His head was thundering, small noises seemingly louder in the dim light. He hoped Lalia would bring him some of that tea that always dulled the pain. He opened his eyes slowly.
Memories came flooding into his head. The approaching men in the darkness just before dawn, Lalia screaming, her clothes soaked in Relam's blood. He looked around in the darkness hoping to find her, but she wasn't with him. He sat up slowly, wincing at the pain that shot through his body. The ribs that had been healing well had been badly shaken up by the fall.
His military brain kicked in and he surveyed his surroundings. The room was small and dark and the door looked pretty solid, there were no windows and the only light that filtered in was from a small crack at the bottom of the door. Even without his broken limbs he would be pretty hard pressed to get out of here.
'Lalia?'
He called to her with his mind; he had become accustomed to doing so when he didn't know where she was. There was no answer, either she was too far away to respond or she couldn't.
He settled back against the wall, sighing. There was nothing to do but wait.
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Several hours' later two men entered the room, each bearing a spear and pointing it at him. A small boy inched into the room behind them and set a jug of water and a hunk of stale bread at his feet. Jack looked up at the men with spears.
"Where's my friend?"
The men looked at each.
"¿Que?" one of them answered and Jack remembered the Spanish style language Lalia had spoken when they had first met. These were after all her people.
"¿Donde esta mi amiga?"
"Vamos a quemarla, después de que se confiesa"
Jack shuddered, a forced confession followed by a burning, sounded like the Salem witch trials. The two men laughed and left him to contemplate their words in the darkness.
He buried his face in his hands; he had no idea how to get them out of this. Sure he had gotten out of worst situations before, but he had always had SG1 to back him up when he needed them. The village lay closer to the Stargate than Lalia's cave and it was possible that Carter, Teal'c and Daniel had already looked here. In fact he was almost sure that this was the first place they had looked, before beginning to comb the forest.
"Check again guys" he muttered to himself.
__________________________________________________________
The thin sliver of light had moved across the room to the far wall and was beginning to take on a red tinge, announcing sunset, when the two men with spears returned. One of them shoved his spear under Jack's throat, the metal point pricking his skin, while the other pulled him roughly to his feet and bound his hands tightly behind his back. They muscled him roughly from the small room and half dragged him to what appeared to be the center of the village, little more than a rough square between the buildings. A crowd had gathered and as it parted slowly he saw Lalia. She hung limply, her arms tied to a thick upright wooden pole above her head. Her face was pinched with pain and he noticed, even at this distance, a dark bruising on her cheek. The wound on her temple had stopped bleeding but her hair was matted with blood and her forehead rested against the post, her eyes half closed. He struggled against the two brutish guards that held him, trying to reach her, but they held him fast.
Three grim faced men appeared from a large building on the other side of the cleared area and came to stand in front of her. One of them grabbed her chin and lifted her head, his eyes cold, his face bore a strong resemblance to hers and Jack realized that it was her father.
"Confiesa Bruja!"
Her eyes hardened and she stared at the tall man, her lips closed tightly. The older man shook his head and motion to the younger man that stood to his left. The man slipped a knife from his belt and moved behind Lalia, slipping the sharp blade inside the neck of her tunic. He jerked downwards with one swift movement and the soft leather split like butter, leaving her tanned back exposed. The third grim face man stepped forward and handed a cruel looking leather whip to the younger man, nodding for him to continue.
Jack watched in horror as the whip descended for the first time on her back, leaving a trail of blood behind it. He lifted his arm again and the crowd began to cheer. Jack struggled against his guards, his own cries lost amongst the shouts of the villagers.
Ten bloody welts had appeared across her tanned skin when the younger man lowered his arm. Lalia's father waited for the crowd to quiet before her looked into his daughter's face for the second time.
"Confiesa Bruja!"
'I'm here' Jack thought, not knowing if she would hear him.
Her head turned slightly and she looked at him, smiling weakly. She turned back to her father, her eyes remaining hard and her lips remaining closed. He indicated again to the younger man.
Later Jack would think how it was funny that the first words most people learnt in any language were the curses, but that was what he shouted now, wracking his brain for the worst curses he had learnt in Spanish. The younger man hesitated and looked his way, his arm held above his head, frozen for a moment. His stream of curses was cut short by a heavy fist plowing into his stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. He fell to his knees and looked up to find one of his guards sneering down at him.
Ten lashes more finally brought the screams from her lips and Jack winced as each was cut short by the following lash of the whip. He turned his face away, but one of the brutish men that guarded him grabbed his hair and turned his face, forcing him to watch as they whipped her again and again.
Her knees had given way and she hung limply, her face slumped on her slumped on her shoulder, when her father for the third time told her to confess.
"Confieso"
Her words, barely more than a whisper, had hardly left her lips when Jack heard the sound of distant gun shots. He could have cried when the crowd began to scatter and he saw SG1 followed by SG4 running into the village center. His guards had run with the rest of the crowd, fearing the shots that sounded in the air, leaving him kneeling in the dirt his head bowed.
Daniel was beside him in a second, untying the tight knots that held his hands. As the blood started to flow back into his broken arm he felt his hold on consciousness beginning to slip.
"Help her" he ordered, motioning towards Lalia before the blackness over took him.
