The Beast of Babylon

by Charlie Higson

  Gurgurum gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. He wished he could leap from the balcony, run across the square and plunge his blade into the prisoner’s belly himself.

  Ali was pacing up and down, drumming her fingertips against her teeth as she always did when she was anxious and thinking hard. She had watched helplessly as the Doctor had been dragged away, shouting about the Starman and the danger they were all in. She couldn’t bear to think about what they were doing to him out there. Time was passing, marked by the clicking of her feet on the metal floor of the Doctor’s ship. He had told her to stay put, but if she didn’t do something they were going to kill him. And if they killed him, there was no hope of defeating the Starman.

  What made it worse was that the Doctor had left the orb in its cradle on the console, so, even if by some miracle the Babylonians didn’t kill him, when the Starman attacked he would have no way of defeating it.

  And then she heard a thump.

  She glanced at the scanner. Several guards had gathered round the TARDIS and one of them was battering at the door with his spear. Ali doubted he could do any damage, but it made her angry and, though she tried to damp the anger down, it grew inside her until she was glaring at the screen.

  Thump.

  ‘You’re making me mad,’ she hissed. ‘And you wouldn’t like me when I’m mad. Believe me.’

  Thump.

  Still the puny idiot bashed his silly spear against the door.

  Thump.

  Ali’s whole body felt hot. Her anger was like a physical being inside her, bursting to get out. The image on the screen was dimming as the red mist of battle settled on her.

  Thump.

  One of the other guards laughed and said something obscene about the TARDIS and that did it for Ali.

  She was not going to stand for that.

  She was not going to stay shut up in here.

  She was not going to hang around and let the Doctor get killed.

  And so she listened, timing the thumps, tuning in to the man’s rhythm, slowly creeping over to the door. She waited, counting, and then yanked the door open just as the guard lunged again. He was thrown off balance and stumbled through the suddenly empty space. She was ready for him and kicked him in the chest. He flew back, knocking over two of his startled friends, and now she was out and moving fast. The guards hadn’t been expecting this and they hesitated, trying to make sense of this new threat. As two of them broke away and fled screaming towards the temple doorway, Ali lashed – one, two – with her antenodes and they went down, stunned. It would be a long while before they woke up.

  That left three more, plus the three who were still on the ground, scuttling away from her on their backs, yelling in terror and panic.

  There was no time to think. Ali had to get out of here and find the Doctor. And she mustn’t let anyone sound the alarm. Her antenodes were accurate and effective weapons, but she had used them both in the attack and it would take up precious time to curl them back in and make them ready again.

  As she was processing all this information, one of the guards threw his spear. It cracked harmlessly off her armour – but that did it now. The rage came on her. There was no turning back. No more trying to be nice and stun the stupid men. She would use lethal weapons …

  She advanced …

  And the guard who had thrown the spear screamed …

  And died.

  6

  Hammurabi eyed the prisoner curiously. He had claimed to be a doctor not a spy, but could not explain how he had emerged from inside the strange blue cabinet that had appeared in the middle of the temple. Hammurabi feared magic, and this man was a sorcerer, there was no doubt about it. A sorcerer and a spy. This was a worm that could destroy the whole fruit. Hadn’t his priests warned him against just such an infiltrator? He was frightened. He had to save his city and protect his people, so the sorcerer had to be got rid of quickly before he had time to spread his poison.

  Hammurabi had hastily rounded up three judges, who had been enjoying lunch together in one of the taverns near the river, and he had instructed them what the punishment should be. This way, the sorcerer’s death could act as an offering to Marduk.

  The chief judge now raised his hand to deliver the sentence. ‘Cut out the spy’s heart,’ he shouted.

  ‘Which one?’ said the sorcerer, a mad grin on his white-skinned face.

  ‘You will be silent,’ screeched the chief judge.

  ‘I will not, actually,’ said the sorcerer. ‘I always understood that the great and wise Hammurabi was a just king. A king who was proud of the laws he had written down. A king who would always let an accused man defend himself and not call him guilty without fair trial.’

  ‘There is nothing you can say that will change my mind,’ said Hammurabi, fearing that the sorcerer would use clever words and magic to cloud his mind. He would not listen. He must not listen. ‘The law is the law. And the punishment for spies and sorcerers is to have their hearts cut out.’

  ‘Nothing I can say?’ shouted the sorcerer. ‘What if I told you that you are in very great danger? What if I told you that your nice city, your kingdom, your empire, your whole world was about to be attacked by a being of such immense power that it will make your army look like toy soldiers, and when it’s done with you there will be nothing left of mighty Babylon except ashes and cinders?’

  ‘My priests have already warned me,’ said Hammurabi, waving a hand dismissively.

  ‘Really?’ The sorcerer raised his eyebrows. ‘They’re cleverer than they look.’

  ‘And it is clear that you are the threat they warned me of.’

  ‘Wait, listen to me –’

  ‘Enough of this,’ said the chief judge. ‘The sentence must be carried out.’

  ‘No. You must listen to me!’ The sorcerer looked worried for the first time. He struggled as four guards grabbed him and roughly dragged him towards the execution stone.

  ‘The Starman is coming!’ he yelled. ‘The Great Beast! And I’m the only one who can stop it!’

  From his vantage point on the royal balcony Gurgurum could see the man struggling as he was forced over the execution stone. He had heard his words and they’d made him uneasy. Gurgurum was a man utterly fearless in battle, yet now he felt the pricking of uncertainty.

  The great beast of legend was coming … that was what the prisoner had said. What form would the Beast take? Where would it come from? How could they defend themselves against it?

  The histories recorded the stories of the old gods. All the constellations in the sky were gods. The Babylonian zodiac taught children their names, and their parents used them to frighten them into obedience. It had been hundreds of years since the gods had walked the Earth. Would the Beast come down from the heavens in the form of a monstrous bull, a scorpion, a great lion? Or would it be some new and terrible monster?

  He laughed at himself. He was behaving as if he was a little boy again, frightened of shadows. There were no monsters coming.

  He heard a sound and turned quickly, his senses alert to any danger, peering into the darkness of the king’s chambers.

  And his heart throbbed in his chest.

  It was here.

  The Great Beast.

  It was upon them.

  And it was like nothing he had ever seen before.

  It stood a whole head taller than any man, and there was something of a beetle about it and something of a crab or a crayfish from the river. It had six legs but only stood on four. Its segmented body was arched backwards so that its two front legs were held up and out like arms, one of them ending in a huge knobbled claw. It had a head of sorts with four black bead-like eyes, but worst of all was its mouth, a gaping hole in the centre of its face, filled with row upon row of tiny sharp jagged teeth and surrounded by waving feelers that seemed to claw at the air.

  Gurgurum offered up a prayer to Marduk and charged inside, tugging his sword from the scabbard at his belt.

  He couldn’t ho
pe to defeat this monster, but he would die trying.

  He was a pure-born Babylonian.

  7

  ‘I’ve come to Babylon to destroy the Beast,’ the Doctor shouted as the priest, Zabaia, raised a vicious curved blade above his head and murmured an incantation. ‘It’s here, I know it’s here.’

  And then there was a scream. Zabaia paused, and the two guards let go of the Doctor as everyone in the courtyard looked up to see a soldier falling from a balcony, arms flailing. The Doctor heard Hammurabi shout, ‘Gurgurum!’ and looked away as the poor man hit the ground and was silenced.

  There was something up there, coming out of the palace on to the balcony. Whatever it was, it must have thrown the man down. It reached the balustrade and stood there, raising itself up on long thin legs, seeming to peer down at the people in the square, opening and closing a massive claw.

  ‘It is the Great Beast!’ Zabaia shouted. ‘You must send up your guard, Lord Hammurabi, to crush it.’

  ‘That’s not a Starman,’ said the Doctor. ‘Too small.’

  ‘It is the Great Beast,’ Zabaia repeated, his voice becoming high-pitched with hysteria.

  ‘No it’s not,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Her name’s Ali. She’s from Karkinos, but you don’t really need to know that.’

  ‘You are a friend of monsters,’ Zabaia screeched. ‘You have brought them among us. Your treachery is exposed.’ He pointed a shaking finger at the two guards. ‘Hold him to the stone! We must kill him quickly!’

  But nobody moved. None of the soldiers were looking at Zabaia, or the creature on the balcony, or the Doctor any longer. They were looking up, over the wall on the opposite side of the square, where darkness was filling the sky. And something vast was forming in that darkness.

  Zabaia dropped his knife and flung himself to the ground, burying his face in the dirt.

  ‘Now that,’ said the Doctor as the guards let go of him, ‘is a Starman. You should have listened to me, Hammurabi. Your great beast is here at last.’

  From the balcony Ali had a better view of the new Starman than anyone. And she watched, transfixed, as it materialised on the plain outside the city walls. It was as tall as the giant twins had been but, just as the Doctor had warned her, it was stranger and more horrifying.

  It had no back legs, just the tail of a rotten fish, huge and bloated, and it pulled itself along with two immense lizard-like arms. Its head had dangling fleshy tendrils and two horny protuberances jutting from the top. It had the same dead, distant eyes as the twins, and the same faint appearance as if it was there but somehow not there at the same time. The strangest thing of all was what looked like water gushing from its shoulders, giving the appearance of two long, drooping silver wings.

  She had to get the orb to the Doctor. She could feel its weight in her carrying pouch. It was the only thing that could stop the Beast.

  There were shouts from behind her. Soldiers were in the corridor leading to the king’s chambers. From back there they would have no idea what was happening outside. Ali knew she should ignore them, but she could sense the rational part of her mind losing out to the battle rage.

  She moved inside and made ready her antenodes where they lay down her back, feeling the familiar tingling sensation as they filled with poison. She flexed her claw as the red mist descended.

  The guards crashed through the wooden door and staggered to a halt, staring at Ali in terror and disbelief, just as she had stared at the Starman.

  Two of them had enough courage to throw their spears, but they couldn’t penetrate her shell. Her antenodes whipped out together, taking one man round the ankle. He fell hard on the stone floor and now she was scuttling after the rest of them as they retreated out of the door. They couldn’t hope to outrun her, her six legs were faster than their two, and in a moment she was on them and her battle claw ripped into them.

  ‘That is one ugly goat-fish-type-thing,’ said the Doctor, running across the square towards a flight of steps that led up to the battlements.

  ‘Wait!’ It was Hammurabi, his face pale with shock. He hurried up to the Doctor and gripped him by the shoulders. ‘You said you could defeat the Beast. How? How do we do it? My army is ready, but –’

  ‘Your army doesn’t stand a chance,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘Not against a thing like that. It’s a Starman; it eats whole planets for breakfast.’

  ‘Then how?’

  The Doctor paused. He knew how. He had to get back to the TARDIS and get the orb, but there wasn’t time for that. With every second the Starman would be drawing strength from the ground. Once it fully materialised not even the orb could stop it.

  ‘It’s too late …’ he said, then laughed. It wasn’t too late at all. The cavalry was arriving. Good old Ali. Flushed dark with fury, she was crawling down the outside of Hammurabi’s palace like a big red cockroach, the orb held firm in her battle claw.

  ‘Good girl!’

  She was acting true to form. The female was the deadliest of her species. When the safety of the group was threatened, the females went into battle and wouldn’t stop until their enemies were utterly destroyed.

  8

  Hammurabi’s army had formed on the plain outside the high city walls: ranks of spearmen, bowmen, slingers and chariots. Camel riders trying to calm their nervous, snorting mounts. Officers shouting at the men to hold firm as the Starman advanced, spewing water to left and right.

  ‘Coming through! Move aside!’ The ranks parted as the Doctor, clinging to Ali’s back and holding the silver orb with his free hand, charged through them.

  This was too much for most of them and they dropped their weapons, trusting to prayer to get them through this insanity.

  ‘Faster, Ali, faster,’ cried the Doctor, and Ali speeded up. ‘We’ve got no time left!’

  Ahead of them, the enormous beast dipped its head, opened its jaws wide, showing the blackened stumps of teeth, and scooped up a section of the first two ranks of the army. It lifted its head, chewing, as men spilled out of its mouth and fell to the ground.

  And behind it, Ali saw another shape and another, looming out of the black sky.

  It was the twins.

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘Just ignore them. The goat-fish must have ripped the dimensional wall and the other Starmen are following him through. Any minute now all of chaos is going to materialise, but if I can just get up there, to its mouth …’

  Ali saw the great slug-like belly of the goat-fish, slithering forward along the ground, crushing trees and men beneath it as it came. Any moment now she too was going to be flattened if she wasn’t careful.

  She was battling her way through fleeing troops now as Hammurabi’s army tried to get away from the Beast.

  ‘Are you ready?’ she yelled.

  ‘No. But whatever you’re going to do, just do it!’

  Ali tensed her legs and with a grunt went into a Karkinian battle leap, flying through the air and landing halfway up the Starman’s tail, where she gripped its scales with her strong clawed legs. The body of the Beast was hot, intensely hot, but her shell protected her and she began to climb.

  ‘That’s it!’ The Doctor shouted his encouragement. ‘Go on, girl!’

  She was up on the Starman’s back now, trying to ignore the gushing water. The Starman’s scaly flesh was pitted with huge sores, out of which poked the heads of what looked like giant maggots. Ali worked her way around them as she crawled up, like a tick on a sheep, and made it to the right shoulder. At last the Starman seemed to be aware that there was something on it. It turned its goat’s head, and its cold, dead eyes fell on the Doctor and Ali. It bared its teeth, opening its mouth wide, its slimy yellow tongue dripping saliva …

  ‘Excuse me while I do the boogaloo!’ shouted the Doctor, and he pulled back his arm and let fly with the orb, which sailed straight into the Beast’s gaping black maw.

  Ali felt an enormous wave
of hot air slam into her. The heavens seemed to open in a flash of intense white light and she was falling, falling in a cloud of silver snowflakes.

  9

  The Doctor lay on his back, staring up at a palm tree. It was very peaceful. He could hear birds singing. He felt like he could stay like this forever and lose himself in the lovely deep blue of the sky.

  ‘Doctor?’

  Fat chance. There was always something to do, someone to deal with, a problem to solve, a world that needed saving. He lifted his head and it felt as heavy as a sack of potatoes, as if it might fall off and roll away down a hill. His vision blurred and swam, and when he managed to refocus there was Hammurabi leaning over him, with Zabaia and the three judges.

  ‘I am sorry I doubted you,’ said Hammurabi. ‘You were right, Doctor.’

  ‘I usually am,’ said the Doctor, and he closed his eyes. ‘Now go away, I’m sleeping.’

  ‘We must write about you in our histories,’ said Zabaia. ‘What is your name?’

  The Doctor sighed and hauled himself up on to his elbows, blinking. He felt like every bone in his body must have been broken, but he could move all his limbs and wiggle his toes. It had been a close thing, though. Too close.

  ‘You go through Marduk’s fifty names,’ he said to Zabaia. ‘You’ll probably find my name in there somewhere.’

  ‘Marduk?’

  The Doctor grinned at Zabaia – actually more of a grimace; it hurt like Helios to move his face. He fought off a wave of nausea and faintness. The chief judge held out a hand to help him to his feet.

  ‘Get away from him!’

  ‘No, Ali …’

  But there was no stopping her. Ali sliced her way through a line of soldiers, and then swung her claw at the judge who had no time to even scream before the pincers closed on him.

  ‘You would have killed him,’ Ali grunted. ‘You and all the others. Now see how you like it.’