Chapter 10
As they walked on through the forest, Donna looked about her, still afraid the flying creatures might return. After a while she began to believe that The Doctor had been right, and they'd retired for the night. The forest looked quite beautiful bathed in the silvery moonlight. It actually seemed brighter now than when they first emerged from the bushes. Much brighter than moonlight on Earth, she thought, and said so out loud to The Doctor.
"Twin moons!" he explained.
"The second one follows the same path as the first, but an hour or so behind. It means it's darkest just after dusk and just before dawn. When both moons are shining, it's almost like daylight. We've probably got about an hour more of this light, before the first moon sets, and we're left with one again."
"So how long have we been in here?" Donna queried.
"That thing said we'd only got four hours – but if you think it's not long till dawn-are we too late?"
"No no no! We've been in here about an hour and a half, by my reckoning, and dawn itself is probably about – ooh-three hours away. We just have to reach the Great Door half an hour before that!"
Alph interjected at this point
"We don't even know how far it is! Or whether we're meant to stay on the path, or look for another route!"
"Not losing heart are we?" replied The Doctor.
"I'm pretty sure The Maze wants us to go in this direction –it hasn't given us any options to choose from! And it must be possible…"
"Doctor!" Donna clutched at his arm.
"Look! Over there!"
Between the trees there appeared to be two small red lights, about three feet off the ground. It was difficult to gage how far away they were in the moonlight. As they looked they realised that there were other sets of lights further away than the first. Slowly the first set blinked…..
"Oh Frel! Narkwolves!" cried Alph
"Run!"
His two companions needed no second bidding. Alph was ahead, having had a fraction of a second's head start, followed close on his heels by The Doctor, with Donna a pace or two behind. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and wished she hadn't. Gaining on them rapidly were half a dozen or so hairy creatures, looking like a cross between a bear and a wolf. She saw a flash of enormous teeth, somewhere below the glowing red eyes of the leader of the pack.
As her head snapped back round to the front, The Doctor suddenly veered to one side and left the path.
"This way!" he cried, heading off between the trees.
Alph and Donna flew after him as he leaped over fallen branches and swerved round old tree trunks. They could hear the Narkwolves panting behind them now, getting closer and closer.
The Doctor suddenly stopped at the base of a tree, which had branches spreading out from the trunk at about ten feet above the ground. He cupped his hands in front of him, and yelled
"Donna! Leg up!"
In less time than she thought possible, she had put her foot in his hands and been catapulted up to the lowest branch. She clambered higher, as Alph found a foothold on the other side of the tree, and scrambled up to join her. She looked down as The Doctor made a huge leap into the air, catching hold of the lower branch. As he swung backwards and forwards, getting the momentum up to swing his legs up into the tree, the first Narkwolf reached the clearing they were in.
As he finally grasped hold of the branch with his legs and started to pull himself up, the beast slammed into the bottom of the trunk, shaking the whole thing alarmingly.
Within moments, the clearing was full of the churning, slavering beasts, each trying to get near to the vulnerable prey they had scented. The Doctor finally pulled himself round to a safe sitting position. He grinned at them.
"Good work, Team!"
Alph peered down through the leaves. "They won't give up, you know! My mate Elbin was chased by these when he was a lad. He had to sit it out in a tree for two days, before they scented something else and went off!"
"Well I guess that's it then!" responded Donna
"We'll never reach this Door thing in a couple of hours if we're stuck up a tree surrounded by…..them!" she looked down at their pursuers.
The Doctor was also looking down through the branches. He had that look on his face –the one Donna had seen many times before, when he came face to face with something new.
She turned to Alph.
"Any minute now, he's going to say they're…!"
"Beautiful!" The Doctor finished for her.
"But they are Donna –look! All that power, and intelligence! They can smell their prey up to five miles away. Probably how they found shaggy coats are quite waterproof, you know…."
"More importantly – how are we going to get past them?"
She interrupted his admiration of all things Narkwolf.
"Working on it, Donna, working on it!"