Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [94]
The Doctor could hear another of the beasts roaring, its voice echoing around this arena. This one was pinning him down with powerful forearms… it wasn’t a quadruped, then.
The Doctor twisted to try to get a better look, but the creature reared over him, and snarled. He thought better of moving.
He didn’t recognise the creature, but there had been plenty of time for entirely new species to develop. This one wasn’t as novel as it might be. It had the head of a lion, but the body looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a gorilla. It might have been a hybrid, the Doctor supposed. It let out a roar.
Its ears pricked and it looked away from him for the first time. The pressure on his chest eased. Then the creature had gone. The Doctor scrambled to his feet. The other creature, the first to attack him, had also vanished.
‘Where did they…?’
It was dark here, and cold, but nothing like as dark and cold as the rest of the dead universe. He buttoned up his coat and tucked his scarf in. The bitterest winter wind Outside on Gallifrey was warmer than this. At first he thought that he had materialised in a courtyard or a cloister, but then he saw the splintered beams around the edges of the ceiling and seen that this room had – until recently – been covered by a roof.
He was walking on smashed slates. It had been a large room, a ballroom perhaps, or a meeting hall. The walls were sheer redbrick cliffs three or four storeys high. The sky here was featureless, black objects on a black background, The light came from dull lamps fixed at intervals around the walls. Electric lamps by the look of them, but barely 20-watt bulbs. There was some warmth here, but it was very bitter. There were at least a dozen exits along each wall.
Which didn’t really help.
There were three men standing around him.
Two behind him, one in front They wore outfits that resembled the shinobi shozoku of the Japanese ninja: loose
– even baggy – sleeves and leggings, a tighter fit around the shoulders, waist and cuffs, a wide belt and flat-soled boots.
There had been patterns embroidered into the material once, but now they had washed out into a grey sameness. They all wore glistening cloaks made from a rubbery-looking substance.
All three were male, all three were in late middle age.
Broad-chested types. Old soldiers. They had guns and a few other pieces of military equipment slotted and clipped into their belts. The Doctor tensed.
‘Greetings, Doctor,’ the one in front of him said. The accent was unfamiliar, but full of sadness.
‘You know my name?’ he asked.
The one at his right moved towards him. He was taller than the first. ‘We must leave here. The Maltraffi must have roared, as the rest of the pride are coming, they will arrive in a few minutes.’
‘Those lion creatures are called Maltraffi?’
‘They have learnt not to fight us; the third one, whose skin was a little darker, stated, ‘as we will always drive them away.’
The Doctor wondered if there was a message there for him. ‘Yes, I was just wondering why they ran off so fast. I mean, they are so much larger and more agile than a man, they had all those claws and teeth.’
‘Yes,’ the tallest one replied.
‘And you are the people that killed Norval?’
‘Did we?’ asked the dark-skinned one.
‘You destroyed his TARDIS as it came into land.’
‘All who try to come here must die,’ said the first one, and the way he said it, you’d think that he was making a conciliatory gesture.
The Doctor hesitated, taking time to choose his next words carefully.
‘That does not include you,’ the first one said quickly.
‘Of course not,’ the tallest reaffirmed.
The Doctor smiled helplessly.
‘Gordel,’ said the dark-skinned man.
‘Willhuff,’ said the tallest man.
‘Pallant,’ said the first man.
‘Er…’
‘You were about to ask our names.’ A statement, not a question.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor admitted.
‘We do not