Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [15]
Suddenly his face broke into a broad grin. ‘Oh, hello!’ he said more loudly, looking over Martha’s shoulder. ‘Martha, we have company,’ he added.
Martha turned. Coming towards them across the clearing was a tall, broad man in brown robes. His face was hard to read, though his eyes seemed to twinkle with energy. A sword – thankfully sheathed – glinted at his belt, and his long, wild-looking hair was pulled back into a pigtail. He was moving silently over the branches and leaf litter of the forest floor – and, disconcertingly, he wasn’t even looking at the Doctor and Martha.
He bent down at the Doctor’s feet and, without a word, flicked a hidden catch and pulled open the trap. He indicated, with an impatient move of his head, the far side of the clearing.
‘Well, thank you,’ said the Doctor, who seemed not to have noticed the man’s anxious demeanour. ‘I’m most grateful for your…’
The man hissed the Doctor into silence and gestured at the other side of the clearing again. As Martha and the Doctor moved away – the Doctor was hobbling slightly but able to walk unaided – Martha saw the man, still crouching, draw his sword silently. The weapon was subtly curved, but short enough for use in the limited spaces afforded by the dense forest.
Throughout his encounter with the Doctor and Martha, the man’s eyes had been fixed on something else, some deeper darkness between the trees, and only now did Martha see what had so transfixed and terrified him.
A vast, awkward creature had advanced on the Doctor and Martha while they’d been preoccupied with the trap. Though still largely obscured by foliage, Martha caught glimpses of its skin – hide? – as it moved from side to side as if assessing its targets. She glimpsed prominent, ridged bones, with eviscerated skin almost seeming to hang in strips, impossibly slender limbs, and, just once, scarlet eyes that burned with a malignant intelligence.
‘Keep walking,’ whispered the Doctor, who’d obviously seen the creature now. His voice was simple and serious, all trace of mania – and his usual humour – gone.
Their rescuer, too, was backing away, still almost on his haunches as if coiled to strike, still staring implacably at the huge, obscured beast. Only when the man came alongside the Doctor and Martha did he sheathe his sword and engage them in conversation. His voice was deep and warm but he spoke in clipped, anxious words.
‘Do you need help?’ he asked the Doctor. ‘We need to get away from here.’
‘I’m OK,’ said the Doctor. ‘Thanks for sorting out that trap.’
‘Normally I am alone in the forest,’ said the man, by way of apology.
‘What was that creature?’ asked Martha.
‘Something that does not belong here,’ said the man.
‘And we’re safe now?’ asked Martha, risking a glance behind her. She couldn’t see the clearing now, still less any sign of the tall, angular beast that had watched them through the trees.
‘Let’s hope so,’ said the man, though he sounded less than certain.
The man, who introduced himself as Saul, quickly escorted the Doctor and Martha to the edge of the forest. He said little as they walked, his eyes and ears alert instead for any sign that the creature had followed them through the trees. Martha noticed that the birds were silent now; all she could hear were their own footsteps. Each step sounded impossibly loud; each twig that snapped underfoot was like a rifle shot.
The trees began to thin, the undergrowth becoming less ragged and more luxuriant. The Doctor kept trying to scan Saul with his sonic screwdriver, surreptitiously; Martha glowered at him, worried that this would be construed as rudeness – or a provocation. But thankfully Saul’s back was always turned to them.
Suddenly they were out in the open, standing high on a hillside, looking down on a lush valley of grass cut through by a twisting river.