Doctor Who: The King's Demons by Terence Dudley

Author:Terence Dudley
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426202271
Publisher: Target Books
Published: 1986-09-15T10:00:00+00:00

The chorus of agreement incited by this was not in the least obsequious; justice demanded an end to the odious King’s Champion. The Master, whose posture had remained an expression of total vulnerability in spite of the anomalous smile of superiority, suddenly and unexpectedly cringed. And, as he did so, he whispered, ‘Come, kill me!

Thwart my little game!’

Whatever else the Doctor might have expected it certainly wasn’t this. The Master inviting death at his hands? There was neither sense nor logic in such a situation, for both of them well knew that the Doctor was morally incapable of killing an unarmed opponent. And in cold blood? The Doctor was baffled. The Master was right; the Compresser was useless in his hands. The good Doctor wasn’t to know that the Master had stretched his diabolical cunning to the limit in order to enmesh his most potent enemy in a net that would harness the Doctor and his two companions to the successful completion of his nefarious enterprise.

Still the Master cringed, bent double in a crouching of limbs like an enormous spider at bay. And then he began to whimper in a grotesque display of abject cowardice that stirred disgust rather than pity in an amazed Tegan and provoked a profound contempt in the simple souls of the watching men whose honourable calling was the bearing of arms. There was a pricking at the back of Tegan’s neck as the ugly murmuring took on a bolder voice. The Doctor’s bafflement increased as did the King’s impatience.

‘Kill him!’

The royal command inflamed the liegernen’s contempt into a bloodlust that echoed and re-echoed the King’s cry and the Doctor had to lift his voice to a shout in order to make himself heard.

‘Please! Please! It’s sufficient, your Majesty, that your Champion is disarmed.’

‘Not for us!’ roared back the King. ‘In sooth, this is but a puny demon that has no stomach for it. So be it. Let the Maiden embrace the vanquished!’

The great howl in response swept everything before it, beating men-at-arms towards the grovelling Master as on the crest of an enveloping, avenging wave. And there was nothing the Doctor could do to hold it back. As avid hands grabbed at the Master his craven screams built to a sickening crescendo that accompanied the rabid rush to the open belly of the Maiden.

It was more than Tegan could bear. However often she had fantasised scenes of just retribution visited on the monster that had deprived her of her beloved aunt, she couldn’t sanction anything as barbaric as this. She rushed to the Doctor and began to pummel him with clenched fists as if to force him to wake them both from an intolerable nightmare. ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ she screamed.

The uproar was terrible but it was still possible to hear the Master’s demented choking coming up from his very bowels as he threshed away from the steel bristles already biting into his hack. The Doctor’s bafflement was by now of such proportions that he began to doubt his own perceptive powers, even his sanity.

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