Waltz
By Alekto
Chapter 1: Something wicked this way comes.
"Roxton! For God's sake, do something!"
I glanced automatically in her direction at the sound of the cry: a momentary distraction from the melee, but that was all it took for me to be bowled over by a blow from an apeman that I ought to have been able to avoid - had I been paying attention.
Even as I tumbled to the ground, a nagging voice at the back of my mind was berating me for my mistake. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! What an idiotic, amateurish, stupid mistake to make in the middle of combat! What the hell was I thinking, getting distracted like that? The savage self-reproof was all I could think about as I rolled desperately away from the apeman's grasp, my hand scrabbling for the pistol holstered at my belt. I hauled it out and fired at the massive bulk of the apeman towering above me as I lay on the ground. There was no way I could miss, not at that short range, but apemen, especially when wound up for a fight and ready to crush your skull, took an annoyingly large amount of killing. I knew all too well that a handgun was not an ideal weapon for the task, not if I wanted to stop the apeman before he could bring his club down on me. Unfortunately, a handgun was all I had to hand.
In the time I'd spent on the plateau I'd fought enough apemen to know the danger I was in if I missed my mark. A head shot would be a surer, not to mention quicker kill, but at that angle? Too risky. I did the next best thing and emptied half the Colt's magazine into its heart. The entire process from drawing the gun, considering the situation and firing had taken little more than a second. At times like this - experience counts. The creature staggered as the bullets struck, took a few unsteady steps in my direction before its legs gave way under it and it started to collapse - right on top of me.
"Goddamn it!" I couldn't help but swear as with a frantic, not to mention undignified, burst of speed I scrambled out from underneath the falling behemoth. I was close enough to feel the ground shake as it hit. "Damn if these things don't seem to be getting bigger every time we meet them," I muttered under my breath.
"Roxton! Help!"
Marguerite's increasingly urgent shout cleared the remaining cobwebs in my head from when the apeman had hit me. I reached for my rifle, which lay where it had fallen only a few feet away, lifted it and aimed at the apeman menacing her. The heavy calibre bullet caught it centre chest, it shuddered sideways and crumpled to the ground. With Marguerite safe, I looked around the rest of the clearing at how the others were faring.
Challenger, it seemed, had taken the attack very much in his stride, as if being attacked by a band of apemen intent on killing us was no more significant than a minor, if annoying, glitch in the overall scheme of his investigation of the plateau. I had come to believe that Challenger could take pretty near anything he encountered in his stride; however strange or unbelievable the rest of us might find it. Close by and near enough to cover Challenger's flank, Malone was shooting with a cool competence that I would not have believed him capable when we'd originally met back in London. The intervening time had done a great deal to change that first impression.
As for Veronica? Well, within only a few days of meeting her I'd quickly come to the conclusion that Veronica was well able to take care of herself in the face of most of the threats the plateau had to offer. She might have chosen to eschew guns in favour of her knife, but her speed, accuracy and agility more than compensated. Once you factored in how well she knew the jungle and its inhabitants, you couldn't escape the conclusion that Veronica was someone you'd much rather have with you than against you.
A roar of bestial rage dragged my wandering attention back to where I had last seen Marguerite. From nowhere, it had seemed, another apeman had appeared and was moving to attack her. The calculation that I could never get there in time took only moments. My only chance was to bring it down with the rifle. And if I missed..... if the bullet went through and through..... Images of my brother William swam unlooked for and unwelcome into my mind; my brother, killed by my own shot in so similar a circumstance, but now as then, I had no choice but to try. Even as I lifted my rifle to make the shot, I saw as if in slow motion the apeman's clenched fist lashing down at Marguerite's head. I saw her raising her gun in reply with desperate haste, heard the rapid, flat staccato of three shots and then the horrible wet -thud- as the apeman's blow landed. The sheer force that had been behind it flung her backwards. She cannoned into a tree and collapsed to the ground.
I fired. The apeman, already wounded by Marguerite's fire, fell to the ground... next to her unmoving figure. I ran over towards her, heedless of the warning my instincts were screaming, urging me to check for other apemen first. I ignored them. My whole world had narrowed down to one, single focus; anything else was just distraction. I slid to my knees next to her crumpled form. Blood, vivid and red, was slicked over the left side of her face, soaking into her dark hair. Her eyes, half open, stared blankly at nothing.
I reached out to her to check her pulse but froze, my hands hovering uselessly over the terrible injury the apeman had dealt her. It wasn't the blood. God knows I'd seen enough blood, enough death, during the war to last a thousand lifetimes to be too concerned by it. It wasn't even because it was a woman, though that was perhaps a factor. It was because it was Marguerite, and since I'd met her there had always been something different about her, about the way I thought of her. Perhaps it had started off as fascination or infatuation, but somehow I didn't think it was that any more. I wondered when... if... I'd have the chance, or the courage to tell her.
"Challenger!" I called out, trying to keep the fear and worry from my voice, knowing I'd failed. "Get over here, quickly. Marguerite's hurt."
Challenger, all credit to him, immediately gave up his examination of the fallen apeman he had been kneeling alongside and hastened towards us. He crouched next to her and with brisk confidence began checking her over. I vaguely noted Malone and Veronica making sure the clearing was secure, that there were no more apemen waiting to leap out in ambush.
All I could do was sit there numbly watching as Challenger worked. Somewhere deep down I knew she was dead. The terrible sound of the apeman's fist striking her reverberated over and over in my mind. It was my fault, I realised. I had been too slow. If I had been faster, nearer, more alert, more...
I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Roxton, snap out of it man. Do you have any water on you? I need to clean off some of this blood."
I looked up into Challenger's face , scarcely daring to hope he meant what I thought he meant: that she was still alive. Wordlessly I handed over my water flask and watched as he dampened his handkerchief and started to gently dab at the blood. "We went by a stream not too far back," I eventually managed to get out. "If you need any more water... Anything.."
"Yes, I'll need some more water, and if you could get together some sort of stretcher...?" he began, his attention divided between Marguerite and me. "I don't want to move her, but we really ought to get somewhere safer than here. Those apemen might have friends out there."
"Stretcher. Right. Won't be long." I started into the jungle then turned back to face him. "George. She *is* going to be alright, isn't she?"
Challenger paused in his work and looked up at me. "I hope so," he said quietly before adding: "but I'm not a doctor."
I held his gaze for a moment. It wasn't entirely true. Challenger actually held several doctorates, but medicine wasn't among them. We'd always relied on Arthur Summerlee for that sort of thing, but now Summerlee was gone. "Just do what you can," I said. He just nodded.
*********
I returned about half and hour later carrying three full water flasks and a pair of sturdy poles, about eight feet long. Malone and I could use our shirts to make the bed of the stretcher. Had we the time, Veronica could probably have found the right sort of vegetation to weave together to make a better stretcher bed, but as Challenger had pointed out - we needed to get moving as soon as possible.
While I'd been away, Challenger and the others had made good use of their time. A crude bandage held some sort of leaf poultice against Marguerite's head: Veronica's expertise at work, I had no doubt. Underneath the bandage her skin was ashen pale.
Malone and I stripped off our shirts, did up the buttons and threaded the poles through them. We placed our makeshift stretcher as close to her as we could, then with as much care as possible lifted Marguerite onto it and made her as comfortable as we could.
We packed up our gear and prepared to leave. As we did, I couldn't help but feel that there was something I was missing, something obvious. I racked my mind trying to think what it might be. Had we forgotten something? I took one last look around the clearing to check we hadn't left anything behind. Nothing. We'd got everything, but there was still something wrong with the clearing.
Then it struck me. "George, what happened to the apeman that attacked Marguerite? Its corpse was just over there." I pointed at an area of flattened undergrowth, stained with blood. "Did you move it?"
Challenger looked up then over at where I indicated. "No," he replied. "The only one I had a chance to examine was that fellow over there, and then you called me over here to Marguerite." I glanced at the bulk of the other apeman's corpse, which lay where it had fallen. The remaining corpses in the clearing we could all account for. It was just the last one, the one that had attacked Marguerite from out of nowhere...
No. Apemen - or anything else for that matter - do *not* appear from out of nowhere. It had to have been only wounded. Even as I considered the option I knew it wasn't true: it had taken four bullets, including a shot from a rifle that could bring down an elephant. There was no way anything could have walked away from that. Besides, if it had, there would surely have been a blood trail - which there wasn't.
A low moan from Marguerite was all it took to end my speculation. I rushed over, crouched down and took her hand in mine, ignoring how cool and clammy it felt in the sheer relief of knowing she was alive.
"Marguerite?" I began, struggling to keep my voice calm. "It's me, Roxton. Don't worry, you're safe now. You're going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." I reassured, but I could see her frown, even under the bandages. "Everything's going to be okay," I repeated, I think as much for my own sake as for hers.
I watched asher eyes inched open, confused and unfocused. In them I could see the beginnings of panic. Her gaze roved around as if looking for someone. I held her hand more firmly, trying to reassure her that I -- we were there for her. Her eyes clenched shut again. "Milyen sotet," she moaned softly, as if she were caught in the throes of a nightmare. "Milyen sotet,"
"What's that?" I murmured nonplussed before looking at the others. Their faces were equally blank at Marguerite's utterance. She muttered a few more words, none of which I could even begin to recognise as English before drifting back into an uncomfortable, restless sleep. "We'll have to worry about this later," I announced at last. "For now all we worry about is getting safely back to the tree house. Right, Malone, you get the other end of the stretcher. Let's get a move on!"
*********
It was almost dark by the time we reached the safety of the tree house. We were all of us tired and on edge. My arms, shoulders and back ached from the effort and sheer hard work of hauling the stretcher through the jungle as far and as fast as we had. Marguerite had been quiet most of the time; whether asleep or unconscious I couldn't tell. She didn't even awaken when I held her in my arms to go up in the elevator.
I carried her to her room and laid her gently on her bed. In the short time we had been back Veronica had got together the medical equipment we had amassed since our arrival on the plateau. It was an eclectic blend of Twentieth Century technology and the plant based healing lore of the plateau. Either way, though, it was all we had. Using some of the jars of ointments that had originally been accumulated by Summerlee, Veronica set about preparing a new dressing for Marguerite's injury. With careful, nimble fingers she unwound the existing bandage and studied the wound.
Now that all the blood was cleared away, there was not that much to see: a large, dark bruise on the side of her head and the skin broken in the middle. I should have remembered - head wounds always bleed like a pig. With all the blood it had looked so bad, probably much worse than it was. I looked at Veronica's face, expecting to see the relief I felt mirrored in her expression.
I didn't. If anything I saw her frown deepen. "What is it?" I asked.
"I can't be sure: head injuries are always... difficult. There's still so much we don't know about how the brain works. Summerlee told me about some research he'd read on the subject back in London."
She paused as if thinking back to what he'd said. I wanted to grab her, shake her, yell at her to tell me. I contented myself with a simple: "so what do you think, then?"
"She's unconscious again, not sleeping," she began carefully. "That's a bad sign. There's a chance she may wake up again in a few hours. Otherwise it might be next week, next month..."
"Or never. That's what you're saying, isn't it? She may never wake up."
She looked at me and I read in her face the answer that she hadn't wanted to speak. "I'll be finished putting on the new bandage in a few minutes," was all she said.
"I'll sit with her this evening," I said quietly. "Just in case she wakes up."
Veronica nodded and left. About an hour or so later Malone came in carrying a bowl of stew which I ate almost mechanically, hardly daring to take my eyes from her for fear of missing the tiniest movement: any sign that she would awaken.
*********
Sometime during the night I must have drifted off to sleep. My dreams, seldom restful at the best of times were odd, troubled. I saw muddled images: a room with seven doors, all identical, all bleeding; three women clad in queenly garb, cold, beautiful and distant; a massive yet plain stone chair over which was draped a dark robe.
Then I heard a voice coming from all around whispering to me, warning me: "Megyek," it said simply. "Megyek."
To be continued...
By Alekto
Chapter 1: Something wicked this way comes.
"Roxton! For God's sake, do something!"
I glanced automatically in her direction at the sound of the cry: a momentary distraction from the melee, but that was all it took for me to be bowled over by a blow from an apeman that I ought to have been able to avoid - had I been paying attention.
Even as I tumbled to the ground, a nagging voice at the back of my mind was berating me for my mistake. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! What an idiotic, amateurish, stupid mistake to make in the middle of combat! What the hell was I thinking, getting distracted like that? The savage self-reproof was all I could think about as I rolled desperately away from the apeman's grasp, my hand scrabbling for the pistol holstered at my belt. I hauled it out and fired at the massive bulk of the apeman towering above me as I lay on the ground. There was no way I could miss, not at that short range, but apemen, especially when wound up for a fight and ready to crush your skull, took an annoyingly large amount of killing. I knew all too well that a handgun was not an ideal weapon for the task, not if I wanted to stop the apeman before he could bring his club down on me. Unfortunately, a handgun was all I had to hand.
In the time I'd spent on the plateau I'd fought enough apemen to know the danger I was in if I missed my mark. A head shot would be a surer, not to mention quicker kill, but at that angle? Too risky. I did the next best thing and emptied half the Colt's magazine into its heart. The entire process from drawing the gun, considering the situation and firing had taken little more than a second. At times like this - experience counts. The creature staggered as the bullets struck, took a few unsteady steps in my direction before its legs gave way under it and it started to collapse - right on top of me.
"Goddamn it!" I couldn't help but swear as with a frantic, not to mention undignified, burst of speed I scrambled out from underneath the falling behemoth. I was close enough to feel the ground shake as it hit. "Damn if these things don't seem to be getting bigger every time we meet them," I muttered under my breath.
"Roxton! Help!"
Marguerite's increasingly urgent shout cleared the remaining cobwebs in my head from when the apeman had hit me. I reached for my rifle, which lay where it had fallen only a few feet away, lifted it and aimed at the apeman menacing her. The heavy calibre bullet caught it centre chest, it shuddered sideways and crumpled to the ground. With Marguerite safe, I looked around the rest of the clearing at how the others were faring.
Challenger, it seemed, had taken the attack very much in his stride, as if being attacked by a band of apemen intent on killing us was no more significant than a minor, if annoying, glitch in the overall scheme of his investigation of the plateau. I had come to believe that Challenger could take pretty near anything he encountered in his stride; however strange or unbelievable the rest of us might find it. Close by and near enough to cover Challenger's flank, Malone was shooting with a cool competence that I would not have believed him capable when we'd originally met back in London. The intervening time had done a great deal to change that first impression.
As for Veronica? Well, within only a few days of meeting her I'd quickly come to the conclusion that Veronica was well able to take care of herself in the face of most of the threats the plateau had to offer. She might have chosen to eschew guns in favour of her knife, but her speed, accuracy and agility more than compensated. Once you factored in how well she knew the jungle and its inhabitants, you couldn't escape the conclusion that Veronica was someone you'd much rather have with you than against you.
A roar of bestial rage dragged my wandering attention back to where I had last seen Marguerite. From nowhere, it had seemed, another apeman had appeared and was moving to attack her. The calculation that I could never get there in time took only moments. My only chance was to bring it down with the rifle. And if I missed..... if the bullet went through and through..... Images of my brother William swam unlooked for and unwelcome into my mind; my brother, killed by my own shot in so similar a circumstance, but now as then, I had no choice but to try. Even as I lifted my rifle to make the shot, I saw as if in slow motion the apeman's clenched fist lashing down at Marguerite's head. I saw her raising her gun in reply with desperate haste, heard the rapid, flat staccato of three shots and then the horrible wet -thud- as the apeman's blow landed. The sheer force that had been behind it flung her backwards. She cannoned into a tree and collapsed to the ground.
I fired. The apeman, already wounded by Marguerite's fire, fell to the ground... next to her unmoving figure. I ran over towards her, heedless of the warning my instincts were screaming, urging me to check for other apemen first. I ignored them. My whole world had narrowed down to one, single focus; anything else was just distraction. I slid to my knees next to her crumpled form. Blood, vivid and red, was slicked over the left side of her face, soaking into her dark hair. Her eyes, half open, stared blankly at nothing.
I reached out to her to check her pulse but froze, my hands hovering uselessly over the terrible injury the apeman had dealt her. It wasn't the blood. God knows I'd seen enough blood, enough death, during the war to last a thousand lifetimes to be too concerned by it. It wasn't even because it was a woman, though that was perhaps a factor. It was because it was Marguerite, and since I'd met her there had always been something different about her, about the way I thought of her. Perhaps it had started off as fascination or infatuation, but somehow I didn't think it was that any more. I wondered when... if... I'd have the chance, or the courage to tell her.
"Challenger!" I called out, trying to keep the fear and worry from my voice, knowing I'd failed. "Get over here, quickly. Marguerite's hurt."
Challenger, all credit to him, immediately gave up his examination of the fallen apeman he had been kneeling alongside and hastened towards us. He crouched next to her and with brisk confidence began checking her over. I vaguely noted Malone and Veronica making sure the clearing was secure, that there were no more apemen waiting to leap out in ambush.
All I could do was sit there numbly watching as Challenger worked. Somewhere deep down I knew she was dead. The terrible sound of the apeman's fist striking her reverberated over and over in my mind. It was my fault, I realised. I had been too slow. If I had been faster, nearer, more alert, more...
I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Roxton, snap out of it man. Do you have any water on you? I need to clean off some of this blood."
I looked up into Challenger's face , scarcely daring to hope he meant what I thought he meant: that she was still alive. Wordlessly I handed over my water flask and watched as he dampened his handkerchief and started to gently dab at the blood. "We went by a stream not too far back," I eventually managed to get out. "If you need any more water... Anything.."
"Yes, I'll need some more water, and if you could get together some sort of stretcher...?" he began, his attention divided between Marguerite and me. "I don't want to move her, but we really ought to get somewhere safer than here. Those apemen might have friends out there."
"Stretcher. Right. Won't be long." I started into the jungle then turned back to face him. "George. She *is* going to be alright, isn't she?"
Challenger paused in his work and looked up at me. "I hope so," he said quietly before adding: "but I'm not a doctor."
I held his gaze for a moment. It wasn't entirely true. Challenger actually held several doctorates, but medicine wasn't among them. We'd always relied on Arthur Summerlee for that sort of thing, but now Summerlee was gone. "Just do what you can," I said. He just nodded.
*********
I returned about half and hour later carrying three full water flasks and a pair of sturdy poles, about eight feet long. Malone and I could use our shirts to make the bed of the stretcher. Had we the time, Veronica could probably have found the right sort of vegetation to weave together to make a better stretcher bed, but as Challenger had pointed out - we needed to get moving as soon as possible.
While I'd been away, Challenger and the others had made good use of their time. A crude bandage held some sort of leaf poultice against Marguerite's head: Veronica's expertise at work, I had no doubt. Underneath the bandage her skin was ashen pale.
Malone and I stripped off our shirts, did up the buttons and threaded the poles through them. We placed our makeshift stretcher as close to her as we could, then with as much care as possible lifted Marguerite onto it and made her as comfortable as we could.
We packed up our gear and prepared to leave. As we did, I couldn't help but feel that there was something I was missing, something obvious. I racked my mind trying to think what it might be. Had we forgotten something? I took one last look around the clearing to check we hadn't left anything behind. Nothing. We'd got everything, but there was still something wrong with the clearing.
Then it struck me. "George, what happened to the apeman that attacked Marguerite? Its corpse was just over there." I pointed at an area of flattened undergrowth, stained with blood. "Did you move it?"
Challenger looked up then over at where I indicated. "No," he replied. "The only one I had a chance to examine was that fellow over there, and then you called me over here to Marguerite." I glanced at the bulk of the other apeman's corpse, which lay where it had fallen. The remaining corpses in the clearing we could all account for. It was just the last one, the one that had attacked Marguerite from out of nowhere...
No. Apemen - or anything else for that matter - do *not* appear from out of nowhere. It had to have been only wounded. Even as I considered the option I knew it wasn't true: it had taken four bullets, including a shot from a rifle that could bring down an elephant. There was no way anything could have walked away from that. Besides, if it had, there would surely have been a blood trail - which there wasn't.
A low moan from Marguerite was all it took to end my speculation. I rushed over, crouched down and took her hand in mine, ignoring how cool and clammy it felt in the sheer relief of knowing she was alive.
"Marguerite?" I began, struggling to keep my voice calm. "It's me, Roxton. Don't worry, you're safe now. You're going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." I reassured, but I could see her frown, even under the bandages. "Everything's going to be okay," I repeated, I think as much for my own sake as for hers.
I watched asher eyes inched open, confused and unfocused. In them I could see the beginnings of panic. Her gaze roved around as if looking for someone. I held her hand more firmly, trying to reassure her that I -- we were there for her. Her eyes clenched shut again. "Milyen sotet," she moaned softly, as if she were caught in the throes of a nightmare. "Milyen sotet,"
"What's that?" I murmured nonplussed before looking at the others. Their faces were equally blank at Marguerite's utterance. She muttered a few more words, none of which I could even begin to recognise as English before drifting back into an uncomfortable, restless sleep. "We'll have to worry about this later," I announced at last. "For now all we worry about is getting safely back to the tree house. Right, Malone, you get the other end of the stretcher. Let's get a move on!"
*********
It was almost dark by the time we reached the safety of the tree house. We were all of us tired and on edge. My arms, shoulders and back ached from the effort and sheer hard work of hauling the stretcher through the jungle as far and as fast as we had. Marguerite had been quiet most of the time; whether asleep or unconscious I couldn't tell. She didn't even awaken when I held her in my arms to go up in the elevator.
I carried her to her room and laid her gently on her bed. In the short time we had been back Veronica had got together the medical equipment we had amassed since our arrival on the plateau. It was an eclectic blend of Twentieth Century technology and the plant based healing lore of the plateau. Either way, though, it was all we had. Using some of the jars of ointments that had originally been accumulated by Summerlee, Veronica set about preparing a new dressing for Marguerite's injury. With careful, nimble fingers she unwound the existing bandage and studied the wound.
Now that all the blood was cleared away, there was not that much to see: a large, dark bruise on the side of her head and the skin broken in the middle. I should have remembered - head wounds always bleed like a pig. With all the blood it had looked so bad, probably much worse than it was. I looked at Veronica's face, expecting to see the relief I felt mirrored in her expression.
I didn't. If anything I saw her frown deepen. "What is it?" I asked.
"I can't be sure: head injuries are always... difficult. There's still so much we don't know about how the brain works. Summerlee told me about some research he'd read on the subject back in London."
She paused as if thinking back to what he'd said. I wanted to grab her, shake her, yell at her to tell me. I contented myself with a simple: "so what do you think, then?"
"She's unconscious again, not sleeping," she began carefully. "That's a bad sign. There's a chance she may wake up again in a few hours. Otherwise it might be next week, next month..."
"Or never. That's what you're saying, isn't it? She may never wake up."
She looked at me and I read in her face the answer that she hadn't wanted to speak. "I'll be finished putting on the new bandage in a few minutes," was all she said.
"I'll sit with her this evening," I said quietly. "Just in case she wakes up."
Veronica nodded and left. About an hour or so later Malone came in carrying a bowl of stew which I ate almost mechanically, hardly daring to take my eyes from her for fear of missing the tiniest movement: any sign that she would awaken.
*********
Sometime during the night I must have drifted off to sleep. My dreams, seldom restful at the best of times were odd, troubled. I saw muddled images: a room with seven doors, all identical, all bleeding; three women clad in queenly garb, cold, beautiful and distant; a massive yet plain stone chair over which was draped a dark robe.
Then I heard a voice coming from all around whispering to me, warning me: "Megyek," it said simply. "Megyek."
To be continued...