Part 10 (1/2)

Willow lost his balance completely and fell sprawling from the cart. He lay winded on the ground.

While this was going on the Doctor had trled to take advantage of the confusion to slip away from his captors.

Unfortunately for him, the soldiers had grown even more terrified of their leader in his manic condition than they had been before, and they were making doubly sure that his fury was not increased by the loss of his prisoner. So instead of their grip on the Doctor slackening it increased, and his chances of escape were less than ever.

Then he saw Will Chandler.

Will had watched the events on the Green with an overwhelming joy when he saw that by some miracle the sacrificial burning of the May Queen had been avoided. He had breathed a big sigh of relief and edged forward to see if he could help his friends; now he saw the Doctor's predicament at the moment the Doctor saw him.

'Over here, Will!' the Doctor shouted.

Will ran.

What happened then occurred so quickly that afterwards Will was unable to separate one event from another. When he started to run towards the Doctor he had not the vaguest notion of how he was going to help him.

But as he crossed over to the Green he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the trooper carrying the burning torch.

Almost without thinking, he changed direction and dived at him. Although the trooper was twice Will's size the charge took him completely by surprise, and he staggered backwards and dropped the torch It rolled across the gra.s.s.

Will picked it up. The heat scorched his fingers, but he gritted his teeth and holding the torch firmly with both hands, began to whirl it around his head. The swinging flames made a peculiar roaring noise, like water tumbling over a weir. Will was a fearsome sight as he advanced on the soldiers holding the Doctor, with sweat running down his forehead, a look of stubborn determination on his face, and the torch flying and roaring in his hands. The soldiers scattered in fright as it flared towards them and the Doctor was free.

But now Sir George Hutchinson was galloping across, yelling with fury. Without thinking Will turned to face him, too. He was still whirling the burning torch about his head. With sparks flying in all directions, the flames swept round towards Sir George's horse. It panicked and pulled its head away from the heat, rearing high in the air and throwing Sir George out of the saddle. He fill head first to the ground, and lay very still.

Will hoped he had broken his neck. But there was no time to find out, because troopers and soldiers were running towards them on every side.

Ben Wolsey, whipping the cart to a great speed, reached them first. The Doctor jumped up beside him and shouted to Will, who hurled the torch at the approaching soldiers and pulled himself up into the cart too. And they were off.

'Back to the church!' the Doctor shouted to Wolsey.

Then, with a sincere 'Thank you' to the farmer and the youth, he picked up the straw May Queen and tossed it at their pursuers.

The Green was in turmoil. There was much shouting and swearing and everywhere people were running aimlessly about. Holding on tightly to the sides of the wildly swinging cart, Will watched them receding into the distance. He was disappointed to see both Sir George and Sergeant Willow climbing groggily to their feet, and he heard the screaming hysteria in Sir George Hutchinson's voice as he shook his fist at the cart and yelled, 'After them! After them!'

Willow began to run.

Inside the church, the Malus fell silent the moment Sir George toppled from his horse. Up to that moment it had surged and pulsated with the energy produced by the excitement of the procession, lurching and pus.h.i.+ng itself ever more free of its restraints; evidence of its success lay all around in the piles of shattered masonry, and in the wisps of smoke which still hung about the roof of the nave.

But now the Malus was still. It brooded in silence, working out its next move ...

Across the village, the door of the hut in the quiet, isolated courtyard was splintering. It bulged outwards. It heaved against the drawn bolt as it was hammered and pattered from inside.

All at once a panel gave way under the constant pounding. Then another split open, and another, until with a ragged cracking noise the whole door broke away from its hinges, the bolt flew off and Turlough and Andrew Verney tumbled out into the bright suns.h.i.+ne.

Carried forward by the impetus of the final charge, they staggered across the yard, and then stood swaying and blinking in the dazzling light, nursing their bruised shoulders. Verney clutched his baggy tweed hat. 'We must get to the church,' he said. 'We have to destroy the Malus before it becomes too powerful.'

Turlough frowned. As an idea, that seemed to him to be a little on the bold side, not to say foolhardy. 'Let's find the Doctor first,' he suggested.

The old man was adamant. 'We haven't got the time,' he insisted. 'We could spend the whole day looking for him.

Come on ...'

To prevent further argument he set off running, at an old man's stately trot leaving Turlough no option but to follow him.

Wolsey drove the cart like a man possessed. The Doctor and Will had to hold on grimly to prevent themselves being thrown out as the horse kicked its heels and the cart jerked and shook, jolted and rattled along a rutted track through the fields which, the farmer swore, was a short cut to the church. Now and then they could hear shouting behind them; in the distance soldiers were running, and hors.e.m.e.n galloped along the skyline.

They arrived at the lych-gate just in time. Wolsey reined in his valiant horse, stopped the cart and they jumped down. Will staggered and had some difficulty keeping his balance, and he felt that something inside him had shaken loose, but there was no time for self-examination and he had to run his fastest to keep up with the Doctor and Ben Wolsey. They were heading around the side of the church and making for the vestry; Will dreaded going back inside.

The Doctor pushed open the vestry door with a crash and burst in, giving a big fright to Tegan and Jane, who had just emerged from the underground pa.s.sage. Jane was closing the tombstone entrance to the tunnel. Tegan, happy to be wearing her old dress again, was warily opening the door to the nave.

The Doctor was delighted to see them. He nodded with satisfaction but had no time to spare for congratulations.

'Come along, we've a lot to do,' he said, hustling them as he rushed through to the nave, followed by Ben Wolsey and Will Chandler.

Jane watched them go, and shrugged. Given time, she thought, she could get used to most things, but she doubted if she could ever get used to the Doctor.

The nave hummed and vibrated with a low, buzzing sound. It was like the noise of a furnace the sound flames make as they rush up a chimney when it is on fire.

The Malus's brooding silence had ended; the fury now erupting through the village had urged it into life again and it was steadily ingesting the power it needed to make its final bid for freedom. Those great nostrils flared with a wild anger; the eyes glinted and flashed; the mouth gaped a vast, shark-like maw that looked as if it would swallow the world.

As he ran through the church the Doctor glanced at the disappearing wall, and saw that time was running out on them. 'Hurry!' he shouted.

They kept close together, running one after the other up the nave and through the archway, then down the steps to the rubble-strewn crypt.

The Malus watched them go by. Soon very soon now the time would come when no one would ever he able to pa.s.s it again. Soon no life would he able to survive in its vicinity. The green, phosph.o.r.escent eyes pulsed with the light of its coming triumph.

The Doctor ran down the steps to the crypt three at a time.

At the bottom he paused to take the torch from his pocket; he switched it on and set off towards the TARDIS, only to stop again suddenly. He turned to Tegan. 'You didn't close the door,' he snapped.

'There was no point,' she protested. 'Something was already inside.' What was the point in trying to explain now that they had been looking for the Doctor to tell him about this when she had been abducted and Turlough had disappeared? He was too angry to listen.

'This is all we need,' he scowled. He paused for a moment, then made up his mind and marched inside.

Tegan and Will hurried in close behind him.

Will had given up being surprised. When he had been bobbing and swinging about in the cart and feeling sure that his tomes were splintering inside him, he had made up his mind that if he survived he would take everything in his stride from now on. He had discovered that when absolutely everything is extraordinary, nothing is astonis.h.i.+ng any more. Running into a blue box, therefore, was simply another wonder to be accepted without demur, and he shrugged as he ran in through its door, as though this sort of thing happened to him every day.

It was not so with .Jane Hampden and Ben Wolsey, however. They looked at the TARDIS in wonder, approached it warily, gazed at each other with a wild surmise - then they, too, shrugged and went inside it.

Once inside they - and Will Chandler, despite his newly-trade resolution - were more overwhelmed than ever. For a moment they were struck dumb by the sheer size and technology of the TARDiS's interior. But, as Tegan had found out so many times before, there was no time for discussing trivial matters like the feeling that they had just walked into Aladdin's cave, for Aladdin himself was already fuily occupied at a large illuminated console, pounding switches as fast. as his fingers would move.

The Doctor was looking for instantaneous results and, when they didn't come, he threw up his hands in disgust.

He pressed more b.u.t.tons - and a low, steady hum of machinery was heard. Then, without turning round he pointed backwards and upwards to the wall above the door.