The Doctor seemed fully engrossed in the rites and ceremonies, but Vastra could not help but dart her eyes around, looking for anything suspicious. Her intuition told her the Doctor’s fears were correct, and if the Doctor’s attentions were going to be drawn elsewhere, she’d keep a close watch on things. She kept being drawn to the sheer number of humans here…never had she seen such a group gathered. In the past, her people would have laughed at the sport of chasing them down, and yet now, despite them looking so different, she thought of them just as she thought of her own people.
Tall torches burned and flickered at the four corners of the pyre, sending sparks flying, caught by the breeze and lifted upward to the dark sky. She half listened to the priests as they intoned their holy words, offering condolence and succour to the family of the dead while offering the King’s spirit to the gods in their heaven. As a soldier, she barely ever paid heed to those words, even when similar words were spoken when their own dead were buried, but she knew that they must offer some kind of hope to all these people, who at least respected the late King, if not loved him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement. She turned toward it, and saw two small children running about, obviously bored or having lost interest in the goings on around them. She definitely understood that, remembering back to the number of times she had been scolded for not paying attention when being taught. There were times she yearned for those more carefree, youthful days, but even she admitted to herself that the discipline she earned (and quite often, deserved) made her a better, stronger soldier.
More movement. This time further past the children.
‘Doctor?’
‘Shh, Vastra…they’re about to entreat for King Eisō to be allowed entrance into Tengoku.’
‘But Doctor, I…’
‘Shh!’
She exhaled in frustration. She turned back to get a better look at what was happening. As the children ran about, they waved wooden swords at each other playfully. From further back in the crowd, a small group of men slowly advanced toward them. They were dressed in what looked to be similar armour to the city’s guards, only heavier, black, and shining even in the overcast light. Their helms were almost ornamented, covering their whole face; Vastra did not even see slits for eyes. There were eight of them…no, nine. A ninth joined them, and even from this distance she could tell he was taller by at least a head. They forced their way through the crowd, moving toward the children.
She nudged the Doctor hard in the ribs.
‘Doctor!’
‘Oww! That hurt! I told you to…’
‘Look!’
She pointed. The Doctor followed her outstretched hand until he saw the armoured men, and his eyes widened.
‘What?’
‘That was what I was trying to get your attention for, Doctor!’
‘But, how…oh. Oh. Oh, I told you we were missing something, Vastra. How could I have been so slow?’
‘Doctor, this would be a very good time to tell me very quickly what is going on!’
He said one word.
‘Metatraxi.’
‘And that would be?’
‘That would be what came out of the sky. That flash of light was no meteor. It was their ship entering our atmosphere.’
‘Aliens?’
The Doctor looked at her incredulously. ‘You actually have a word for aliens?’
Vastra exhaled in frustration. ‘Another time, Doctor. What are they doing here?’
He ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’ve no idea. But the Metatraxi shouldn’t be any real trouble, as long as no one starts showing any weapons around them.’
Vastra looked down at the children, maybe fifteen or twenty yards away, still waving their wooden swords in mock fight.
‘And why is that?’
‘Well,’ the Doctor replied, 'the Metatraxi won’t fight unless their opponent has a weapon. They can’t bring themselves to attack an unarmed person. It’s a strange sort of honour, but since there were no weapons allowed here today we should be…’
The Doctor then noticed the two children.
‘Fine?’
He turned to see Vastra gone from his side, running back to the hall just steps behind them. He looked back down; the Metatraxi were moving ever closer. He could see one of them reaching for what appeared to be a gleaming black pommel at his hip. Without thinking, he reached for his sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket…a jacket pocket that inconveniently was still insider his room in the hall.
He watched as the first soldier came within a few feet of the children. He was about to leap down to stand between them when he felt something knock him aside. He fell to the ground as he heard a keening cry unlike anything he’d heard before.
‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’
He looked up in time to see Vastra flying through the air, swords held in each hand. They looked familiar, those swords, and as he thought about it, he realized they’d come off the wall above the throne room.
The Royal Swords.
The priests stopped their rites as Vastra screamed, and the crowd turned to see her twist in mid-air as she lunged down from the top of the stone wall. As the Metatraxi raised its arm, a black sword poised to swipe down at the child, Vastra landed, pivoted on one foot, and swung her blades in a tight arc. She felt metal hitting metal for just a second and then the blades continued their arc. In slow motion, she saw an arm fall to the ground, twitching, and felt something acidic burning at her skin. She hissed as she completed her spin, blades outstretched, standing between the children and the approaching aliens. Somewhere in the distance she heard screams, but they were dulled, her focus fully on the aliens that approached her.
‘You will not harm the little ones!’
She bared her teeth in aggression as the others approached. Soon they encircled her, 8 silent armoured bodies, all but one holding an identical black blade. She called up to the Doctor.
‘Doctor, can you get the children away?’
He looked down.
‘No…there’s no way!
I’d have to go through them to get the children out of there!’
‘No! You can’t, Vastra! It’s too dangerous.’
She took the opportunity to look up briefly at the Doctor before turning her attention back to the Metatraxi. ‘If what you say is true, Doctor, then it is probably already too late. I have weapons…and there is no way I will allow them to harm the children while I live.’
Vastra turned back and watched as the taller of the group walked toward the one she had, quite literally, disarmed. She watched as the wounded one turned to what she now guessed was his superior, and gasped as the leader drew his own sword and ran it through his soldier. The body fell to the ground, dead. The leader withdrew as the others advanced toward her.
With a scream she charged forward, blades crossed in front of her and pointing back in a wedge. She watched as they raised their weapons against her and felt the wind as they flew past her, missing. She slashed left and right, feeling rather than hearing her blades as they struck true. The crowd parted for her as she stopped and spun in time to watch two more fall to the ground, small plumes of smoke rising from the armour where their blood began to eat away.
Three down, she thought. Only five left.
She looked back at the leader, who seemed to be regarding her actions with a distinct lack of interest. She felt her anger flame higher.
Six, then and that last one should be some pleasure to fell.
They began to charge toward her, swords lowered toward her like spears. She was familiar with such a tactic; it was one of the first she had been taught when she was chosen as a warrior. She was surprised that they bore no shields, though she supposed they never expected to need any.
As they neared her position she crouched. They lowered their blades, and just as they were about to strike she rolled to her left, swinging with a single sword as she did so. She turned to see a fourth body on the ground, struggling to stand as one leg lay several feet behind it. It was no surprise this time to see one of its own kind walk over and almost nonchalantly drive its own sword through its fallen companion’s body, stilling its movement.
‘This hardly seems fair,’ she called out, taunting them. ‘I wound you, and you kill your own instead of me!’
She looked back. The Doctor had already taken advantage of her manoeuvre to grab the children and pull them away to safety. She smiled as she drew the blades in front of her, the grin widening as one blade scraped against the other. Oh, it has been far too long since I have fought with a sword, she thought, her long ago training not one bit forgotten. So much more enjoyable than the energy pistols…this way I can see my foe face to face as I kill them.
She looked at the Metatraxi. Well, face to helmet at least.
Much of the crowd had moved away, behind the pyre and away from the fighting. She saw the Doctor with the children and their parents, and even from a distance she could tell he was yelling something. All she could hear, though, was the beating of her own heart as she debated her next move. All would hinge on how the remaining four advanced on her…surely by now they must have concluded she was no novice, and would be coming up with some kind of strategy.
That was when she heard the sound.
She heard it before, that much she remembered. She tried to pull from her memory where she had heard the sound before, and finally, in the focus that came with battle, she remembered.
The tunnels.
A green light.
Her energy pistol smoking on the ground.
She looked up and slowly turned her head toward the Doctor. In one hand he held his jacket, in his other outstretched hand he held his…what did he call it? Sonic screwdriver. The end glowed green, as she remembered, and there was the noise.
She turned back and the four Metatraxi convulsed in place, unable to move. She heard the Doctor yelling again, but paid his words no heed. Here was an opening, and she was going to take it. She charged forward, mouth clenched shut, leapt and spun in the air, the blades catching what feeble light the torches let off. This time there wasn’t even the feeling of metal on metal as she spun, but she knew the blades struck true.
She landed, both feet firmly planted shoulder width apart, and watched as four bodies collapsed inward toward each other. She stepped back as a pool of thick black ichor oozed from the corpses, leaving small puffs of smoke where it touched grass or scraps of cloth.
She took a deep breath, the burning sensation on her face barely noticeable.
Eight.
‘Most impressive,’ she heard the Metatraxi speak, with a deep voice as cold and alien as any she had ever heard. ‘I have seen my kind brought down once or twice before, but never by a single soldier…let alone a woman.’
She tried to spit on him, but already her vision was dimming. Still she struggled.
‘No matter,’ he intoned. ‘I will finish with you, and then I alone will eliminate the others where my regiment failed.’
She felt wind and then pain as her back slammed into something hard. What little breath she had left was knocked from her body as she slumped to the ground. One sword was knocked clear from her hand when he hit the wall she had been tossed into; she attempted to grab the other but her hands barely had the energy to close. She looked up as the sky was blotted out by the massive black form above her.
She smiled weakly, and whispered in a harsh voice.
‘If you are going to kill me, at least let me see your face so I know who to look for in the afterlife.’
The Metatraxi leader laughed coldly, plunged his sword into the ground, and raised both hands to his helm.
‘Look then, at the last thing you will see before I end your life.’
Her eyes widened. The…thing…was insectoid, multifaceted eyes reflecting the ambient light in a dozen dark shades of colour. His skin was hard, chitinous, like the head of an ant. Two antennae swept back along its skull, while claw like mandibles moved back and forth slightly, almost in anticipation of victory.
She tried to laugh, but all that came out was a harsh cough.
‘No wonder you wear those helmets…I would as well were I that hideous!’
He dropped his helm to the ground and pulled the sword from the earth. He held it over his head in both hands, the tip of the blade pointed downward.
‘Die.’
He moved to thrust it down into her when she faintly heard a pinging noise, not unlike the ringing of a small bell. She turned her head weakly to see the Doctor recovering from a hard throw, saw a small rock rolling away from the Metatraxi’s back, saw him in turn pivot its head and attention slowly and for just a second toward the Doctor. The Doctor waved, weakly, and smiled.
‘You will be next, hu…’
A second was all she needed.
She gathered what little strength she had left, felt the pommel of the sword in her hand, and drove it upward. She felt it hit beneath what must have been his chin, thrust upward and through his skull. Faintly she could see the curved end of the blade protrude from the top of the thing’s head. She watched the thing convulse, twitching in place for a few seconds before it fell forward. The momentum drove the rest of the blade into its head, stopped only by the hilt.
The rest was darkness.
written by
JULIE KAY
copyright 2015
artwork by
COLIN JOHN
copyright 2015
