Chapter 18
Rodney was dozing in the parlour, Boudicca a heavy weight over his lap. He had heard the thundering pass of the helg race and the cheers of encouragement, and then the music had started up again. Someone fumbled with the latch and John came blundering in and sat down opposite Rodney. He closed his eyes and let his head fall against the back of the settle.
"I'm beat," he said, running one hand through his hair. He looked around. There were just a couple of groups in the room, murmuring quietly, some with sleeping children in their laps. "Enjoying the party atmosphere?" John asked.
"Yes, thank you!" Rodney replied, smugly. "I've had a very civilized evening!" He shuffled awkwardly on the bench. "Except now I need to pay a visit to the sub-zero facilities and I'm not looking forward to having icicles forming in strategic places."
"Better get it over with, Rodney! Or use the flowery pot!"
Rodney sneered in reply and, pushing Boudicca off his lap, pulled on his coat and stepped out into the kitchen garden. The vegetables remaining after Franca's raid stood out frost-rimed and pale in the moonlight. Rodney could see the tops of the trees outlined against the starry sky, but the light didn't penetrate beneath the eaves of the forest and he shuddered at the thought of what might be lurking. He hurried down the path. Somebody had left the candle burning in the outhouse but Rodney could only just about see what he was doing. This, for Rodney, was the major downside of staying at the Happy Helg; he wondered if, somehow, flushing toilets could be installed. At least it wasn't smelly at the moment, it being so cold, although tendrils of vapour rose from the hole in the wooden board, which was somewhat off-putting.
Rodney finished, opened the door and immediately felt the press of cold metal just behind his left temple.
"Don't turn round." The sinister voice was unfamiliar. Rodney stood motionless as someone fumbled for his sidearm. They threw it away and he heard it land in the vegetable patch.
"In a moment, you are going to turn to your right," the voice continued, calm and cold. "Then you are going to make your way to the forest. If you refuse, I will shoot. If you call out, I will shoot. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Rodney said. His mind spun; this must surely be the escaped Councillor Smeadon. And he had said he would shoot; yet would he? If he wanted a hostage, shooting Rodney would gain him nothing, and bring the rest of Rodney's team and all the locals running. He was also standing too close; Rodney had seen Sheppard disarming enemies under such circumstances.
"Move!"
Rodney found himself doing as he was told; turning to the right and making his way out of the kitchen garden and up the slope toward the forest. The pressure of the gun had disappeared and he hesitated.
"I'm close enough to finish you, Dr McKay. Keep going."
Rodney carried on, the moonlight just enough to allow him to keep his footing on the rough ground. He thought it would be pitch dark under the trees and maybe he'd even be able to use the darkness to escape. But, shafts of moonlight lit the forest floor and his captor urged him on, away from the safety of the Happy Helg and his friends and out into the bitter-dark winter night.
oOo
John had been going to go to bed. He was tired and sore and, as the helg race made another rumbling lap, he decided he'd pass up the chance to catch the final stage in favour of his bed and, hopefully, some sleep. But then Boudicca spread herself over his lap and her fur was so warm and soft that he sat and enjoyed running his fingers through it for a couple of minutes.
He felt the priss tense beneath his hand and then, in a quick scrabble of claws, she flung herself over to the garden door and scratched at it frantically. John automatically went to reach for his sidearm, cursed the restricting sling, and then wasted time getting his arm through the sleeve of his coat so that he could draw his weapon. As soon as he unlatched the door, Boudicca was through. John stepped out more warily into the night, moving swiftly to one side of the opening so that he wouldn't be silhouetted against the light. Boudicca was sniffing around the vegetable beds and the outhouse and John moved cautiously forward. The glint of moonlight on metal revealed Rodney's Beretta amongst the frozen leaves; John retrieved it, his heart sinking, knowing that this could only mean that Rodney was in big trouble.
Boudicca, having caught a scent trail, hared away up the slope toward the forest. John followed, knowing full well that he should gather reinforcements first, but not wanting to lose Boudicca. And, if he had guessed correctly, he only had one man to deal with anyway. The priss stopped at the edge of the forest and looked back. John ran up the slope to join her and they stepped beneath the trees together.
oOo
"Are we going to the Gate?" Rodney's hands were icy, even tucked into his sleeves and shoved into the opposite armpit. Note to self, he thought, with more than a little hysteria, when being taken hostage in the winter, always bring gloves. "Because this isn't the quickest way, you know."
"Shut up and keep walking."
"People will have noticed I'm gone. They'll be following; maybe they're at the Gate already!"
"I said shut up! And if they want you alive, they'll let me go through."
Rodney stumbled and fell forward on his hands and knees.
"Get up! Stop trying to slow me down!"
"I'm not!" protested Rodney, slowly rising to his feet, his teeth chattering, feeling the frozen wetness seep through his pants. "It's dark and I can't see!"
"Just get moving! That way!" Smeadon jerked his weapon toward the vague hint of a path through the trees. Rodney staggered forward. He wondered how Smeadon had been surviving in the woods since he'd been flushed out of his hideout. In his brief glimpse of the man, Rodney had got the impression of a bundle of ragged clothes and a gaunt, unshaven face. He looked desperate, and Rodney knew that desperate equalled dangerous.
They continued, their footfalls soft in the blanket of snow. To begin with, Rodney had been able to hear upraised voices and music from the festival, but the forest was now swathed in silence.
There was a sudden snap to his right, and a disturbed bird flapped wildly up through the trees. Rodney kept going, but his eyes darted here and there, the shadows and moonlight forming sinister shapes which seemed to move as he walked. Another snap came and Rodney's head spun toward it, so that he didn't see the snow-covered tree-roots before him; his foot caught, and he fell forward awkwardly, feeling his ankle twist. He cried out at the sudden, wrenching pain and struggled to free his foot from the roots.
"Get up!" Smeadon kicked at Rodney's leg in frustration.
"I can't! Help me!" demanded Rodney, his anger and pain temporarily over-riding his fear. Rodney felt his foot come loose as Smeadon knelt down and pulled at the roots. He rolled over and sat up carefully, feeling slightly sick at the throbbing waves coming from his ankle, and the thought that it might be broken.
"I've had enough of this! Get up on your feet and march!" ordered Smeadon harshly, punctuating his words with sharp jabs of his weapon to the back of Rodney's head.
"You've had enough?" Rodney burst out, incredulously. "My ankle's probably broken, I'm getting frostbite, I'm almost certainly hypothermic! And you say you've had enough? How could you possibly expect this stupid plan to work?"
Light glinted off Smeadon's teeth as his face contorted in a savage grimace. In his rage, he swiped the pistol hard against the side of his captive's head, but Rodney's cry of pain was drowned out by a louder, high-pitched, chittering call: a grenza.
oOo
John struggled to keep up with Boudicca, who leapt over the snow with her easy, loping gait. The tracks would have been clear, even without Boudicca to follow and John jogged along after her until his lungs began protesting against the bitterly cold night air and his ribs stabbed with every heaving breath. He stopped and leant against a tree, shivering with the chill of the freezing air on his sweat-damp forehead. Boudicca turned back and nudged him with her head.
"I know, Boudie," he wheezed, his shoulders drooping. "Just give me a second." Then his head came up suddenly and he froze, listening. Surely that was Rodney's voice, not far ahead? Yes, definitely Rodney, hitting that familiar note of strident outrage. Hopefully his ranting would disguise the sound of John's approach. He and Boudicca crept forward, naturally separating into a flanking pattern. Then, there came the sound that John had most feared: the chilling call of mortal dread and absolute horror. And it was between him and Rodney.
John ran, twisting and turning in and out of the trees, ducking beneath branches, leaping over roots, desperate to get to his friend, to defend him from the evil creature. Through the dim, blue-gray darkness, he saw a shape on the ground and another, standing, and then, as the moon came out from behind the ragged edge of a cloud, the nightmare form of a grenza was revealed, looming over both. It cried again, its head thrown back, its cruel triumph echoing through the silent forest, heralding the inevitability of death and decay.
John fired into its black, sinewy body, his weapon in one hand and Rodney's in the other, knowing that his shots would only distract, perhaps only buy some precious seconds. The grenza grasped one cowering figure in its clawed hands and raised it high above its head, tearing and rending with teeth and claws, the dreadful wet, cracking sounds of its devouring filling John's heart with sick horror. He stepped forward steadily, firing at the beast's head, wishing for a brighter light so that he could aim at its eyes and, with shocking relief, he heard Rodney calling out to him.
oOo
Rodney had watched with terror and disgust as the grenza tore at Smeadon's flesh, and he had felt hot blood splash across his face. He flailed his arms and one sound leg to get as far away as he could from the carnage. In his shock and fear, he hadn't heard the shots, but suddenly John was there, jabbing flares of light marking a weapon in each hand as he fired at the grenza's head.
The beast threw away the ragged remains of Councillor Smeadon and turned. It cocked its head and the moonlight fell on one dispassionate, shark-like eye. John fired again and the creature screamed but seemed undaunted. It took a step toward Rodney, its claws reaching for him, flickering, as if beckoning its prey to come and be killed. A leaping bomb of darkness detached from the shadows and hurled itself onto the grenza's back, clawing and spitting and snarling. The beast shook its head and roared its anger as one eye was clawed to blindness, but then a wicked hand swiped at its assailant and Boudicca was flung away.
Rodney saw John prepare to do something desperate, his body tense, as if timing a spring that would take him onto the creature's head to assault its vulnerable eyes.
Then came a great, roaring imperative: "Down!" Rodney stayed where he was on the ground, but saw John throw himself flat, and then the forest lit up with blinding light and thundered with a cacophonous explosion, which rang and rang until the light had diminished to blue and black night once more and the only sound was the buzzing residue in Rodney's ears.
"That's done for it," came a satisfied voice, out of the trees.
"Gard!" said Rodney. Gard stepped forward and surveyed the little that remained of his kill. He had a large tube balanced on one shoulder, which, Rodney guessed, was a kind of rocket launcher.
"Thanks," came John's breathless voice. "That was... good timing." Rodney heard suppressed winces and gasps as John pulled himself to his feet and then he was crouching down stiffly, looking into Rodney's face. "You alright, McKay?"
"Yes," said Rodney, weakly. "I think so. Well, my ankle... But what about Boudicca? Is she...?"
A disgruntled growl came from out of the ever-deepening darkness and the priss slowly limped toward Rodney and collapsed next to him. Rodney put his hand on her and felt wetness that he feared was blood. He looked at John, but could barely see his face, and then Rodney felt soft touches on his skin and realised it was snowing again.
"I can't get my ship in here," said Gard. "We need to walk out."
"I don't think I can," Rodney said. "And we need to bring Boudicca."
"Maybe Gard can carry her and you can lean on me," said John, wearily.
"No," said Gard.
"But you can't leave her!"
Gard crouched down next to Rodney. "I'm just saying I won't have to," he said, gently. "Look!"
Rodney turned his head, and through the trees he could see faint flickers of light and moving shapes, indistinct at first and blurred by flurries of snow. The lights came closer and then the scene was bathed in the friendly orange-yellow glow of torches and Rodney could hear people calling their enquiry and concern; people on foot and on helg-back, coming through the night and the snow-bound forest. He felt John sit down next to him and move in close for warmth. They waited, together, content to let their new friends and allies take charge.
oOo
The helg race had been over, as far as Ronon could tell, most of the competitors having trailed back, mud-spattered but exhilarated, over the course of the last few laps. Maddy, Fren and a couple of other riders had kept going past the six laps, but seemed to have agreed on a draw, when the sky flashed white and, a moment later, a crack, like a lightning strike split the air and the echoing rumble made the windows shake in their frames.
The resulting seemingly disorganised activity actually showed the practical teamwork of the locals at its best. A party set out immediately to investigate the explosion, and within the next five minutes the whereabouts of every man, woman and child had been established, with the exception of John, Rodney and Gard. Nobody had seen Boudicca either.
Ronon wanted to jump on Franca straight away and set off into the forest; it took a direct order from Elizabeth to prevent him and he was only really persuaded when Teyla, Carson and Elizabeth, as well as more of the locals, followed the trail of the initial party.
Ronon stood outside the Happy Helg, snowflakes settling on his head and shoulders, watching the road, his crutches shuffling in the churned-up mess of slushy mud. Lil stood next to him, her unaccustomed silence betraying her anxiety. Ronon crutched away from the door, hoping to see further into the distance. They'd taken the main Gate track and would have cut through the forest to reach the source of the explosion; they would return the same way.
"Can you see anything?"
"No." Ronon squinted into the swirling snow. "Yeah. Lights. They're coming."
He drew himself up and stood tall, despite his crutches, prepared to face what came with stoic solidity. Voices began to echo out of the night and the increasing snowfall and Ronon sagged in relief; the calls were cheerful and somebody was singing. The rescue party had turned back into a festival. Out of the night the people came, and amongst those on helg-back were Rodney, pale and bloodstained but upright and conscious, with Boudicca gripped tightly in his arms, and John, slumping wearily, but grinning down at Elizabeth who was walking next to him.
Rodney and John were helped off their mounts and into the pub; Ronon followed them into the parlour and soon the music and dancing could be heard starting up again in the other room, sounding all the more glad and lively for the brief interlude of drama.