Stargate SG-1: Trial by Fire: SG1-1 (27 page)

"What in God's name..."

An avalanche had razed the pass, which explained the racket
earlier. It had formed a jumbled barricade just above the trees,
and on that barricade perched a group of perhaps twenty suicidal
maniacs, furiously defending the olives against an onslaught of
Tyrean soldiers pouring from the slope. Behind the barrier, other men were tending to casualties. Kelly felt a breathless, tremulous
tugofawe she hadn't experienced in alongtime. She was witnessing
history, events that hadn't occurred for nearly two thousand years:
the Romans were fighting a last stand. It was gratifying that their
situation should be so desperate. If the Third Punic War had
happened a hundred and fifty years later, if the general had been
Varus instead of Scipio Africanus, then -

"The wrath of Meleq is descending upon them," Luli whispered,
engrossed. "I told you this, too, Lady Siobhan."

"Shush, lad! Let me watch!"

The fighting was ugly and brutal, no holds barred, without
heroic deaths in slow motion or a rousing symphonic score piped in
from the off. The noises filtering up to their perch sounded like pigs
brawling over their dinner, and the killings were gory, repugnant
even. Beside her, Luli clapped his hands and laughed.

"Look at those fools!"

This child was entirely too bloodthirsty. But perhaps they all
were.

Those fools were two men breaking out from the barricade,
running full tilt towards two other Romans or Phrygians or whatever
they chose to call themselves who were trying to drag a wounded
comrade to safety. A group of no less than eight Tyreans had other
ideas. Clearly the two runners meant to intercept them. Suddenly
Kelly got angry.

"Don't let me hear you call them fools again, boy! That's the
bravest thing I've seen since..."

Since the pigheaded Irish fool had refused to leave her behind
that night at the temple. The thought tempered her grudging
admiration for Roman bravery.

The two men had engaged the Tyreans now. The shorter one
acquitted himself quite well, but the lanky chap by his side had a
lot to learn about swordsmanship. His instincts were sound, and he
moved fast enough, but he looked as though he were making it up
as he went along. Not a bad tactic, come to think of it. It certainly
confused his adversaries. As a matter of fact, the sheer madness of
it reminded her of -

"No!" Luli had recognised him at the exact same moment and shot to his feet, shouting. "He must not do this! The Lord Meleq
will punish him!"

Dr. Kelly's sentiments precisely. If not the Lord Meleq, then his
flock of faithful. The child was already barrelling down the hill and
towards the trees, and she followed as fast as she could.

At a distance behind him he could hear Major Carter and Daniel
Jackson struggling to match his pace, but Teal'c did not intend to
slow down. Speed was of the essence now. The fierce sortie had
been successful, and both O'Neill and the Phrygian warrior had
regained the tenuous protection of the barricade. However, the
position could not endure much longer.

As he ran, Teal'c berated himself for having wasted time on
sparring matches instead of instructing his friend in the far more
useful art of swordplay. This he would amend if he and O'Neill
were given the chance. Racing from the mouth of a gully, he very
nearly collided with a stout, panting personage who also traveled
at high velocity.

He barely gave himself enough time to ascertain that she was
unharmed and to marvel at her disheveled appearance.

"Professor Kelly. I am relieved to see you. Please join Major
Carter and Daniel Jackson."

The customary show of grievance failed to materialize. She
merely nodded and urged him on. "Chop-chop, laddie!"

As far as he could determine, chop-chop was an incitement not
to violent action but to haste. Teal'c did not require the reminder.
He ran past a sparse stand of olive trees and towards the familiar
clamor of battle. At the edge of the grove an old Phrygian warrior,
his face blemished by a horrible scar, interrupted his care of a
huge, gap-toothed soldier and attempted to stop the interloper. Not
wishing to harm the old one and admiring his courage, the Jaffa
felled him with a single shot from his zat'nikatel. Things must be
dire indeed if the Phrygians had to rely on the feeble powers of
old men and children. A young boy, too, was hastening to the wall,
unobserved and unhindered amid the noise and confusion. Teal'c
followed the child.

Only seven fit men were left on the blockade, among them O'Neill and the warrior who had been with him earlier, and whom
Teal'c now recognized. The Phrygian rebel from Tyros. And
he appeared to be the one they had been looking for in vain all
day: the leader of these men, the one who had to be persuaded to
surrender.

"O'Neill!" bellowed Teal'c, leaping from boulder to boulder
and up the barricade.

Men looked up at his shout and went rigid with shock and anger
as they noted the presence of a Jaffa among them. Fortunately they
were too stunned or too dejected to impede him. Atop the barrier
O'Neill spun around, as did the boy who had almost reached him.
Luli, heir of Hamilgart. When he saw Teal'c, his eyes dilated with
panic. Scrambling on hands and knees, he closed the last few
meters and flung himself at O'Neill.

"You must recant!" the child cried, all but hysterical. "You must
recant, Jack! If the spirit saw what you did, he will tell the Lord
Meleq! You will be punished, you hear?"

With the boy clutching him, O'Neill was unable to defend
himself, a fact the Tyreans had to be aware of. With three fast steps,
Teal'c climbed to the top and fired a staff blast over the heads of
the soldiers climbing the wall, causing some of them to fall prone
with fear.

"Cease fighting!" he roared. "All of you! These people will
surrender!"

"Never!" exclaimed the Phrygian leader. "We shall never -"

"Tertius!" Luli still clinging to his leg like a deadweight,
O'Neill was the first to drop his weapon. Then he hobbled over to
this Tertius and pointed at the rows of wounded among the olive
trees. "Look around you! What do you want? Get them all killed?
It's time to call it quits."

"Do you know what will happen, Deodatus? To you, me, all of
these men?"

"It's not over yet," O'Neill replied, casting a brief glance at
Teal'c. "You can't fight them any longer, but it's not over yet. Trust
me, Tertius."

A slow and oddly amused smile stole over the man's grimy
features. "So be it. You expect me to trust the Jaffa as well?"

"His name's Teal'c. And the answer's yes."

Tertius barked an order. On and behind the barricade soldiers
discarded their weapons, reluctantly and with the sluggish, sunken
movements of defeat. Shouts went up among the ranks of the
Tyreans and some who had forgotten their earlier fear began pushing
towards the barricade to set upon their defenseless adversaries.

Teal'c raised his staff again. "Do not move!"

In answer several spears went up among a unit of Temple
Guards - among them the men who had fooled Teal'c and caused
the rockslide. Before the Jaffa could take aim, a shot rang out and
one of the soldiers toppled, struck in the right shoulder.

"You'd better listen to the Lord Spirit!" Major Carter had
arrived on the barrier, Daniel Jackson beside her. Their weapons
were trained on the Tyreans in an unambiguous warning. "He said
Do not move!"

"That is not what Me1eq's other spirits told us!" shouted a Guard.
"They bade us to root out the heretics!"

"I don't see any other spirits! Do you? So I suggest you do what
this one says!"

O'Neill had been observing the performance and succeeded in
gently disengaging Luli from his lower extremities. Hostilities had
ceased for the time being, so he turned to his team, grim-faced and
pallid. For a second Teal'c feared that his friend might be hurt after
all, but then he realized the error.

His voice cold to the point of tonelessness, O'Neill whispered,
"Carter! Tell me it wasn't you who started that goddamn
avalanche!"

The answer came from Daniel Jackson, replete with an anger to
match O'Neill's. "Nice to see you too, Jack! Despite the fact that
you're an ass!"

The suns had slipped behind the rim of the crater by the time the
priests had arrived, carried across the pass in two sedan chairs. Blue
shadows quickly swallowed the day's heat, and at her suggestion
some of the men had lit fires among the trees. Maybe the warmth
would ease the effects of shock. She and Daniel had raided their
medikits and done their best to give the wounded at least some basic medical care. Mostly they'd been administering morphine.

A detachment of Tyrean soldiers had been sent to occupy the
garrison in the valley, and posted around the makeshift camp in the
olive grove stood perimeter guards. Now that the priests' presence
warranted civilized behavior, the Lord Spirit had stopped doing
his rounds and joined the preliminary hearing in progress around
the largest of the fires. Participants were Lords Fuano and Tendao,
still enthroned in their chairs; the captain of those Temple Guards;
Daniel and herself; Hamilgart, without having atoned for his errant
wife by getting slain in the field of honor; Luli, huddled by his
father's side, edgy but unharmed - apparently the worst thing the
Phrygians had done to him was feed and wash and clothe him;
Dr. Kelly who'd spent considerable time calling the Colonel every
name under the sun before, much to everyone's alarm, wrapping
him in a ferocious hug; the Phrygian leader, Tertius, under guard on
what passed for the accused's bench; and Colonel O'Neill, ditto.

He looked filthy and exhausted, like something the cat had
dragged in through a flap four sizes too small. Otherwise his
flirtation with antique warfare had left him more or less unscathed,
which was a load off his team's collective mind. Major Carter had
felt like joining in with Kelly's rant, especially after the welcome
they'd received. What had stopped her was the fact that the good
doctor's vocabulary proved matchless.

Pigheaded Irish fool?

So far he hadn't divulged anything much in the way of
information, let alone any clues as to the origin of that godawful
weal around his throat. Par for the course. The probability of Jack
O'Neill getting talkative was somewhere in the order of the Vatican
advocating group sex. And now he seemed even more guarded than
usual, watching and listening carefully as Daniel was dancing on
raw eggs around the priests.

The dance wasn't going terribly well. Fuano hadn't undergone a
personality transplant since they'd last spoken to him, and Tendao
was bored. He kept poking one of the chair carriers with a mace.
Another poke, the carrier twitched, and Tendao giggled.

Suddenly he shot a noxious glare at Daniel and squawked, "I
say we kill them all. I do not know how you survived, anyway. We were told you had been buried in the rockslide together with the
rest of the rabble."

Oh yeah? That would explain his and Fuano's startled reaction
on seeing them. Sam had put it down to the priests' being overjoyed
at the reunion. Of its own volition her gaze wandered back to the
Colonel. His mouth had compressed to a tight, white line as though
to hold in that flare of barely constrained rage she recognized behind
his eyes. Then the eyes met hers in a mute, awkward apology.

Newsflash, sir That's how it feels when someone's messing with
your team. Works both ways. But if you can keep the lid on it, so
can we.

Reaching out slowly, his fingers clamped around Tertius' arm,
preventing any rash response from that end. Just as well. The
Phrygian commander looked even more pissed than Colonel
O'Neill, and with motive. More than seventy motives, in fact.

Daniel had sniffed an opening, pounced. "I suppose our survival
should tell you something about the strength of the Lord Meleq's
desire to keep us and our friend alive, Tendao."

The old ogre snorted, but Fuano appeared to get the point.
Some of it at least. "This may be true for the Lord Spirit, the Lady
Samantha and yourself, but surely not for your friend. He was
caught with the Phrygians. He wears their clothes."

"He was taken prisoner and brought here against his will," Dr.
Jackson retorted. "His clothes were probably ruined. What did you
expect him to do? Run around in his shorts?"

The abductee's head dipped abruptly, concealing his face. Tertius
glanced at him sideways, a tiny smirk tugging at the comers of his
mouth. Well, that answered that question. Colonel Jack O'Neill,
USAF, had been running around in his shorts. His 21C found
herself regretting that she'd missed the event, although the snazzy
Roman gear almost made up for it. Nice legs.

"Uh..." stammered Dr. Jackson, inspecting his friend with the
kind of quasi-religious enthrallment he generally reserved for
objects or persons not under five thousand years of age.

Any further queries pertaining to underwear were interrupted
by the return of one of the soldiers sent to secure the garrison. He
flung himself into the dust before the sedan chairs, waiting to be addressed.

"Speak," Tendao invited him graciously and after several
seconds of deliberation.

The man remained prostrate. "Forgive me, Lords. We did not
find anyone. The settlement was deserted when we arrived."

"Did you search?" Fuano, sounding peeved. No surprises there.

"Yes, Lord. The village was empty."

"Bum it down. Anyone hiding will crawl out soon enough."

"Yes, Lord." The messenger scrambled to his feet and ran off the
way he'd come, probably thanking his lucky stars that his head was
still on his shoulders.

Sam glanced at Tertius. The man gazed into the fire with studied
indifference and hadn't so much as winced. He didn't care. None
of his people were left in the village and houses could be rebuilt.
So where were the women and children?