Free Doctor Who: Dragonfire by Ian Briggs Page B

backwards. The heavy foosteps crunched closer.
    Ace looked frantically up the side walls. About two metres up one of the walls was a deep horizontal crack. Ace didn't know whether it was deep enough to hide in, but there was no alternative. She dragged Mel to the foot of the wall, and tried to haul her to her feet. Mel was petite, but she was still heavy to manhandle. Ace pushed her up the wall, and then kneeled down to get underneath her. She pushed upwards, and slowly Mel's floppy body slid towards the opening. The heavy footsteps grew nearer.
    Mel's shoulders over the edge and into the crack. Then she heaved upward and shoved the rest of Mel's body over the edge. Mel herself was out of sight now, but Ace was still visible. Frantically, she looked round for a way of climbing up to the crack herself.
    The Doctor's brolly!
     
    She grabbed it out of her shoulder bag, and reached upwards with the handle to a protruding spike of ice. She hooked the handle over the spike and tested her weight on it. It held firm. The murderous crewmen and women were just about visible in the gloom. Ace heaved on the brolly and swung her legs upwards. She kicked her feet into the crack, and threw herself over the edge into darkness. She could see the crewmen and women now. She hurriedly grabbed the brolly and pulled her shoulder bag in with her, then crawled down alongside Mel.
    The crewmen and women trudged down the Ice Passage - Ace could see them as she peered over the edge. Closer they lurched. Ace held her breath. They'd reached the point where Mel had fallen, and the first one looked down at the fresh blood on the ground. They were only three metres away from her.
    'Doctor...' Mel moaned. The first crewman looked round, uncertain.
    Mel began to move.
    Ace put her arm tight round Mel's body. She tried to rock Mel silently -
    rock her back to sleep.
    The crewmen and women shuffled in the passage below. Ace could see the tops of their heads. She held Mel tight in the darkness. Her cheek was pressed against Mel's. She could feel her gentle breathing.
    Finally, the crewmen and women lurched on down the passage. Ace watched them as they moved away into the darkness. She listened to their footsteps die away. It seemed to take for ever. When she looked back at Mel's face, Mel had her eyes open.
    'What happened?' she asked weakly.
     
    'It's all right, Doughnut,' replied Ace softly in the CHAPTER EIGHT
    The Doctor and Glitz found their way blocked by an old bulkhead door midway down one of the Ice Passages. It wasn't sealed closed, but it was stiff from many years' disuse, and the Doctor and Glitz had to heave on it in unison to prise it open. The passage was darker on the other side. The Doctor peered through and then consulted the map. 'I think we go straight on.' He turned the map round the other way.
    'Either that, or...' - he turned the map on its side - 'or. we don't.' Glitz cautioned the Doctor to be quiet. The Doctor listened. From the far side of the door, there came a strange sound - a heavy, rasping sound, like the breathing of some kind of giant. Glitz edged forward.
    Silently, they stepped through the open bulkhead, and crept down the passage. The rasping sound grew louder. Glitz pulled out the hand-gun he had taken from Belazs and continued to edge forward. They reached a side passage. Glitz peered cautiously round it. There was nothing there. The strange sound was coming from the passage opposite. Glitz threw himself round the corner of the second passage.
    Standing directly in front of him was the Creature -huge and terrifying, like the skeleton of a deformed monster. Its jaws seemed to glisten like steel razors, as it reared up and turned on Glitz, and two beams of fire streaked from its glowing red eyes towards him.
    'It's the dragon! Get back!'
    Stumbling and slipping, Glitz and the Doctor ran back towards the bulkhead door. The Creature lunged after them, and another two beams of fire pierced the air and burst on the ice just over