Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers Part 22

I could just make out a dark head and pale shoulders emerging into the room; I could not tell who it was. Nahum, from his position, obviously could.

Before I could do or say anything, I saw him leap to his feet and run towards the figure. 'Lesia!' he cried.

I jumped up and followed Nahum. The figure was turned slightly away from us, but I recognised her as Yevhen's daughter, with her distinctive long, dark hair tumbling down her back.

'Lesia,' said Nahum again. 'We've been so worried about you.'

Lesia turned to look at us, and Nahum screamed.

Her face was a bleached-white skull.

XVIII.

Via lata gradior The Doctor stood beside Mongke at the head of the great army, and looked down on the city. The walls and fortifications looked pitifully weak. People scurried in the streets and clambered over walls and buildings as if they were ants tending their nest.

The Doctor wondered if any of the black specks he could see were Steven or Dodo. He did not like leaving them at the mercy of men such as Yevhen, but his life was a series of such heart-rending decisions. Every word, every action, every desire to keep his companions safe was balanced against the unimaginable consequence of failure, and the safety of millions.

Mongke turned to him, his handsome face glowing in the crisp morning air. 'It helps to see things from here, does it not?'

he queried. 'The whole picture of what might happen can play out before my mind's eye.'

The Doctor nodded stiffly. 'And mine also.'

Mongke glanced at him. 'You have people you care about?

Down there, in the city?'

'Yes.' The Doctor sighed. 'That is the problem with the bigger picture. You cannot rid yourself of the smaller details...

the people you care about.'

'We live in violent times,' said Mongke.

'I hope you are not trying to justify your butchery to me!'

The Doctor's voice rose sharply, strength of conviction belying his ancient frame.

'You are too concerned with the heavens to accept what I say,' said Mongke. 'I am telling you of the world that surrounds us. I wish, sometimes, it were different. But it is not.' He pointed towards the city. 'If things were reversed... If the Russians were invading our fair land... Would they show us any mercy?' He paused, waiting for his point to strike home. 'Would they?'

The Doctor said nothing. He knew mere words could not change the heart of a man. People altered, he supposed, because of bitter experiences and liberating events, not intellectual argument or the power of rhetoric. But the stories... Perhaps there was something he could say, some rambling tale that Mongke would think of as truth filtered by dementia...

No, it would not work. It was not a question of changing Mongke's heart, but the heart of an entire nation an entire world. When civilisations arise, the Doctor reminded himself, it happens over decades, not moments.

In any event, his role here was to prevent disruption, not exacerbate it. If you're in a hole, he remembered Dodo once saying, the first thing to do is stop digging.

'Cousin Batu will join us shortly. Together we will oversee the destruction of Kiev.'

'Destruction?' asked the Doctor, aghast. 'Must it come to that?'

'What is dead is no longer your enemy.'

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but became aware of a rush of activity behind them. He turned, and saw a small knot of Mongol soldiers pus.h.i.+ng their way towards Mongke.

They dragged a silver-bearded man between them, a slender form beneath heaped robes. 'A spy!' exclaimed one of the soldiers, bowing low before Mongke. 'He was wandering in the forests. He says he is looking for the Tartars!' Despite his leader's presence, the soldier could barely conceal a belly laugh.

Mongke smiled in grim amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Tartars, eh?'

The Doctor looked closely at the robed figure. He did not recognise him, but the quality of his robes and his clear complexion spoke of a certain status.

The robed man was thrown at Mongke's feet, and the Mongol leader stared down at him. 'A cleric? From Kiev?'

The man looked up, his hands held together in an abject form of supplication. 'Archbishop Vasil, my lord.'

Despite the prisoner's status compared to that of the Mongol warlord, the Doctor heard the deferential words stick slightly in the bishop's throat. He did not seem comfortable addressing anyone as 'lord'.

'Bishop Vasil, eh?' murmured the Doctor. 'We were not introduced before I left the city.'

Vasil looked at the Doctor, his eyes narrowing. 'The traveller?'

'I am with the Mongol army to plead the cause of Kiev,' said the Doctor. 'Why are you here?'

Vasil directed his answer at Mongke. 'I am here to negotiate an alliance an alliance between our people, and yours.'

'Your people?' spluttered the Doctor, not understanding what he was hearing. 'The people of Kiev?'

Vasil shook his head imperiously. 'The people of G.o.d,' he said.

The skull-faced thing that so resembled Lesia took an involuntary step back. Steven and Nahum watched, dumbstruck, as the mouth gaped open, revealing row upon row of narrow teeth.

Steven grabbed Nahum, hoping to pull him to safety, but the young man did not move, overcome by the shock of seeing Lesia, or the thing that resembled Lesia. 'Come on!' Steven urged, looking from Nahum's pale eyes to the dark sockets of the creature, and expecting with every moment that the needle-filled jaws would lunge down on them.

But the creature did not move. Steven could see it moving its head from him to Nahum and back again. Despite its inhuman features, something like recognition flickered across its face.

It took another step back, its skull-face still grotesquely surrounded by Lesia's hair. Something flowed from the nostrils and from behind its dark eyes, strands and teardrops of mercury and water. They changed colour, knitting themselves into muscle and cartilage, flowing over the face like a grotesque mask. Skin followed, pouring itself on to the fleshy strands and into the now reddening mouth. Within a moment, and as the black orbs of the eyes lightened, the transformation was complete.

'Lesia!' exclaimed Nahum again.

The creature, now to all intents and purposes a young woman, stared down at the cowering forms of Steven and Nahum. Then it turned and dashed across the room. The door into the house slammed shut behind it, leaving the two young men to exchange terrified glances.

Once again the creature had spared their lives.

'I cannot eat this!' exclaimed Dmitri. Like a child he pushed the plate across the table top, his lips curling petulantly.

Dodo looked at the food spread across the table: blood puddings, an array of coloured and shaped cheeses, marinaded pigeon with stodgy-looking dumplings. There were fresh vegetables and even a pair of cooked hares, arranged on an ornate silver plate as if still fleeing across the fields. It wasn't what Dodo thought of as a fine meal, but she knew this was the pinnacle of cuisine at a time when the poor stole sc.r.a.ps from their neighbours' cattle.

She shook her head. She could not comprehend the change in Dmitri's character. The news that the people of Kiev had been dumping infected bodies inside his residence seemed to upset him greatly, but even that did not entirely explain his mood.

'You should be ashamed of yourself!' Dodo admonished.

Dmitri raised a warning finger. 'Do not lecture me, little girl.'

'You should eat,' continued Dodo, in a more conciliatory tone, 'if only to keep your strength up.'

'We shall eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, eh?' Dmitri nudged her, as if he were making some bawdy joke.

She looked across the banqueting table at Isaac and Yevhen, imploring with her eyes that they do something. Isaac shrugged his shoulders diffidently, as if to suggest that he was powerless.

Yevhen simply stared at the ceiling, his mind elsewhere.

Dmitri noticed none of this. 'In any case,' he said, 'you expect me to eat, when the stench of death fills my nostrils?' He turned to his advisers. 'Does the disease still rage?'

'My lord, it is like a fire in the forest that cannot be controlled,' said Isaac. 'I am not sure how many have died but their bodies number in the hundreds.'

Dmitri sighed, his head dropping, his hands in his hair, a picture of absolute despair. 'Soon there will be no one left to defend our fine city,' he whispered. 'How long until the disease takes hold here, in this sanctuary I have tried to create?'

'No one here has even the first sign of disease,' said Yevhen suddenly.

Isaac cleared his throat, as if hoping to change the subject.

'There is still much to be done,' he said. 'With the emissaries dead...'

'Spies,' corrected Dmitri, still staring down at the table.

'... there is no hope of a political settlement.' concluded Isaac.

Dmitri clamped his hands over his ears, as if he no longer wanted to hear any of it. 'Take this food away,' he said. 'Feed it to the swine!'

'You can't throw something away just because you don't like it!' exclaimed Dodo, irritated again.

'I can do whatever. .' Dmitri's voice trailed away, and he looked up suddenly. Dodo shrank back from his bloodshot stare, his fixed expression. 'Why, of course!' he exclaimed, a strange delight gripping his features.

'My lord?' queried Isaac, wary of this sudden change of mood.

'The siege engines,' Dmitri continued, his eyes blazing. 'How many are ready?'

'A handful,' said Yevhen.

'They will suffice. And the bodies of the Tartar spies?'

'Where you left them, I imagine,' said Isaac bitterly.

'Good, good! This is what we shall do.' Dmitri spread his hands over the table top as if unfurling a grand and mapped-out plan. 'We shall load the corpses of the dog-faced Tartars into a trebuchet, and hurl them over the city walls. Their shattered bodies will be a testimony to our intent our intent to fight to the last man!'

'Do not compound your folly,' warned Isaac with a gravity that was rare before the governor. 'This action will only inspire the Tartars to greater fury!'

'And that will not be the end of it,' Dmitri continued, not listening. 'Order the soldiers to search the streets, the church yards, the room young Dodo has told us of. Find every corpse riddled with the illness. Catapult the refuse over the walls!'

'That's monstrous!' said Dodo.

'It is war,' said Dmitri simply. 'With the corpses disposed of, we may yet survive this disease. And it is possible that the illness will grip the Tartars as surely as it has decimated our own people.' For a moment, he sounded as if he was extolling some golden age, some sure way of escape. Then he sighed again, and the bitterness returned to his voice. 'Perhaps the disease will consume us all, and death will welcome Russian and Tartar with equal delight!'

Steven was the first to get to his feet. 'We've got to tell Isaac and the others,' he said.

'Tell them what?' asked Nahum.

'Well...' Steven paused, trying to unravel what they had witnessed. 'That we saw the monster, or whatever it is.'

'We saw Lesia,' said Nahum abjectly. 'The beast has swallowed her whole.'

'Nonsense,' said Steven. 'That thing looked like Lesia but it wasn't really her. When you first saw the beast it resembled the cook, remember.'

'Whatever it is, it has been hiding in the catacombs, but has now returned.'

'I'm not so sure about that,' said Steven.

'But you saw it with your own eyes!'

'What I mean is,' Steven said, 'I'm not sure it has has been in the catacombs all this time. We've a.s.sumed it has because there have been no further attacks.' been in the catacombs all this time. We've a.s.sumed it has because there have been no further attacks.'

Nahum shook his head, not following Steven's argument.

'Then where has it been?'

'Isn't it obvious?' said Steven. 'As you said, we saw it with our eyes. That thing looks like Lesia it might have been under our noses all this time!'

Comprehension began to dawn on Nahum's face. 'It was not Lesia asleep on the bed.'

'Perhaps not.'

'So she might still be alive and elsewhere!' Nahum made as if to begin the search immediately.

Steven put a calming hand on his arm. 'First we should tell the others what we've seen that this monster can impersonate Lesia and, for all we know, other people. Then perhaps we will have time to search for her.'

The Doctor's discussion with Mongke and Bishop Vasil was interrupted by a strange whistling sound, carried to them by the strong autumn winds. It originated in the city and, as the three men turned, it came again.

They watched as a flurry of black dots seemed to hurl themselves over the walls of Kiev, landing near the group of Mongol soldiers stationed in the valley. A pause, as some machine was reset and refilled with its seemingly human cargo, and then the flurry resumed.

'What are they doing?' asked Mongke. For once, it seemed, something had taken him by surprise.

The Doctor said nothing, knowing only too well the desperate measures that otherwise rational men are sometimes forced to take.