The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [96]
But using the swing of his sword to regain his balance, he turned a full circle in a pirouette as skilful as any dancer.
The momentum of the turn took Maximilian by surprise. The Doctor’s outstretched blade swished through the air, catching him near the shoulder of his right arm, his sword arm, slicing it off as neatly as a butcher’s cleaver cuts out a chump chop.
Sarah’s insides clenched. But the expected gush of scarlet blood didn’t come. Instead, she heard a clanging and a clanking as the severed arm bounced down the slope, 334
coming to rest in a cleft of rock at the bottom still clutching the sword in a ludicrous parody of the arm which held Excalibur.
Of course! Maximilian’s right arm was the false one!
But Sarah had no time to wonder how this could be.
Before the Doctor could take advantage of the new situation, his adversary shouted aloud to his flying bodyguard of monsters.
‘Kill him!’ he cried, with a wild gesture of his remaining arm.
Beating back the flailing wings with his free arm, windmilling the bright sword in his hand to keep away the snapping jaws, the Doctor seemed to be fighting a battle that was lost before it began. As he fought off one savage attack after another, it appeared that nothing could prevent the creatures from ripping him to pieces or toppling him from his precarious perch.
But it wasn’t the Doctor who lost his equilibrium, it was Maximilian. Shouting with laughter and almost dancing with glee, he moved back to avoid the wings whipping past his head and stepped into empty space. Flat aback, waving helplessly as he clutched vainly at the air, he followed the path taken by his arm and landed, with a thud which shook the granite rocks, impaled on his own sword.
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For a short while he screamed and writhed, kicking violently as if to ward off the approach of death. But then he fell silent and his movements slowed to a feeble twitching; and then stopped altogether.
The Doctor stood quite still watching from on high, for at Maximilian’s yell of alarm, his attackers had drawn back as if to see why he had called; and when he died, they voiced a chorus of acrid cries and flapped heavily away, vanishing into the mountains.
So what now? thought Sarah. You couldn’t kill an N-Body, the Doctor had said so. Presumably Maximilian would soon come back to life and they’d be back to square one.
But the wonders she was to view were not yet over. The Doctor hadn’t finished. Climbing down the mountainside, he approached the lifeless body of his enemy. Momentarily pausing, as if to make sure he was really dead, he lifted his heavy sword in both hands high above his head.
Oh God, thought Sarah. Surely he’s not going to… But before she had time even to finish the thought, the sword came flashing down.
Then it was that Sarah saw the greatest wonder of all.
As the blade descended, it was no longer the figure of a white-haired man in a dusty velvet jacket that she was watching, but a helmeted figure in a suit of armour of 336
shining silver; and it wasn’t the defeated Maximilian that he was beheading, but the limp body of a fearsome winged dragon, with scales of iridescent green and trails of smoke floating from its nostrils.
She couldn’t bear to look. She screwed her eyes tight, and waited for the sickening sound of blade cutting through flesh. But it didn’t come.
She tentatively opened her eyes. No longer was the giant figure of Saint George (or could it have been Saint Michael?) standing before her. Nor was there a dragon.
Way down in the valley, a tiny Doctor was holding something before him – it could only be the sonic screwdriver. On the ground at his feet was stretched a body.
But it was not the body of a crowned king dressed in golden mail. It was the corpse of Max Vilmio, in his crumpled linen suit, silk shirt and Gucci moccasins; and he was still wearing his head.
As she watched, she heard faintly through the silence of the mountains the buzzing sound of the sonic screwdriver; and to her amazement, the body at the Doctor