Doctor Who_ Curse of Peladon - Brian Hayles [44]
Side by side, the strangely matched pair walked to the centre of the arena and paused. The Doctor, flamboyant and unprotected, looked up and saw the distant figure of Jo, high above. He gave a small, confident wave, and smiled. Grun, too, saw the Earth Princess, and her words echoed inside his head—
only to be drowned by the final words of the High Priest.
‘He is our enemy, Grun,’ Hepesh repeated fiercely. ‘For the honour of the king and of Aggedor, he must be destroyed. Do your duty—kill!’ He struggled to concentrate on the task in hand, and nearly overstepped the centre marker. The Doctor’s cheerful voice murmured in his ear, irritatingly bland. ‘Watch what you’re doing, Grun old chap. You’ll spoil the show otherwise.’
As the king stood up, they bowed in unison. They rose, and looked up at his slight but regal figure, poised above them. He raised a hand. In it he held a scarlet pennant, bright against the drab grey of the castle stones. The fluttering scarlet fell. The fight had begun.
Neither of them had been inside the Pit before, but Grun had at least viewed it many times from the gallery above. He studied its complexities and hidden snags, and knew the dangers of the polished stones. More than this, none of the deadly weapons in the Pit were strange to him. Some were so antique that they were no longer used—but he, as the King’s Champion, had had access to them and had taken delight in testing their power. Other weapons were more common and, thus, he was even more skilled in their use. His rich armour weighed on him, but this was necessary. With the correct arms, he was impregnable. While he loped towards the weapons that he wanted, the Doctor scarcely moved. The alien was obviously confused by his surroundings. Now was the moment to strike and strike swiftly, for there was no honour in baiting a helpless opponent. His hand grasped the razor-edged flail, and the nearby shield: he stood, immense and magnificent—and all thought of mercy left his mind. He was the greatest of Peladon’s warriors, and it was a warrior’s destiny to kill.
Although apparently still and unmoving, the Doctor had swiftly taken in the bizarre contrasts of the Pit. He had also seen Grun move, none too swiftly, to pick up a weapon that he obviously knew was there. It was now the Doctor’s turn to find some means of defending himself before Grun attacked. But from where he was standing, he could see no suitable weapon.
Grun was almost on top of him before the Doctor slipped nimbly to one side and began to clamber up a short slope. The flail slashed down, missing the Doctor by inches. He looked back and saw the marks where the razor-sharp blades had scoured the stone, and blinked: this was no time for the finer points of ring technique! He scrambled rapidly out of Grun’s range, and looked about him desperately for a weapon. A bright hilt glinted close by, and he grabbed at it eagerly—then almost immediately flung it from him. It had been a poignard, little more than eighteen inches long and no defence at all against the vicious blades that Grun used so deftly. Again, the flail sang its deadly song through the air; again the Doctor dodged, this time nearly slipping from his higher vantage point, down to the smooth granite below. He altered his balance in mid-air and swung away from Grun’s next sweeping blow. He grasped a nearby hanging net. It was made of finely wrought metal, and linked so ingeniously as to be as supple as fine cord. Yet, in itself, it wasn’t simply defensive: every link thrust out a wickedly pointed hook.
The Doctor lifted the net from the wall, and stood poised several feet above Grun. The Doctor realised that he had, for once, a definite advantage: his positioning was good and Grun knew the dangers presented by that clawing