Doctor Who_ The Awakening - Eric Pringle [45]
Across the village, the door of the hut in the quiet, isolated courtyard was splintering. It bulged outwards. It heaved against the drawn bolt as it was hammered and pattered from inside.
All at once a panel gave way under the constant pounding. Then another split open, and another, until with a ragged cracking noise the whole door broke away from its hinges, the bolt flew off and Turlough and Andrew Verney tumbled out into the bright sunshine.
Carried forward by the impetus of the final charge, they staggered across the yard, and then stood swaying and blinking in the dazzling light, nursing their bruised shoulders. Verney clutched his baggy tweed hat. ‘We must get to the church,’ he said. ‘We have to destroy the Malus before it becomes too powerful.’
Turlough frowned. As an idea, that seemed to him to be a little on the bold side, not to say foolhardy. ‘Let’s find the Doctor first,’ he suggested.
The old man was adamant. ‘We haven’t got the time,’ he insisted. ‘We could spend the whole day looking for him.
Come on ...’
To prevent further argument he set off running, at an old man’s stately trot – leaving Turlough no option but to follow him.
Wolsey drove the cart like a man possessed. The Doctor and Will had to hold on grimly to prevent themselves being thrown out as the horse kicked its heels and the cart jerked and shook, jolted and rattled along a rutted track through the fields which, the farmer swore, was a short cut to the church. Now and then they could hear shouting behind them; in the distance soldiers were running, and horsemen galloped along the skyline.
They arrived at the lych-gate just in time. Wolsey reined in his valiant horse, stopped the cart and they jumped down. Will staggered and had some difficulty keeping his balance, and he felt that something inside him had shaken loose, but there was no time for self-examination and he had to run his fastest to keep up with the Doctor and Ben Wolsey. They were heading around the side of the church and making for the vestry; Will dreaded going back inside.
The Doctor pushed open the vestry door with a crash and burst in, giving a big fright to Tegan and Jane, who had just emerged from the underground passage. Jane was closing the tombstone entrance to the tunnel. Tegan, happy to be wearing her old dress again, was warily opening the door to the nave.
The Doctor was delighted to see them. He nodded with satisfaction but had no time to spare for congratulations.
‘Come along, we’ve a lot to do,’ he said, hustling them as he rushed through to the nave, followed by Ben Wolsey and Will Chandler.
Jane watched them go, and shrugged. Given time, she thought, she could get used to most things, but she doubted if she could ever get used to the Doctor.
The nave hummed and vibrated with a low, buzzing sound. It was like the noise of a furnace – the sound flames make as they rush up a chimney when it is on fire.
The Malus’s brooding silence had ended; the fury now erupting through the village had urged it into life again and it was steadily ingesting the power it needed to make its final bid for freedom. Those great nostrils flared with a wild anger; the eyes glinted and flashed; the mouth gaped
– a vast, shark-like maw that looked as if it would swallow the world.
As he ran through the church the Doctor glanced at the disappearing wall, and saw that time was running out on them. ‘Hurry!’ he shouted.
They kept close together, running one after the other up the nave and through the archway, then down the steps to the rubble-strewn crypt.
The Malus watched them go by. Soon – very soon now –
the time would come when no one would ever he able to pass it again. Soon no life would he able to survive in its vicinity. The green, phosphorescent eyes pulsed with the light of its coming triumph.
The Doctor ran down the steps to the crypt three at a time.
At the bottom he paused to take the torch from his pocket; he switched it on and set off towards the TARDIS, only to stop again suddenly. He turned to Tegan. ‘You didn’t close the door,’ he snapped.
‘There was