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The Wrath of the Iceni (audio story): Difference between revisions
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=== Part TWO === | === Part TWO === | ||
Boudica and Leela overlook the targeted Roman town; Boudica is confident it can be overrun. She insists that the Doctor can be made to give her more information. | |||
The Doctor and Bragnar are tied up in a tent at Boudica’s orders, and lamenting their situation. Bragnar doesn’t wish anyone dead; she just wishes for peace. Boudica returns and checks in with Caedmon regarding the progress of the situation; he wants to torture the Doctor, but Boudica again forbids it. Instead, she intends to use Bragnar to get the Doctor to speak. Inside the tent, Bragnar has grown tired of the Doctor’s banter, when Boudica and Leela arrive; Leela has him untied, but Boudica keeps Bragnar bound. Boudica demands answers about his prophecy of destruction, and how the Iceni will be defeated. When he won’t elaborate, Boudica says she will find her own omens…in Bragnar’s entrails. | |||
The Doctor gives in to save Bragnar’s life. He explains that Camulodunum is sparsely guarded, but that it is a decoy; though the attack there will be successful, Governor Paulinus is laying a trap for the Iceni, with his armies held to the north. When the city is taken, he will return and hem in the Iceni inside the city, then destroy them. Satisfied, she leaves him in the tent, bound again, and orders a reinforcement of her army’s rear guard; she orders the army to prepare to ride. Leela is appalled that she won’t release him, but she insists she has many battles to fight, and will make him serve her for all of them. | |||
Leela returns and confronts the Doctor, but leaves him in the tent. She insists that Boudica is a good woman, and declares that she will ride with the army. To Caedmon’s satisfaction, she tells the Doctor that he must stay and give up his old life and serve as Boudica insists. However, when Leela leaves with Caedmon, the Doctor tells Bragnar that it’s not what she said, but what she did—and what she did, was slip him her knife. The Doctor laboriously cuts his own bonds, then Bragnar’s; he comments that Leela was really telling him to abandon her, not his own life. | |||
The army gathers near the Romans encampment, and prepares to charge, though Leela expresses her doubts. Boudica gives a speech to rally her troops, and leads the charge. The armies engage, and the battle begins. | |||
The Doctor and Bragnar locate a pair of horses, and hurry toward Camulodunum; Bragnar is alarmed, but the Doctor insists he is going to rescue Leela, despite what she asked of him. Meanwhile, Leela is becoming more and more distraught at Boudica’s bloodthirst; she is ashamed to see the Iceni killing the aged, sick, women, and even those who had surrendered. Boudica orders her troops to destroy the city’s temple and the final survivors inside, which include British slaves—Leela protests, as Boudica plans to kill them as well. Leela confronts Boudica, and insists that the woman is fighting not for her country, but for revenge. She declares that the Doctor was right—Boudica is not a good woman, and her battle is wrong. She reveals that she released the Doctor, which Boudica takes as a betrayal. Boudica attacks Leela, declaring that she has “scarce fought an equal”. | |||
The Doctor and Bragnar arrive in the last of the battle, where they meet with Caedmon, who chases after them. Caedmon kills the Doctor’s horse; the Doctor sends Bragnar away for her safety, and confronts Caedmon. Caedmon intends to defy Boudica’s order and kill the Doctor, blaming it on the Romans; but Bragnar doubles back and attacks Caedmon, unintentionally killing him. They set off again to search for Leela. | |||
Leela and Boudica are still battling, as the Doctor arrives. Boudica manages to strike her while she is distracted, but she is not badly hurt. She orders the Doctor not to interfere; and moments later, she gets the advantage. She refuses to kill Boudica, instead leaving her behind. Boudica is undeterred; she refuses to consider herself defeated, and continues the larger battle. | |||
On the road back toward the TARDIS, Leela and Bragnar discuss the battle. The Doctor admits that he didn’t tell Boudica the truth; there was no army coming from the north, and no defeat today. Instead, it was a Roman massacre that took place, just as history had recorded. However, in the future, Boudica will go on to fight other battles, which will lead to her ultimate defeat—not today, but on a day to come, when her pride and arrogance will leave her own army hemmed in to be slaughtered. Leela admits that she may no longer have the stomach for slaughter, leading the Doctor to comment that her education may be progressing after all. At the TARDIS, the Doctor explains how Boudica dies: facing death in battle, she kills her daughters, then poisons herself. Violence brings its own end, it seems. As the TARDIS departs, the Doctor considers that Leela has had enough education for now; it’s time for something different. | |||
Years hence, Bragnar passes on her story to her own daughters as the sole survivor of her tribe. | |||
== Cast == | == Cast == | ||
