by Steve Cole
Inkri hissed with impatience. ‘The child knows too little.’ She crossed to one of the dead trees and selected another crystal. This one shone a moving image from its depths, of the Doctor wandering round a tent with a goofy smile on her face, working the sonic and then studying the readings.
Yaz wanted more than anything just to reach out to her friend and see her again. ‘Is that happening right now?’
‘The Doctor must complete her work for Attila. The final irradiations have been made. She – and the genetic anomalies she has created – must be removed before the final death toll is achieved.’
‘Why?’ Yaz demanded. ‘Why do you need so many people to die?’
‘Why do you need them to live?’ Inkri smiled slowly. ‘We have given them purpose where, before, there was none.’ She looked down at the crumbs of shattered crystal, Naelsa’s last remains. ‘Nothing lasts. Not in a single form. Certainly not your Doctor.’
‘She must be watched constantly. She cannot be trusted.’ Enkalo came to join her, carrying something like a dead rook in her hands. She placed the bird’s body on a small stone pedestal, traced a pattern with her fingers on the side, and in a golden glow it disappeared. ‘Now I will prepare Attila’s shaman for his final performance.’
As Yaz watched, Enkalo shrank and shrivelled into the floor. She looked over at Inkri. ‘How do you just live and die like that, but still remember who you are?’
‘The fruit grows on the tree, it falls, it rots, its seeds grow again into new trees that will grow new fruits … An endless cycle.’
‘Hate to break it to you, but you’re not exactly peaches.’
‘We are all projections from the Pit. And the Pit is so very, very old.’
‘The dead down there,’ Yaz said. ‘They keep talking about the Pit. What is it – what are you planning to do to them?’
Inkri smiled and curled a talon through Yaz’s hair. ‘Soon we will be beautiful once again in our perfection.’
The Doctor loved building things, all kinds of things – from time-flow analogues out of kitchen bits to dry stone walls, from Arthur C. Clarke’s designs for a digital lawnmower to proper challenges like assembling flatpacked Ikea wardrobes. She didn’t normally mind being watched – what good was being brilliant if you had no one to boggle and applaud? – but the dead crow eyeing her coldly from its perch on the table beside her was putting her off her game. Golden skeins flitted across the dark, beady eyes: eyes of the Tenctrama.
‘Give the poor thing some dignity, let her go,’ the Doctor said, staring straight into the crow’s head. ‘You can see I’m recharging the force-field generator.’ She buzzed again with the sonic, checked the reading. ‘You know what it can do, Attila knows what it can do.’
The crow’s eyes blinked, and it edged its head to one side.
‘When it’s ready,’ she went on, ‘I’ll tell you and then, then – you bring Yasmin back to me safe and sound and I’ll hand it over, just as you want. Otherwise, I’ll smash it.’
The crow held silent and still. Then it pushed out its wings and flew up at the Doctor’s face. She recoiled and it flapped past, hit the canvas wall and fell in a heap on top of the other dead birds the Tenctrama had sent to spy on her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, crossing to the crow and stroking its burning hot head. The optic link blazed through their little brains, they couldn’t last long. The Doctor swallowed back her anger – there would be a time for anger, soon – flicked on the sonic, and returned to the jobs in hand.
The job the Tenctrama thought she was doing on the force-field generator, and the job she prayed would save Yaz’s life.
Attila had summoned his council of war, the elder chieftains and nobles of many of the various tribes fighting under his banners. What a stink of colour and opinion they brought to his tent! But the talk, the camaraderie, the sheer presence of so many seasoned warlords gathered around the same table in another land, quickened the blood, told all present that glorious battle was pressing upon them. Since, in times of change, tradition steadied soldiers, to consolidate support and show he had broken faith with the Tenctrama, Attila had summoned Shallo, the wisest of his old shamans, to address the council with good augurs, to boost morale still further.
‘It is good to see wise men in place of witches,’ Chokona said, to much approval around the table. ‘We spent too long in their company.’
Attila ignored the implied criticism. In the council, everyone had a chance to voice his mind freely. The chieftains would, he knew, fight better if they felt their beliefs and opinions respected.
Shallo moved more stiffly than Attila remembered, but then he had been left out in the cold of ill-favour for two years or more. When you tried on old boots the leather took time to bend comfortably again. The old shaman’s skin was stretched tight over his bones, and a jackdaw sat upon the back of his neck, peeping about from behind his bald, scarred head, lending him an air of power and mystery.
‘We have inspected the entrails of cattle,’ Shallo said. ‘We have scraped the bones and distinguished the path of the beasts’ veins. All point alike.’
Attila nodded, indulging the old man his theatre. ‘And to what do they point?’
The shaman paused, closed his eyes. He began to sway.
Chokona stared, rapt. ‘He is communing with the spirits.’
The jackdaw gave a throaty call as if in agreement, or to call Shallo back.
Attila tired of the show. ‘Speak plainly to your king.’
The shaman’s eyes snapped open and his voice was a low whisper. ‘The Hun dead will stay dead. But the Romans who fall will rise again.’ He looked round the table as if seeking support. ‘You must release the Strava from their cages to feast on the flesh of our enemies.’
A low murmur of unease ran around the table.
‘The Tenctrama gave us words to command the Strava,’ Chokona said, ‘to make them attack and kill. But now the hags are dead, will their beasts stay under our control?’
‘They will,’ Shallo said.
Attila was surprised his shaman would embrace the legacy of the Tenctrama, but also pleased; he smarted still from the Romans unleashing their own beast at the Aube, and wished them to feel teeth in return. ‘Victory will be ours if we unleash the Strava?’
‘Of course.’ Shallo bowed stiffly from the waist. ‘A gift given by one we detest is still a gift.’
Lasett, the Sarguri chieftain, drank deeply from a bowl of horse blood, which to her seemed sweet as wine. ‘The beasts will help us to take the hill,’ she said. ‘Let them match our ferocity as we fight.’
Chokona nodded. ‘And let Aetius and his army endure only in the bellies of our dogs!’
‘It is agreed, then.’ Attila knew when to smile and when to bring down the boot, and his decision in matters of war was final. ‘We will let loose the Strava as we take the hill.’
Assent was hesitant at first, but then the banging of golden goblets on the table began and oaths were sworn. Attila smiled and sipped from his plain wooden bowl. He cared nothing for the trappings of wealth, only the power and fealty that it could command. And once he had the Doctor’s crystal wand in his hand, its power would make all people fear him in the same way they feared the Tenctrama. One day, he would command the whole world.
‘The Doctor’s work goes well?’ he asked Shallo.
Shallo nodded again. ‘We hold the young witch in our tents. Her power shall be yours.’
‘One power among so many,’ said Attila, smiling around at his chieftains; though inside he was warmed by Shallo’s words, he knew he could not be seen to be dependent on anyone or anything. ‘Now, to summarise: when battle commences—’
‘You’ll have this.’
The room fell silent as the Doctor entered the tent with her guard. She looked tired and drawn, smudges of dirt over her pale complexion. Attila’s heart quickened to see that in her hand, she held the crystal stick with which he had torn trees from the forest. ‘You have done as I ordered.’
‘Obviously,’ the Doctor said with an affable grin. ‘Are you not my lord Attila? Do I not tremble at your every command? Do I not lay it on thick enough, O great master?’
Attila’s eyes flashed warning as he rose from his great chair. ‘Remember Yasmin. She is in my hands.’
‘So you tell me.’ The Doctor regarded Shallo. ‘Hello. You look dead on your feet. Here to reassure folks the old ways are back?’
Shallo glared back coldly. ‘The Doctor’s weapon will win us this battle.’
‘For me, there is no way to win this battle,’ the Doctor said. ‘But I’ve done what you want. I’ve found a way to project the power of the force-field generator, over distance and … well, anyway, fancy a demo? I’ve laid on some wagons. Well, not literally. I’ve set up some wagons for target practice. Shall we …?’
Attila strutted after her and saw that three armoured wagons had been moved into position some way off at the bottom of the rise. An arrow shot from here would most likely bounce off the steel sides. But now the Doctor handed him the glowing stick. It had a black wire looped around its base like a hilt, and a small ball of metal placed in an indentation. ‘I gave it a button,’ she said. ‘Point and shoot. But choose the moment carefully, because once you’ve fired, it’ll need a few minutes to recharge …’
Attila was not listening. He pointed the crystal rod at the middle of the wagons and pressed on the metal. With a groan that was almost too low to be heard, the rod lit up red and then the wagons were struck by invisible lightning: shattered, scattered, thrown over like a child’s toys.
For a few seconds, all was silent. Then cheers went up from the chieftains, fists of defiance were brandished at the Roman forces still gathering in the distance. Attila turned and smiled, graciously acknowledging his generals’ love for him, and raised his weapon aloft. ‘Only Attila has this power!’ he shouted. ‘The armies of Rome will not hold with their centres devastated by my magicks …’
Attila didn’t need to go on; the loud assents were drowning him out. Why, he could win this war single-handed now!
‘I’ve done what you want,’ said the Doctor, and she turned from Attila to address the jackdaw on Shallo’s shoulder. ‘Now, take me to my friend.’
‘Do it,’ said Attila. ‘I have war to make.’
The shaman smiled and turned to lead the Doctor away, beginning to babble once more under his breath, over and over: ‘Together in the Pit, all rising from the heart of the Pit to walk strong again together in the Pit, the great Pit …’
The Doctor nudged the jackdaw aside and saw the sticky wound left by the Tenctrama knife that had severed Shallo’s brainstem. She stopped walking for a few moments, bunched her fists.
Then she quickened her step.
Chapter 22
Graham kept his head down and kept walking through the Roman camp. Soldiers saluted him as he passed – with Consus by his side, people must assume that the Magister Militum and his servant were inspecting the camp … at least he hoped they did.
His luck held until he neared one of the guarded checkpoints at the perimeter. So far, marching past with his eyes on the ground and a wave of the hand had worked pretty well, but suddenly he heard ahead of him – ‘Flavius Aetius, sir!’ The voice rang clear as a bell. ‘I urge you to receive my most urgent report.’
Marvellous, thought Graham. ‘Er, not now,’ he said, trying to mimic the deep, dry tones of Aetius. ‘Busy. Slave. Walk.’
‘Wait. Sir?’
Graham raised his head a little, saw a black horse canter towards him, someone in armour riding on its back, fingers at the hilt of the long sword by his side.
It was Vitus, from the Legion of Smoke. He looked up a little further and saw the young man’s face, soft and clear and framed with short blond hair. Clearly Vitus had not joined the dead after all, following his run-in with the zombie Huns in the woods. But Graham didn’t feel so clever now about his own chances of staying alive …
‘Ah, most gracious patrician Flavius Aetius, perhaps you will allow me to travel with you as you venture forth,’ Vitus went on. ‘For the woods are not safe. There are all kinds of spectres lurking there.’
‘No, you’re all right.’ Graham waved the arm again.
‘Some talk of a black man who casts bright light from his hand, dazzling those who might bring him and his elder compatriot down.’
Graham stopped so abruptly that Consus banged into him. Elder compatriot? Vitus clearly knew he was addressing Graham, not Aetius, and yet wasn’t dropping him in it.
‘Stand down the barriers, you men,’ Vitus went on, ‘else Flavius Aetius will flog you!’
‘Damn right I will,’ said Graham. Up ahead, he could hear the sound of low conversations, barricades being hastily dismantled, the creak of heavy carts as they were pushed aside. Righty-ho, then. He walked on by, Consus at his side, with the clip-clop of Vitus’s horse just behind him.
The walk seemed to last for ever but finally he heard the slave’s steady footsteps break away as the boy ran for it without another word.
‘I’m guessing we’re round the bend, then …?’ Graham pulled back the heavy woollen cloak from his head and turned to face Vitus. ‘I must be round the bend, trusting you. How come you helped me?’
‘Because time is short, Graham O’Brien,’ said Vitus.
‘What’re you playing at? Why’d you turn up at the camp and then turn round again? Have you seen Ryan?’
Vitus just looked at him, grinning. ‘Yes, I have seen Ryan. He is well, and with my associate in the Legion of Smoke.’
‘He’s all right? You mean it?’ Graham felt about two feet taller. ‘Can you take me to him? Somehow we’ve got to find the Doctor and Yaz – our two friends, I mean – in the Hun camp. Aetius was calling in some assassin to take me there and force me to bring out the Doctor so he could murder her …’
Graham trailed off. Vitus had pulled a flat, grey disc from inside his tunic and placed it to the side of his temple. ‘Sir, this is Vitus. Don’t worry about your missing prisoner, I’ve got him here with me. We will proceed together to the Hun camp as agreed.’
Aetius’s voice crackled from the disc. ‘Good. Move, then, and quickly.’ There was an electronic squawk and the disc fell silent.
‘You’re the assassin,’ Graham said dully. ‘With an ancient Roman communicator?’
‘We’ll talk as we go,’ Vitus told him, putting the communicator away. ‘I think we both have some catching up to do.’
The Doctor followed Shallo through the near-deserted camp. The men making ready for war were gone; they’d emerged now, from their chrysalises of leather and iron, as soldiers. The blacksmiths, the arrow-makers, the cooks and servants, the lifeblood of the camp, had left their posts and gathered on the high ground, staring down at the battlefield as the two gigantic armies, hundreds and thousands of men, faced each other over the plain in eerie silence, each second stretching out for an eternity.
Shallo stopped by a makeshift stable that was more like a lean-to and just stood there, muttering. The Doctor smiled as she recognised one of the horses standing just inside. ‘Bittenmane!’ He came out to see her, snorted and pressed his head against her shoulder. ‘Hello, boy. I won’t ask why the long face, because we both know you’re a horse.’ She patted his right flank. ‘Cuts and grazes all healed up, though! I’m glad Attila let you rest for a bit. You’ve been through a lot. Just like … Yaz!’ The Doctor looked up in delight as she saw Yaz stagger forward from behind the stables. ‘Oh, Yaz! I’ve been so worried.’
‘Doctor,’ she said, slurring the words. ‘Watch out, they’re not … letting us …’
‘Go?’ The Doctor nodded as Yaz’s eyes closed and Inkri and Enkalo stepped out from behind her. ‘Yeah, I sort of thought that might happen. Honestly, you alien invaders! You say one thing and do another. I notice this, in my line of work.’
‘And your work is protecting the people of Earth?’ Inkri’s voice was cold. ‘Other space powers have
come here.’
‘I remember a couple of them.’
‘We used our powers to preserve humanity.’
‘The way a hungry woman preserves her dinner?’ The Doctor looked steadily into those old, half-watt eyes. ‘You’re not invaders, are you? You’re more like farmers. How long have you lingered on this planet now?’
‘The process of renewal can take over a thousand years,’ said Enkalo, hovering beside Yaz. ‘The ground must be prepared before the seeds can be planted.’
‘And you’re not just speaking metaphorically, are you?’ The Doctor frowned, wondering aloud. ‘A process of renewal; a thousand years preparing the ground for the Tenctrama seed. And the ground is humanity.’
‘All animal life shall be harvested,’ Inkri informed her. ‘We have spent so long inculcating our seed within the proteins and enzymes of living things, over so many generations.’
‘Introduced your own essence to their food and drink. Irradiated them with your sky-fire and left them to simmer. Now they’re al dente and good to go as a nourishing meal.’ The Doctor looked over as some kitchen boys approached, glazed over, turned and walked away; the Tenctrama were keeping this meeting private. ‘How do you collect that nourishment?’
‘We must gather from the fresh dead. Death in volume is needed.’
‘You hearing this, bestie?’ the Doctor called over to Yaz, whose eyes were still shut. ‘Explains why the Tenctrama have been manipulating the barbarian kings – the movers and shakers who can bring this world to war.’ Now she turned the full force of her glare on Inkri. ‘The ones who can provide them with “the fresh dead” on an obscene scale.’
‘You talk to us of scale in war?’ said Inkri. ‘Our ancestors all but destroyed themselves with the most terrible weapons. Weapons that distorted life to such a degree—’
‘That you were the end result?’ The Doctor nodded sadly. ‘A handful of survivors, parasitic vampires, haunting the battlegrounds, leeching from the dead.’
‘Survival gave us hunger,’ said Enkalo. ‘Hunger gives us purpose. We drift through space in search of stock. We target animals who can shape their environment and splice our DNA with theirs, disguise ourselves, move among them, prepare the ground …’