Author's Note: On pronounciation. As a linguist-wannabe, I'd like to note that Goa'uldosaur is to be pronounced like "guhldosaur". Makes it sound a lot simpler. Anyway, that's the way it would be, since Daniel made it up, and he never pronounces Goa'uld carefully... Must be because he hates them so much.
Now, thanks for the reviews, please write more, and on with the story. I think this is my personal favourite chapter so far. :-)
Glad as Sam was to find the others, far ahead and below on the stairs, seeing them didn't lessen her worry at all. Yes, they'd found them, but how'd they go on from here, she wondered, as she and Teal'c ran towards them. If Daniel was unconscious and the Colonel unable to walk, how were they going to make it back to the gate?
Jack and Daniel were looking downstairs, their backs turned towards Sam and Teal'c. They hadn't noticed that help was on the way.
"Sir! Daniel!" she shouted to them.
They turned to see where the sound came from--both of them, so Daniel obviously wasn't unconscious anymore. They waved at her and Teal'c, but didn't get up. The Colonel lifted a finger to his lips, signaling silence. She had no idea why he did that, but she didn't say anything until they'd finally made their way across the landing on the ground floor and then below, all the way down to them.
"Teal'c! Carter! Good to see you," Jack welcomed them.
Daniel greeted them with a slightly breathless "Hey," and a smile. She didn't know what, exactly, had happened to him. He was clearly paler than usual, except for the feverish red on his cheeks, and his breathing sounded troubled.
"Good to see you too," she answered them, crouching next to Daniel. "So, how're you doing?" she started.
Jack shook his head at her. "Not now, Carter. We need to go. We might get company."
He stood up, and Teal'c offered his hand for support. It wasn't hard to tell from the look on the Colonel's face that stepping on his foot was really painful. On the other hand, it was hard to say anything more than that just by looking at it. The BDU leg had been cut open, and through the slit, she saw some bandaging, hopefully adding up to a splint, wrapped around it.
Daniel made to get up as well, but Jack stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You've ran enough already, let-"
All of a sudden, an ominous sound stopped them all, unexpected, but still awfully familiar. It sounded just like the dinosaur that had gotten them into this mess, the one that had attacked their camp last night. It came from below them, through a doorway at the bottom of the stairs. That had to be the company the Colonel had mentioned.
Daniel had stood up, swaying on his feet and coughing. Teal'c placed himself between him and the Colonel, so he could support them both, and Sam guided Daniel's arm over her shoulders. They started to climb the stairs.
They'd only gotten a few steps up, when the roar was repeated, really close this time. She turned to look behind, and saw the beast emerge through the doorway below. It was so big that it barely fit through. It had seen them, and it bellowed again. It might cover the distance to them in a few large steps.
SG-1 doubled their efforts to move as fast as they could. They were still slow. Daniel felt like a dead weight between her and Teal'c.
Sam decided not to look behind again. Instead, she looked ahead, to see how far they still had to go. And she saw that they were caught between two fires.
At the landing, not too far ahead of them, stood another dinosaur. It was much smaller than the one below, probably even smaller than Sam, but it had teeth and claws that looked nasty nevertheless, and an oddly intelligent expression on its reptilian face.
The smaller dinosaur started down the stairs, towards them. Jack pointed a pistol at it. Teal'c let go of Daniel and pulled his staff weapon, and suddenly she had most of Daniel's weight on her.
But the dinosaur didn't come for them after all. It went right past them, leaping several steps at a time. Amazed, they put down their weapons and went on climbing the stairs.
Curious to know what was going on, she glanced back again. She saw the smaller dinosaur stop a few steps before the bottom, facing the much larger one. The bigger dinosaur did not attack it, did not do anything but stared at it and let out a deep growl.
The smaller dinosaur growled back. Its sound was completely different from the big one's--she imagined it sounded dual, like a Goa'uld's.
They got to the landing, and looked around. Besides the stairs leading up and down, there was a doorway leading to some ground floor rooms that they'd never seen before.
"You came from upstairs?" Jack asked in a low voice.
"Indeed, and there were only two stairways leading down from there: this one, and the one that would take us to a sealed door," Teal'c told him.
"I was kind of hoping we could get out the same way you got in," Sam said.
"That way was sealed too, and anyway, it's not going to happen with Lord Goa'uldosaur and his big buddy keeping guard down there," Jack quipped. "So, this way," he nodded towards the doorway.
They stepped through it, into a long, narrow hall, like a huge corridor, with several doorways at the far end. They walked on along it.
Sam was trying to figure out which way they should go. They had no idea where they were, exactly, and if there were any exits here. She counted four doorways to the right and three to the left. Straight ahead of them, the corridor ended in a smooth wall.
As they got nearer to the end of the corridor, the smooth wall suddenly split in half and slid away, like a huge double-door. It happened without any sound at all. That must've been how their door out had been closed in the night. Sam thought she saw something far ahead beyond the doorway, several dark green figures. More dinosaurs. She couldn't be sure, from this distance.
"We might not want to go there," Jack decided.
There was a doorway next to them, to their left, and they turned towards it, but three dinosaurs, same kind as the small one, stepped through it, stopping right in front of it. On their other side, similar dinosaurs were emerging to guard the other doorways. They weren't doing anything. A few of them hissed, but most only stood there gazing at them.
They turned around to find that their way back was equally blocked. Seven dinosaurs stood in the corridor behind them, and they knew that returning to the stairs would only mean returning to the big dinosaur anyway.
The only way still free and empty of dinosaurs was the stretch of corridor leading to the huge doorway.
"Looks like--they want us--there," Daniel panted.
"Well, let's humor them, then," the Colonel said, surrendering to the situation.
They walked ahead, eyeing the dinosaurs warily, but none of them moved to attack. They reached the end of the corridor and stepped in through the doorway, into a hall twice the size of the largest one they'd seen before. At the far end was a throne of stone and gold, and on it stood a dinosaur--a small one again. Several others stood by its sides, and even more were spread out in the hall.
The dinosaurs surrounded them silently, and with anxious motions of sharp claws and snouts, started urging them towards the throne. They had little choice but to do as they wanted them to.
Jack leaned on Teal'c and limped on, doing just what the damned lizards wanted him to. Once again.
He had the feeling that they'd been driven on all the time. That the whole fiasco had been set and planned since its beginning, by some dino-mastermind. Some Goa'uldosaur. The way the huge dino had attacked their camp and hunted them, all the time guiding them towards this place. The small dinos had forced them to the basement, and there, a big dino had been ready to keep them going.
As they reached the foot of the totally tasteless, gold-and-jewel-crusted throne, their reptilian escort stopped. Looked like they finally were where they were supposed to be.
At least no one forced them to kneel in front of their lord. Looking at the dino's feet and tails, Jack figured that they probably didn't do a lot of kneeling.
On the throne stood the weirdest-looking dino Jack had seen so far. Its scales were several shades lighter than those of the others, there were deep creases between them, crinkles around its eyes and nostrils, and its claws were so long that they'd curved into small spirals. It was wearing a golden circlet, some odd version of a Goa'uld hand device, and an assortment of other jewelry. Now that Jack thought of it, actually, the whole creature gave the impression that it was really old.
The old dino's eyes flashed, like those of any frank regular Goa'uld. It opened its mouth and spoke. Sort of. The voice was familiarly dual. It wasn't exactly the roar or the growl he'd heard from all other dinosaurs, but he couldn't even start to make up any words.
Luckily, they had Daniel around, still conscious, breathing, and most of all, still thinking. He was leaning heavily on Sam. "It's an arcane dialect of Goa'uld--never heard anything like this--I can hardly understand half of it," he whispered.
"I understand some as well. We may combine our halves to create one whole," Teal'c noted. Jack couldn't help grinning at it.
"It's giving a speech of some sort--to the other dinosaurs--speaking about a celebration," Daniel translated.
The old Goa'uldosaur pointed a shaky hand at SG-1, and went on growling, now clearly addressing them.
"I can't believe this," Daniel shook his head. "I--I think it's apologizing--that we weren't supposed to get hurt."
"I hear this as well," Teal'c agreed.
"Well, you could tell it to make up for it by letting us go," Jack said sourly.
Jack hadn't really meant it to be taken as an order, but Daniel followed it nevertheless. As soon as the dino paused for a moment, he spoke up. He clearly did his best to sound as guttural and raw as the dino, but he got nowhere near to it. The way he had to stop to gasp every third word didn't make it a whole lot more convincing.
Daniel's words got an instant reaction from the crowd. All the dinos in the room were hissing at each other, grumbling in low tones and moving restlessly. Their aged leader raised both his hands, and they all fell silent. It spoke again. Jack couldn't say a thing about its tone, whether it was any different from before.
Daniel hung his head. "Something about tradition--celebration again--that must hold. And that we should--feel honored."
"I do not like the sound of this. I fear we are to be sacrificed in a ritual of some sort," Teal'c added.
"Well, we're not going to let that happen. We'll figure something out," Jack declared.
They'd have to figure something out--but right now, his head was empty. There were way too many dinos around them for them to attempt anything at all.
A dino stepped out from the right side of the pedestal, approaching them. Its eyes flashed as well. Another host, but younger. It wore a leather belt with several pockets. Jack was almost certain he recognized it as the one that had lead the party that'd pushed them down the stairs. It barked something that sounded like an order at them.
"I'm pretty sure it's telling us to surrender our weapons," Daniel said.
"We're not going to do that." Jack picked up his pistol and pointed at the creature. It stepped even closer, stopping right in front of Daniel, and slashing the air in front of his face with a clawed hand--Jack saw a glint of gold in it. It seemed to be wearing a hand-device as well.
"Uh... I think we'd better. Or..."
Jack didn't want to add dinosaur bites to Daniel's injuries. They'd have to obey. Too many of them and not enough of us, that was always the case with the Goa'uld, wasn't it, Jack told himself. He tossed his pistol and his P-90 in front of the throne. He kept his knife, though he didn't think it'd be of much use against creatures that had a dozen of their own always with them. Daniel let go of his zat, and Carter followed suite.
Teal'c hesitated with his staff weapon. Dino or not, a Goa'uld was a Goa'uld, and Teal'c had the hugest grudge against them all. He pointed the dino with the weapon. It returned the gesture with raising the hand-device menacingly in front of Daniel's forehead.
"Teal'c-" Jack hissed.
Teal'c bowed his head, and handed the staff weapon to the dinosaur. It barked some more, but Daniel didn't translate the words. Jack raised his eyebrows at him in a question. He shook his head. "Different language. No idea."
"I have not heard such speech before, either," Teal'c confirmed what Jack could've guessed.
Clearly following some orders the Goa'uldosaur had growled, several other dinosaurs stepped forward and surrounded them in a circle much closer and smaller than their previous escort. Their guardian-Goa'uldosaur turned its snout towards the older one on the throne, and it grumbled a low reply. The younger Goa'uldosaur picked up something from its belt.
All of a sudden, accompanied by their familiar sound, a set of rings landed around them from the ceiling and took them away from the throne hall.
They found themselves under direct, blazing sunlight. Jack blinked and had to raise a hand to cover his eyes. It had never been this bright in the rainforest. He looked around, and quickly figured out that they were on the roof of the temple complex.
He saw several structures on the roof, small buildings of their own. They weren't given much time to watch the sights, but were pushed on. They crossed a large pool of water--it was probably gathered rainwater, and Jack reasoned it might be lead to the lower levels through some waterways.
Beyond the pool stood rows and rows of cages, with walls and ceilings of thick iron bars. Some of them were really massive, and a few of them contained dinosaurs--a huge one had one of those big long-necked plant-eating things in it, a Brontosaurus or something like that.
They were taken to a small cage, with bars set close enough to each other that a human, or a human-sized dino, could not slip past them. At least they were put in the same one, all four of them.