Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [28]
Why could he hear thunder?
By the time he had realized, Kame was already running towards the village gates.
Chris shouted and leapt down from the veranda of the house, tugging at his katana.
There were maybe a dozen of them, riding like madmen towards the town.
Purple banners flapped behind them. Children were crying and running, getting out of the way of the hooves. Farmers were running in from the fields, yelling.
‘Close the gates!’ Kame was shouting. ‘Don’t let them in!’ The villagers were pushing the wooden gates closed as the last farmers slid inside. But they’d waited too long. Two women were sent flying as a samurai charged the gate, kicking it open.
Kame drew his katana and shouted a challenge as the purple samurai burst into the village, sending one of the peasants tumbling in the dust.
One of the mounted samurai leapt down from his horse. Chris was running up.
He saw the sword flash down into Kame’s shoulder, a blue line of movement, reflecting the clear sky. He found himself slowing to a trot, then to a stumble, and suddenly he was on his knees in the dust, gazing at the fallen body of the ronin as dark blood spread across the ground.
‘Shut the gates!’ the man roared, his bloodied sword flashing in the sunlight.
‘Shut them! There are demons coming! Demons!’
58
6
Flying Heads
Chris was watching Kame’s blood spreading out across the half-frozen soil. He was fascinated by the edge of the puddle, where the surface tension created a rounded shape.
Distantly he could hear people yelling and screaming and kids crying and a little voice inside him telling him he had seen far worse than this, far worse than this, he should get up and keep functioning.
The blood didn’t seem to be soaking into the ground much, although it wasn’t spreading out as quickly as before.
The human sounds were quietening down. Chris looked around, slowly.
Everything was moving like a sim played at half-speed and slightly out of focus. The villagers had formed a frightened knot behind him, across the square from the dozen samurai.
The Doctor walked through them, and they parted around him. He headed straight towards Chris.
The Doctor knelt beside Kame’s fallen body for a moment, ignoring the samurai standing over him with the killing blade still in his hand. He stood up and turned back to Chris.
‘Get up!’ he stage whispered. He put his hands on Chris’s face, trying to get his companion’s attention. Chris blinked, wondering why he couldn’t seem to respond. ‘Get up, get up!’
Chris saw the samurai looming behind the Doctor. His sword was still drawn. The Adjudicator felt his mouth opening as his brain tried to shout out a warning, but suddenly everything was moving at normal speed and there wasn’t any time left.
The samurai’s sword rose and came flashing down and broke into three pieces that spun away from the Doctor’s back without ever having touched it.
The Time Lord turned around. ‘Do stop that,’ he said. ‘Someone will get hurt.’
∗ ∗ ∗
59
The Doctor and Chris sat on opposite sides of the fireplace. Outside, on the veranda, their guards were as silent as the village.
The rest of Captain Hadankyou’s samurai were keeping watch through gaps in the village’s fence. Waiting for the demons to attack. The villagers had been ordered to keep watch as well, or to stay in their houses.
Between the demons and the Doctor, the samurai’s leader seemed close to panic. Chris hoped the other time travellers had found some way out of the village. Who knew what could happen if the Captain got another surprise?
‘Neat trick with the breaking sword,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ said the Doctor. ‘Would you like to know how it’s done?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So would I.’
‘Now what do we do?’
The Doctor looked up from the fire. ‘What do we know about these samurai?’
‘Don’t ask me any more questions,’ said Chris. ‘Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.’
The Doctor’s blue eyes raked over him once, and then his gaze fell back to the flames. As though he hadn’t found what he was looking for.
Chris lay down on his side, curling up