by Steve Cole
‘Finally,’ said Inkri, ‘we harvest.’
‘Not here you don’t,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘How many billions have died already to sustain the Tenctrama? How many worlds left dead behind you?’
‘We do not take all life from any world. If the population recovers, there will be more harvests in years to come.’
‘Wait. You’re not just answering questions, you’re volunteering information. Now I’m wondering why.’
‘Because outrage and anger are such visceral feelings.’ Inkri smiled. ‘They distract your mind from what’s actually happening.’
‘Oh …’ With a surge of dismay, the Doctor found she couldn’t move. There were gold flickers speckling her sight. She’d let these creatures worm their fingers inside her mind, and now pain knifed through her. ‘What … what are you doing?’
‘Killing you. You, and those you have despoiled, must be removed before the harvest can begin.’
Inkri hobbled closer. The Doctor cried out as pain and pressure built up inside her head. Her vision began to blur but she could not blink. Inkri’s fingertips pressed against her temples and began to burn.
Chapter 23
The Doctor gasped, and Inkri’s face bobbed closer. She whispered, ‘Are you going to scream, Doctor?’
‘I’m … going to … whistle.’
She turned to Bittenmane and blew through her teeth, the same notes she’d heard often around the camp. Bittenmane darted forward, between the Doctor and Inkri, knocking the crone backwards, breaking the contact. Movement surged back into the Doctor’s limbs with a tsunami of pins and needles. As Bittenmane passed, the Doctor lurched after him, grabbed hold of his shaggy mane and heaved herself onto his back.
‘That Bittenmane, eh, Inkri? Bit of a dark horse …’ As she landed in the saddle and dug her heels into his sides to drive him onward, the Doctor saw the banner of a sickle moon shift suddenly upward at the forefront of the Hun forces. A clear signal from Attila’s forces – but for what?
Inkri rose from the ground, leathery face twisting in rage as she pointed at Yaz. ‘Destroy her, Enkalo!’
Bittenmane flattened his ears to his head, running like he was in the front line as the Doctor steered him round in a circle. Enkalo had turned to Yaz, hands reaching for her face. But the Doctor rode up behind her and barged her aside, sending her old bony body rolling over in the dirt.
‘Yaz!’ The Doctor shouted, bringing Bittenmane to a stop beside her friend. She knew she didn’t have long, that the Tenctrama would soon recover.
Then a wave of noise shattered through the Hun camp, as the bugler on the ramparts of Attila’s wooden palace blasted the great ivory battle-horn. The rising note was insanely loud, like a shudder from hell. Its message was deafening, a clear answer to the signal from the battlefield.
‘Time to take the hill,’ the Doctor breathed.
Graham wasn’t happy about many things as Vitus guided their horse through the precarious scrub that bordered the Hun camp. He wasn’t happy that he was holding on tight to an assassin with orders to kill his mates. He wasn’t happy that the man smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in months. He wasn’t happy that they were somehow supposed to get inside the Hun camp in one piece, and he definitely wasn’t happy when the pug-ugly Hun scout rose up from the bushes just ahead of them with a dirty great bow and arrow.
Two more jumped up from the ground with swords at the ready. Graham was about to swear loudly; if you couldn’t let loose a bit of Anglo-Saxon in this time, well …
But then unexpected sci-fi sounds cut through the air. Vitus had some sort of space gun in his hand! The two attacking Huns fell in quick succession, smoke belching from their chests. At the same time the bowman loosed his arrow, but Vitus had forced his horse hard left and the missile whooshed past. One more blast from the laser gun, and the archer fell back in a cloud of dust.
‘What the hell!’ Graham spluttered.
Vitus held up the white ceramic pistol. ‘They do not have this technology where you are from?’
‘No! Where’d you get it?’
‘It was found centuries ago in a mine in Africa, beside the ancient remains of a beast unknown on this world.’
Graham supposed the twenty-first century didn’t have a monopoly on alien invasions; Earth must always have looked a juicy proposition to E.T. eyes. ‘So the Legion was still going centuries back – and they pinched this gun?’
‘They stopped it falling into the wrong hands.’ Vitus sighed. ‘Can you imagine if men gained the power to wipe out whole empires with a single strike? Can you imagine the desperate danger that would come with possessing such weapons?’
‘Yeah,’ Graham said. ‘I think I can.’
Vitus held up a hand to silence him as a familiar muttering started up: ‘All in the Pit, made whole in the Pit, come out from the Pit …’ The Huns were getting up, the blood from their wounds hardening, flesh filling out from within like rising bread.
‘Come on, Ke-mo Sah-bee.’ Graham kept patting Vitus on the shoulder. ‘Get us out of here!’
As they reached the end of the scrubby tree line, the gateway to the Hun camp stood only two hundred metres off. ‘Might as well be miles away,’ Graham murmured, ‘for all the chance we have of getting in.’ A small town had been dragged into the outer defences of the place, with guards holding javelins and scythes and armoured wagons standing in front and giant cages that held … Whoa, what the hell were those things?
The long, ominous note of a horn thrummed through the camp. Graham felt dread, deep and primal, prickling its way through his chest. It was a call to arms, loud enough to …
Wake the dead.
The after-echo of the bugler’s signal rolled out along the fields. Still balanced on Bittenmane’s back, stretching awkwardly to clutch Yaz about the shoulders, the Doctor pulled out the sonic as a hair-raising chorus of shouts and battle cries went up from the battlefield.
A ghastlier war cry went up from closer by as Inkri came hovering through the air towards them, mouth wide open in a deformed grin, golden energy sizzling between the rigid claws of her hands, ready to unleash hell.
‘Here goes everything,’ the Doctor muttered. Pulling Yaz in for a tighter hug, she twisted on the sonic with her spare hand.
And the Doctor, Yaz and Bittenmane disappeared.
On higher ground within the camp, smiths and servants watched tensely as the eerie calm across the battlefield broke hard when the left flank of Attila’s army poured forward. Thousands of Huns on horseback raced away pursued by a vast swathe of allied warriors armed with scythes and javelins, whips, bows and arrows, hatchets, daggers …
Bittenmane glowed back into being just in front of the crowd, the Doctor still on his back, Yaz pressed up against them both. The Huns scattered in panic at this unearthly visitation, all except one burly smith who stayed rooted to the spot.
‘Pardon my witchcraft! Not staying long. I hope.’ The Doctor was losing her grip on Yaz, who was sinking to her knees. ‘Quickly! You!’ She pointed to the smith. ‘Help my friend onto the horse, will you? She’s a witch’s familiar, but really ever so nice!’
The smith picked up Yaz, almost threw her onto the back of the horse, and then ran.
‘Can’t say I blame you.’ The Doctor turned back to Yaz, whose eyes were flicking open. ‘Hey,’ she said, searching out her friend’s face. ‘You back with me? The jump away from the Tenctrama should’ve shaken their mental hold …’
‘Yeah.’ Yaz licked dry lips. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m in the middle of a daring rescue attempt.’
‘Are you smashing it?’
‘Well, I’ve hacked into the Tenctrama teleport field, but the sonic can only simulate the energy wavelengths and the transport receptors aren’t fooled for long. Short hops only in random directions—’
‘Let’s say you’re smashing it.’
‘Yaz, I’m totally smashing it! Now, hold on tight.’ The Doctor felt Yaz’s arms lock around her wa
ist. She whistled again, and Bittenmane reared up, hooves flailing. ‘Once more into the breach, dear friend!’
Legionaries Zeno and Ricimer heard the horn’s low warning clear across the plains. They were standing guard on the ridge of land in between the two defensive trenches at the front of the camp. Both trenches were filled with the muttering dead from the skirmish at the Aube, stumbling over the wooden stakes arranged so as to impale anyone unwise enough to try leaping across.
‘That’s the Huns’ alarm call,’ said Ricimer.
Zeno watched through clouds of dust as a body of Rome’s allied forces, led by Theodoric the Visigoth, responded to the rallying call and tore away to meet the oncoming Huns. ‘There goes the miracle man. S’pose Aetius thinks Theodoric’s amazing recovery will inspire the troops.’
‘He’s probably right.’ Ricimer nodded to the twitching bodies in the trenches. ‘It’ll give them hope they won’t all come back like these poor sods.’
‘Thank God we’re too vital to the defence of the camp to participate in the assault, eh?’
‘Irreplaceable. That’s us, Zeno.’
The two men shared a look and then a laugh. Then they heard shouts from their fellow guards along the defensive line.
Zeno’s flesh crawled to see that the dead had suddenly started climbing out from both trenches. They were digging their fingers into the muddy slopes, hauling themselves up and over the edge; those at the front were staggering jerkily away after the troops assigned to battle, while those from the inner ditch tried to leap across the second, landing on those who were already climbing and grabbing hold, trampling each other in their blind haste to join in the action.
‘What the …?’ Ricimer looked helplessly at Zeno as the inner trench kept disgorging the whispering, patch-faced corpses. ‘Should we be stopping them?’
‘Stuff that,’ said Zeno, standing aside as a centurion in filthy, bloodied dress barged past. ‘If they want to go, let them—’
He never finished. A dead soldier walked into him, and he toppled over into the outer trench. Before Ricimer could even shout in warning, he’d heard the thunk, shriek and scrape of a man who’d met the sharp end of a big stick. Heart sinking, Ricimer peered over the edge, saw Zeno flailing weakly in a pit of unbothered bodies, cradling the post protruding from his belly. His head fell back, and bounced against the mud.
Ricimer waited, everything held clenched, waiting for Zeno to raise his head, calm and muttering, for the blood to dry around the wound even as he got back up, the stake stuffed through him like he was a rabbit on a spit. But it didn’t happen. Zeno twitched twice and then just lay there.
‘Thank God.’ Ricimer felt a tear roll down his cheek, one of relief as much as sadness. ‘Whatever else comes, this nightmare of the dead rising has ended.’
But as he watched, a glowing apparition rose up from the trench beside Zeno’s body, a hideous hag in sackcloth rags, hissing with rage, thin white hair floating around her lopsided face. ‘The tainted cannot rise. The tainted cannot be taken.’ So saying, she bent over Zeno and dug her clawed fingers into his temples. Ricimer stared, horrified, as golden energy coursed through Zeno, engulfed him until he looked like an effigy blackening in impossible flames, while the oaken spike that had killed him stood untouched.
A choked sob escaped Ricimer’s lips. The vision of the hag heard and looked up, and her toothless smile grew wide.
‘One out, one in,’ she said.
Then she rose up, shrieking, and gripped Ricimer by the throat. A split second later he was thrown down into the trench and impaled on the same stake, straight through the heart. Death was instant. Ricimer felt nothing. He didn’t feel his eyes snapping back open, or his hands twitch as they pulled at the blood-slick stake. Didn’t flinch as flesh bubbled out from inside him to seal the gaping hole. His tongue tugged at the words trapped in his head like angry wasps – ‘caught in the Pit, all of us, reborn in the Pit’ – as he climbed out of the trench with all the others and stumbled past the gloating hag, ready to kill every stinking Hun on the plains of Catalaunum.
Graham covered his ears as fifes, horns and drums rose up and answered the bugle’s challenge before they too were eclipsed by the cheers of men in their thousands. It made fifty thousand footie fans at the London Stadium sound like a kids’ birthday party.
A massive cage close by to the entrance was thrown open and a colossal beast came stampeding out. Spiky and furry with snapping jaws crammed with teeth, it looked like a wolf had grown to the size of a family car and swallowed a rhino. More of the cages, studding the long defensive line into the distance, were being opened up and identical creatures came bounding out on warped, misshapen limbs, each studded with claws like thorns on the branch of a giant rose bush. The creatures were making for the hill, and they were pursued by an army of disfigured men, shambling out from the town building in a horrible flood: faces blank, limbs twitching but still clutching swords and axes, whips and daggers, clothes and helmets torn and bloody but the flesh behind bunged with puckered pink, like the skin beneath a wet blister. They smashed through the checkpoint, trampling Hun guards in their way.
Graham felt sick; he didn’t want to watch, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the spectacle. There was a war going on, and these running dead were going to join it in their hundreds, no, thousands … Graham just sat there on the back of the horse, gaping, struggling to grasp how so many people could’ve been cut down and killed and still leave so many behind. The worst that could happen to these boys had already happened, and now they looked set to drag after them anyone they could.
The Doctor set off at a fast gallop back down the hill into the heart of the Hun camp, Yaz holding on for dear life. Inkri and Enkalo glowed into existence just a few metres in front of them.
With a further twist of the sonic, the Doctor, Yaz and their mount glowed back out of it, fading away. ‘Not today, thank you …!’
Graham jumped at a noise behind him. The border guards that Vitus had killed had given up on the chase and instead were hacking their way out through the scrub; summoned by the call to arms, they charged after the legions of the dead already piling towards the hill that Romans and Huns alike had made their target.
‘Why hunt and kill two of the enemy,’ said Vitus, ‘when you can run straight into two hundred?’
‘Quantity over quality,’ Graham agreed, staring out at the swarms moving from both sides across the battlefield. There were so many that individual men and horses became just a roiling mass of sheer aggression.
And then he gasped so hard he coughed, and his body shook.
‘Oh, my gawd.’ He pointed. ‘Never mind getting into camp – look at that. The Doctor and Yaz already got out!’
Vitus’s bushy brows angled upward. ‘And it looks like they’ll do my job for me.’
Bittenmane galloped the Doctor and Yaz back into existence on the plain. ‘Yee-hah!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘That’s more like it. We’ve jumped clear out of the camp!’
‘More like it?’ Yaz clung on, gazing around wildly. ‘Look!’
The two opposing armies, a vast swathe of Huns to the right and Romans to the left, were closing in on them from either side.
Yaz swore. ‘We’ve come out in the middle of the battlefield!’
Chapter 24
Bittenmane was speeding like a dark rocket, halfway along the high ridge of land that was the only tactical standout on the plain. To their right, Yaz saw that Attila’s combined forces – with several of the Strava out in front like tusked, hairy juggernauts – were closing on them fast.
Yaz clung on tighter. ‘Why does everyone care about this stupid hill so much?’
‘High ground makes it harder for the enemy to outflank you.’ Just as the Doctor spoke, the Roman hordes swarmed over the top of the hill, three of their own Strava leading the charge. The Doctor had to shout over the pounding of hooves and claws and the shouts of the soldiers which left the whole world shaking around them. ‘Mounts and mon
sters move faster downhill, while arrows strike harder, so possession of the hill could prove decisive …’
‘For someone who hates war you know a lot about it!’
‘Never hate something until you understand it.’
Yaz yelled, ‘I hate that we can’t teleport out of here!’
‘Trying.’ The Doctor veered away from the Romans, kept flicking the sonic on and off, but nothing was happening. ‘It’s no good! Inkri’s shut me out of the transmitter system.’
‘Boost the power?’
‘Gee-up, Bittenmane!’ The Doctor leaned forward in the saddle. ‘Horsepower is all we’ve got!’
The Hunnic forces were barely a thousand metres from Bittenmane – and closing fast. Yaz felt the endless jolt and thump of the earth under Bittenmane’s hooves, her hearing crushed by the clamour of the approaching armies, her vision corkscrewing between unsteady flashes of men and monsters drawing near on both sides. There was no way to outrun the clash of armies, no way to escape the twin tsunamis about to break over them. She gripped the Doctor tightly enough to break her in half. ‘Doctor, I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ the Doctor shouted back. ‘What for?’
‘If I hadn’t been caught, you wouldn’t have had to rescue me and—’
‘Don’t talk like it’s all over, Yaz.’ The sonic was back in her hand. ‘I gave Attila a super-weapon, just like the Tenctrama asked!’
‘You did what?’
‘That was the deal in exchange for your life. Anyway, he’s bound to use it. And when he’s in range … assuming my lash-up has held …’
Yaz couldn’t even hear her any more. The assault on her senses was too much. Rolling to their right, the Hun avalanche was set to engulf them, barely a hundred metres away. This is where it ends, she thought, water whipped from her eyes by the wind as they galloped on, but I’m not going to die crying, I’m just going to hold on to the Doctor and …
