with the Doctor held tightly beneath it. He waved reassuringly at me. Irrationally, I felt like punching him on the nose. Morose for no reason and cheerful in a crisis. I don't know how his other companions managed to stand him for so long. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe they're all in therapy now.
'The battle is still going on,' Holmes cried faintly from somewhere above me. 'Maupertuis's men appear to have successfully counter-attacked.'
As we rose higher, I could see that although most of the tents were on fire, Maupertuis's men in their bright shiny uniforms were putting up quite a fight out on the plain. They had a number of Gatling guns set up, and were raking the Ry'lehan lines. Although the Ry'lehans had superior firepower they appeared to be surprised at the resistance they were getting. A number of little fivelegged shapes were lying dead upon the ground.
Something odd was happening on the far side of the camp. I could see winged shapes - rakshassi - diving down and picking up the occasional figure. They were very selective, swooping low over the heads of the soldiery and choosing only the occasional victim. Gradually I realized what they were doing.
'It's the Indian fakirs!' I yelled. 'The rakshassi are only picking up the Indian fakirs! The rest of Maupertuis's men are being left to fight the Ry'lehans.'
'I cannot see Watson,' Holmes shouted. The Doctor remained silent, but I could see the scowl on his face.
We flew higher, and higher still. The fires of Maupertuis's camp dwindled until they were just a bright glow on the ground. As I saw more of the landscape of Ry'leh, I began to appreciate its raw, uncompromising beauty.
Valleys snaked away in every direction and the ice sky reflected the mountains so that it looked as if we were rising from the surface of one world, past twisted pillars, towards the surface of another. After a while I became disoriented, but as we got closer and closer to the ice I could see that it had its own topography and its own ecology. Looking around, I saw that we had been joined by a number of other rakshassi, each clutching a bewildered fakir in its tail. Some of the fakirs were chanting prayers, others appeared to have passed out. I thought I could see Tir Ram, the Nizam of Jabalhabad, dangling from the tail of a rakshassa in the distance, but it was