Doctor Who and the Crusaders Read Online Free Page A

the
Tardis
found itself a clear patch and materialized, its safety precaution selector deliberately choosing a place well screened by tall thick bushes. It was one of the features of the Doctor’s ship that it always assessed the place it landed in in one millionth of a second before it materialized, and was thus able to avoid appearing in busy streets or under water, or any of the hundred and one hazards which might endanger the safety of the ship and its occupants. Had its safety device been of a much wider sort, of course, it is more than likely it would have detected the presence of the coming struggle in the little forest outside Jaffa. But, of course, if its sensitivity had been so fine there would be no chronicles about Doctor Who.
    Ian was first out of the ship. He crept over to the screenof tall bushes and peered through them. Barbara came across from the
Tardis
and stood beside him quietly.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I don’t know where we are, but it looks like an ordinary wood.’
    ‘The Doctor says we’ve landed on Earth again.’
    Ian pushed his way through the bushes, holding them back for the girl to follow him, and together they wandered a few paces through the trees.
    Barbara said, ‘Have you ever thought what you’d do, Ian, if the Doctor landed us back in our own time in England?’
    He looked at the sunlight filtering through the trees above their heads, occasionally catching in her eyes as they walked. It was a question which had often occurred to him, one he had frequently thought of asking her. Before he could answer, a sudden shout broke the silence of the forest, stopping them in their tracks. The word itself meant nothing to them at that particular moment, and it’s doubtful if they even realized it gave them the key to where they were on Earth and the period of its history. All they did know was that the sound was the beginning of danger, of trouble.
    ‘Saladin!’
    The one word pierced out of the silence and hung around them in the short silence that followed. Barbara glanced quickly at the man beside her.
    ‘That wasn’t either of you calling, was it?’ they heard the Doctor say from the other side of the ring of bushes. Ian took hold of Barbara’s hand as other cries and shouts began to ring out from the forest and the sharp ring of metal striking metal.
    ‘We’ll get back to the ship,’ said Ian.
    They were just moving back to the safety of the bushes when a man came running through the trees, a curved sword in his hand. He wore a metal helmet with a long point and a short cape was pinned at the neck and hung behind him. Under the sleeveless breast-plate of small chain metal, a rich dark-blue jacket finished just below his elbows and the rest of the arms were covered with leather wrist protectors studded with metal buttons. A dark-red sash was tied round his waist and the loose, baggy trousers were thrust into soft leather boots with pointed toes. As soon as he saw Ian and Barbara he raised his sword, changed direction slightly and rushed at them, his dark face tightening into fury and hatred.

    Ian dropped on one knee and gripped the sword hand of his new enemy, but fell with him in the power of the man’s approaching rush.
    ‘Run, Barbara!’ he shouted.
    Barbara looked around quickly for a stone or a thick piece of wood to help Ian as the two men rolled and wrestled on the ground. Finally she saw a thick branch some yards away to herleft, partially hidden by some bushes. She ran to it and started pulling it out from the grass which had overgrown it. A hand appeared from nowhere, clamped itself around her mouth and pulled her through the bushes, the other arm pinioning itself around her threshing body. Barbara looked up wildly at her captor, who was dressed in a similar fashion to the man with whom Ian was fighting only a few yards away. She kicked out with her legs to try and break the man’s hold on her, nearly got free and then slumped to the earth unconscious,