Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [49]
Santi regained her dignity, straightened her skirt again, turned to face the guerrillas, and hurled a string of foul suggestions at them that just made them titter even more. Then she lurched gracelessly forward onto the next, thankfully solid, rung.
It was Wina’s turn next. She made as regal a progress over the rickety bridge as such an undignified means of crossing would allow. She didn’t utter a sound, gingerly but coolly testing each slat with her foot before trusting it with her weight. Ahead, Santi exploded into expletives again as she was forced to spread her legs to shuffle along the foot ropes, there being a space of some three yards without any rungs.
Wina followed far more elegantly: her legs being longer she was not forced into such an unbecoming posture, and couldn’t help remarking to Wemus who was crossing directly behind her that Santi had the etiquette of a goat.
She had just finished smirking when something rose, fast as an eye blink, from the frothing water to quest the air above the bridge.
Wina had an impression of a long slimy rope, seaweed-green. A fleshy rope thick as a man’s leg. The guerrilla directly behind Wemus lost his footing on a rung as the rope moved towards him, flash-quick. He was falling from the bridge – just managed to grab at a lower rope with one hand.
Swinging above the torrent.
Tigus balanced himself on the wildly swaying bridge as Santi shrieked and Wina forgot all her etiquette and joined in.
He steadied his rifle, waiting for a clear target. There was a deafening steam-like hiss from below, and something broke the surface of the rapids. A huge mossy green rock, that was not a rock but a featureless head. While everyone stared at this new horror, the slime rope went for the dangling guerrilla.
What looked like long green fingers wiggled from the end of the rope, unclenching to reach for the rebel. They seized his head, tweaked it like it was a nut and blood was jolting out from the crushed skull. The Papul let go of the bridge and dropped. The fingers caught him before he hit the water and snatched the corpse below the surface. The head lowered slowly beneath the river again, white water cascading over the bulging mossy forehead. It was gone.
Santi was crouching on the bridge, caterwauling. Wina was being comforted by Wemus. The Doctor put an arm around Santi’s shoulder while attempting to keep his own balance.
‘Snatcher,’ Kepennis announced gravely, peering down watchfully into the torrent.
Tigus nudged him onward. ‘Move,’ he yelled to the others ahead of him. ‘Fast.’
They didn’t need prompting. Wina’s successive progress across the bridge was considerably less regal.
She’d been told to wait in the officer’s mess for her own safety, where a nice bed had been prepared for her and where she’d spent a disturbed and wakeful night. But then Victoria had never been one for doing as she was told.
Agus had taken her to her room the night before, and had made a big deal out of not locking her in – his sense of chivalry positively forbade it. But she knew she couldn’t go far. Where would she go exactly? Agus told her there were soldiers out searching for the Doctor and Jamie, so all she could sensibly do was sit tight and wait until they were found.
But she wasn’t always sensible either, and Agus hadn’t locked the door.
That was asking for trouble.
So, after sitting patiently in her room all morning, watching the soldiers parading in the courtyard below, and only having one visit from Agus to distract her, she finally got restless