CHAPTER TWELVE: FEAR AND FREEDOM
"There," Conla said, pointing towards the open doorway. Gray light poured through the rectangular entranceway, seeming unnaturally bright after the darkness of the Temple, and the trees sloping down away from it outside looked almost unreal—like photo images. "You follow the track leading down to the left, it'll take you to the Ring." The boy shrunk back well before any of the real light touched him, his fear obvious in his voice. He seemed to become more translucent, as if too afraid even to maintain his form.
Sheppard took a step forward, breathing in a lungful of fresh air. It had never tasted so sweet.
McKay leant against the wall again, to get the weight off his leg, but it seemed to hurt a little less at the prospect of finally leaving this place.
The Major turned to look at Conla, who was watching him with wide eyes. He nodded, "Thank you."
Conla gave a brief nod, then turned to McKay. "The axe?"
"Yes, yes," the doctor muttered, "of course." He moved to lean it against the wall.
"Wait!" Brigid's shrill call echoed down the hallway, and the little girl herself appeared directly next to Conla. The boy frowned at her shaking appearance. More children burst onto the scene, filling every inch of space, until Conla was completely surrounded.
And not one of them made a sound. Brigid just stared at Conla. The boy backed up, hearing them in his mind as they all told him what they had seen in the pit. None of them had ever looked. Until now.
Conla shook his head, covering his ears with his hands, as if it was actual sound that was hurting him.
Sheppard frowned, when he realized the little girl was crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and, when he looked closely, he saw tears on the faces of several other children as well.
Suddenly, Conla vanished. Brigid lowered her head, still shaking.
After a couple of moments, she turned to look at McKay and Sheppard.
"How long has it been?" she asked them, looking first to Sheppard then McKay. "Do you know?"
Sheppard shook his head. McKay sighed, "Could be hundreds of years, Brigid."
"Hundreds," she breathed the word. She looked down at the floor, then out towards the light. A few moments later, she walked over to McKay, staring up at him with huge eyes. He shifted uncomfortably, glancing up at Sheppard then back at her. The tears she shed disappeared into nothing as soon as they dropped off her face. "You should go," she suggested softly.
Sheppard nodded, watching as McKay pushed himself off the wall and around the little girl. He placed the axe against the wall, and Brigid turned her head towards it—her expression one of despair, as if the weapon had somehow betrayed her.
"I'm sorry," McKay said, his face scrunching up a little. He didn't know what more he could say beyond that. Brigid just nodded, still staring at the axe.
"Let's go," the major intoned, and McKay nodded, turning again to limp in his direction.
"McKay," the little girl said, turning to him again. He had reached the edge of the daylight spilling in from outside, the brightness just brushing his clothes. When he glanced at her, he saw Conla standing next to her, his eyes on the ground, but she was watching him with an unwavering stare, a small smile on her still wet face. "Thank you for that poem. It was a nice poem. I didn't understand it then, but I do now."
The scientist frowned, not remembering at first what she meant, and then it hit him--the poem he'd recited when they first saw the children's grave.
"I meant it," he told her, his voice soft. "We won't forget you."
"Thank you." Her smile grew fonder as he nodded. A second later, he looked away, towards where the major was waiting about five feet from the entrance. Sheppard's quiet smile was his only addition to the moment. At McKay's look, he turned and took another step towards the entrance, his good hand reaching up to touch his radio.
That's when they heard the machine gunfire.
Immediately, both men were on alert, pulling up their own P90s into firing position. Pressing themselves on both sides of the entrance, sliding down the walls towards the opening, they listened to the noise, trying to understand it.
Both flinched in shock as a Wraith guard walked past the entrance, not six feet from their position inside the doorway, presumably headed in the direction of the shots.
McKay's eyes grew huge, staring at Sheppard. The major's own were focused on the outside, and the scientist could tell he was using his hearing to determine what was out there. His broken wrist was forgotten as he knelt and inched forward, trying to figure out exactly what was out there.
Quick as a snake, he poked his head out of the doorway, then popped back in.
McKay watched as the major held up two fingers to him and pointed off to the right. The scientist nodded, then stuck a thumb to the left. Sheppard shook his head.
Just the two off to the right, in other words. McKay nodded again.
Sheppard's arched his right eyebrow, lifted the P90 and set it to fire, his lips forming the words, "Ready?"
The doctor breathed, licked his lips, then nodded, setting his own weapon.
"On three," Sheppard mouthed. He held up his left hand, gripped in a fist.
One finger lifted up, then two, then....
The two men dived out of the doorway, rolling on their stomachs, and started firing at the backs of the two Wraith guards headed away from them. The creatures didn't even know what hit them. The Major leapt to his feet, jogging over and pumping the guard on his right with almost a full clip. McKay struggled up on one knee, trying to regain his feet as Sheppard trained the last of his bullets into the second Wraith.
When he felt certain they were both dead, he let up, glancing over at McKay, who was still pushing himself to his feet.
"You okay?" he asked. The doctor nodded, not lifting his head as struggled upright, hopping slightly on his right leg on the sloped hill. Listening, they realized the machine gun fire in the distance had also stopped, though neither knew when that happened or what it meant. Sheppard reached up to touch his radio to call out to Ford and Teyla, just as McKay caught a glimpse of something coming down the hill from his right.
"Look out!" the doctor yelled...just as the Wraith stun blast hit Sheppard in the side. All McKay saw was the grimace on the major's face as he fell sideways, rolling down the hill, out cold for the second time this day.
A third Wraith guard was trampling through the woods towards them, changing its stunner's aim now that the Major was down to point at the scientist. But McKay was already firing up the hill at the creature, the P90's stream of bullets slowing the creature down. It eventually had the effect of forcing the Wraith to drop the stunner and, finally, when it reached the place where the other two Wraith were dead, it flopped to the ground.
McKay hopped over, planning on emptying its clip as he saw the creature trying to push itself up off the ground, still not even close to dead.
And that's when it jammed.
"No!" he yelled, fighting with the gun. "Not now!"
"Here!" Brigid's voice yelled from the entrance.
McKay turned, having only a split second of warning as the Great Axe sailed towards him—the children had thrown it. Without even thinking about how or why, he dropped the P90, caught the axe in two hands, spun, and slammed it down across the Wraith's neck.
Cutting its head off.
McKay staggered back, axe still in hand, and the bile rose in his throat at the realization of what he'd just done. His eyes widened, staring at the blood on the axe, then back at the headless monster.
He couldn't believe he had just done that! He could not have just done that! The axe seemed to vibrate in his hands, as if alive.
"That has to be," he muttered to no one, "the most disgusting thing I have ever...."
"Look out!" another child's voice yelled.
McKay whipped around again, and lost his precarious balance, which was the only thing that saved him as the light of another stunner blast sailed over his head. He slipped down the hillside on his right side, catching himself on a tree root, and got back up on his right leg, just as the Wraith guard appeared on the hill above him.
It paused at the sight of the three dead Wraith, and the unconscious Sheppard, then moved on, chasing McKay around the trees as the scientist scrambled back up to the level track leading to the entrance, the Great Axe still in his hands.
The Wraith followed as best it could, but it was no more sure footed on the wet, leaf-covered ground than the injured scientist. It slipped, and scrambled, and finally reached the solid ground again of the red earthen track running past the entrance.
McKay hopped backwards away from it, slouched slightly, holding up the axe before him like a shield. Only one thought went through the doctor's mind as the Wraith guard lifted its stunner, aiming it in his direction:
He was a dead man.
"No!" Conla's voice burst through the air, like a war cry.
McKay and the monster both turned towards the entrance involuntarily, almost in slow motion, the Wraith already turning to point his weapon at whatever threat might be hidden inside the black doorway.
Green light streamed out of the entranceway like an explosive force, aiming straight for the Wraith, undeterred and unerring. The children whipped around the creature's head and neck, winding around the stocky frame, a high pitched shriek emitted from several dozen throats filling the air.
The Wraith dropped the stunner, raising its hands to bat at it as the fog thickened and coalesced around it, blanketing every part of the creature's upper body, and, for the first time, McKay heard a Wraith guard's voice. It was like a roar, boiling out of the monster like a crashing wave, but it was nothing compared to the furious scream of the children, of a hundreds of years of captivity and fear being exorcised with one pure act of courage.
The children let go suddenly, blowing up away over the Wraith's head.
The monster looked up, then down....
Just in time to see McKay swinging the axe around towards its head, nothing but cold determination on the man's face, the metal a streaked line of white under the cloud filled sky.
The Wraith landed on its knees, then fell forward, lifeless.
Its head landed about ten feet away.
McKay hopped backwards, still moving with the momentum of the axe. Finally coming to a stop, he turned to look at the Wraith's body, heaving huge breaths, his entire body trembling with the exertion.
"That was for their families," he spat at it, "and for them."
His eyes lifted towards the sky, to see the mist still swirling overhead, though the predominant green had faded. He saw gold in there now, and red, and blue, and yellow and brown....
Faces of real children laughing and cheering, dancing and spinning.
Free.
"You were right," Conla said, appearing suddenly at McKay's side, staring up at him with light colored hazel eyes, his brown hair still sticking out in tufts from his head, the red flecks in it were highlighted by the daylight. He was smiling, "We have nothing more to fear from the Wraith."
"We're free," Brigid giggled, standing on his other side, pushing back dark reddish hair from her freckled face, her chocolate brown eyes blinking happily up at the trees overhead. "We can go home now."
McKay tried to smile, but was finding it difficult. Everything was still buzzing, his senses still in high gear. So, instead, he just nodded, lifting the corners of his mouth slightly, watching with bright eyes as both Brigid and Conla lifted up into the air to join the rest of the children.
"Goodbye," their voices said, as the mist swirled and rose, lifting higher and higher and farther from sight, until it blended in with the wind and sky. "Thank you."
Gone.
"Goodbye." McKay swallowed, trying to bring wetness to his dry mouth and throat, his eyes still staring up at the sky in wonder. A breeze tickled his hair, and the sounds of the woods trickled back into his conscious mind...including what sounded like movement through them.
Fear returned its grip on his reality, and he quickly looked around at the mess on the ground. Sheppard was still completely unconscious, face down on the ground and partially down the hill, and four dead Wraith littered the area.
The scientist looked down at the axe in his hands. It suddenly felt incredibly heavy.
He couldn't carry them both, he realized, sorrow hitting his throat uncomfortably at the thought.
Shaking still, he heaved in another breath, aware that he really didn't have the time to think about this. With a rushed limp, he reached the Temple entrance and, with a strong sense of regret, he hopped inside and rested the axe against the wall, just inside the shadows. Hopefully, one of the villagers would find it and put it back where it belonged.
Turning, he limped back out of the Temple and moved as fast as he could over to the prone figure of Major Sheppard.
He just hoped to God he wasn't as heavy as he looked.
Turning the man over, he unclipped the major's P90 and traded it for his own jammed one, all the while keeping an eye out for more Wraith. He couldn't determine if the sounds he heard were feet or animals or just sounds, but time was obviously not on his side. With a speed he didn't even know he had, he changed the empty clip in the machine gun with a new one from his jacket, then positioned himself a little downhill from the major. Picking him up by his vest, he somehow got the man upright...then over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
He slipped a little on the wet ground, his right leg taking so much of the increased weight it had started to tremble with a ferocity he had never felt before. He willed it not to give way, knowing that his left knee was so damaged that he'd be lucky to get even halfway to the gate as it was.
Shaking off the thought, he turned and after making sure he had as good a grip as he could get on the major, somehow dragged himself back onto the track....and in the direction of the Stargate.
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TBC