The Doctor
Rose and Jack joined Znya atop the battlements, and observed the shadowy cluster of burly men formed at the tree line, only their armored outlines visible.
"Why do they wait?" Znya hissed, glaring down at them and snarling.
"I dunno," the Doctor said, but even as he spoke, a sole figure stepped forward from the crowd, and marched across open field towards the High Keep.
"Should I?" Jack raised his pistol, but the Doctor gently pushed his arm down.
"Not yet."
The man stopped a halfways between his army and the castle. "I'll speak to the warden of Callow's Reach!" he called up. "And only he - he's the real power here, not his bitch daughter. Warden! Come! Let's cut out the middle men, and speak directly, what d'you say?"
"What is there ter say, Mr. Bolton?" the Doctor called down. "Unless you've come 'ere to surrender ya forces, then I ain't seeing much point in having this conversation."
Sandon Bolton's laugh was like ice, rolling bitterly up the hill towards the castle. "Come, warden...this isn't a battle you can win. My men and arms are the best in the realm! You're fighting a losing cause, but I offer you now the closest to victory you'll ever get! Come down here! Kneel before me, your daughter too, and surrender Callow's Reach to us. We'll take our fair share of your gold, your food and your peasants too. The men for slaves, the women for pleasure. But after that, we'll let you be. There's no point spilling bloodshed when it can be avoided, my friends - desperate though my men are for battle, the every one of them sees the honour in mercy, and the good in peace."
"Do you believe him?" Rose muttered.
"On the fence." the Doctor whispered back. "But even if he's telling the truth, those are some nasty damned conditions he's imposing."
"Aye," Znya hissed, her pale face thunderous. "Let me issue the reply. Mr. Harkness, I wonder if I could borrow that?"
She nodded at his gun, and he passed it over with a little reluctance. She gripped it by the handle, considered it briefly, and then stepped forward, brushing past the Doctor.
"Your quite wrong, Bolton," she called down, "for I am the real power here, of that I assure you. You wish for my reply?"
"Why then yes, I do my lady."
"This is it."
She raised the pistol, and Bolton, a sharp man if ever there was one, leapt to the side as she fired. The Doctor heard him scream, and saw a dim cloud of blood erupt from the man's ankle, flooring him. If he hadn't jumped aside, the bullet would have slugged him right in the gut.
Despite his agony, Bolton laughed again. "I see," he groaned weakly, his voice murderous, "if that's your decision, then there is nothing further to say...on your own heads be it."
"Pig!" Znya started firing at him again, but the battlements suddenly exploded into gunfire, the rider's munitions smashing into the brickwork, sending gravel and grit flying all around them in eye watering clouds. The Doctor grabbed Rose and Znya and yanked them both undercover, whilst Jack reclaimed his gun and fired back, keeping himself as small a target as possible by crouching beneath the wall.
"He got away." he muttered. "And they're coming."
"Okay." the Doctor said, as they crawled from the battlements, keeping their heads low. "Then to coin a phrase, it's volcano day. Again."
"The three of you, get to the Tardis." Jack demanded, collaring Cartwright, who followed them down to the dining hall. "Get inside, and stay there. If we survive this, I'll knock four times. Otherwise, don't come out for anything."
"We can't leave you..." Rose muttered weakly. For an answer, Jack planted a kiss on her lips.
"Listen," he purred. "I no cuddly bear, despite what you think...despite how I seem. I've seen combat like you wouldn't know Rose, I've fought and survived scrapes you couldn't imagine. So has he," he nodded at the Doctor, "but he's got a job that's way more important than fighting. He's gotta keep you safe."
"Go." he hissed.
"Your a good man." the Doctor told him, unlocking the Tardis and pushing Znya and Rose inside.
"And that's a loada rubbish," he scoffed. "I'm doing what has to be done, no less. Now go!"
The Doctor shut the Tardis door with a clatter, leaving Jack and Cartwright alone.
Jack
"Attention, scum!" he called, pushing his way to the front of the unruly mob of terrified, stinking villagers. "This is your home! Them folk coming at us, they don't bring good tidings. What're you all gonna do about it?"
"Drive 'em out!" they echoed in unison.
"I can't hear you!" Jack bellowed.
"Drive them out!" they screamed.
"Damn straight! And if any of you die without hurting a man, I'll flaming well kill ya! Now, come on!"
With Cartwright at his side, Jack led the mob down the hill towards the Bolton riders, adrenaline coursing through his veins like the most potent of energy drinks, flooding his mind with excitement not fear, giving him speed and agility he'd never normally possessed. His blue coat flapped wildly behind him as he sprinted towards the foe, his pistol in one hand and his sword in the other.
The Bolton riders finally came into view, and one of them - a big, beefy man in steel plate, wielding a flintlock and a mace - was leading the pack. Jack shrugged. Might as well be him who draws the fist blood. With an expert flick of the wrist, he brought his gun up to face the fat man, and he fired without a second's hesitation. The man stopped dead in his tracks, looking bewildered, before crumpling onto the grass and lying still.
Jack rolled forwards on the lawn, and felt bullets fly above him, where his head had been moments before. The screams behind him told him that some of the peasants had been hit, but there was nothing he could do for them now. The armies met in a sickening, metallic clash of flesh and steel, sword grating against scimitar, explosions of gunpowder as flintlocks fired wildly, the most of them missing their targets by full feet.
"Piss off!" a young rider wielding two scimitars rushed at Jack, swinging his weapons over his head, trying to bring the vicious curved blade down in the centre of Jack's head, splitting his skull wide open. Jack shot him in the knee, and the man collapsed to the floor, screaming blue murder, right up until the moment Jack's sword went through the front of his neck, and came out the other side.
He backed away, and collided with another, turning sharply on his heel, sword at the ready. Only Cartwright. The butler's face was smeared with dirt, his hair wild. They nodded at each other, and broke away, each of them picking new targets. Jack took advantage of the dewy grass and slid down the hill, slipping between the feet of the enemy, and cutting two of their ankles out from under them. A gunshot singed his ears, as one of the fallen took a wild shot at him, and he felt the hot flash of the bullet travel past his ear, missing his face by less than an inch. He fired back, and his shot caught the man between the eyes, exposing skull and brain in a nasty mess of meaty trifle.
He regained his feet and stared wildly around the churned mess of the field, panting, tasting blood, his coat streaked with mud, the same mud that he felt clinging to his face and hair.
A petite young woman of Callow's Reach was acting without mercy, her slight build and quick reflexes too much for the cumbersome armored riders to handle. Jack moved to her, hacking down a rider who tried to block his path, his sword slicing clean through the man's belly.
"You good?" he breathed. The woman ignored him and moved deeper into the fray, joining several of Blackburn's men, who'd gotten into a tight, deathly scrum with a group of the riders. There was a wild battle-cry behind Jack, and he wheeled around just in time to sidestep a flying scimitar, which ought to have taken his head clean from his shoulders. The foe brought his heavy scimitar smashing into Jack's lighter longsword, the impact sending shock waves of pain through his wrist, so much so that he nearly dropped the sword. The ugly man cackled and brought his pistol up, with difficulty, to point at Jack's face. He never pulled the trigger; one of the villagers stabbed him through the head, the bloodied blade coming out in his eye socket. He gurgled and collapsed into Jack's arms.
Jack lowered him gently to the ground, and turned to the castle. "Cannons!" he screamed. "Bring 'em out!"
"Cannons!" his nearby allies echoed, their cries rolling up the hill, reaching the engineers stationed there. With an earthquake rumble, six cannons let loose their munitions, which slammed into the back ranks of the Bolton riders. Jack laughed as no fewer than ten of them went down. He saw Sandon Bolton himself as far back as can be, standing right by the treeline of Callow's Wood, no doubt set on making a quick getaway if things turned sour. Or as quick a getaway as he could; the bullet wound in his ankle would slow him down plenty some, and if he fled, Jack would be after him.
He moved back into the depth of the fray, but stopped when a long shaft planted itself in the mud next to his foot. He stared at in in surprise, his brain taking a moment or two to register that it was an arrow.
"Archers!"
"Archers?" Cartwright's face turned chalky white, just moments before and arrow planted itself in his chest, the shaft vibrating back and forth in the hole it had dug into his flesh.
"Jack..." he whispered, blood spilling from his mouth.
Jack turned away from him, and saw a shaft flying through the air straight at him. He raised his sword, the arrow pinging off the blade and coming to rest in the grass, beside the corpse of one of Blackburn's men.
Another earthquake-like explosion shook him to his bones, as Znya's cannons fired again, mercifully taking out some of the archers. He saw Sandon again, and came to a quick, and doubtless stupid decision.
Tearing his way past a close-knit pair of riders, a bullet for one and a gutting for the other, he staggered down the hill towards Bolton, blindly swinging his sword. He fired off two more bullets, but then the pistol gave it's dreaded click-click, the bullets all gone.
"Damn it!" he groaned, throwing it at one of the riders, a sweeping overarm throw, the pistol colliding with the side of the man's head. He looked around in shock and pain, Jack's sword tearing into his heart before he could lift a finger to protect himself.
The archers saw Jack coming and nocked their arrows. Ten of them, tipped vicious with jagged spikes, came flying at him. He rolled aside, and nine of them missed him; the tenth scraped the side of his abdomen, cutting a burning jagged line in the soft flesh of his belly.
"No!" Bolton commanded, as they hurriedly nocked fresh arrows. "He's mine!"
The injured Sandon Bolton stepped forward to face the injured Jack Harkness, each man swaying on his feet. Jack tried his utmost to ignore the sounds of battle behind him, focusing purely on Sandon, who bowed to him.
"Get stuffed." Jack spat, lunging at him with the sword. With practiced ease, Sandon brought his scimitar up and deflected the sword wildly off course, his fist slamming into Jack's nose, blood spurting from both nostrils.
"I didn't want this, sir." Sandon said pleasantly, limping around Jack menacingly. "I gave you two chances to surrender. Two! That's a generosity seldom offered by the Bolton riders. And you chose to ignore us...who's to blame for the blood which runs this night?"
"The man who came here to spill it." Jack replied, slashing at Sandon Bolton, and managing to nick him on the arm with the very tip of his blade. Sandon feigned a high blow, and then ducked low, shoving the pommel of the scimitar into Jack's nether regions. Jack shook with gnawing pain and collapsed to Sandon's feet, heaving, a dull pain spreading into his belly and threatening vomit.
"A nice try," Sandon giggled, "and a good battle. But not good enough, alas. I think your losing, what do you say?"
He roughly grabbed Jack's head and forced it round to face the battle still raging on the field. With a sick pang, and a lump in his throat, Jack saw that the Bolton riders were indeed outnumbering them, and by a fair chalk too.
"You tried your best." Sandon said sympathetically, pressing his blade against Jack's throat.
Then the world turned upside down, as cannonballs smashed into the trees and the dirt all around Jack, flooring nine of the ten surviving archers, tossing grit and sod into the air in a suffocating cloud. His tender gut finally gave up, and he vomited his lunch all over the overturned mud, the bitter taste of vomit clinging to his tonsils.
Tempting though it was to collapse into that dirt and stay there, he had no time to lose. He pounced, throwing his sword into the chest of the sole standing archer, and grabbing Bolton by the shoulders, shoving him to the ground. Jack climbed on top of him, and hit him three times across the face. Sandon headbutted him in his already streaming nose, and it was all that Jack could to do hold on to him, even as Sandon grabbed his throat and rolled them over multiple times, a sickening twister which finally resulted in Jack being below him. He began to squeeze Jack's throat, and Jack felt his face throb and his eyes pop in their sockets as his breath was squeezed out of him.
Nevertheless, he smiled.
He extracted the dagger from the hilt at Sandon's hip, and Sandon reacted far too late, too late to stop Jack plunging it into the small of his back. The bastard groaned and collapsed atop Jack, panting. Jack rolled him off, and picked up the dagger, standing over Bolton and shaking in his boots.
He was about to strike the killer blow, when he noticed something odd.
Beneath the chain mail that Sandon was wearing, he spied something red at his collar, something which was neither flesh nor blood, yet something that looked all too familiar, something that he'd seen countless times these past months.
And why was Sandon looking at him like this? A mortally wounded man, moments from his death, normally looked one of two ways; defiant, or terrified. Sandon Bolton looked neither of those things, and smiled up at Jack with a knowing leer, as though it had been he, Sandon, who had beaten Jack good and proper, defeated him utterly and completely, despite his being entirely at Jack's mercy now.
With a dry throat and a shaking hand, Jack pulled back the chain mail, and saw a revolting, frilly collar beneath.
A red frilly collar.
Zyna's collar.
And far, far too late did Jack realize they'd been tricked.
"The Doctor," he breathed, plunging the knife into Sandon and then sprinting up the hill back towards High Keep, fighting like a madman to get through the battle.
Rose
"It ain't looking good, is it?" she said, as they solemnly watched the battle unfolding on the scanner screen.
"Not spectacular, no." the Doctor admitted. "But I ain't gonna give up 'til I have to."
"If anything's happened to Jack..." Rose blinked back tears. "Doctor, I..."
"If he doesn't make it, but we do," Znya said quietly, "I promise you, his name will be remembered forevermore. The hero of Callow's Reach."
Just then, the door knocked four times.
"It's him!" Rose exclaimed, relief flooding through her in a wave. She skipped across the console room and wrenched the door open...falling straight into the arms of Sandon Bolton.
"Doctor!" she cried as he dragged her from the Tardis, holding her by the blonde locks of her hair.
"No!" she heard the Doctor exclaim, as he and Znya charged out after her, standing side by side. Znya extracted a small flintlock from her pocket (had she had that all along?) and pointed it at Rose and Sandon.
"Don't you dare!" Rose exclaimed, her heart lurching as she stared down the barrel of the gun.
"Yeah, don't you dare!" Sandon mocked, giving Rose's hair a painful yank. He planted a kiss on her cheek. "Now listen here, you horrible lot. The battle is won. Your men and arms lie in ruins out there, and key among them, a handsome man in all blue. I watched his throat be cut, and it broke my heart! Broke my heart, that I couldn't have done it myself."
"No!" Rose wriggled furiously in his grip, tears spilling from her cheeks. Sandon shoved the hilt of a dagger into her temple, making the world spin fuzzy.
"Yes!" Bolton parroted, stroking her hair tenderly. "Now," he breathed, I'll just get me gone, and I'll take this little flower with me. The pair of you can stay here, and await my men...they're dying to meet you both."
Znya raised the gun again.
"Oh, put it away, you silly girl!" Sandon giggled. "You aim isn't true enough - you can't hit me without hitting the girl, and if you hit the girl, the good warden'll never forgive you."
"I can't, it's true," Znya turned the gun around in her hand, and held it by the barrel. "But I think the warden here might be a better shot."
The Doctor's face curled in horror. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't use that..."
Rose felt Sandon stiffen up behind him, and he pressed the knife to her throat. "You will not use that!" he hissed. "Because if you do, I'll cut your little lady's throat! I'll cut it right out, you see if I don't!"
"And then you'll have no shield." Znya shot back. "And you'll be an easy shot."
The Doctor took the gun from Znya and gazed at it in horror. "I can't..." he muttered fervently. "I promised myself, I never would...never again...don't make me do this, Zyn...please don't."
Znya lifted the Doctor's arm, so that the gun was pointing at her and Sandon.
"I mean it!" Sandon said, his voice wobbly "You will not! No!"
And with a low sob, the Doctor pulled the trigger. Rose's every fiber screamed as the bullet shot past her by inches, and buried itself in Sandon's face. She felt his blood explode across her neck and shoulder, felt it go into her ear and soak her hair. She wrenched herself free as the rider fell unceremoniously to the flagstones, his face naught by a hole, and his blood running freely across the floor.
Rose turned to the Doctor. "T-thanks," she managed to mutter. But the Doctor didn't reply.
"Doctor?" she said sharply. "Doctor, what is it?"
Her best friend's face was blank, his mouth lolling open with red light dancing in his eyes. He stood stock still with the gun still pointing where Sandon had been standing. "What's happened to him?"
"Oh," Znya replied, a foul grin breaking out on her face. "He's killed a man. He's killed a man in cold blood, against his every instinct and belief...he's mine, now. The Time Lord is mine!"
"What..." Rose backed away from Znya, and screamed as the door to the dining hall burst open, to reveal a filthy and gravely injured Jack Harkness.
"It's a trap!" he cried. "Everything, it's a trap! We gotta get out of here! We"-
-he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the Doctor.
"You bitch!" he screamed, sprinting full-tilt at Znya with the bloodied dagger clutched over his head. Znya stamped her foot, and an invisible shock wave sent Jack sprawling to the floor.
"The Time Lord is mine!" she repeated shrilly. Rose stared in horror as the faceless form of Sandon Bolton regained it's feet, and slithered over to Znya's side. The side door to the dining hall burst open, to reveal Cartwright and all the silent servants who slithered in she shadows of High Keep. They stood around Znya, identical grins plastered to their faces.
"See me, then!" she cried, her servants and so-named foe melting into her, their flesh merging with her own, to form one hideous bubble of tissue. "See me as I am, see my true face once more!" The ball of flesh reshaped with a sickening grinding of bone and shifting flesh, changing colour, numerous legs sprouting from the sides, and vicious pincers emerging at the front, eight murderous eyes blinking their way into existence...
The spider stood before them, it's enormous jaws snapping, poisoned drool spilling onto the flagstones.
"Doctor!" Rose sobbed, but he stood stock still, gazing blankly into the distance. The spider brushed him gently aside with one great leg, and he moved without complaint.
"You, little people." the spider snapped, in a gurgling voice. "Are irrelevant! You don't know how long I've wanted to do this..."
She scurried a them with lightning speed, pincers bearing down on them, a gurgling laugh booming from deep from within her.