FFN is being difficult. The ending of the story is written! Yeah! This isn't it though. Haahahaha.
Part 3
The drizzling grey rain continued. The wind constantly turned pine needles and rustled leaves. Mud sucked at soles and seeped through water proofed seams and laces.
For four days, Colonel Sheppard and his team traipsed through the thick forest which was only broken by low stone walls that surrounded mud rowed square fields which wielded poor crops more years than good.
Their energy sources were equivalent to a lodestone, but without the navigational advantage a true lodestone offered.
They occasionally came across unusual, large tracks in the mud that seemed to be made by a quadruped with curled claws, a large stride and of some considerable weight.
It was on the third day they found the local version of a horse gutted and torn asunder. The marrow had been sucked from its bones. Pieces of its master were found draped high within the tree branches overhead.
No villager dared speak of the loss of the animal or its master. The children merely muttered that the Howler was near.
That night, the five SGA team members slept uneasily in a cave at the base of the mountains. Beckett continued to cough, McKay continued to wake him and tell him to quiet down. Teyla, Ronon and Sheppard once again shared night watch.
At some point in the night, the group was ripped from their sleep by the sounds of a horrific battle somewhere deep within the dark forest. The grisly snarls and roar of clashing animals rolled through the night. The crash of bodies and snapping of branches easily reached the occupants of the cave. The battle sounded fierce, and silence seemed to mark the tearing of flesh. Then one snarl gave way to high pierced kiayiing and wailing and then sudden, deathly silence.
The SGA-1 team shared nervous looks. Sheppard and Teyla had climbed from their bedrolls and joined Ronon at the cave entrance, weapons ready. Rodney sat up and dragged his gear closer to himself and like Beckett put his boots back on and laced them.
No one slept any more that night. Rodney kept the fire blazing, though it ruined their night vision. Beckett dozed off at the break of dawn.
The fourth morning, the group hesitantly left the cave.
Beckett and Teyla were left to tend yet another small village. Sheppard checked the working order of the doctor's sidearm before handing it back to Beckett who slid it uneasily into its holster. With tight smiles and weapons held a little closer to their bodies, the others entered the forest with more caution. Beckett watched them with fear coursing through his veins and his heart thundering in his chest. He didn't think they should split up.
Sheppard looked once over his shoulder and waved back at the Scot. His smile was bright and reassuring.
Beckett wondered if he was seeing his friends for the last time. With a heavy heart, Carson turned back to the dreary village and started his day's work. If he did survive this, he would surely strangle Major Lorne.
At the end of the day, Sheppard called a halt to the search. They headed back to the last village, nestled deep within the forest, and retrieved Beckett and Teyla.
The last babe and great grand-dam had been treated. Beckett was out of medicine. Teyla was out of patience for people who could not see their own ruin before them. Children followed them to the edge of the village, barefoot and thinly clothed. They feared what lay beyond the outer rim of their huts. However, bright smiles and exuberant waves from meatless arms wished the SGA team farewell as wasted curs circled the children's feet, sniffing for crumbs.
They were a full day's walk from the central trading city of M3X-808 and, from there, an additional forty-five minutes from the gate. With little choice, they camped one last time within a cave at the base of the mountains. They would head for the gate early in the morning.
It was a quiet group that set up camp. Tensions ran high as chores were done quickly and efficiently. Ronon, Sheppard and Rodney collected wood for the night's fire. Rodney didn't complain or balk when it was just he that gathered sticks and branches and broken logs and hauled them back to their cave. His silence, though welcomed, by the Runner and Colonel, worried them both. McKay was beyond just uneasy. He babbled when he was merely frightened. He became deathly silent when terrified. In the dying light of a waning sun, Ronon and Sheppard stood guard as McKay quickly gathered enough firewood in three trips to last them the night.
Their final return trip to the cave found the sleeping bags out, a small dinner cooking and Teyla and Carson oiling handguns.
Carson coughed the night away, tucked uneasily within his sleeping bag with his boots still laced. McKay lay in his, tinkering with the Ancient handheld scanner. Sheppard stood watch while Teyla and Ronon gave the impression of sleeping.
The cave sparked to life when the night was once again disrupted by the fierce sound of fighting. The snapping of jaws, the gnashing of teeth, the sound of flesh being torn seemed closer to their little cave.
Ronon, Teyla and Rodney gathered their weapons and stood with Sheppard staring into the wet evening, trying to make out shadows on a cloudy night. Beckett slept oblivious until Sheppard ordered Rodney to wake him as the sounds of the fight escalated and seemed to draw closer and closer to the cave. Teyla kicked out the fire, as Rodney handed Carson a weapon.
The group had stood in silence listening to the brutal fight and then horrific death of one of the battling creatures.
Near dawn, Carson sat and slowly slid to his side. Soft coughs rattled his sleep.
Rodney took the revolver from his friend's slack hand and positioned himself between the mouth of the cave and Beckett. He stood tiredly, gun at his side, heart racing, behind Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla watching their body language.
Morning sparked with a flash of lightning as a deluge of rain splattered the ground. Thunder rolled overhead as the group shouldered their damp packs, checked their weapons and stole deep breaths to prepare themselves before entering into the growing storm.
Sheppard shot the CMO a concerned look as Beckett once again coughed, red faced, into his hand. With a dismissive hand, Carson waved off the Colonel's concern and tried nodding his head, all the while hacking.
McKay simply rolled his head. "Yes, yes, let's ask the dying man if he feels okay…I'm sure we'll get an honest answer from him."
"I'm fine," Beckett's hoarse voice was no louder than a whisper.
"I'm sure William Henry Harrison said the same thing," McKay muttered.
Sheppard decided they would take a less circuitous route. McKay had silently feared the 'straight line' path, remembering their first run in with the Genii. However, Teyla and Ronon were with them so they made good time heading in the correct direction with Beckett trudging quietly behind them, popping combinations of Ibuprofen and Tylenol every few hours.
They planned on skirting around the villages.
The first village they tried to circumvent drew them in with its stark silence and inactivity.
They discovered the village that had only days before held a scant population of mud covered children, stray dogs and weary adults, now appeared empty and abandoned. No smoke spiraled up through the battered thatch roofs. Outside, fires lay cold and unattended. Blackened sticks with whitish ash lay soaked within small stone pits. No smoke whisked and danced in the growing wind.
Uneasy with their discovery, the group moved on. As the day crawled by, village after village appeared desolate and devoid of life.
The SGA-1 team cautiously entered these villages eying them with suspicion that bordered on apprehension and some fear.
Nothing sparked of life. Not a child, not a rattling hacking adult, not a stray. Rain puddled in trodden mud, wind billowed tattered fabric window and door coverings. Not a soul was to be found.
The SGA-1 team continued onward.
The rain tapered off to a mere drizzle; the thunder rolled on ahead even as the lightning dissipated. The group continued to walk toward the city, passing one desolate and abandoned village after another.
The third village they found lay in ruin. The pieces of a stray mutt lay strewn over a thatched roof and neighboring threshold.
Ronon raised his eyes to the overhead trees. McKay hesitantly allowed his eyes to drift upward, arguing with himself the whole time not to look. His sharp blue eyes searched the gnarled branches of over hanging trees. The runner and scientist both saw only the bare hint of clothing dangling within the high confines of the limbs.
The group entered the village quietly, weapons drawn. The patter of rain became nothing more than background noise. Huts were partially toppled; pots over turned. Clawed quadruped footprints were found sunken deep within the mud collecting rainwater. The prints circled each of the huts.
No children, adults or curved-back underfed strays were found intact. A paw here, a tail there, perhaps an ear lay scattered over the small village. Blood had long ago been washed away.
Beckett shared a worried glance with McKay. Both peered over their shoulders to Sheppard who simply stared back at them serious and stone faced, and jutted his chin out to keep them moving forward.
They checked hut after hut, finding nothing but destruction and, in one, a severed lower limb. On further inspection, encouraged by Sheppard, they found the marrow had been sucked clear of the tibia. Beckett dropped the severed foot and backed away. His blue eyes were open wide, the pupils dilated due to the dim light and intense fear. He backed out of the hut, his hand clenched tightly around the grip of his holstered gun. A reassuring squeeze on his shoulder had him spinning around and facing Sheppard. The Colonel merely pattered his shoulder in grim understanding and gently nudged him to follow Rodney. The astrophysicist licked dry lips and tried to offer some silent reassurance to Beckett.
The two doctors fell in line and continued to follow Teyla and Ronon. Sheppard kept himself between the two doctors and anything that might try and spring at them from behind.
With the last hut explored, no survivors, no intact bodies found to be buried, the Lanteans headed back into the forest, following the twisting trail that lay confined within the misty depths of the forest.
Sheppard silently directed Ronon to point, the Colonel dropped back to cover their back trail leaving Teyla to shadow the two doctors. McKay recognized the placement of people and shot a worried look to Sheppard.
The Colonel merely tilted his head toward Beckett, giving McKay a responsibility that would take his mind off his own personal safety.
McKay, in the thick of battle, proved time and time again that he was indeed a steadfast and loyal friend. With too much time to think, his mouth would engage, with time to mull, he would envision worse case scenarios. Sheppard had learned that when given someone else to watch over, whether it be a fellow scientist or an overtly inquisitive child, McKay stepped up to the plate and protected those around him to his great surprise.
Sheppard had learned quickly that if he kept McKay's overactive mind busy with something other than Rodney's own safety, the Scientist was a formable opponent, if not truly unpredictable.
With the falling of the sun and lengthening shadows, anxiety rose as stories of the Howler came to the forefront and images of the abandoned and destroyed villages and disembodied pieces of horse and owner, from days prior, flashed to mind's eye.
Sheppard's team wound their way through darkening forest with chilled hands gripped tight to weapons.
As dark night settled across their path, the group found themselves within the weak lantern light of the trading mecca of M3X-808P.