Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [76]
Vasil directed his answer at Mongke. ‘I am here to negotiate an alliance – an alliance between our people, and yours.’
‘Your people?’ spluttered the Doctor, not understanding what he was hearing. ‘The people of Kiev?’
Vasil shook his head imperiously. ‘The people of God,’ he said.
The skull-faced thing that so resembled Lesia took an involuntary step back. Steven and Nahum watched, dumbstruck, as the mouth gaped open, revealing row upon row of narrow teeth.
Steven grabbed Nahum, hoping to pull him to safety, but the young man did not move, overcome by the shock of seeing Lesia, or the thing that resembled Lesia. ‘Come on!’ Steven urged, looking from Nahum’s pale eyes to the dark sockets of the creature, and expecting with every moment that the needle-filled jaws would lunge down on them.
But the creature did not move. Steven could see it moving its head from him to Nahum and back again. Despite its inhuman features, something like recognition flickered across its face.
It took another step back, its skull-face still grotesquely surrounded by Lesia’s hair. Something flowed from the nostrils and from behind its dark eyes, strands and teardrops of mercury and water. They changed colour, knitting themselves into muscle and cartilage, flowing over the face like a grotesque mask. Skin followed, pouring itself on to the fleshy strands and into the now reddening mouth. Within a moment, and as the black orbs of the eyes lightened, the transformation was complete.
‘Lesia!’ exclaimed Nahum again.
The creature, now to all intents and purposes a young woman, stared down at the cowering forms of Steven and Nahum. Then it turned and dashed across the room. The door into the house slammed shut behind it, leaving the two young men to exchange terrified glances.
Once again the creature had spared their lives.
‘I cannot eat this!’ exclaimed Dmitri. Like a child he pushed the plate across the table top, his lips curling petulantly.
Dodo looked at the food spread across the table: blood puddings, an array of coloured and shaped cheeses, marinaded pigeon with stodgy-looking dumplings. There were fresh vegetables and even a pair of cooked hares, arranged on an ornate silver plate as if still fleeing across the fields. It wasn’t what Dodo thought of as a fine meal, but she knew this was the pinnacle of cuisine at a time when the poor stole scraps from their neighbours’ cattle.
She shook her head. She could not comprehend the change in Dmitri’s character. The news that the people of Kiev had been dumping infected bodies inside his residence seemed to upset him greatly, but even that did not entirely explain his mood.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’ Dodo admonished.
Dmitri raised a warning finger. ‘Do not lecture me, little girl.’
‘You should eat,’ continued Dodo, in a more conciliatory tone, ‘if only to keep your strength up.’
‘We shall eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, eh?’ Dmitri nudged her, as if he were making some bawdy joke.
She looked across the banqueting table at Isaac and Yevhen, imploring with her eyes that they do something. Isaac shrugged his shoulders diffidently, as if to suggest that he was powerless.
Yevhen simply stared at the ceiling, his mind elsewhere.
Dmitri noticed none of this. ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘you expect me to eat, when the stench of death fills my nostrils?’ He turned to his advisers. ‘Does the disease still rage?’
‘My lord, it is like a fire in the forest that cannot be controlled,’ said Isaac. ‘I am not sure how many have died – but their bodies number in the hundreds.’
Dmitri sighed, his head dropping, his hands in his hair, a picture of absolute despair. ‘Soon there will be no one left to defend our fine city,’ he whispered. ‘How long until the disease takes hold here, in this sanctuary I have tried to create?’
‘No one here has even the first sign of disease,’ said Yevhen suddenly.
Isaac cleared his throat, as if hoping to change the subject.
‘There is still much to be done,’ he said. ‘With the emissaries dead...’
‘Spies,