Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [16]
Ace could smell the lioness’s breath, the hot musk of her skin. She tried to get up, fell over, splattering a wave of water and mud on to the animal’s face.
Huge eyes were raised to regard her, lazily, as she struggled like an overturned cockroach. The lioness was in no hurry.
Get up and run away, get moving, get up, get up!
Ace’s hands closed around a stone, but her fingers were shaking with exhaustion and she couldn’t hold onto it. Quick death, then, with the lioness’
great paws slapping her into the sand and those massive jaws breaking her neck.
Then a tremendous cry split the valley, and the next thing she knew the predator was under attack.
The animal’s roar went right through Ace’s head. The bird was huge, the size of a human child – some kind of eagle or hawk, diving repeatedly at the lioness. The beast’s paws kicked great puffs of dust into the air as she dodged and wheeled, trying to get at the bird. Ace just watched, panting.
She ought to be afraid. But she couldn’t feel anything. It was as though she were still frozen, frozen to the core.
When the chariot appeared, she didn’t even feel surprised.
It skidded to a halt in the dust, barely twenty feet from the water hole.
It was just large enough for the man standing in it, who was struggling to restrain the pair of horses which stamped and tossed, panicked by the scent of the lioness. Ace shouted for help, wordlessly, knowing he wouldn’t understand anything she tried to say.
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He was carrying a bow. In a fluid movement, he plucked an arrow out of his quiver and shot the lioness dead.
The big cat screamed and fell over in the dirt, her weight making a tremendous sound. The harrier matched her raw cry and perched on the corpse, bounced up and down by its final convulsions.
Ace stared. The arrow had pushed in behind the lioness’ ear, penetrating her brain. It was one of the neatest bits of shooting she’d seen in her life.
Rescued.
There were other chariots drawing up now. The man jumped down from his vehicle, strode over to her. His skin was the colour of copper, his head shaven, a stubble just showing on his chin. He wore a white kilt. He was much taller than the other Egyptians, and he had big brown eyes like a deer.
He looked down at her, probably wondering what the hell this pale-skinned woman was doing lying in the desert dirt miles from anywhere, trying to get herself eaten by the lions.
He held out a hand to her, and she took it. His palm was smooth and warm.
‘I can’t get up,’ she said.
With a single movement, the same fluidity with which he’d shot the lioness, he bent down and picked her up.
By now his servants had come into the valley and were collecting the harrier, tying the lioness’s paws together to slide a wooden pole under her feet. With a grunt three of them hefted the body, balancing the pole on their shoulders, the arrow still trailing down from the animal’s neck.
Ace was looking at their clothes, their skin, half-remembering school videos and trips to the British Museum. Such a long time ago. ‘I’m in Egypt, aren’t I?’ she asked.
‘You’ve come a very long way to die in the desert,’ he said, with the hint of a smile in his voice. She let her head roll against his broad chest, let him carry her like a bride in his powerful arms. Then she laughed, just once, a sharp bark from the bottom of her lungs.
‘What’s funny?’ he said, carrying her to the chariot. His servants gazed at her curiously.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘this is embarrassing.’
‘Eh?’
‘Take me home, Lawrence.’
She was sunburnt and frostbitten, and she was exhausted and hungry, and her hair and mouth were full of dirt. Her white knight had his women servants bathe and dress her. His personal physician paid her a visit, armed with a surgical papyrus and a box full of amulets.
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She let it all happen, let them scrub her with some thick paste that lathered like thin soap, just stared at the ceiling as the physician checked her joints and eyes. There was nothing to do, there