Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [24]
And then he Was gone, leaving the Doctor and Ian to stare, open-mouthed, at each other. 'Let's get...' began Ian, but before he could finish what he was saying, the pair were swept away in the tidal wave of humanity that came running down tile steps of the temple to flee whatever was taking place inside.
The Zealots, led by Basellas, had begun their indiscriminate attack on various Roman stalls. Chaos ensued, with people fleeing in panic. Basellas himself stood amid the carnage, laughing a dangerous and crazed laugh of triumph as, around him, his followers attacked anything that moved. A Roman legionnaire lay dead at his feet, his throat crushed by Basellas's vice-like grip. Now the crowd was moving towards side-streets and outlets from the square.
Anywhere, in fact, but where the action was.
The Doctor cautiously tried to follow Ian towards the terrified Vicki and Barbara on the far side of the market-place but, five steps into the crowd, he was knocked to the ground.
As Ian turned and tried to help him, he was attacked from behind by a Roman soldier who had dearly mistaken him for one of the Zealots. Ian was pulled back around and found himself fighting for his life against a big and powerful opponent.
He struck a blow under the man's heart and then another, lower down his abdomen, pushing him backwards and trying to wrestle the man's sword from his hands. A head-butt to the bridge of the soldier's nose, and Ian had the weapon. He thrust forward, twisted instinctively as he had with a bayonet during national service and withdrew as the man collapsed, dead, at his feet.
Ian looked, horrified, at the sword in his hand, momentarily distracted from the life-and-death struggles taking place around him There was an eerie silence in Chesterton's mind, and a small clearing in which he stood. At the heart of the battle, Ian Chesterton was utterly alone. Then, something kicked in within him and he held the sword high above his head and bellowed a vicious, terrifying scream that came from the pit of his stomach. Sunlight glinted on the sword and was reflected around the crowd. Other swords were raised.
It was a carnival of swords.
Chesterton looked to his left and to his right. The Doctor was gone. Barbara was gone. He briefly imagined that he saw Vicki, her pale, screaming face standing out from the crowd around her, haloed in the sunlight. Then she, too, was gone and Ian was truly alone.
And then, some blunt and hard implement hit him squarely at the base of the skull. Dazed, he saw the sword spill from his hands and he found himself toppling forward.
Slipping.
Falling
He was drowning in a sea of bodies.
Blackness came upon him and he was swallowed by it, whole.
Vicki thought she saw Ian fall, but she couldn't be certain of anything. She was rooted to the spot, too terrified to run or to throw herself back against the stone walls behind her which, at least, offered some protection against the crush. She had seen Barbara swept away by a surge in the crowd that had missed Vicki herself by mere inches. Now she cowered amid the shouting, chanting, excited hordes. She was pushed with them several feet forward and then thrown back as, somewhere above her head, someone was screaming that the Romans were coming. The shout was repeated and the entire crowd, as one, panicked.
Vicki had no option but to allow herself to be carried along by the crowd's momentum, her feet barely touching the ground and she was thrown first this way and then that.
`Kill them all,' shouted one mouth-frothing agitator. ‘Cut off their heads and stick 'em up high on poles for all the world to see.'
Vicki tried to turn, to find a way from the madness, but her route was blocked in every direction. She couldn't see anything but bodies in front of her, bodies behind her, bodies to the left and right of her. She felt herself about to faint and her knees buckled.
Terror seized her by the throat. 'Help me someone, please,