Doctor Who_ The Hollow Men - Keith Topping [107]
Joanna heard the sound of approaching feet, and turned, ready to scream, until she saw Steven striding up the hill.
„Where‟s Ace?‟ asked Steven, before he reached the brow of the hill.
Joanna pointed. „She was taken by one those ... people.‟
„I had to leave Denman,‟ said Steven. He surveyed the carnage, his eyes wide. „It‟s about time those scarecrows got a dose of their own medicine,‟ he said.
„It‟s horrible,‟ said Joanna, turning away.
Rebecca raised the knife high above her head. Trevor lay at her feet.
Do it.
Trevor tried to sit up, his confusion visible even through the bruising that covered his face. One eye was swollen shut; the other blinked open.
Rebecca let out an animal scream of utter desolation, and clutched the knife tighter, her knuckles straining white. He was defenceless beneath her.
Do it.
Rebecca felt a blow at the base of her skull.
She dropped to her knees, the knife flying out of her hand and sticking upright in the soft earth. Trevor was backing away on his hands and knees. Rebecca turned her head, despite the pain, and saw what looked like an ancient soldier made of glass.
„What are you?‟ she screamed.
The Doctor was dropped at the grassy edge of the pit. He tried to stand, but Long John and Henry the idiot kicked his feet from beneath him, and he lay on the undulating earth, looking up at Jowett.
Jowett‟s eyes were as red as the pit beneath the Doctor.
„Listen to me,‟ said the Doctor. „Jack‟s losing. Fight the power.‟
„Richard,‟ said Jowett to the blond man at his side. „Get him up.‟
Long John and Richard dragged the Doctor to his feet.
„Thou art but a worthless sinner,‟ said Jowett. „Thy maker awaits thee with open arms... To damn thee to hell.‟
The two men pushed the Doctor towards the lip of the pit.
„Cast „im down, cast „im down,‟ chanted Henry, his eyes bulging in their sockets. „Do „im murder!‟
„Execute him,‟ said Jowett, turning away.
„Aye,‟ said Richard, turning and pushing the Doctor with both hands over the edge and into the hellish pit.
As the Doctor fell he grabbed clods of earth with desperate hands, his fingers digging into the turf. He tried to push against the side of the pit with his feet, but they kept slipping, sending stones spiralling into the darkness.
The sound of an impact never came.
Richard looked down at the Doctor with a look of remorseless evil on his face. „He still lives, Joseph,‟ he called over his shoulder.
„Then make it so he does not.‟
The Doctor cried out as he felt the pressure of Richard‟s boot on his fingers.
Ace found a suitable rock, jutting from a patch of dark soil where the angular cavern walls had collapsed. She tugged at the stone, and it shifted, but then stopped, as if Jack knew what she had planned. Ace pulled harder, and the rock flew free in her hands.
Ace ran to the mirror. Just for a moment she thought she could see a small man struggling at the top of a pit that glowed like a furnace, but when she looked closer she could see only her own worried face shining back at her.
She raised the rock above her head, and brought it down on the quicksilver surface of the mirror.
With a crack like breaking ice, a transverse fracture appeared across the mirror.
There was a sudden moan of pain far above the Doctor‟s head. He tried to look up, but succeeded only in knocking himself off balance.
One hand, pushed away by Richard‟s boot, came free, flailing out into space.
His other hand gripped the top of the pit tightly, bearing his whole weight.
His fingers began to slip across the muddied grass.
* * *
Ace turned at the sound of galloping hooves. The ghost rider had reappeared. Rebecca was slung over the back of the horse. Some distance behind came another with Trevor clinging to his back.
With the same disdain as he had shown to Ace, the huntsman picked up