A/N: Only this chapter to go before things really heat up! Yay! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and also everyone who keeps reading this. You're mad, of course, but I adore you all the same. Um. This chap is a bit gory. But just a bit.
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"Get ready!"
It was Kermk who shouted. The Doctor glanced sideways at the Rax. In one hand he brandished a long branch, in the other, his stone club. Now the danger had been sighted, he was very calm and still.
"You're not going to hit it with that, are you?" the Doctor wondered, taking a few steps to the left.
Kermk had no chance to reply. The dragon's huge head crashed through the trees. Its body arched up, and the head slammed down, hook nose first, to the spot the Doctor had been a moment before.
"Now!" Kermk bellowed. He and Pg rushed in towards the snarling worm, clubs and branches held high.
"Don't! Stop!"
The Doctor lunged forward. Outside the clearing, trees snapped as the dragon's limbless body jerked, in a frantic attempt to raise its head again. It screamed at the Rax as they approached.
"You know what these things are?" Kermk demanded, swinging the branch at the dragon's head, "You know what it'll do to us?"
As cheerfully as he could manage, the Doctor said, "It's a desert worm. Burrows underground, lives in artesian basins, water bores, that sort of thing. Only comes to the surface to eat."
The entire time he spoke, Kermk and Pg never let up in their barrage on the worm's head. The Doctor grabbed the older Rax's arm, dug his fingers into the soft flesh until he hit hard muscle. Kermk stopped.
"I also know," he continued, with Kermk staring at him, "That to dig underground with no hands, you need a very hard head. Hitting it with sticks won't do you any good."
"You saying that there is no defence? You're saying we should let it eat us?" Kermk scowled.
"I'm saying you're doing the wrong thing. Give me the stick."
At long last, the worm found its legs, so to speak. One by one, the massive coils of its smooth body pulled back. The head was last. In the fire light, the worm's body was rosy, naked pink, giving it an almost earthworm appearance. Its head was wedge-shaped, so all the driving force from that huge body and heavy skull narrowed into the sharp point of nose.
"Don't wrestle with it, either." The Doctor warned, easing the branch from Kermk's hand.
He crossed the clearing, to the fire. The branch was splintered at the end and sparks flared up its length instantly when he dipped it into the ashes.
"There he goes, come to save the day." Rose muttered. She stood well away from the squirming worm, knowing full well the devastating power of its axe head.
She watched the Doctor lunge for the worm, flaming branch held high. The worm squealed at him, and drove its head down again. The Doctor leapt back. His movements were fluid and precise, with no sign of the binding ache that had been harassing him for days.
"This is how you do it!" he shouted, driving the flaming branch down across the worm's exposed neck.
The worm screamed. Its long body flailed, twisting desperately to heft its bulk up. The Doctor pressed the branch down harder, until the air was acrid with the odour of burning flesh.
"The knife, now!" Kermk roared.
Pg scuttled back to camp. He returned, moments later, with a long-bladed flint knife in hand. Kermk snatched it from him, not daring to take his eyes from the writhing worm for a second.
With one deft slash, the older Rax split the worm open from neck to belly. It screamed again, twitching sporadically, spilling purplish innards to the clearing floor. Rose turned away from the scene. She held a hand over her nose and mouth to block the smell, not only the searing flesh, but the sweet, putrid scent of too much blood. Her ears rang with the worm's shrill screaming.
A minute later, it was over. The worm was just a carcass, a colossal reminder of the violence not long passed.
"You do that often?" Kermk wondered, grinning at the Doctor.
"Too often. If you only knew." the time lord shook his head. He stared at the carcass at his feet. Even dead, even with its intestines slipping out its side, the worm was as thick as he was tall. At the torso, it was twice his size.
Although he knew it had to be done, he couldn't help feel bitter. He shouldn't have had to do it. Not here. Not any more.
"Well," Rose piped from across the clearing, "That's it for me. You're looking refreshed, Doctor. You can take the first shift."
There were other sleeping skins spread out around the fire. With a sideways glance at the Doctor, Rose moved her skin away from the others.
"Wait, Rose." The Doctor moved towards her, "Tell me what's been going on, first. Where are we? How long was I asleep for?"
Rose yawned. "Kermk and Pg can fill you in better than me. I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day if we're going to reach Gymnophiona."
"Let her sleep, eh?" Kermk nudged the Doctor, "She's been working hard. All my life, I never met a female who worked so hard. So if you want to know what's going on, I'll take first shift with you. I'll tell you."
"Sure." The Doctor replied in Raxin, "Thank you."
"Hey, Curator. It's good to see you awake again. It's been very quiet without you." Pg grinned. To Kermk, he said, "Wake me up for the second shift."
"What do you want to know first?"
The older Rax didn't voice his question until he was sure Pg and Rose were asleep. He and the Doctor kept their backs to the fire pit, their eyes on the murky forest. Pg's gentle snores, and the crackle of flames were the only sound.
There was a long pause before the Doctor replied. He was almost embarrassed to break the silence. "I was supposed to stay at Ilium Neocort, wasn't I? Why am I here?"
Kermk chuckled. "My guess is that you missed your female. You must have followed us down the mountain." He grinned broadly, "Big Barter was right, my friend, you should have stayed. We found you on the steppes in the morning. I think you ran right passed us in the night, and not noticed. Pg and I thought you were dead."
The Doctor didn't say anything. He faintly recalled running down a long flight of stairs, searching for something. What he had been looking for, he didn't remember. Not Rose, for sure.
"You did look dead, eh? Very still, no breathing, nothing. At first Pg held Rose back while I checked if you really were dead. Rose was very upset, you know. Making lots of noise, fighting Pg and me. In the end I told Pg to let her go." Kermk rolled his eyes, and nudged the Doctor. "We told her you were dead, eh, that you were no good for trading or mating any more. She doesn't Rax, though. She wouldn't let us leave unless we took you with us."
"Lucky me." The Doctor remarked, his ears burning. He was really beginning to wish they'd never come to Beta. They would have encountered less opposition on the Death Star.
"Yeah, lucky you. You're lucky this wasn't the other way round, eh? I had to carry you. I don't think you could carry me all this way. Hey?" Kermk laughed. "I don't think so."
"How many days since we left Ilium Neocort?" the Doctor wondered.
He was staring at his own blood-stained shirt. Most of it was old, brown and stiff. The rest must have splashed up on him when Kermk sliced the worm open. His pinstripe jacket was missing, though there was a bandaged around the sleeping Pg's upper arm which looked suspiciously familiar.
"This is the forth night. We should have been there by now." The older Rax sighed, "It has not been an auspicious trip. We were slowed down, by you, by Rose. I've been this way a lot, you know. I made sure we took all the shortcuts, stayed close to the river."
"I suppose we're still behind the traders." The Doctor said.
Kermk's eyes bulged. Something was bugging him. "They've got to be in Gymnophiona by now. I was so stupid, you know? We left the Monsura River this morning, to cut across the forest. Tonight, we should be on the banks of the Apoda. Instead, we're in the middle of nowhere. All because I was so stupid."
He shook his craggy head. He glanced over his shoulder, to Pg. The Doctor followed his gaze.
"Is that my jacket?" he wondered.
"Eh? Yeah. I don't know why you wear all those skins anyway. It's not that cold." Kermk licked his lips, "Me and my shortcuts. We should have gone the long way. But you know, I'm thinking only of females. There's females in Gymnophiona all year round. I can't stop thinking about them. This morning, I was thinking so much about females that I lead us right across a worm nest."
"Women'll do that to you." The Doctor said sympathetically. There had been more than one occasion where he'd risked himself and others to save a pretty girl. Even Rose had been shown her fair share of chivalry.
"Next thing I know, those damn worms have us surrounded. I was carrying you, so I couldn't fight them off. I told Pg to pick up Rose, and run." Kermk sighed again, "I thought we'd gotten away. I couldn't see any worms. And then, Pg started screaming. I turn around, and there's a worm right next to him, and Rose is on the ground. The worm had Pg's arm in its mouth, chopped right off his shoulder."
Kermk shuddered at the memory. His arms were crossed, and his clammy palms constantly traced the warty ridges of his biceps. Checking they were still attached.
"I dropped you," Kermk smiled suddenly, "And I fought the worm off with my bare hands. Lucky me it was only a small one. I snapped its neck, you know, like you do with Sycorax."
Yeah, right.
Kermk wasn't deterred by the Doctor's lack of agreement. "Your Rose, she saved the day. Pg was loosing a lot of blood, I though he would keel over right there, and we'd have to drag his carcass back to Ilium Neocort. But your Rose, she went over to you, and she took your jacket. There was this little, uh,"
"Object about this long?" The Doctor suggested helpfully, holding his fingers about ten inches apart, "Silver? Had a blue light at one end?"
"That's it. She held Pg's arm back near his shoulder, and turned that blue light on. After a minute, the bleeding stopped, and when I looked again, his arm was back on. Like it had never been chopped off, yeah? Strange. Your Rose tied the jacket around it, but I don't know why. It looked fine to me."
"It's better to be safe." The Doctor said. So Rose was doing surgery on aliens now. Kermk and Pg mustn't have been all that bad, if Rose liked them.
Kermk chuckled. "And here you are too, eh? The only ones dead are those abominable desert worms."
"Better them than us." The Doctor agreed.
There wasn't much more to be said. After a long silence, the Doctor moved away from Kermk, to sit beside Rose. He reached for her hand, curled up near her face. When he was still, the silence of the forest flooded back into the clearing.
Better them than us. The Doctor had said. He wondered if he believed it.
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"There!"
Pg's voice held none of the terror of the night before. He bounded over the sand dunes, shouting and pointing at something in the far distance.
"Where?" Kermk called.
The older Rax climbed awkwardly up a dune, hurrying to catch up with his brother.
"What's going on?" Rose frowned at the Doctor.
It was late afternoon, the fifth day after the journey from Ilium Neocort. Since mid-morning, the travellers had been trudging through golden sand dunes, following the banks of the writhing Apoda River. Aside from the deep wells bored either side of the river, there was no sign of civilisation.
"I think he's spotted Gymnophiona." The Doctor told her.
His shirt sleeves were brown from constantly being rolled up above his elbows. Sweat drenched his back, and stuck his hair up in a wave of small spikes. He'd long ago removed his tie, and undone the top few buttons of his shirt.
Rose was sweating just as much. The temperature difference between the mountains and the desert was enormous. Even the low-lying forest had been cooler than this. She had rolled her pants legs up, and wore nothing over her thin black undershirt. Her layers of winter clothes had been stuffed into her travel pack, and the only reason she kept her snow boots was the searing heat of the sand.
"What?" Rose shrieked, "Finally!"
She took off after Kermk and Pg. The Rax had their own way of dealing with the heat, which was to take frequent dips in the cool river water. Though now that they were approaching Gymnophiona, it was dangerous to approach the river. Desert worms were rife through this part of the land.
"Where is it?" she demanded of Kermk, in fractured Raxin.
"Look!" Kermk cried gleefully, pointing to a dark smudge on the horizon.
Beside him, Pg was performing a victorious belly dance. Rose was quick to look away from the jingling rolls of pallid fat. She'd never appreciated the Doctor's lean frame as much as she had since meeting the Rax.
"We're almost there!" Rose exclaimed, "Doctor! We're almost there!"
At long last, the Doctor reached the top of the sand dune. He squinted at the smudge proclaimed Gymnophiona. The horizon shimmered in the afternoon heat, distorting the distance to the Rax colony.
"Not far now." He grinned. He was more glad that Rose was speaking to him again than to see Gymnophiona close. "Just a few more miles."
Even grouchy Kermk seemed invigorated by the sight of the colony. "Hey, standing here and gaping won't take us any closer, eh? Get on with it!"
Rose didn't understand the words, but she understood the sentiment. Smiling at the Doctor beside her, she set off towards the colony.
If only she knew what waited for them there, she might not have been so eager.
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Dum de dum. Next chap up soon.
Gymnophiona at last!