Time froze.
It wasn't often he got that impression, being a Time Lord in constant control of the passage of time around him, but watching her body drop to the ground, time froze. His senses amplified to take in the words being shouted in the room as well as those being shouted outside and he could almost hear the tinkle of glass shattering somewhere inside the castle and the rip of flesh broken from bodies. There was the creak of wood bending and the tear of rope being cut.
And there was the thunderous pounding of his hearts
Sloren's hand gripped tightly against the handle of his sword, sweaty palm grating against worn leather and his lungs filled with the slow wheeze of a breath he would soon expel in a scream of anger. It would mingle with Annabeth's cries of horror, seeing her daughter's face on another woman's body as it dropped away from their enemy. And the Doctor could see every fold in the fabric of her dress as it crumpled underneath her and he exhaled as her hip hit the ground limply, followed by her shoulder, and finally her head. Her hands settled slowly against the stones in front of her with a small hop and for a moment he was transfixed by the nearly imperceptible twirls of dust he could clearly see rise off the ground just in front of her lips.
The only sign he had that she was still alive.
In a whoosh of chaos, the world rushed back in and the Doctor glanced up in time to see Sloren burst forward, sword lifting quickly as he charged the smiling woman now taking a step away from Clara. They clashed with a deafening clang of swords and Morda grimaced at the force with which Sloren attacked. The Doctor launched himself to her, hands swiftly lifting Clara against him and sliding her towards the wall where Annabeth struggled with her want to check on Clara and her need to keep pressure on Clarice's wound.
Between them, Oswin shook her head in quiet disbelief and the Doctor slid his fingers over Clara's forehead, feeling the cool skin, watching the color draining from her lips as she lay lifeless in his arms. He looked to the older woman, lying Clarice down to get a better angle with which to press into her chest and the Doctor glanced up at Oswin as she stared at Sloren. There was a steely look of resolve hardening her dark eyes and he could see her readying herself, but he raised a hand to touch her arm.
"Don't you dare," he uttered, knowing her mind was considering offering herself as a distraction. If Oswin sacrificed herself, attacking Morda, she might be killed, but Sloren could have a chance at defeating the woman. He felt his mouth trembling as he turned his eyes back to Clara.
It was what she would have done.
Horace fell back as he launched a boulder into the air and his eyes widened with excitement, looking up at Mallory, who was turning slowly towards him in disbelief. "Oh," Horace cried, "Hansel would love this."
"When we defeat this lot, we'll gift it to him," Mallory stated boldly with a nod. Then he began working to tie back the cupped wood again, lifting his sword and looking to where the armory stood, now surrounded in bodies and the smashed remnants of the barrels they'd been launching in their direction. "Get the explosives," he ordered, and the duo prepared themselves to cross the battlefield.
They shouted to others to clear a path, but found themselves facing two guards with Dironem armor and for a moment they stood, combat ready, but then the men before them stripped themselves of their helmets and one asked loudly, "You seek to destroy the ship?"
Mallory shrugged to Horace before he raised his sword and nodded, "That we do."
The duo glanced at one another before the other offered, "You're going to need to angle that device – you won't be able to reach the ship as it stands."
"What do you suggest?" He smiled, waiting.
The two men rushed forward and for a moment Mallory and Horace readied themselves for battle, but then men moved passed them and dropped a log atop a barrel, wedging the edge of the log underneath the catapult before pointing, and one offered, "Tilt it back a bit, if we…"
Mallory raised his sword to the man's chest and barked, "What game are you playing at?"
The men held their palms up defensively and one shook his head, telling them quietly, "Your princess, she spoke of peace. Of quiet lives without fighting or death or the tyranny of a queen." He nodded slowly, "Morda wins on this battlefield, we simply travel to another, and yet another, and yet another."
The other at his side interrupted with a grunt, "We're tired of fighting."
Mallory inched back, hearing Horace fighting off someone behind him, and he looked to the two men, "You get the explosives and if you touch a toe out of line I'll cut off your foot as a warning."
They exchanged a look and then nodded quickly, darting back into the fray with their weapons drawn, firing at their own guards and avoiding the swords and spears of villagers. They returned with two boxes and a promise that there were more if needed and they began explaining the small devices while loading them into the catapult.
Sloren couldn't get the image of what he'd just seen out of his head and while he knew it was the visitor from space who travelled with the Doctor, it was her face. It was his Clarice's face that had closed her eyes and fallen to the ground under what he knew was a hypnotic trance, impossible to break, and as he swung his sword to meet his mother's strikes, he replayed the moment she struck the floor over and over again knowing that if the woman had her way it would have been Clarice.
And she wouldn't simply sleep her life away.
"My offer still stands," Morda managed, holding her sword steady as she took a step back from the force of Sloren's last blow. "Still three to choose from – one's even unconscious already, she'll put up no fight to get her in the machine."
With a smile, he told his mother calmly, "The pile of useless junk down below? We disabled it."
"I can undo the Time Lord's tinkering," she hissed.
He raised his sword and swung it roughly at her, barking as he collided, "Can you undo my blade's destruction?"
Morda watched the fierceness in his eyes as understanding dawned on her and she looked sideways to Annabeth, now calling down to Clarice, who'd lost consciousness and she whipped her gaze back to her son, "For a girl."
He pushed her away, "For more than a girl, mother."
"What then?" She growled. "For a throne."
Sloren grimaced, turning away for only a moment. A moment in which she brought her sword up to tear through his sleeve as he shouted out and twisted, blocking a second strike before tilting his head and telling her, "Is it all about a throne for you? An empire you can expand upon atop the deaths of the innocent?"
Teeth clenched as she thrust him away, she asked, "What else is there, Sloren?"
With a grunt of frustration, Sloren attacked his mother angrily and he shifted when she turned, slipping closer to Clarice with her sword out, eyes staring into her son's as he answered quietly, "Me."
For a moment they simply stared at one another and the Doctor understood that what Clarice had instilled in Sloren, what she'd promised him merely by her returning his love for her, had been something his own mother had denied him. Clarice was comfort and she was understanding. He watched the pain in the man's bright eyes as he looked into the cold stare of his mother's and the Doctor knew – Clarice was the hope of family. A loving family that didn't need to own even a small patch of land, much less stand over an empire, to know that all they needed they could find in each other.
Morda frowned at her son, bringing her sword up to ping off his easily. "You're upset because dear old mummy didn't offer you a teat to suck on all of these years?" She lamented, feigning sadness before raising an eyebrow and arguing, "I raised you to be a warrior; to be a man who got what he wanted. Instead of whimpering in the shadows of great men, I trained you to be the man who cast those very shadows and you've thrown it all away because of her – because of a pretty little bit of nothing."
"Clarice," Sloren shouted, "Is not nothing," then he swung his sword to meet his mother's roughly, "And she's certainly not little." He swung his sword again. "Clarice," he told his mother with a nod as he shoved her away, "Is a thousand times the woman you ever had the potential to be."
He growled and the Doctor inched up, settling Clara to the ground and feeling Oswin's hand clutch his arm with a simple, "Don't." But he knew Morda was succeeding in throwing Sloren's focus off. He reached forward for Annabeth's sword and again felt the delicate grip of Oswin's fingers on him. "Please, don't."
Hearing the metal banging against metal again, he raised his eyes to Sloren and then to the woman across from him knowing the power she wielded and knowing she could very well be holding back. The sword just underneath his fingers, however, slipped out of his grasp before he could get a hold of it and when he glanced up, he saw Annabeth stand to swiftly swing it out towards Morda.
He gave a shout just as the ground shook from a massive explosion outside and the Doctor could hear the whirring of an engine giving. His eyes went wide at the prospect that somehow, someone in the chaos had managed to destroy the ship hovering overhead and just as he shook the thought away, he listened to the sound of it dropping out of the skies sending a wave of men in through the hall. Men who pushed passed Morda and Annabeth and Sloren and had the Doctor reaching to roll Clara up into his arms to shift her into Oswin's.
The fighting continued at a frenzied pace around them as the Doctor raised his Sonic to, at the very least, disable the guns, and when he turned back, he found Morda between Annabeth and Sloren. The woman in the middle laughing manically as she deflected blows from both. He looked around himself and spotted the discarded weapon Clarice had used and he picked it up warily before giving it a buzz of his Sonic to watch the blue lights streak over the weapon.
"Doctor," Oswin called, gesturing at Clarice, and he understood, looking up at Annabeth before quickly leaving Clara to Oswin as he scrambled towards Clarice to put his hands against the cloth at her shoulder.
Annabeth brought her sword down heavily and Morda shifted back, catching the handle as she raised her sword to block Sloren's strike and in a burst of sparks, both flew away from her. "Oh, Doctor," Morda called, holding tight to her sword as she watched the Time Lord turn to look at her, eyes roaming across the floor at Annabeth and then at Sloren. "Have you thought up a strategy for this scenario?"
"Morda, it doesn't have to end this way," he offered, hand gripping into Clarice's wound as he turned to give the woman his full attention. "You could live peacefully here."
The ground rumbled beneath their feet and the Doctor knew the ship had crash landed in the woods behind the castle. He hoped no one was left hiding away there and he listened as Morda simply laughed. "Peacefully," she repeated. "What would be the point?"
"The point," he offered with a nod, "Would be living."
"Not until every wretched version of that face is wiped from the universe," she growled in response.
He raised his hands just as Morda lifted her sword, grimace focused on Clarice just behind him and the Doctor knew the woman was prepared to cut through him to get to her, and, he knew, to her sister and, he also knew, to Clara. Except a burst of energy pulsed out from the space behind him and caught Morda directly in the chest and as she fell, he turned to see Oswin gripping the gun in both hands.