Death Game

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Teyla crept forward, peering around the corner. The corridor broadened out into a large chamber, though she could only see part of it from her vantage point. It looked like another cave, but instead of being partially filled with a frigid lake, this one seemed to be filled with pits of fire. The floor was uneven, marked with narrow paths between sharp stalagmites, though even those paths were broken and a person crossing them would have to stop and carefully climb over the stones. Here and there, among the stalagmites and stones, vents of steam emerged unexpectedly from the ground, shooting into the air in great gouts, rendered pink and red by the lights below.

No, thought Teyla, there were no real fires. Those were lights. But the steam was real, as was evidenced by one of the men leaping backwards from the edge of a vent, holding his scalded arm.

At the edge of the chamber were the four thugs they’d encountered before, now armed with the butts of torches they’d picked up along the way. They had a prisoner with them, the girl who had stood with Nevin on the ship from Pelagia.

Crowding up behind Teyla, he let out a gasp. “That’s my sister,” he whispered urgently. “That’s my twin sister, Ailan!” He turned, clutching at John’s arm. “You’ve got to do something!”

John grimaced.

Two of the thugs were arguing, apparently debating the best way across the chamber. On the other side, a darkened doorway with carved lintels made it plain what the goal was. As they watched, more vents erupted in steam, almost obscuring completely the narrow, winding paths.

“This is a wretched place,” Teyla whispered to John. “I am not sure there actually is a safe way across it, except by chance.”

“Tell me about it. These guys have been going crazy with the hydraulics.” John hefted the butt of the torch himself, then ground out the flame against the stone.

“You’re not going to challenge those men,” Teyla said, her brows rising. “Four to one?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

One of the men seemed to have prevailed to his companions, and now he and another thug converged on Ailan, pointing to the maze. She shook her head. One of them hit her hard across the face, snapping her head back. He pointed to the path, his hand raised for another blow.

Nevin scrambled up, Suua catching onto him. “Let me go!” Nevin pleaded, struggling hopelessly against Suua’s strong grip. “I have to help my sister!”

“They want her to walk the path for them,” Teyla said grimly. “To find the safe way through. That way, if there are traps to be tripped it is she who will be badly burned.”

John looked from Teyla to Suua. “Let’s take them,” he said.

Carson Beckett eased the jumper around in a long turn while Major Lorne leaned over the back of the pilot’s seat. The skies above the island had cleared of the night’s rain, and it was a lovely, bright day. “Having trouble finding a parking place, doc?”

“Just a bit,” Carson said. “This island is heavily populated. I don’t want to set it down in the middle of the street. Even cloaked, people will notice the ship when they walk right into it.”

The cloak did nothing to render the jumper immaterial. Anyone who touched it would know it was there. The island was rocky and a great deal of it that was level enough to land on was covered in trees. Some of the city streets were wide enough, but they were also busy. Crowds of people were out and about, bustling from place to place or doing their marketing in the city’s squares and streets. The chances of landing without making most of the city aware of them were slim.

“Unfortunately,” Lorne said. He tightened his grip on the back of the seat. “How about we go around the other side again? Some of those orchards over on the back side of the island might be spaced enough that we could set down without hitting trees.”

“If you say,” Carson said. “I don’t think there’s enough room anywhere except in the big plazas and such. But we can’t do that without people seeing us.”

“What if we don’t land at all?” Rodney said. Carson twisted around to give him a dubious look, but Rodney persisted. “What if we just hover? Can’t we let some people out?”

“Sure,” Lorne said. “If you don’t mind jumping.” Carson swept back over the city at a couple of hundred feet, wide plazas and narrow streets opening before them, all studded with trees and market stalls.

“I was thinking like on a roof or something,” Rodney said. “There are all these big, wide roofs. Carson could hover a few feet above the surface and we could get out. Climb out on a roof and then get down from there.”

Lorne’s face broke into a wide smile. “I think you’ve got something there,” he said. “Nobody’s going to walk into us by accident if we’re parked on the roof!”

“Hey you!” John shouted. It wasn’t the most memorable speech he’d ever made, but they weren’t really giving him points for that.

It did get the guy’s attention. The biggest of the thugs turned around. “You got a problem?” he yelled.

John nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got a problem. You.”

The thug didn’t seem disturbed. “Yeah? You and what army?”

“This army,” Teyla said serenely behind him. She and Suua stepped out, one on each side, each with a torch stick in hand. “I would let go of that girl if I were you.”

Instead he gave her a vicious shove and Ailan went sprawling on the sharp stones beside the path. Behind Teyla and Suua, Nevin lunged out, Jitrine holding on to his injured arm.

The guy laughed. He was almost as big as Ronon, only hopefully not as fast. “Women and a little kid. Yeah, you try it.”

“Suit yourself,” John said, stepping forward into guard, covering Teyla’s left so she could attack with her good side. Teyla’s good side with sticks was better than both his sides, any day. Three on four wasn’t bad odds. Time to plow on in. He rushed forward, stick in hand.

By himself. Three of the thugs bore down on him, and he barely countered their moves.

“What the hell?” John yelled.

Teyla waded in next to him, smartly rapping with her stick the guy who had nearly decked John. “I am sorry! I thought it wiser to let them come to us.” She spun around in a flurry of kicks and movement, letting the momentum of her attacker carry him past her straight into Suua’s fist. One down.

“Let them come to us?” John was incredulous. “They’re on the edge of a steam pit!” He ducked under the flailing club of one of the thugs, unfortunately catching the second man’s blow right across his back. That hurt.

Teyla reversed direction, coming around in a long kick that barely missed John and connected with the man’s knee, dropping his leg out from under him. “We had the better ground,” she said serenely.

“So what?” John hit the man in the back of the head, knocking him sprawling. He didn’t seem inclined to get up.

He heard rather than felt the blow coming, in the rush of air preceding it. The third man’s torch butt connected with his left side, full force and momentum behind it, right on the sore ribs from the crash. John staggered backwards, unfortunately completely fouling Teyla in the process. It was about all she could do not to hit him with the attack she had half completed.

The man’s second blow hit Teyla as she backpedaled, catching her in the upper left arm. The cry that escaped her lips was unexpected. He’d never heard her cry out, no matter how hard she was hit. This blow hand landed on her bad shoulder.

John lowered his head and butted the man in the stomach, which did in fact distract him from Teyla. Unfortunately, it also brought the man’s club down on his back again. John staggered, the world spinning around him momentarily. Bad plan, hitting something with his head, he thought belatedly. Very bad plan.

He raised his head in time to see Suua catch the man around the throat, shaking him like a terrier with a rat.

John took a deep breath, straightening up. Oh yeah. Bad plan. The dizziness made the room seem to swoop around him. Teyla had stepped back, her lips white, her arm once again at an odd angle. The blow had popped her shoulder out again.

“Stay back!” The fourth thug had retreated to the edge of the steam pits, and he held Ailan before him, a stick against her throat forcing her head up. “Don’t come any closer!”

He could break her neck that way, John thought, without very much effort at all. It would be a stupid thing to do, because then he wouldn’t have a hostage, but the wild look on the man’s face suggested that maybe he wasn’t thinking that clearly. He could kill the girl in a panic, even if it doomed him with her.

“Stay back! I mean it!” Inch by inch, he backed out onto the narrow path, dragging Ailan with him.

“John,” Teyla said warningly, probably some prelude to something about asking him if his head were bothering him or did he need his sunglasses.

“These things always seem like a good idea at time,” he said. “I’ll get her.” Suua was still holding on to the third man, the best fighter, and Teyla’s shoulder was out again. “I’m fine. It’s no problem.” He advanced onto the edge of the path.

Yeah, that was real steam. He could feel the sticky heat on his arms, condensing on his forehead and hair. The vent screens were backlit with eerie red and yellow and orange lights, as though he walked on a narrow path over a pit of flames. The flames weren’t real, but the steam could scald and burn. And the vents turned on and off.

John jumped back as one opened to his right, sending a jet of steam taller than his head. If he’d been standing over that, he’d be very sorry right now.

“You get back!” the thug yelled, dragging Ailan with him. He was awfully close to a vent, the girl twisting as she tried to get away from the heat she could surely feel.

John held out his hands, the stick in his right. “I just want the girl,” he said. “You can go. Run. Sure. I don’t care. I’m not trying to win.”

“Course you’re trying to win!” The guy’s eyes were slitted against the steam. “You want to take me down, is what.”

“Just give me the girl and you can go,” John said. “Nobody’s going to win, don’t you see? We’re all going to be food for the Wraith.”

“The gods said the winner goes free a rich man!” Back and back, into the heart of the maze. One of the vents opened behind him, just missing him and Ailan, John creeping cautiously after.

“They’re not gods,” John said. “They’re Wraith. They’re parasites who live on you people, feeding on you when they want to. This is just an excuse to get some suckers in here and harvest them.”

He didn’t buy it. John could see that in his face. So much for talking. “Look, just give me the girl.”

Ailan squeaked as he grabbed her tighter, her feet almost off the ground.

“Take her then!” The guy shoved Ailan at him hard, and they both went over, falling among the sharp stones and steam vents. Fortunately, they didn’t land on a live one, but the hot grate was enough to burn his hand where he’d flung it out to catch himself, the rocks digging bruisingly into his side.

Ailan screamed, which pretty much covered up any other noise. Like the noise of the guy rushing him with his stick.

John caught the blow on his left forearm. It missed Ailan’s head, but he felt the shock all the way to the tips of his fingers. The momentum shoved him back on to the vents.

John rolled to the side, orange and red lights playing as he rolled over them. If the vents opened right that second, he’d be steamed like dry cleaning.

He hooked the guy’s feet with his, trying to trip him while evading the blows from the stick. Not good. There was a rock to his left. He couldn’t roll any further.

Heat blasted just behind him, a vent opening.

So not good. He had to get up. He was never going to win this way.

Grabbing the big rock, John staggered to his feet, blows raining down on his back. This guy didn’t hit as hard as Teyla, but he hit pretty hard. He was barehanded, his stick lost in the scuffle on the floor. Beneath his feet the vent hissed, the panels starting to turn.

And suddenly the lights came on. The entire cave was flooded in light of bright fluorescents. The red and orange lights died, the steam switching off at the same moment.

The guy blinked owlishly in the sudden brightness, and John clipped him in the jaw with a roundhouse. He went down like a sack of grain. Got to go ahead and win.

In the bright lights the room was transformed. It no longer looked like a chamber from hell, but instead a kind of cheesy stage set, with big boulders concealing what was no more than a bunch of lights and effects.

Their party seemed as confused as the thugs, looking around incredulously. Only Teyla seemed to have taken it in stride, half way out on the path toward him, her left shoulder clutched in her right hand. “John? Are you all right?”

“Great,” John said, aware that he was rolling like he was drunk. “It’s all good here.”

She clearly didn’t believe him, but Teyla bent down and helped Ailan to her feet instead. “Are you hurt?”

The girl shook her head, her eyes wide, a long mark down the side of her face where one of them had hit her.

Nevin ran out, Jitrine following him as quickly as she could, her robes caught up in her hand.

“Ailan! It’s all right!” Nevin called. “You’re safe! These are my friends! We came to rescue you!” He threw his arms around his sister, and she buried her face against him.

Jitrine stopped beside John, looking up at him, an expression of concern on her face. “What did you do? Why did it stop?”

John shook his head, drops of condensed steam and sweat falling from his hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “It didn’t look good for a minute there. I don’t know what happened.”