The Spear of Destiny Read Online Free Page A

approached the closest waterwheel
     he saw something in the distance they’d missed before.
    Through the forest, up and away on
     a hill, was a clearing, and in the clearing stood a wooden
     temple, towering and vast.
    He felt a strong urge to go and
     take a look; even from this distance and looking through the
     trees he could see it was covered in fantastic carvings that he
     longed to examine, but Jo had been taken the other way, and
     there were the wheels, and the spear, and …
    He hurried on.
    There was no one in sight, but he
     approached the first waterwheel cautiously – being shot at and
     dunked in a river was quite enough fun for one day.
    The wheel was a heavy undershot
     device: a long wooden leat channelled water from the river to
     the bottom of its fins, which turned constantly in the
     flow.
    He moved on to the next wheel, and
     the next, and now, in the far distance, he heard the sounds of
     axes and saws, of wood being chopped in the forest. He squinted
     towards the direction of the sounds and watched as part of the
     forest trembled, and then a gap appeared in the canopy as a tree
     came down.
    ‘They’re making more …’ he said,
     wondering why they needed all these wheels, all this potential
     power – power that was useless unless it was feeding
     something.
    But what?
    The axle of each waterwheel
     entered a wheelhouse, and the Doctor approached the nearest one.
     The door was locked; a big iron keyhole was set into the heavy
     wood.
    The Doctor pulled his sonic
     screwdriver out of his pocket and, once inside, his eyes
     widened.
    There was no primitive set of cogs
     and drive-shafts, no trip-hammers or cam-wheels. No milling or
     grinding stones. Instead, the axle of the wheel went straight
     into a large metal box, from which heavy-duty electrical cable
     emerged and then disappeared into the dirt floor of the
     wheelhouse.
    Neither the cable nor the box
     looked like they had anything to do with Earth in the second
     century AD .
    It was as he’d left the
     wheelhouse that he’d heard the snort of an ox from across the
     river, and that was when he’d seen the TARDIS being towed
     away.
    The Doctor put his head down and
     made for the bridge.
    ‘Hang on, Jo,’ he said. ‘Hang
     on.’

8
    Jo knelt on a hard earth
     floor.
    In front of her stood a huge
     warrior, his face almost obscured by a thick beard, though his
     eyes were clear enough to see and burned down at her, making her
     want to melt into the ground and disappear.
    Around them were the men who’d
     brought her, and around
them
was a vast dark hall. A fire-pit at its centre sent smoke
     curling up into the thatch of the roof.
    She’d been carried through a
     village – a series of small huts and some larger houses – and
     then brought before this man, who was evidently the
     chief.
    ‘I,’ announced the man, ‘am
     Njord.’
    Jo understood him perfectly. She
     knew the telepathic circuits of the TARDIS had a certain range,
     and, although the Doctor had never said how great that range
     was, she knew the TARDIS must be close enough for it to make her
     hear the ancient Norse dialect as English.
    Njord stepped a little closer to
     Jo and began walking round her. Her wrists and ankles were still
     bound. She longed to stand and give this old goat a piece of her
     mind, but she knew she’d most likely fall over if she tried,
     which wasn’t the effect she was after.
    Njord grunted in satisfaction.
     ‘Everything is as Frey said.’
    ‘Frey?’ asked Jo. ‘Who’s
     Frey?’
    Njord ignored her. He clapped his
     hands and gave a short laugh that sounded more like a bark. Then
     he stopped in front of Jo and bent down, putting his face right
     up close to hers.
    Her nose wrinkled.
    ‘Where is the Healer?’ he
     said.
    ‘The who?’ asked Jo.
    ‘My men say he drowned. He fell in
     the river. But Frey says not to believe what you see with the
     Healer.’
    ‘The Healer? You mean the
     Doctor?’
    ‘The Healer,