Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [88]
‘Why else would you send a man into hiding, then reveal his location to us?’ Batu paused. ‘Unless you are a coward. .’
‘I am not a coward!’ cried Yevhen.
‘I have not seen you in battle.’
Yevhen snorted in derision. ‘I have been in battle since news first reached us of your approach – battling Dmitri and the others. They are weak fools, all of them. They would happily have offered no resistance. They stood in the way of my plans, and so deserve to die.’
‘As do you,’ said Batu. ‘You say too much to be a man of honour and worth.’
And with that, he drew his huge sword from its scabbard.
The metal sang through the air like an arc of lightning.
The headless body of Yevhen collapsed to its knees in a parody of supplication.
Batu turned to Mongke. ‘How many have survived?’
‘What with the disease, the collapse of the church... Our own noble actions. A few thousand, perhaps.’
‘Let them live. And let news of our great victory go forth, to the cities we are yet to conquer!’
Unnoticed by everyone, a Mongol soldier standing some distance away nodded almost imperceptibly at these words. Then he turned on his heels and disappeared into the shadows of Kiev.
‘It is very quiet,’ observed one of the Russian soldiers, still watching the locked door to the tunnels.
‘Perhaps we have won,’ said the other. ‘Perhaps it is all over.’
‘So quickly?’ pondered the other. ‘After all this time...’ He paused, and for a moment his face was filled with joy. What if they had won? What if, somehow, they had defeated the devilish Tartars – done what no city had done before? Then he shook his head, his features becoming hard. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘They would have sent word by now. We would have heard the sounds of rejoicing!’
‘But it is all over,’ came a quiet voice from the other side of the room. ‘I am very nearly finished.’
The men turned and, to their horror, saw a short Mongol soldier step into the room. In truth, they did not recognise him as ‘Mongol’ or ‘Tartar’ – so alien was his face, so extraordinary was his clothing.
They drew their swords. ‘Devil!’ one spat.
‘Put down your weapons, said the man. ‘I am tired of this.’
The soldiers gripped their swords ever more tightly, but did not advance on the Mongol.
‘Very well,’ he said. He paused, straightened up – and, incredibly, became slimmer, taller, before the amazed eyes of the soldiers. His skin lightened in colour – ruddy hues swirling into nothingness like distant clouds – and, under the skin, bones became mobile, disjointed, fluid. Eventually they too settled.
‘Witchcraft!’ cried one of the soldiers.
‘Yevhen!’ blurted out the other, recognising the now-solid visage in front of them.
‘Yevhen is dead. All your people are dead. This bunker has been destroyed. My mission is over.’ The figure twitched, uncomfortable in clothing that was now ill-fitting, for what he had been wearing had not changed.
‘Bunker? Mission? What words are these?’ The soldier raised his sword and made as if to advance.
The creature that wore Yevhen’s face flew at them in a blur, spines extending from its fists and lips. Moments later it held the two corpses almost tenderly in its arms. ‘I have followed my orders. It is over.’ Then it dropped the bodies to the floor, and advanced on the locked door.
It found a key, and pushed it into place. ‘I am so tired,’ it said. ‘I must rest now.’
The door opened, and the creature disappeared into the darkness.
XXI
Oblationes et holocausta
We were soon deep within the tunnels that linked the catacombs under the cathedral with the governor’s residence. The Doctor was impatient to find the crypt that contained the tomb of the
‘angel’: I, on the other hand, was more interested in trying to find our way through the cold stone passageways and out again.
In any event, my sketchy geography reminded me that the crypt was between us and the cathedral. Behind us was only a locked door, so both our objectives could be met if we found our way through the darkness.
Dodo was quiet – still pondering the Doctor’s awful story about the Black Death,