Doctor Who_ The Awakening - Eric Pringle [33]
There were trumpets, and fifes and drums. There were guns firing and people shouting; horses squealed with pain. Will started to shake. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Terrified, he looked up at the Doctor for comfort and reassurance. ‘I heard that before,’ he cried. ‘Battle’s cumin’!’
And before the Doctor could give him the reassurance he so desperately needed, Will cracked. He ran, driven by an all-consuming fear, scuttling to the door at the back of the church as fast as his legs would carry him. The Doctor shouted, ‘No, Will! Come back!’ but Will took no notice.
He dragged the door open and looked back at them for an instant. ‘I’s not goin’ to war again!’ he wailed.
The noise of battle boomed through the church.
Harness jingled, men screamed. The half-blind man glowered with his single staring eye and a pattern of lights shimmered around and through him. It was too much for anybody to stand. ‘No!’ Will shouted at the top of his voice, and then he was gone.
The lights were now dancing all around the half blind man. They circled, they writhed like snakes, they built up into a dazzling display. Standing beside the Doctor, Jane was mesmerised by them. Then she caught her breath, unable to believe her eyes, for the figure behind the lights dimmed and then faded away completely. In his place, the image of a soldier appeared and hardened into reality.
He was grey as death. His stance was arrogant and threatening – his right hand rested on his hip and his left gripped the hilt of his sword. His clothes were all grey, as if drained of colour, and his broad hat with its plumed leather was grey too; the skin of his face was pallid and grey-white like parchment.
He stood there, a big, threatening man, watching them from dead eyes.
From the moment he had separated from Tegan, when the horsemen caught up with them, Turlough had been on the run in the village, docking behind walls and hedges and fences, dodging in and out of gardens, orchards, alleyways, all the time avoiding troopers.
Something was up: they were arriving in ever-increasing numbers, soldiers on foot and troopers on horseback, all going the same way. Turlough was heading in the same direction now, for he was determined to discover what was going on.
He turned the corner of an empty street, ducked down and ran commando-style below the high stone walls of a building which seemed to he the village school. The day had grown hotter than ever. The cloudless sky swelled with the cries of birds, and the air was heavy with the musky scent of the roses festooning garden walls and the thousands of gaudy flowers in the gardens.
Just beyond the school, a sycamore tree overhung a garden wall and shaded the road. Turlough edged towards the tree with the greatest possihle stealth, for the road ahead divided to encircle the Village Green; from this he could hear the noise of horses’ hooves softly clattering, and a murmur of men’s voices. He pressed against the ivy-covered wall and peered around the sycamore to have a look.
The Green was a broad area of grass, which had been burned brown by the sun. There were pools of shade under spreading chestnut trees. It was surrounded by old cottages with warm, colour-washed walls and thatched roofs – and it was bustling with activity. At one side a tall white maypole had been erected; its long ribbons wafted in the breeze. Not far away from it soldiers were bringing armfuls of brushwood and building this into a huge pyre. Mounted troopers patrolled the area.
Turlough frowned: that growing heap of tinder-dry brushwood looked ominous. But while he was still absorbing it all, a hand touched his shoulder. He turned.
In the instant of turning he glimpsed the rough, bearded face of a burly trooper, before a fierce blow in the stomach from the man’s fist caused him to buckle forward and see only the ground