Doctor Who_ Ultimate Treasure Part 18

She opened her eyes. Above her a parachute canopy blossomed rea.s.suringly wide and full. Also above but far to one side she saw the mushroom of Gribbs's chute. Around her was the purple horizon of Gelsandor, while below was the receding tail of the Falcon Falcon. She watched in dazed fascination as it plunged towards the undulating sea of green. At the last moment she thought she saw it level off. Then it was enveloped in a cloud of vapour as though rockets were blazing furiously. When this had cleared the ship had vanished among the trees. She strained her ears, expecting the sound of an impact to reach her, but none came.

Qwaid and the Doctor were both shouting into the comm link.

Even as he was threatening Gribbs with all manner of atrocities if he didn't answer, Qwaid saw the look of concern on the Doctor's face and knew the girl had indeed been the perfect lever to ensure his cooperation. And for a moment he felt a sudden flash of jealous resentment of the bond that clearly existed between them, because he knew, deep down, that n.o.body would ever care that much for Crelly Qwaid. And now he might have lost both her and the ship. Finally Gribbs's strained voice came back to them.

'I'm here, Qwaid. I had to eject. There was nothing I could do -'

'Peri? What about Peri?' the Doctor demanded.

'What? Oh, she got out as well. I can see her coming down in the woods.'

The Doctor's relief was palpable.

'What about the ship?' Qwaid asked urgently.

'I think the emergency retros cut in at the last second. It may have set down all right. But everything else was dead, Qwaid.

You heard Alpha's voice -'

'I heard, now shut up!' Qwaid thought for a moment, then said, 'Listen, this is what you're going to do. When you get down, find the girl first and make sure you don't lose her again. That's real important. Then check out the ship if you can. If there's nothing doing, see if you can get into Thorrin's ship. Meanwhile, we'll keep on. You call us regular to see we're not going to sleep again, understand?'

'Gotya, Qwaid... Uh, the trees are coming up fast now. I'd better get ready to -'

There was a crash of branches.

Peri's ejector seat had ended its descent dangling just a few feet from the ground, and she was able to unstrap herself and drop the rest of the way with ease. Then reaction had set in, and, in the privacy of the still green woods, she had lain in a huddle and shivered for some minutes. When she recovered her self-control she sat up, wiped her eyes, and tried to think constructively, considering her options.

She didn't have the TARDIS key, so she couldn't shelter there, even if she could find it. The only other occupied ship was Dynes's, and she couldn't imagine his being of any help. She might be able to find the Falcon Falcon more easily since it was probably closer. But at all costs she had to keep clear of Gribbs. How long could she hide out in the woods? She no longer had her camping pack, but while the weather stayed fine she would be able to manage for a few days. Perhaps that would be enough. If she could find their town, would the natives give her shelter or simply ignore her? If they did, perhaps she could steal some food and - more easily since it was probably closer. But at all costs she had to keep clear of Gribbs. How long could she hide out in the woods? She no longer had her camping pack, but while the weather stayed fine she would be able to manage for a few days. Perhaps that would be enough. If she could find their town, would the natives give her shelter or simply ignore her? If they did, perhaps she could steal some food and - 'Have you any comments on your remarkable escape, Ms Brown?' said Dynes's voice in her ear, making her start violently.

A camera drone marked DAVE #4 was hovering beside her.

'Oh, why don't you just go jump in a lake!' she said in exasperation.

'We did manage to glean a few sc.r.a.ps of information from the islanders before we succ.u.mbed to the, ah, influence, 'Thorrin explained as they plodded along.

It was good to have somebody talking: it kept them focused on what they were doing. The monotonous landscape made it all too easy to drift into that deadly torpor again.

'Yes, one was still quite a young man,' the Marquis continued, 'a university student who had come here with a party of friends.

They'd bought the information off some cheepjack trader for fifty credits! They didn't really believe it was genuine, but they thought it would be "fun" to hunt for lost treasure over their summer vacation. He'd borrowed his father's yacht. Now he thinks he's the only one left. Unbelievable... and rather tragic.'

Myra noticed the expressions on the faces of Thorrin and Rosscarrino. Their pride had been shaken in more ways than one. Prior to encountering the island they had convinced themselves that they were really the first proper seekers of Rovan's treasure. Now they must be wondering how many more had come to Gelsandor over the years. Was the Doctor right after all? Were they going to be cheated of... What was she thinking?

No! The treasure wasn't important, only catching Qwaid and his accomplices mattered.

'Did you find anything useful?' Myra made herself ask.

'Like the quickest way out of this place?'

'One of them did mention a forest that lay somewhere ahead,'

Thorrin admitted.

'Well?'

'He called it the Forest of Fear.'

'That sounds cheerful.'

'Apparently it's where your worst nightmares are realised.'

He didn't, Myra noticed, dismiss the idea out of hand. A few days earlier it would have a been a different story, she suspected.

'Old Jack has memories best left undisturbed,' Falstaff cut in anxiously. 'Perhaps there is a longer but less perilous way to be found.'

'But we cannot afford the time,' said the Marquis. 'Have you no courage, man?'

'The better part of valour is discretion,' Falstaff countered, in the which better part I have saved my life thus far.'

'Nonsense,' said Thorrin. 'Whatever may lie ahead we're forewarned now. We've had a taste of the locals' mental tricks and know they can be overcome by concentration and strength of will.'

'Quite right,' said the Marquis. 'There'll be no turning back!'

Myra thought she saw a look of dismay flicker across the face of Arnella Rosscarrino.

The woods Peri wandered through, trailed remorselessly by DAVE #4, were overgrown and virtually trackless, unlike the neatly manicured glades she had seen near the Gelsandoran town. Her final descent through the upper branches had turned her around, and she was not sure in which direction anything lay.

Still she trudged on in hope. If she chanced on the Falcon Falcon at least she might recover her pack. Then she could go after the Doctor and the others, though the thought of facing the trail alone terrified her even though she now knew some of its secrets. And she'd still be a couple of days behind the rest. at least she might recover her pack. Then she could go after the Doctor and the others, though the thought of facing the trail alone terrified her even though she now knew some of its secrets. And she'd still be a couple of days behind the rest.

'What you need right now, Peri Brown,' she told herself aloud, 'is a friend and guide you can rely on, preferably with some faster means of transport than your own two sore feet.' She looked about her. 'Unfortunately it looks like the woods are fresh out of knights on white chargers right now. Even Rin Tin Tin would be better than nothing,' she added wistfully, recalling a Hollywood canine hero of the pre-war era.

'Looking for someone, are we?' said an all too familiar voice.

Gribbs stepped out from behind a tree a broad grin on his mean face.

Peri turned and ran, DAVE #4 swooping after her.

'You stop right there or I'll shoot!' Gribbs shouted.

'You wouldn't dare!' she called back, twisting between the trees.

A distant curse and running feet told her that she was correct. It was her only advantage. Gribbs's legs were longer than hers, and he had as much motivation to catch her as she did to stay free.

She ran as fast as she could, desperately looking for some place to hide, but all the while Gribbs was slowly cutting down her lead. He was ten yards behind her, then five. His hand was reaching out for her shoulder.

'Gotya!'

His tug on her shirt pulled her off balance and she stumbled and fell heavily. In a second Gribbs's weight was on her back.

With a heave he twisted her over and straddled across her middle, pinning her arms to her sides with his knees. Gasping to recover her breath, she looked up fearfully into his hard glittering eyes.

'Now I'm gonna make sure you don't get away from me again,'

he promised, pulling out a cord and strap from his pocket.

There was a rumbling growl from the bushes a few yards away.

Peri had heard lions making similar noises in Africa, except this sound was far deeper, suggesting a creature of even greater bulk. Gribbs froze, and for a moment their eyes met in shared alarm. She saw his hand slowly slide down to the b.u.t.t of his holstered pistol.

There came a crash and swish of branches and a thud of heavy feet. Gribbs yelled as he half rose, drawing his gun. Peri had a blurred impression of a large body pa.s.sing right over her and knocking Gribbs off his feet. There was a boney thud as he hit the ground and a double thump of the creature's feet setting down after him. Then there was silence, except for breath being drawn into huge lungs.

Peri lay where she was, too frightened to look round after Gribbs, knowing she hadn't got the strength to run far and suspecting it would be useless to try in any case. Perhaps the creature would be satisfied with Gribbs, she thought selfishly. It would only be what he deserved after all. But there was no sound of her former jailer being torn limb from limb. Instead the great footfalls got louder. Then the creature loomed over her.

She'd never seen anything like it in her life.

A white, barley-sugar-twisted horn that would have graced any unicorn rose from its forehead. Its snout was as long a horse's head, but it was no herbivore as the long canines protruding from its upper jaw suggested. Its eyes were large, deep and intelligent. They looked out at her from what at first she took to be a contoured, metallic blue mask, except that she could see no straps or other means of attachment. Its neck was also armoured with overlapping metal bands and was equine in length, but more heavily muscled and covered with thick reddish fur.

The great head dipped towards her, the large nostrils flared.

She closed her eyes in alarm. There was a snuffling and a sensation as though a vacuum cleaner hose were being run over her body. It was sniffing her! Cautiously she opened her eyes again, just as a long wet pink tongue emerged from the fearsome jaws and licked her neck and cheek in a friendly fashion.

She squirmed away, breaking into a hysterical peal of relieved laughter. Stop it - that tickles!'

The beast lifted its head and regarded her with patient interest.

Slowly she got to her feet. With half an eye she noticed that Gribbs lay crumpled against the base of a tree some yards away.

She thought she could see him breathing, but evidently he was not going to be playing any active part in proceedings for some time to come.

The beast was even more impressive seen in its entirety. If it had been a horse she would have said it stood maybe twenty-six hands high at the shoulder. Of course its broad three-clawed paws on furry white-stocking-marked legs were not at all horselike in articulation, nor was its long heavy tail, which ended in a cl.u.s.ter of wicked spikes. The rest of its body was covered in more of the red hair and armoured plates, but she could still see no sign of any fastenings. It was almost as though they grew out of its body like some partial exoskeleton. Perhaps that sort of thing was quite common on Gelsandor. Yet natural evolution alone could hardly have explained what could only be a saddle that grew out of the beast's back, complete with integral side flaps and pocketed stirrups.

'Well, you're quite something aren't you, Red? Who do you belong to then?'

The beast tossed its head but made no other response. Now she began to think furiously. It had to be a domestic animal that had got loose, but somehow she couldn't see Shalvis and those other robed monk types owning something so magnificent.

Perhaps it belonged to some group of locals they had not yet encountered, who might be less involved with the quest. And if it could be hidden, it might be encouraged to take her back to them. They would be bound to be grateful and might give her shelter. At least it would get her well away from Gribbs.

As she pondered, DAVE #4 circled in to get a closer shot of her new acquaintance.

'Aw, haven't you seen enough yet?' she said irritably.

With remarkable speed for something of its bulk, 'Red' twisted sideways and lashed out with one huge paw. There was a crunch of plastic and a dying crackle of sparks, and DAVE #4 lay crumpled on the ground.

'I think we're going to be friends,' Peri said with an approving smile.

She wished she had a sugar lump to offer it, but settled for cautiously patting the animal's ma.s.sive flanks and talking in friendly tones. Its dense coat was soft and warm. She looked up at the saddle. How to mount an animal this size? There was no one to give her a leg-up, nor a convenient mounting block.

Soundlessly the stirrup flap in front of her extended like a long flat tongue until it hung at a convenient height for her to step into. There was even a bar lying across the flap at about shoulder level which she could use to steady herself.

'You're full of tricks, aren't you, Red?' She took a deep breath and stepped into the stirrup.

The flap contracted smoothly, lifting her upward. There was a hoop mounted on the pommel and she grasped it quickly as the bar disappeared under the saddle, threw her leg across, and she was seated. The right stirrup pocket contracted until she could slip her foot into it. A contoured plate that had been lying flat behind the saddle now rose to provide a backrest. It was almost like sitting in a high chair. She cautiously patted the furry back again.

'That's a good boy.' Only then did she realise Red's harness included no reins. Now, how I am I supposed to -'

But the great beast was already moving forward through the trees at a steady padding trot.

It was evening when Thorrin's party finally left the wetlands.

They felt the ever-threatening la.s.situde lift from them, only to be replaced by a new sensation of expectant anxiety. Myra had half hoped there would be some neutral ground they could rest on, but the transition occurred over the course of a few paces.

Clearly it was not intended they should have any respite.

Ahead was the edge of the forest. The trees were blackened, twisted and leafless - wooden skeletons with innumerable long, bare, twiggy fingers. Trailing from them were streamers of dry, grey moss. A little way inside the forest dark winged creatures flitted over the treetops, just too far away for those on the ground to make out their exact natures.

'Arden was never thus,' Falstaff observed nervously. 'But by my troth, is it not a theatrical setting? The Bard would have approved such gloom for his Scottish play, but Falstaff is no strolling mummer. I would find another path...'

'Oh no,' said Myra firmly. 'We're relying on you to keep our spirits up with more of those heroic stories of yours.'

But she could hardly blame him. The place reeked of a formless dread. It had to be contrived, yet knowing so made it no less real.

'Do we have to start now?' said Arnella. 'At least let's wait here overnight.'

It was a sensible idea. It would take an effort to press on in full daylight, but Myra thought even Thorrin and the Marquis would hesitate to push ahead with the evening drawing in. She wondered about Qwaid's party. Unless they got some extraordinary help from the Doctor, she didn't believe they'd have the guts to do it. Perhaps she should just wait along the edge of the forest for them, then there'd be no need to - She came to herself with a start. She'd been trying to find an excuse not to go on. The forest was already affecting her.

'What we need is a good fire to cheer us up,' Rosscarrino said with slightly forced heartiness.

'An excellent suggestion,' Thorrin agreed. 'A really big fire.' He strode forward to the nearest of the trees and pulled at the moss.

It crackled at his touch. He kicked at a dead branch lying on the ground, then licked his finger and held it up in the air. 'Plenty of firewood. We shall start it here.'

'But Professor,' Brockwell said anxiously. 'you might set light to the tree.'