Walking Crow fought to still a trembling in his hands and an odd kind of calm washed over him. Ever since he’d had that first inkling of what the fallen star – the Clade – had represented, he had known that this moment would come. The Great Spirit expected him to do what had to be done, and the Pawnee finally put his fears behind him.
Lightning screamed as white fire tore into the wagon, sending out waves of flame to set the wooden panels alight.
Smoke churning all around him, Walking Crow grabbed at a leather carry-roll and tore it open. Inside was a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
Holding tight to Martha, supporting her weight on his shoulder as the Doctor did the same, Nathan twitched in shock at the sound of the Clade guns.
‘Don’t look back,’ snapped the other man. ‘Take her, get inside.’
The boy did as he was told, hauling Martha into the cool darkness of the mine. Despite what he was told, he chanced a look back and saw the Doctor crouching at the entrance, twisting the collar on his wand contraption. Nathan’s throat tightened as he saw past him, to the makeshift blockade of the medicine wagon. It was afire and burning quickly.
‘Keep going!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘Hurry!’ He aimed the glowing blue tip of the wand at the rocky ceiling and pressed a stud; the device hummed, and in concert there was a sudden and ominous groaning from the timber supports.
Walking Crow burst out of the burning wagon with an arrow nocked and ready. He released it straight and true toward Tangleleg’s head; if he could remove just one of these creatures, then he would double the chances of survival for the Doctor and the others . . .
The shot did not miss. The arrow entered Tangleleg’s right eye and lodged there, throwing the longrider from his saddle. Walking Crow set a second arrow, but he was distracted as the outlaw got back to his feet, pausing only for a moment to snap off the length of the shaft, leaving the metal head still embedded in his skull.
The Clade gunslingers took aim at the Pawnee and sent him to meet his ancestors.
It began as a rain of dust, then a clatter of pebbles; in seconds the support pillars began to bow and flex, as rocks the size of footballs and bigger dropped from the trembling ceiling. The Doctor switched off the sonic screwdriver and ran as fast as he could down the tunnel, pulling his coat around him as sand and grit rained from above. The ground trembled like a struck drum skin, and with a monumental crash, the mine’s entrance came down on top of him.
SIXTEEN
THE ROCK FALL forced a plug of heavy, dusty air in front of it. Through instinct, Nathan dropped to the floor of the tunnel and bent across Martha to protect her. The crash of tumbling stone and snapping wood washed over them and Nathan coughed as his mouth was filled with fines of sand.
The rumble died away and he wheezed and panted. What little light there was coming in through the mine entrance was suddenly gone, and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He listened hard, hearing the skitter of settling pebbles and Martha’s laboured breathing. At least she’s still all right.
‘Nathan?’ she said weakly. ‘Talk to me.’
‘I’m right here, Miss Martha, don’t you fret.’ He tried to say it with confidence, but in all truth he was more than a mite afraid. The longriders, then the run from the wagon, the cave-in . . . The youth felt like he’d been one step ahead of the Grim Reaper all the way; and then the girl asked the question he’d been dreading.
‘Where’s the Doctor?’
He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t have to. The worry was right there in her words, plain and simple. ‘He’s hereabouts,’ Nathan managed, unable to get his bearings in the darkness. He patted the pockets of his waistcoat, looking for the matchbook he carried. ‘Crow-bait! Can’t see a darn thing . . .’
Martha moved and gasped with pain. ‘Here,’ she said, pressing something into his hands. ‘Use this. The screen lights up.’
Nathan ran his fingers over the object. Was it some kind of powder compact, a lady’s little mirror? It seemed like a piece of polished metal, but with a strange texture to it he’d never felt before. He found a hinge and a seam along the length, and opened it. All of a sudden there was light in the tunnel, a pearly white radiance emanating from the object in his hand. Nathan nearly dropped it in surprise. ‘What is this thing? Glows like a box of fireflies . . .’ There were raised bumps on one side and a square set above them that might have been made of glass. He pressed experimentally on one of the bumps and the object made a low chirping sound.
‘Mobile phone,’ Martha croaked. ‘Telegraph . . . But no wires.’
‘Mow-Bile?’ He held it close to his face and frowned. He’d seen a telegraph machine in the Western Union office back home, and it was a heavy thing the size of a kitchen table, with a cable coming from it that was as thick as his thumb. He had no clue what this contraption was, but he wasn’t about to question Martha. The poor girl was probably delirious . . .
Unable to fathom any more of the device’s function, he shrugged and used the glow to find a brass lantern lying on its side. He was rewarded with the slosh of lamp oil inside, but without matches to light the wick, it was as good as useless.
Nathan’s frown deepened; how was he going to tell Martha that they were alone now? He swallowed hard. It was up to him, then. He would have to find Godlove, and when he did—
Suddenly the light died and he jerked with fright. Nathan tapped the bumps again and it returned, bright enough to illuminate a dark, looming face right in front of him. The face split in a grin and Nathan stifled a yelp.
‘Hello,’ said the Doctor, brushing red dust from his coat and his skin. ‘Ugh. I feel like I’ve swallowed half the desert.’
‘The rocks . . .’ Nathan said lamely. ‘I saw them falling on you . . .’
‘Nah, not me,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Too nimble by half.’ He rubbed his head, sending up a puff of dirt. ‘Did get beaned by a couple of big ones, but I’m fine. A goose-egg and a headache, but otherwise I’m copasetic.’ He knelt at Martha’s side and took her hand. ‘She all right?’ His expression turned serious again.
‘Askin’ for you,’ he said.
The girl drifted in and out of wakefulness. She blinked owlishly. ‘Doctor? Where’s Walking Crow?’
‘He’s gone,’ the Doctor said softly. ‘We’re going on, the three of us.’
Nathan waved the mow-bile. ‘We need more illumination than this. I scared up an old lantern.’
The Doctor picked up the lamp. ‘This is too new to be a leftover from when the mine was in use,’ he noted. ‘Someone put it here more recently.’
‘Godlove,’ Nathan couldn’t help but sneer when he said the man’s name. Everything that had happened in this whole sorry mess could be laid at the con artist’s door. ‘No good if we can’t use it, though.’
‘No problem,’ said the Doctor. He aimed his wand-device at the wick and it puffed into flame. ‘Let there be light.’ He handed the lantern to Nathan with one hand and plucked Martha’s mow-bile from him with the other. ‘I’ll keep hold of this.’
Nathan looked back the way they’d come, at the pile of red boulders blocking the entrance from floor to ceiling. ‘You got a way of making a point, Doc. I sure hope there’s another means outta this rabbit warren.’
The other man hesitated, and took a long, deep sniff. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I can taste fresh air. There’s bound to be ventilation shafts and that sort of thing.’ His lip curled. ‘Of course, if there are other ways in—’
‘Then those trail rats out there are gonna reckon the same sooner or later.’ Nathan jerked a thumb in the direction of the entrance. ‘Guess we better move quick-like.’
The Doctor gathered up Martha in his arms and held her close. ‘Guess we better, then.’
The teenager had not taken two steps before the Doctor called out to him. ‘Nathan.’ He froze. ‘Are you OK?’
All at once, the heavy little object Nathan had concealed in his vest pocket felt like it weighed a hundred tons. ‘
Don’t worry none ’bout me,’ he replied, and walked on into the dark, a halo of flickering yellow light moving with him.
Kutter and Tangleleg dropped from their saddles and moved around the wagon. The flames had taken hold and were swiftly consuming the wood and canvas box. Both men ignored the crashes and chugs from inside the wagon as the fire shattered bottles of Godlove’s medicine.
Kutter paused just for a moment, using his scruffy boot to nudge Walking Crow where the man had fallen in a nerveless heap. The longrider snorted and turned away. The Pawnee would not be getting up again.
Tangleleg stood in front of the rockslide that blocked the mine entrance, and carefully worked the barrel on his gun, twisting it to dial down the diameter of the discharge. He studied the lay of the boulders, letting the power inside the pistol do the work, looking for an optimal place to start blasting.
Kutter let a short, negative-sounding buzz flick out from his lips, transmitting a situation report in a blink of noise. Combat engineering sensors warned against using brute power on the stones; moving them or blowing them apart would only trigger other collapses, and it would take too long to excavate the entrance carefully. They needed to find a different means of entry into the mine works. Their objective was in there; they could sense the faint proximity of another of their kind.
The two figures stepped back and began to survey the shallow hill in front of them, their eyes needling as the optic jelly inside them altered and changed. Vision shifted from the realms of normal light towards the infra red, and the hill became a yellow pyramid of sun-warmed colour.
Tangleleg spotted it first and buzzed out an advisory. There, towards the crown of the hill, was a patch of ground slightly colder than the rest – a chimney perhaps, cut into the mine to let fresh air enter.
Holstering their guns, silently the longriders began to climb up the hillside.
The Doctor saw the light glittering from around the curved passageway ahead of them and had Nathan take Martha’s weight while he gathered up the lantern. ‘Let me do the talking.’ He gave the youth a hard look that showed he would brook no argument, and Nathan returned a sullen nod.
Martha gave a little gasp with each footstep she took, fighting off the raging pain. She was pale and drawn, and the sputtering light of the lantern threw shadows across her pretty face. ‘I’m OK,’ she said, realising the Doctor’s scrutiny. ‘Jones girls aren’t cry-babies.’
‘This’ll be over soon,’ the Doctor promised. ‘Just hang in there.’
‘I got her, Doc,’ Nathan added. ‘Go on.’
He led them around the bend in the tunnel and they emerged inside an open area. The ceiling was low – so low in some places that the Doctor had to duck his head to get past ridges of red rock – but it was broad across the width where the miners must have chipped into the seams of long-vanished iron ore. A ramshackle lift shaft and pulley system sat in the middle of the chamber, thick with cobwebs. It appeared far too dilapidated to be workable, the ropes in coils on the floor, a rusted metal ore trolley wedged in place by fallen stones. The Doctor’s keen vision could make out the gloomy patches of blackness that had to be other tunnels leading to different parts of the excavation. When the mine was at its height, this area would have been full of men digging out the raw ore and hauling it off into the daylight. Now it was an echoing cavern, empty of life.
Almost empty.
Off to one side was a wooden trestle table surrounded by a cluster of boxes and barrels. The source of the light, another oil lantern like the one found by Nathan, cast a sombre glow that didn’t reach all the way into the dark.
The man they had come to find sat with his back to them on an upturned barrel, not moving, not even breathing.
What if he’s dead? The frightening thought struck the Doctor. If they had arrived too late, and Godlove had perished . . .
But then the figure moved slightly, turning on the makeshift stool. Godlove peered over his shoulder at the Doctor, and a thin, snake-like grin threaded out across his lips. ‘You again,’ he said. ‘Hello, Marshal. And lookee here. You brought the brat and that dusky little missy to boot.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Like I tried to tell you in the town, you’re mistaken. I’m not a lawman.’
‘Is that so?’ Godlove spoke slowly, measuring each word. ‘Well, now. Tell me then, if you didn’t come lookin’ because you carried a tin star, then why did you?’
‘I’m the Doctor,’ he said simply.
‘His face,’ whispered Nathan, lowering Martha to sit atop a crate. ‘Doctor, his face! He’s like death warmed up!’
The Doctor silenced the boy with a wave of his hand, but Godlove nodded. ‘The lad there has a point. In all honesty, I have been feeling rather unwell of late.’ Nathan was correct; bits of Godlove’s skin were puffy and peeling away from his cheeks. His eyes were hazed with dark fluid, his hair matted and greasy. He glanced around. ‘Pray tell, but where is that redskin of mine?’
‘He was shot,’ the Doctor explained. ‘Killed by two men who are here looking for you . . . Looking for what you found out in the woods.’
Godlove hesitated, a brief flicker of regret in his misted eyes; but then the emotion was gone and he nodded curtly. ‘Ah. Of course. They’re close. I knew they’d come, sooner or later. It’s our way. It’s how we were made.’
‘We?’ said the Doctor warily.
Godlove got up from the table and turned so he could face them. The ornate waistcoat the Doctor remembered from the Pioneer saloon hung loosely now on the man’s wiry frame and his posture was all different. He was ramrod straight and moved a little awkwardly, as if his joints were stiff; and in his right hand, in the curled fist of slender, pallid fingers, was the slab-sided shape of a Clade Weapons Module.
SEVENTEEN
FESTOONS OF WIRES as fine as human hairs connected the monstrous gun to Godlove’s flesh, burrowing and glittering just beneath the surface of the skin in the lantern’s light.
The weapon was a grotesque, top-heavy parody of a Peacemaker pistol, bloated to twice normal size, with a profusion of multiple muzzles glistening with oily residue.
‘As you can see,’ Godlove noted, ‘I have decided to defend myself.’
‘Holy cats!’ Nathan’s jaw dropped. ‘I never saw a shootin’ iron like that in my life.’
From where she sat, Martha rested against the stone, panting. ‘Are we . . . too late?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Doctor grimly, slowly approaching the other man. ‘Who am I talking to now?’ he asked. ‘Alvin Godlove? Or something else?’
Godlove smirked. ‘Oh, as you might be able to intuit, there’s a goodly amount of dear Alvin still in here.’ He touched the gun hand to his chest. ‘Shall I be generous and say, oh, seventy-thirty?’
‘And the rest? A Clade. A command-grade incept, if I had to guess.’
‘Correct, Doctor,’ he nodded, intrigued. Godlove aimed the gun towards him, sniffing at the air. ‘I see. You’re like us, not native to this mud ball.’ He paused, looking into the middle distance, as if he were listening to something unheard. Godlove raised an eyebrow. ‘Wait. The Doctor? Oh-ho.’ He chuckled. ‘Well, of course. I should’a put two and two together. That name’s known to us. Oh yes, that name is known. Last o’ the Time Lords . . . Yeah, you’re like us all right.’
‘I’m not like you,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I’m not a killer.’
‘No?’ Godlove cocked his head and gave a mocking pout. ‘That might be what you say to these humans, but you and I know different, don’t we?’ He took a step closer and his voice thickened with venom. ‘Like knows like, Doctor. I can smell the blood on you. I can hear the echo of war that clings to your coat-tails.’ He closed his eyes and smiled, relishing the moment. ‘Such dark glory. I envy you.’
The Doctor’s expression became hard and cold. ‘Don’t speak about that again.’ There was such quiet force in his voice that Godlove fell silent for a moment. ‘I want to talk to Alvin,’ the Doctor continu
ed.
The other man shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I cannot accommodate you there, sir. I’ve taken up too much of him, y’see. Mixed and mingled, you might say, become a unity of purpose . . .’ He smiled again and tapped the back of his head. ‘Oh, there’s a mite left over, walled away in here, left to screaming like a wounded child, but that’ll fall silent soon enough.’ He sighed. ‘I had to move things to the next stage, you understand, Doctor? Poor Alvin, he tried to interfere with my function by his imbibin’ of that filthy hydrocarbon swill he called liquor. And here in this place, why he even considered destroying me.’ Godlove held up the gun to his face and turned it in the light. The Doctor had the sudden sense that the Clade was examining itself, preening like a vain person before a mirror.
Martha moaned quietly, and Nathan bent to see to her. Godlove – or whatever he was now – glanced in her direction. The Doctor moved, standing in his way. ‘I want you to heal her,’ he said, without preamble. ‘She was hit by a Clade energy-matrix weapon set in an organic-disintegration mode.’
‘The envenomed blade,’ Godlove said airily. ‘I do so enjoy this host’s way with words.’
‘I know you can do it,’ he continued. ‘Help Martha.’
‘Oh, I surely can,’ came the reply. ‘That much is certain.’ Godlove panned the gun over the Doctor once again and a faint orange aura issued out from it, wafting over the Time Lord, then Nathan and Martha. ‘But what’s in it for me?’ He turned and walked away. ‘You know the Clades, Doctor. Do you know how the Command Incept travel across the void?’
‘Through hyperspace in hard-pods,’ he gave a clipped reply. ‘You deploy your basic combat units, then send in the upper ranks to get the mayhem really rolling.’
‘Quite. But for a Command Clade, well . . . Each battle for us is like the first. We emerge from the pods, newborn, all pink and mewlin’!’ Godlove chuckled at his own words. ‘Our battalions imprint us with the tactical data for the war zone and we lead on . . . But me? Me? I’ve had a different upbringin’, if you follow my implication.’
Peacemaker Page 12
