Doctor Who_ The Awakening - Eric Pringle [52]
Willow was still out cold.
The trooper let him slump again as dizziness and nausea cane flooding back. He shook his head and mumbled to himself. He couldn’t remember where he was, or what he was supposed to be doing.
Although the Doctor and his companions had withdrawn out of the nave and retreated into the sanctuary, still the ghostly figures advanced unrelentingly, and still the hollow drumming hoonsed through the roar and smoke of the Malus.
Turlough glanced over his shoulder; the stained glass window loomed above them and scattered fragments of coloured light across the floor and their bodies, making their situation even more bizarre and unnerving. ‘We’re running out of places to run,’ he murmured to Tegan.
‘That’s becoming the story of our lives,’ she sighed.
Will Chandler, tucked behind Jane, peeped out at the deathly faces advancing towards him. He had seen them before. These men had been among the Puritan force which attacked the church when the great and terrible battle began. He had seen each of them cut down by Cavaliers. Yet here they were, marching up the nave, large as life and pale as death. Marching. He whimpered with fear.
Verney was moving slowly backwards at Will’s side.
‘Why don’t they attack?’ he asked.
‘They will,’ the Doctor promised. ‘But in their own time.’ He looked past the troopers to the Malus. Already swollen obscenely, it was swelling still further, and shuddering – and looking their way. The huge, glinting eyes were pointing directly at them. ‘Now we’re the Malus’s last source of energy,’ the Doctor said, ‘it will make us sweat for as long as it can.’
10
Fulfillment
In the crypt, the trooper had remembered who he was.
He was on his feet, swaying over Willow’s body. He shook his head again, trying to clear it of the dizziness which kept threatening to swamp him. Then he drew his sword and staggered towards the steps.
Their backs were to the wall. As Turlough had predicted, there were no more places for them to run to, and they were trapped.
Realising that victory was theirs for the taking, the ghostly figures stopped at the entrance to the sanctuary, close beside the archway which led to the side chapel and the steps to the crypt. With that uncanny precision they swung their hands across their bodies to the hilts of their swords. As one the troopers grasped them, and drew the swords together in a unified sweep which rasped steel on scabbard with a shrieking sound. The swords swept up into the light. Then they pointed them at the group huddled against the altar, with the colours of the stained glass window lying across them like a rainbow.
Will drew in his breath and shivered. ‘I’s gonna die,’ he moaned.
The Doctor gripped his shoulder encouragingly. ‘Be quiet, Will,’ he whispered.
‘He’s right, Doctor.’ Jane was shaking too; she could feel the edges of those swords already.
‘Not yet he isn’t,’ the Doctor said. He was sure there must be something he could do, but for the life of him he couldn’t think what it was.
The trooper, who had remembered at last that he was supposed to be searching for the Doctor and the lost Queen of the May, came lurching and staggering up the steps from the crypt. He clattered across the side chapel, swung out through the archway – and found himself surrounded by three grey phantoms.
As he fell into their midst, three glinting swords swished through the air and joined each other around his throat.
Pinned by the swords, he stood rooted to the spot for a moment, wide eyed and bewildered. His head was still dizzy, and he tried desperately to make sense of what was happening to him. He glanced fearfully from one to another of the ghastly, grey-white faces, and his mouth opened wide with surprise.
The church, which had fallen silent with the trooper’s arrival, now erupted with noise. The Malus trumpeted a triumphant roar and Tegan and Jane screamed and turned away their faces as the phantom soldiers raised their arms and swung their swords for the kill. The blades flashed and the brief, bloody, one-sided fight came to its inevitable close: