Chapter Six
They found a little fishing village and waited for the monsoon rains to subside. The horses settled comfortably in the little shed the owner of the tiny inn used as a stable.
The inn was a central room with a few sleeping rooms above. It was attached to the kitchen of the innkeeper's home. He was a friendly man with a large family, and was delighted to have guests to share tales while the rains poured down. Things were going wonderfully well, then Lib ran into a problem.
She really didn't know what to do about it. The landlord's sweet son, of about sixteen, had decided he was in love with her. She'd been flattered at first, but things were getting out of hand.
He left flowers outside her door every morning. Evidently, going out in the pouring rain to pick them. He followed her around reciting verses he'd written about her. He swore he'd follow her to the ends of the world. He would ride at her back and protect her.
One morning very early, the Doctor and Peral heard the crack of staffs in the room below. They rushed to the stairs and saw Lib climbing toward them. She gave them a big smile and said, "He said he wanted to defend me, so I gave him his first lesson. I told him to come find me when he could stand ten minutes against me." The Doctor and Peral burst into laughter. Lib smiled. Whatever had happened was behind them. The laughter was back.
The Doctor saw the innkeeper's son standing in the pouring rain. He was earnestly working out with the staff. He smiled. If they were on Laeth long enough, the innkeeper's son would find Lib to guard her back.
The rains stopped and the horses decided it was time to leave. The Doctor had taken grain to Leoht and had a bridle dropped on his head. He laughed and called Lib and Peral. They packed and saddled up. They rode out at mid-morning.
The Doctor and Peral grinned at Lib. She just shook her head. The yard echoed with the crack of someone learning the staff behind the building. His name was Lathan and he would follow.
They rode north for two months, then Leoht decided he wanted to go west again. The Doctor laughed and rode west.
"Doctor, where's the TARDIS from here?" Lib thought it must be within a few days ride.
"It's" the Doctor stood up in his stirrups, swung to his left, and pointed. "that way. About four days ride."
"I THOUGHT we were north of it. Come on, Doctor. How did you know it was there?" Peral knew a good trick when he saw one. The Doctor was positive. That hadn't been a guess.
"I have an unerring sense of direction." At Peral's raised eyebrows, he added, "And I've developed an inTENSE dislike of NOT knowing where the TARDIS is. I attached a circuit to the emerald ring. It homes on the TARDIS door lock."
Peral laughed, but Lib was puzzled. "Your attitude about this has changed recently, Doctor. You've just, sort of, decided to relax and enjoy the ride."
He smiled that strange smile that changed him from 'family' and friend to Time Lord. Somehow, always alone. "Not really, but I have remembered I do know how to be patient."
"We have come for the girl who believes this night she becomes a woman."
"Lib, stay back. Why do you want her?" The five women before him were laethan, middle-aged, and wore flowing gowns.
"There is a legend. We have a part to play. We will not harm her. A woman's rite of passage is of the heart."
"I want to go with them, Doctor. Heort agrees. I'll be eighteen. Like she says, an arbitrary day, but one I've chosen."
The Doctor thought about the girl who'd chattered at him on a bus and called him uncle to keep him from being so noticeable. The young woman wearing the coronet of a champion had replaced the girl. He realized he had been with Lib and Peral for more than two years. "The choice is yours. We'll wait here."
Lib dismounted and unloaded the gear she carried. The Doctor and Peral carried it to the place they'd chosen to camp in the meadow. Lib hugged Peral and he whispered, "Happy Birthday, little sis." The Doctor smiled at her and nodded.
She turned and the five women led her back into the forest. Heort decided to follow.
Peral grinned at the Doctor. "It probably sounds silly, but I feel much better now that I know that horse is going with her."
"It does sound silly. I'm glad YOU'RE the one who said it."
"There is risk in this. You are not of this world. The drug we take to open the past may do you ill, but I do not believe it will harm you. You must choose."
Lib looked around at the five women and smiled. It was like being with a group of her godmothers. "There is risk in everything."
She took the drug and remembered. Fighting on a castle wall, her husband and children dying around her. Running through a forest with an ax to kill the animal that had taken her son. Struggling for days to keep another afloat on the wreckage of a ship and sliding off, knowing the sea had won. Sitting in the TARDIS and watching the Doctor and another die and refusing to believe it, as if the refusal itself would prevent it.
She awakened smiling. The last ancestor's experience she had lived had been her grandmother's. It was a nice memory. She knew how the story turned out. Most of the others had not been. She had been shown the courage of the women among her ancestors. From captured Lady to pioneer woman struggling to pull a plow while her children guided it. She had learned the courage of women, and why her horse was named Heort.
The Doctor and Peral were waiting in the morning. Lib wondered if Peral had slept. She knew the Doctor hadn't. "Hello, do I smell breakfast?"
"I think there might be enough for you." Peral was curious and had been worried, but he didn't want to pry.
"It's all right, Peral." She looked at the Doctor and smiled. "I just relived my pasts."
"The horses' names are really the same." Lib thought she had it worked out. "Wealdan is a strong verb, masculine. The translation is probably valor. The act of courage. Heort is heart. The possession of courage."
"What about Leoht? That means light. You're not going to tell me the Doctor's horse is named Whitey, are you?"
Lib looked at Peral's grin. He thought he'd blown a hole in her theory. "That one had me stumped for a while. I finally decided the translation is enlightenment. To which, the possession of courage and the act of courage, lead. The sword is that which preserves through courage and the amulet is truth, which the courageous seek."
"So you think all the names are connotations of courage."
"I'm afraid she may be right."
"Come on, Doctor. All that to tell us we're hero types and we've got courage." Peral was sure there was more to it. He had a feeling Lib was right, but something was missing. "That statement needs clarification. 'Afraid' she may be right?"
"I think we've been told it will take all the courage we possess before we're done." And their strength. He decided something must be done about the ruby.
The inn would have been a pleasant place if it wasn't so filled with fear. The people spoke in whispers of the strange beast in the hills. Flocks and shepherds had disappeared. They were afraid to take the pass to the west.
The Doctor could feel something 'wrong'. "There's evil here, but, again, it's a reflection and not the source."
The landlord approached their table and bowed low. "Lords and Lady, we ask your aid. You wear the symbols of champions and we have heard of you in the minstrels' songs."
The Doctor smiled gently. The innkeeper was very nervous. "Tell us. We will try to help."
Something had come to the hills; a great beast. They could hear it crashing through the woods. And it took men. Several caravans had vanished. Shepherds were gone. None had been found. It had begun the night of the great noise and the light in the sky. His inn was full of travelers who feared the road. His inn was full now, but, if the pass could not be traveled, it would never be so again.
"We will do something about it."
"Pray, Lord, will you do it soon?"
The Doctor smiled at Peral and Lib. The little i
nnkeeper was a very practical man at heart. Something was interfering with his livelihood. He wanted to know how long it was going to last. "As soon as our horses tell us it's time."
Peral and Lib burst into laughter. The landlord looked confused, but thanked the Doctor politely. He decided a horses was some kind of omen.
They stayed three days explaining to the landlord the horses weren't ready to leave. On the fourth day a shepherd came in. He was terrified. He'd seen the beast. It was a giant marsk. Taller than the trees. It had taken his flock. He had hidden. There had been men following its trail. He had thought they were hunting it, but they had laughed at the slaughter of his sheep.
"A marsk is a rodent-type animal. Its main foods are insects and smaller animals. They're usually about" The Doctor held his hands approximately five centimeters apart. "this big. Very sharp teeth and claws. Use them to pull the bark off trees to get at insects. Genetic manipulation of some kind."
"The lights in the sky, probably air delivery. Another bunch of scavengers too. This time caravans instead of boats."
"I agree with you, Peral. Let's see if we can stop this one without ending up as guests of its caretakers. Shall we see if the horses are ready to leave?"
"Doctor, we had a hint last time. How are we supposed to fight this thing?"
"With horse, lance and sword." The Doctor smiled at Lib. "That is how one fights dragons. Our dragon is a rather large rat, but I imagine the same principle applies."
They found the marsk, or, it found them. Since they were looking for it and it was looking for dinner, they were bound to bump into one another.
"We won't be safe here long."
Since the marsk was rapidly reducing the pile of boulders they were crouched behind, Lib thought the Doctor's comment a bit of an understatement. "Doctor that thing is fast. Too fast. I'm not sure you can get close enough to plant a lance."
"Well, I shall just have to find out."
Lib and Peral scrambled after him. He was going to do something foolhardy. They just knew it. When they caught up with him, he was already guiding Leoht down, out of the rocks. They ran for their horses. He was going to need them.
The Doctor couched the lance, set himself on Leoht, and charged out of the trees directly at the marsk. It dipped its head to snap at him and he ducked under its jaw. He ran the lance straight into its heart. He'd killed it, but it didn't know it was dead yet.
Leoht screamed as the marsk's claws raked his back and swept the Doctor from the saddle. Lib and Peral rode forward to try to distract it from him. It was still fast. Why didn't it die?
Lib ducked, but saw Peral and Wealden go down. She rode into the thing, grabbed its fur and climbed. She had to get to its brain. The stench of blood was overwhelming. The Doctor was somewhere under the blood pumping from the entry point of his lance. He'd taken it in the heart. Why didn't it die?
The Doctor and Leoht were having trouble getting to their feet. They weren't hurt. It was slick. Leoht finally got up and the Doctor hung on. He had to push the lance in further. The marsk was finally slowing, but it was worrying the lance. He needed to get it deeper. He slipped and fell in the blood again, nearly taking his horse down with him.
He decided he might not have actually peirced its heart. The thing was huge. Even losing blood at the rate it was, it would take too much time to die. He struggled to his feet again. If Lib and Peral hadn't been 'out there dodging claws', he'd have laughed.
Lib climbed past the entry point of the lance and the marsk noticed her. She swung under the paw and the teeth missed her. It bent back toward the lance and she climbed quickly to its head. Now all she had to worry about was claws. She tried to figure a way to brace herself on it to drive her sword through the bone in its head. She'd never reach the eye.
Peral dodged another swipe of the claws. He thought the one that had caught him before had probably cracked a rib. Wealden was all right and he and Heort were keeping the thing busy. It was slowing, but they needed it dead.
He saw the Doctor get to the lance, but he just didn't have the traction to drive it in. Peral timed the claws and raced for in. He'd give the Doctor the force he needed. He hoped he was ready for it.
The Doctor saw Peral coming and braced himself against the lance. He timed the thrust to use the impact of Peral's body slamming into his.
The thing lifted its head and Lib held on with muscles toned by more than a year on horseback. She raised the sword above her and drove it down, with all her strength, into the thing's skull.
The two blows were near simultaneous. The creature collapsed. Peral and Leoht got out from underneath it and Lib jumped clear as it fell. The doctor fell down and the several ton marsk fell on top of him.
Leoht found him first, about half way out from under it. When Lib and Peral found him, he was trying to pull himself free. They weren't a lot of help. They were laughing too hard. They could both feel he wasn't hurt and was very disgusted. He was covered in blood and mud. He looked like he'd been dipped in it. He had the lance in his hand. That's what he'd been getting when he fell. When they finally got him out, he said, "There are a great MANY things they DON'T mention in FAIRY TALES!"
He went to find a stream. He assumed they'd follow when they'd finished hanging onto their horses and laughing. Now they had to find the scavenger base. A pattern was beginning to form...
When they found it, it was deserted, another escape by air. They returned to the inn and told the landlord the pass was open and they'd be taking it in the morning. There was a minstrel at the inn. He wrote a verse and carried it east.
The Doctor began to work on the rings. It gave him something to do. He was tired of waiting through the night while Lib and Peral slept. With nothing to do but remember, and no one to talk to but a horse. And he was careful about what he told him.