Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani Read Free

have you noticed anything strange?’
    Peri resisted the obvious retort that everything about and connected with the Doctor was strange. ‘Strange?’
    ‘No birdsong... and no birds.’
    Becoming conscious of the eerie silence, she pointed to a scarecrow mounted on a frame in mid-field. ‘Could be the scarecrow.’
    ‘They’re not usually this effective.’ Would a solitary, straw-filled effigy so frighten the birds that none of them dared come near?
    Peri broke into his thoughts. ‘Well, if the place gives you the creeps, let’s get out of it!’ She strode to a gate giving onto a copse. The Doctor tagged behind, still vaguely perturbed.
    Had he glanced back he would have had even more reason to feel perturbed. The scarecrow’s inclined head, in its floppy-brimmed hat, slowly began to lift...
    Hungry for strife, Jack Ward and his aggressive cohorts checked their rowdy progress along a leafy country lane.
    Coming towards them, at a steady trot, was a horse drawn dray. The drayman recognised Jack.
    ‘Finished for t’day, Jack?’
    Jack did not respond. Instead, three abreast, the men formed a solid barrier.
    Ignorant of the degeneration that had transformed the miners, the drayman chivvied them. ‘Come on, lads. Out of road. Got to deliver this lot to pit!’ This ‘lot’ was a crateload of machinery.
     
    His words fell on deaf ears. Jack Ward unsheathed a thin, razor-sharp knife.
    Disquieted, the drayman cracked his whip, an action that met with unflinching contempt from Rudge, who grabbed the snapping thong and yanked the drayman from his seat. Recklessly indifferent to the neighing, rearing horse, Ward severed the lead rein before joining in the attack – but not on the drayman. The target was the cargo.
    With unbridled fury, the three assailants levered the crate from the dray, sending it crashing to the ground.
    Recovering, wielding a shovel, the drayman entered the fray and thwacked Jack Ward, knocking him out. Reprisal came immediately; a savage blow from Green felled him.
    The ungovernable aggression continued unabated, venting its fury upon the heavy machinery; reducing the thick cast-iron mouldings to unusable fragments.
    The distant hubbub of splintering metal and the terrified neighing of the horse shattered the peace of the copse. The Doctor’s pace quickened as he hastened towards a stile.
    Vandalism completed, without bothering to check whether their wounded comrade was alive or dead, the elated Ward and Green decamped. They passed the stile fractionally before the Doctor vaulted the crossbar.
    He hurried to the horse, soothing and calming it.
    ‘Ow-w-ch!’ The groan came from beneath the jumble of broken timber and packing straw. Extricating himself from the debris, the drayman sagged to his knees.
    ‘Here, let me help.’ Peri’s well-meant offer earned a rebuke.
    ‘No, don’t move him.’ The Doctor’s swift but adept examination showed the man’s injuries to be superficial.
    ‘They’d got no cause to behave like that,’ he complained.
    ‘Why did they attack you?’ Peri’s question was addressed to the drayman but the Doctor answered.
    ‘They didn’t. They attacked the machinery.’
     
    ‘That’s right, Miss. That’s what they was after.’
    ‘I’m lost. Why would anyone want to smash machinery?’
    ‘They’re scared it’ll rob them of their jobs.’ That was the drayman’s explanation. The Doctor failed to agree.
    ‘You suspect another motive, Doctor?’
    ‘Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind.’
    Before Peri could query the ambiguity of this remark, they heard a moan from the ditch.
    ‘Jack Ward. I clouted him wi’ shovel.’
    Avoiding a tuft of stinging nettles, the Doctor clambered into the ditch.
    ‘Odd that,’ the drayman continued to Peri. ‘Leaving him behind. The three of them’s always been such mates.’
    The Doctor, too, had found something odd – the crimson mark on Ward’s neck.
    ‘Unusual sort of mark. Any idea how you got it –’
    A