Alison and Telk had tried following the Doctor through the forest without being observed, but it wasnt long before he'd managed to out distance them. Eventually they'd lost him entirely. They made their way out into the open wasteland and searched the frozen ground until they found a trail leading to the village.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" asked Telk "He did say for us to stay behind."
"No he said I should stay with you, and I am."
"I'm sure he meant..." Telk paused, in the distance he spied a dark, large girthed figure. A familiar whine filled the air. Alison looked up. A spinning hook was sinking towards Telk's head.
"Run Telk!" She screamed "Get away from here!" Telk leaped away from the noisome object and ran. Without fail the hook turned and followed him. "No!" she cried out. She looked at the weapon's keeper as he pulled on the rope with a practiced hand, even at this distance there was no mistaking Stron. She glanced in turns between Stron and the spinning disk as it transversed downward in a perfect arc. There was no way she could help Telk, and certainly no way she could reach Stron in time to stop him. Then her vision was blocked by a whirlwind of feathers. A large black bird dipped between Telk and the closing hook. She heard the strike, then another as the bird careened clumsily into the ground.
"Brinbek!" Alison screamed. The Toroth staggered for a moment as he tried to right himself. There was no blood that she could see but the feathers running down his back were disheveled and several were still drifting lazily to the ground. Telk stopped and turned to the fallen bird. A look of awe crossed his features as he knelt to help the Toroth to his feet. Alison ran to them as quickly as she could and took Brinbek's other side.
"He's coming" mumbled Brinbek, as they lifted him upright. Alison could see the hook as it swung unerringly into Stron's outstretched hand. He walked calmly toward them.
"Why did you do this?" asked Alison.
"Couldn't leave you... alone out here" his voice came out in a thin rasp.
"He's stunned." said Telk "He will recover, but not before Stron gets here... you have to go."
Alison stared at him in disbelief. "I can't just leave him!" she cried out.
"I'll stay with him" Telk answered with a fixed resolve. She looked in the young Antazi's eyes. There was no longer any uncertainty, and not the slightest trace of fear. "No harm will come to him while I'm here, I promise, but you have to go." He looked toward Stron and his eyes narrowed as he drew ever closer. "Go help the Doctor."
Alison hesitated.
"Go!" Telk shouted.
She nodded quickly, turned, and ran for the village outskirts. Stron's eyes followed her escape but he never broke pace as he moved toward the injured bird. Telk gently settled Brinbek to the ground as Stron approached. He stood between them defiantly.
"Stand clear slave!" Stron shouted "I'll deal with you later, the Toroth is mine!"
Telk raised his hands before him, readying himself for a fight.
"Just try it."
The Doctor slipped quietly past a cluster of villagers as he skirted from building to building. The cloak covered him quite well. If any of the common folk believed that he and Alison were still alive they certainly didn't seem to be looking for them. Occasionally one of Malik's guards would step into the open roadway and scan the street expectantly, then upon finding nothing unusual they would slip back into the shadows or the sheltering warmth of one of the nearby buildings. He moved to the end of the village's main road. There, situated between the outermost houses, was Malik's weapon. He waited patiently for the guards to descend from the scaffolding and return to the caverns of the pit.
It was a long wait. The men ate in silence as the nearby ocean tide began to slap against a crude retaining wall on the village's Southernmost edge.
"Must be supper time" the Doctor muttered.
Those of the guards not eating idly pitched chunks of sodium into a hatch in the already over full casing. The weapon was nearly ready. Malik and Stron were nowhere to be seen. With a shout one of the men hurled a piece of sodium into the incoming ocean. The guards hooted and cheered as it touched the water's skin and exploded in a blinding white flash. Shrapnel-like bits of sodium splintered off on the oceans surface, flashing and popping wildly as they came down again. The men grunted their approval.
The Doctor's eyebrows raised "Ah well... little things amuse little minds" he whispered. Finally the men clambered their way down the structure and headed for the nearby cavern entrance. "Right," he said to himself "now Doctor, let's see what kind of damage you can do." He moved cautiously to the scaffolding's edge.
A gloomy light sliced by the shadow of prison bars illuminated Telk's unconscious face. Malik inspected the chains holding him. "Did they give you any trouble?"
"The boy was a surprise" grumbled Stron as he rubbed his jaw carefully. A deep purple bruise ran the length from his chin to his cheekbone. "Gave me more grief than I thought him capable..." his voice trailed away.
"Never mind," said Malik "we have them now. The boy can go back to the pit after I've questioned him, as for this..." he grabbed a fistful of Brinbek's feathers and tipped back his head "well, I'll leave him to you." Stron nodded appreciatively.
Telk groaned. Shifting his weight against the wall he tugged at his chains. They chinked noisily and his eyelids fluttered open. Upon seeing Stron he struggled restlessly and hurled himself as far forward as his chains would allow. "You!" he shouted to Stron's amused face.
"Seems he still has some life in him," Malik chuckled "you'd better work on that."
Telk pulled uselessly at the chains holding his arms above his head. He glanced around for Brinbek and found him only four feet away, chained to the wall beside him. His wings were spread up and open above his drooping head. "He lives?" asked Telk at seeing no blood on the Toroth's helpless form.
"For now," answered Malik "how long that lasts depends on you." He walked slowly past Brinbek's sleeping form and leaned in close to Telk's ear. "Where is the Doctor?"
"Dead" he said simply "but you probably already guessed that, you knew he was injured when he entered the mines."
Malik glanced sidelong at Stron. "It's true," Stron responded "my men say he was showing signs of the poisoning before he disappeared."
A loud thumping sounded on the prison door. Stron moved to the door and opened it to one of the guards, a young man with a world-weary look in his eyes. He leaned forward and whispered in Stron's ear. Stron nodded and sent the youth on his way, closing the door behind him.
"What was that?" asked Malik.
"Nothing of importance, a minor problem for the men to deal with." Malik gave him a questioning stare. "The girl is somewhere in the village," he continued "she will be found before long."
"The girl was with them!" started Malik "Why did you not bring her as well?"
"Of what importance is a single woman, she can be no threat."
Malik reached beyond his comparatively meager height to deliver a stinging slap across Stron's unsuspecting face. "You fool!" he shouted "If she lives then so may the Doctor, and she is the key to finding him."
Stron ran a hand over his reddening jaw. "We've no use for his knowledge now, the weapon is nearly ready, the city is ours" he growled.
"His knowledge could be our undoing!" Malik screamed, a frantic light began to fill his eyes "I've come too far to be stopped now, not when it's all within my grasp."
"She will be found" Stron assured him.
"See that she is, if you have her then the Doctor will follow." He stalked past Stron and flung open the prison door. "Search for her yourself, and don't return to me until you have her." Stron opened his mouth as if to argue then closed it once more. He stormed from the room.
Malik turned back to Telk. "Now..." he said as he moved slowly toward him "you're going to tell me exactly what happened when you left the pit." He smiled grimly as he closed a white knuckled fist around the chain holding Brinbek's wing.
The Doctor examined the support structure of the rocket. The wood frame seemed as carelessly designed as the body of the weapon itself. It cased the weapon on all sides, and a wide inclining path of rough hewn wood circumscribed its length in an upward spiral. Thick ropes connected the main supports to the body of the rocket, and even more ropes trailed from the scaffolding to the rocky ground where they were pounded in neatly with iron spikes.
"Not very sophisticated" he muttered "but if it's meant to be burned at take off..."
Ocean spray now leaped vertically from the retaining walls upper edge. The Doctor wiped the icy droplets from his eyes and focused his attention on the base of the structure. He gripped the wood tightly and attempted to shake it. The frame stood resolutely still. "There has to be a way to weaken it at the joints..." he said to himself.
"Will this do?"
Alison stood before him. She was wearing a large, ill-fitting Antazi peasant dress. She held her arm out toward him, in her palm she cradled one of the iron spikes.
"Where did you get that?" he asked abruptly.
"There's a crate of them on the other side of this thing."
He strode up to her and took the spike from her hand. He hefted it's weight experimentally. "Yes this might just do it." He looked down at her awkward attire and gave her a slight smile. "That's theft you know."
"You're not going to lecture me about following you?"
"Would there be any point?" Alison shook her head. The Doctor let out a deep sigh. "Make yourself useful then, go and get another spike and help me pry some of these joints loose."
Alison smiled and pulled a second spike from behind her back. "Already done." He nodded his approval.
"Doctor," she hesitated "Brinbek followed Telk and I from the Tardis. Stron was comming after us... I don't know what happened to them." She gazed down at the rocky ground.
The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder. "We will find them, I promise you, but right now we need to focus on disabling this thing." He pointed the spike at the weapon towering above them. Alison nodded.
In little time they had managed to loosen all the connections on the south side of the first level, the Doctor moved up the inclining path and began attacking the joints on the second.
"What exactly are we doing?" Alison called up to him. "Why just loosen the joints... why don't we take out the supports all together?"
"Because I'm not entirely sure of the fuel Malik is using..." He gripped the outside of the framework and swung himself up to the third level. "It should be stable, but there's a chance that if the weapon's dropped it could self-ignite due to the energy released."
"Oh," said Alison as she began to follow him up the wooden path "Then why are we loosening the joints at all... and why only on the Southern side? Wouldn't it make more sense to..."
The scaffolding cracked suddenly and began to give way. The straps holding the rocket strained as it tipped southward. Alison yelped and grabbed hold of the frame as the remaining supports lifted slowly. The nose of the weapon dipped downward and made gentle contact with the retaining wall, suspending the weapons payload neatly over the turbulent ocean water. The Doctor clung to a nearby rail. "Just right." he said with satisfaction.
"You could have warned me." Alison called to him as she clung to the now diagonal framework.
The Doctor swung his head around the weapon's casing and gazed at her appraisingly. "You seem all right."
Alison gave him a wry smile and began to struggle her way to the top of the framework she clung to. The Doctor ducked behind the casing once more. As soon as she'd managed to find a secure place to sit she began to hear the pounding of an iron spike in wood. She craned her neck to one side as far as she could, but she couldn't see the Doctor. She sat back and ran her hand along the rough wooden frame.
"Doctor, I've been thinking... the woman from the ritual, she said her family had a particular place at the cradle..."
"Did she?" the pounding continued unabated.
"Well it would make sense wouldn't it, to keep the family lines straight..." she let her words drop away. The pounding stopped abruptly. There was a pause, then the Doctor's head came into view once more. She looked up at him.
"Did Malik know Corbek was his son?"
He pursed his lips together, a look of apprehension darkened his features but he said nothing. "It's just that Degrett is so old" she continued "and his sons, well..."
"Yes he knew," he said quietly "and so does Degrett. It's something of a requirement to keep this whole ridiculous charade going. Malik doesn't want to keep the Toroth alive out of the kindness of his heart, he knows he needs them for his people to survive."
"Then Corbek must have known."
"Yes I've no doubt Degrett told him the truth, he'd have to eventually, and then he came to the Antazi against the King's wishes. Probably in an optimistic attempt to bring the two groups together..."
Alison looked at the ocean water as it collided with the wall below. "Malik murdered his own son."
The Doctor exhaled. "Try not to think about it Alison... I know I am." He slipped back behind the casing and resumed pounding and scraping at the weapon's outer hull.
"Does Brinbek understand what's happening?" she asked.
"Not yet..." he spoke between blows "Brinbek still believes the Antazi traits are a curse exclusive to his people, but he's beginning to piece it together. He's a clever lad. If he were just a bit more assertive I'd say he'd make a fine leader. And someone's going to have to put an end to this mess, one way or another." The pounding stopped. "Ah, nearly there" he said with satisfaction "Alison come give me a hand with this."
She shifted her weight from the beam beneath her and began to shimmy her way up the framework. Her legs kicked out freely as she sought for a foothold on the wood. She had just gripped the plank before her with her knees when a large hand encircled her ankle and pulled her downward. Her head glanced off the scaffolding as she was dragged into Stron's waiting arms. "Doctor!" she managed to scream out before the hand reasserted itself around her neck.