Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 16

'So did I, Brigadier Bambera.' He returned her salute.

'Now, is the exclusion perimeter secure? The whole area is crawling with armed extra-terrestrials and they're hostile!'

Ace watched the Doctor indulge himself in a sly smile.

'Just like old times, eh Brigadier?' he said.

She waited to be introduced.

Bambera looked awkward. 'Regrettably I've only just got back here myself. But my first officer informs me that the radio jamming suddenly stopped a few minutes ago.'

She found Lethbridge-Stewart manoeuvring her to one side. 'The Doctor said there'd been problems. So we'd better get started, hadn't we?'

'That's right,' interrupted the Doctor with a grin. 'Two brigadiers are better than one!'

As he started up the slope towards Ace, she heard him mutter, 'I hope.'

'Ace, you're sopping wet,' he said out loud.

'My lord Merlin?' called Ancelyn.

The Doctor veered off course, leaving Ace alone and disgruntled.

Lethbridge-Stewart turned in surprise. 'Merlin now?' he asked.

'He has many names,' said the knight. 'Soon we shall see the tyrant Morgaine bow before his power.'

He went down on one knee and lifted Excalibur towards the Doctor. Lowering his eyes, he said, 'Truly, the Time of Rest.i.tution has come.'

What about me, thought Ace. I brought that back.

The Doctor seemed almost reluctant to take the sacred weapon. He picked it out of Ancelyn's hands and handed it to Peter Warmsly. 'Hold this, Peter. it goes with the scabbard. Look after it for me.'

The archaeologist was too confused even to answer.

The Brigadier climbed the crater and studied the group.

'He has many companions too,' he said and nodded at Ace.

'This must be the latest one.'

Ace stared.

'I'll get the perimeter checked now,' said Bambera and turned to go.

'Bambera,' called Lethbridge-Stewart. 'I had to leave my helicopter pilot where we came down near the village.

Lieutenant Lavel. She may be hurt and in trouble. We may have to get her out of there.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

'And see if you can find a blanket for this young lady,'

he added with a glance at Ace.

Bambera looked at him and said tightly, 'Yes, sir.

Perhaps I should make some tea too.' She walked stiffly away towards the group of soldiers staring from the convoy barrier tape.

They heard her yelling orders. Ancelyn bowed his head to Merlin and set off in her wake.

Ace found that Lethbridge-Stewart was watching her.

'Are you all right, miss?' he enquired.

'Just call me the Latest One,' she said sourly and started to walk after Bambera. 'I'll get my own blanket. Coming, Shou Yuing?'

The Brigadier found himself alone with the Doctor and the archaeologist. 'Oh dear. Women. Not really my field,'

he said. And he had forgotten to ring Doris as well.

The Doctor flicked away a charred piece of his hat. He thought of Morgaine and studied the woods that surrounded the lake. 'Don't worry Brigadier, people will be shooting at you soon,' he said cheerfully.

Chapter 2.

Elizabeth Rowlinson sat quietly and listened. It was ten minutes since she and Pat had heard the helicopter come down beyond the trees.

The phone was still out of order and none of the staff had turned up that morning, but there were no new customers either. The hotel had seemed mercifully empty once the visitors had vanished. When they heard the crash.

Pat had taken the first-aid kit and gone to help.

Elizabeth waited in the lounge bar and strained to hear the familiar sounds that no one else noticed. She had felt presences too. Since the strange night before, instincts that she kept to herself warned her that the world had somehow changed or was out of kilter. She had even sensed what she supposed was darkness. The change was beyond her definition, but it was unnatural and filled her with fear.

She moved to the window where she could feel the sunlight. The more she strained to hear, the less she heard.

The silence nearly deafened her. She could no longer tell what she listened for from what she imagined she heard.

She thought she heard many footsteps on the road, marching in unison like soldiers. The sun's warmth faded as she felt a shadow pa.s.s across the window.

She thought she heard the outer door to the hall open.

She even felt the brief chill of a sudden draught. Then there was silence; a silence that was too full of quiet.

She fumbled for her white stick and started to tap her way across the floor. Twice she collided with chairs that were not in their normal places.

She had almost reached the door when her stick tapped metal. She paused, sensing a presence and hearing breathing. There was a smell of man's sweat.

'Pat?' she said and put out a hand to find a shoulder.

Her fingers touched cold metal that curved around its wearer's shape.

Elizabeth s.n.a.t.c.hed away her hand and tried to back off.

'Who are you? What do you want?' she said.

The presence did not move.

No one answered.

'Pat, come quickly. Patrick!'

A cold hand gloved in fine chain mail seized her wrist.

'Pat!' she screamed.

Excalibur's cry had ceased. Morgaine's power was not so diminished that she could not hear the sword's sudden silence.

The Knight Commander of the Queen's entourage awaited orders. One hundred men-at-arms, summoned at Morgaine's behest through the rent between worlds, stood in ranks in a marshy field. One hundred red cloaks shifted in the wind.

Tempered steel among tufts of meadow flowers.

She had broken the bridge across the abyss behind her soldiers and healed the wound in time with her arts. Her quest was irrevocable. They would not see the world again until her needs were fulfilled.

Those natives of Avallion they had encountered since leaving the shrine had scuttled away in fear before them.

They had been rough peasant stock, not the warrior n.o.bility that the Knight Brigadier had represented.

The summons of the King's sword had been for her; and so she had answered and the calling had ceased. Yet was it also for her to choose the meeting place? Or was this yet another of Merlin's tricks? For surely Arthur was oath-bound never to step beyond the rules of chivalry?

Yet there had been one time, one moment, when all gallantry had failed the High King. And that moment of dishonour burned daily in her heart.

So be it. Let Merlin play his games of Blind Mole's Bluff, she would make her first move now and trounce him at every turn. The sword, symbol of power, would be hers.

'Knight Commander,' she said. 'The final confrontation is at hand. Where is my son?'

'At the hostelry, my lady,' said the young voice.

She stared at the reflection of herself in his mirrored umberere visor. She had wanted a son with a dedication to his duties as a prince, not a wayward who used his rank to behave like a n.o.ble ruffian. Time and again for a thousand years, Mordred's indiscretions and immodesties caused embarra.s.sment to the royal household: and always they seemed unerringly aimed at her.

She bestowed upon her son every exaltation that his position merited, but there were always a hundred young knights who were more worthy of all his honours and who showed their queen more dedication.

For all her powers. Morgaine could not choose her child. But she would unleash those powers on any other who stood in her path.

'Bid the men be ready,' she said. 'Merlin has possession of Excalibur and must be dealt with.'

'My lady.'

She pointed to the hard track that led into the trees.

'Take your men along the road yonder. Seek out those that hold Excalibur and take the sword from them.'

'And if they resist us?' he said.

She knew what he feared, for she had faced Merlin long, long ago. Merlin's deeds were ancient tales to this young knight, but she had seen the dragon that he summoned to Breceliande to melt the ice in which she bound him. The songs that were sung of his power over light, darkness and the elementals were all founded in truth.

She, Morgaine, the Rose of h.e.l.l, feared none of that infernal region's horrors and infections as much as she dreaded one glance of Merlin's mocking eyes.

But she must have Excalibur; no matter the cost. 'If they resist you, give them an honourable death.'

By the time the Brigadiers had finished a round of briefings with Major Husak of the Czech engineering group and Lieutenant Richards, the Doctor was on his fourth cup of army tea.

When they emerged from the sealed end of the Command Vehicle after talks with Geneva, the Doctor had reached his fifth cup. Bambera seemed in an altogether better humour and Lethbridge-Stewart was wearing a satisfied smile which could only mean he was up to something.

Or worse, that there would be fighting soon.

The Doctor had packed Ace and Shou Yuing out of the way of any talk of combat. Although he suspected they would be saying something very unladylike to a couple of squaddies who had been eyeing them up.

He had spent a profitable time getting Ancelyn to talk to Peter Warmsly. The archaeologist seemed to be responding well to the knight's tales, but the Doctor was unsure how deeply the man was still in shock.

Sitting tightly in a deep leather seat, Peter clung to Excalibur and said, 'I keep thinking you're true, young man. I think I'd like that. It's better than reality, isn't it?'

And there were tears welling in his eyes.

The Doctor pocketed a small notebook into which he had cribbled a few notes from Ancelyn's stories. Just a few references to another universe that paralleled the one he knew; nothing to do with Merlin or an inescapable future that was getting a little too close for comfort. But better safe than sorry for all that.

'Well?' he said to either of the Brigadiers.

'We have full clearance for whatever action we need to take,' said Bambera.

'Within the exclusion zone,' added Lethbridge-Stewart.

'Under UN resolution...'

'Oh, never mind all that,' snapped the Doctor. 'As long as you're not going to meet Morgaine's forces head on.' He noticed the two soldiers give each other the briefest of glances.