Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [95]
‘Now that would have changed history,’ I said, for once catching a glimpse of the Doctor’s dilemma.
‘Yes, yes, my boy. Now, enough of this chitchat. I need to find some way of telling this creature...’
‘Doctor...’
‘Please let me finish. We must tell this creature that the
“bunker” of Kiev has now been destroyed and, in essence, its mission is over.’
‘Doctor!’
‘What is it?’ he snapped.
He turned and saw what I had been trying to draw his attention to.
Two Mongol soldiers stood in the TARDIS doorway.
XXIV
Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam
Dodo’s face cracked into a bitter grin. The situation she found herself in was so ludicrous, so awful, it was almost funny.
Almost.
With the Mongols audibly coming closer, and no sign of the Doctor’s return, she and the others had agreed to retreat into the tunnels as before. Dmitri had said little on the matter: he would have followed them meekly to hell and back. But it was his life they were all trying to save, still clustered tightly around him. As they shuffled away from the creature’s casket, they found themselves stumbling into each other and treading on one another’s feet. It was like a three-legged race at school – with the added incentive that a monster was tracking their every movement.
Dodo risked turning her head towards the ‘angel’ and saw to her horror that it was again following them. Its face moved from side to side, watching them with interest. Spines appeared and disappeared on its hands with awful regularity, as if reflecting its breathing... Or its growing impatience.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Dodo asked, panicked.
‘We do what we must to stay alive,’ said Nahum vaguely.
‘Only by doing so will we remain true to our humanity.’
But Dodo wasn’t in the mood for philosophising. She was just about to tell Nahum this, in no uncertain terms, when the first Mongol soldiers appeared.
Given that the fear the Tartars had inspired in the people of Kiev, they weren’t quite what Dodo had imagined. All were small, and lightly built. The knights of Christendom, the full-time Russian soldiers, were much more what she expected medieval warriors to be, with shining armour and elaborate helms, and shields that seemed big enough to cover a horse.
These Mongols, though, were lightly armoured, and they moved at a steady, swift trot. Most carried small bows with arrows notched in readiness. A cry went up, and the first soldiers were joined by another group with unsheathed swords that seemed to glow in the light of their torches. They appeared unperturbed by the creature, which turned towards them. They aimed most of their arrows at it, as if in recognition of its otherworldliness, but other than that gave no sign of being frightened or amazed. They had come so far, mused Dodo, crushing everything before them, that not even the monster could upset their awful self-belief.
She and the others halted in their tracks, their thoughts of escape ebbing away. The dark angel looked closely at the newcomers, then deliberately turned its back on them. It was still Dmitri that it wanted.
Dodo risked a glance sideways, and saw that Lesia was almost shaking with fear. The monster had been bad enough but, to her, each Mongol was just such a monster. She had been fed on terrible stories of Tartar atrocities for many years; to now come face to face with these ‘demons’ was almost too much for her to bear.
Nothing was said for many minutes, and nobody dared to move. Dodo had the impression the Mongols were sending word down the tunnels. It was as if somebody, somewhere, was trying to gather as much information as possible before putting in a personal appearance.
Eventually more reverberating footsteps and flickering torchlight heralded the arrival of another Mongol, a leader in gold-hued robes whose demeanour more than made up for his diminutive stature. He wore little armour, though his companion
– who also had an aura of leadership about him – was covered from head to toe in ornate folds of pale leather.
The man in gold stopped, flanked by the Mongol soldiers.