Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [34]
The power was still hers. She reminded herself daily of the duplicity for which she had vowed he would pay.
‘Before this battle is out, both Arthur and Merlin will rot in Hell!’
Let every spirit hear her decree. And so be it.
The helicopter lay burning in the undergrowth of a small copse. Its rotors were twisted and broken. Its cockpit window smashed.
As the Brigadier pulled Lavel clear of the craft, she grimaced and clutched at her leg. ‘I’m all right!’ she choked through gritted teeth.
He supported her as they struggled for cover. Behind them, the fuel tanks erupted into a giant fireball.
Lethbridge-Stewart and Lavel hurled themselves forward into the bracken as a barrage of shrapnel scythed overhead.
He thought she was going to cry. ‘Seven million quid’s worth of aircraft and I lost it. If they make me pay for that, I’ll be poor forever.’
The Brigadier fingered her leg and she winced. ‘I think you’ve pulled a ligament,’ he said awkwardly.
‘Good! I thought it might be something serious.’
He stood up and looked round to get his bearings. The church tower reared through the trees beyond the burning helicopter. ‘I’m going to get help from the village.’
She screwed up her eyes, because he was standing with the sun directly behind him. ‘Sir, we don’t know what the situation is yet.’
He drew his pistol, the gun he had always kept since the old days. They had offered him a new revomatic at London Central, but if he had to fight, he wanted to do it comfortably.
‘The situation is normal and it doesn’t get much worse than that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Do you know, I think I’m beginning to enjoy this.’
He disappeared in the direction of the church leaving Lavel alone in the warm damp grass.
The lieutenant immediately set about fashioning herself a makeshift crutch from one of her crashed helicopter’s landing struts.
She tried her weight on the support. Her leg ached dully, but she was able to stand and drink in the sunlit air.
It put her in mind of her home in Brittany; there was an atmosphere of something ancient and unfathomable that haunted both Cornish and Breton regions. The Celtic links were tangible in both history and myth. She loosened her tightly-pinned hair and shook it free. Somewhere, a lark rose singing into the blue-white sky.
Lavel was suddenly aware of someone approaching through the copse.
Pat Rowlinson, a first-aid kit under his arm, had come searching for survivors from the crash. He stopped to stare at the smoking shell of the helicopter and tensed as he felt the cold metal of a gun press in by his ear.
‘Don’t move,’ said Lavel. ‘Where are you from?’
He managed to say, ‘The hotel across the way. I own it.’
‘Then I am very sorry for you,’ she said. As she lowered her gun, she saw something move in the bushes.
‘ Regard! ’ she shouted and pushed him clear as a soldier in armour came running at her, sword raised.
She pivoted round on the metal crutch and kicked him in the chest with her good leg. He reeled backwards and she swung the crutch, clubbing him neatly around the head.
He collapsed and lay still.
Pat was totally bewildered. ‘Is it dead?’ he said.
She leant against him, breathing heavily and searching the copse around them for further trouble. ‘I can’t tell.
Come on, we’re too exposed out here.’
‘The hotel. You’d better come with me.’
Mordred had marched his men down the path beside the stone tower. Along the road ahead was a form of monument: a carven stone cross raised on a plinth. There were inscriptions on a bronze plate worked into the granite base.
Morgaine waited impatiently while her son studied the runes. When he turned to her, she recognized the frightened look he reserved for her impending anger.
‘It is a shrine, to those fallen in battle,’ he said.
‘So they are not the savages you led us to believe,’ she accused. ‘You fought on their soil without proper respect for the dead.’
‘Mother...’
Those brown eyes of his imploring her again. So like his father in every mannerism. The memories froze in her gullet.
‘You have dishonoured us, Mordred.