Fic: Lying Down With Dogs
Oct. 6th, 2009 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityMeta and Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter Five
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Ronon Dex was not a small man, and even with his latest barely healed injuries, he was more than a match for most of the people in the immediate vicinity, but when he heard Miss Fraiser’s voice behind him, he froze in his tracks. He sighed and turned around.
“John is going to warn the outlying settlements,” he said. “I have to find Teyla.”
She was now standing as close to him as social conventions allowed, though from what Ronon could tell, Anubis himself could walk into Vala’s café right now and not divert any of the attention from Jonas and the Gardiner woman. Janet narrowed her eyes, and Ronon felt a sudden compulsion to explain himself further.
“I’ll get them to safety and then I’ll stay with them,” he added sincerely. “No riding back to town this time.”
“Just be careful,” she said, looking up at him. “I would hate for Dr. Beckett to have to sew you up again.”
He smirked at her.
“Get out of my town.”
Vala came over and handed him a packet of food for his trek; there was no way of knowing where Teyla’s band would be located. He tipped his hat to both ladies, and headed to the post where his horse was tied. As he rode out of town, he risked one look back. The people in the café had barely noticed his departure, but one face was still turned in his direction. She didn’t raise her hand, and neither did he, but he knew that leaving Atlantis would never be quite so easy again.
xxx
Cameron Mitchell was still a new face in Atlantis, but John rather liked him. Cameron hadn’t spent much time in the town before his ranch burned, but between their tentative plans to buy a ranch and the reconstruction work his healing body allowed him to do around town, John had come to appreciate Cameron as a kindred spirit.
Cameron was riding slowly. His wounds had been more extreme than Ronon’s, which was why Ronon was riding further today. Any doubts John had about the other man’s woodcraft were soon laid to rest. He wasn’t the tracker that Ronon was, but he moved through the underbrush with a decent amount of stealth, considering he was mounted.
They moved cautiously, shadowing the road out from the town towards the Reservation. They had reasoned that this would be the direction Anubis would most likely take, but had agreed that should they go more than two miles without seeing anything, John would leave and go in the other direction. After the first mile, John noticed that the birds had all but stopped making noises. Cameron caught his eye, and pointed to the sky in the west. John looked up and saw four vultures circling.
He signaled Cameron and both men dismounted, Cameron with a hiss of pain when his feet hit the ground. The two men crept forward on foot through the threateningly silent woods, crouching low to the ground and with their holsters unclipped.
Cameron held up his hand and John stopped in his tracks. Cameron leaned forward and sniffed the air, a strange expression on his face. John followed suit, initially confused, until he caught the scent that his companion had. He nearly gagged when he did, for it was badly cooked meat and unwashed bodies and not a small amount of blood. They had found their quarry, and they were altogether too close to the town.
“We have to get a look at them,” John whispered quietly. “We have to know how ready they are.”
Cameron nodded, but his face was pained. John looked hard at him, and realized the toll that creeping through the forest had taken on him.
“Go back to the horses,” he said, finally. “If I’m not there in twenty minutes, ride for Atlantis and tell them the worst is coming fast.”
“As if I’d leave you here and face your wife alone!” Cameron replied, but his face was grateful.
They shook hands and parted ways. John crept on, even more silently now and with his pistol in his hand. He could hear them now. They weren’t even trying to conceal their presence. He hoped devoutly that they were not so prideful because they had destroyed the Reservation village on the way to Atlantis.
John saw the first sentry when the other man was about a hundred yards away. He hid himself behind a tree and listened hard. He could hear men moving about, but they didn’t sound like they were moving in a deliberate way. He glanced around and saw that the sentry was occupied sharpening a rather cruel looking knife, so he carefully darted closer, taking shelter behind another tree.
From here, his view of the camp was better. He saw immediately that ‘camp’ might be a generous word. The tents were ragged and torn, and then men were equally disarrayed. Their bearing, however, indicated that they were fighters all, and that they were spoiling for a squabble. They showed no signed of being ready to move out, however, and John breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He couldn’t see Anubis, but he knew which tent the gang lord would occupy; it was the only one of the lot that looked like it might keep out some of the weather. He felt a surge of anger, that anyone should be forced to live like this, and then a swell of admiration for Miss Gardiner for having the courage to escape it.
Finally, he remembered what he had told Cameron, and with a final look around the squalid campsite, he went back as quietly as he had come.
xxx
Elizabeth Sheppard paced back and forth on the steps of her mercantile. She looked out over the town and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. So recently they had begun to recover, rebuild, and now they were being forced to board the windows and run for cover again. It infuriated her, this feeling of powerlessness. Inside, the sheriff and the deputy mayor wrangled back and forth about assignments for the coming battle, while the last few townspeople made fast their houses and left the street.
Elizabeth heard horses, and looked down the street. Her husband and Mr. Mitchell were galloping hard, the latter’s face so tied up with pain she marveled that he could stay atop his horse. That too was something Elizabeth hated: the people of Atlantis were no more recovered than their buildings, and again they would be coming under fire. The men took their horses directly to the stable beside Lorne’s smithy, and then crossed the street to join her. Both men carried a pair of rifles in their hands.
“They’re close.” John said, reading the anxiety in her face. “They’re not close to moving yet, but they’re close.”
“Go inside and try to talk some sense into Jack,” Elizabeth said. “And you, Mr. Mitchell, should go to Beckett’s.”
Cameron started to protest, but Elizabeth overrode him.
“It’s a good vantage point for a gunman in the window,” she said with brutal practicality. “And you’re no good in a stand up fire fight right now.”
Knowing he was out matched, Cameron glanced ruefully at John and tipped his hat to Elizabeth before turning back the way he’d come.
“What are they fighting about?” John asked.
“Who gets to stand in the street.” Elizabeth replied. “Jack thinks Caldwell is too hurt and Caldwell thinks not having the sheriff present will make us look weak.”
“Teal’c will be there?”
“Yes, and Jack too.”
“Then Caldwell will be fine.” John said. “Besides, who else is left?”
“They’d have asked Ronon, but Janet told us he was staying to help Teyla until the danger’s past.” Elizabeth looked down at her feet. “Jack said no husbands on the street.”
“Jack is right about that, at least.” John said. “We’d better get inside.”
They went inside together. As he reasoned with Jack and Caldwell, he could not stop glancing at her. His face hardened with resolve: today they would establish such a reputation for Atlantis that it would never be attacked again.
xxx
Cameron had done his best to conceal his discomfort from the Sheppards, but there was no hiding it from the Becketts. He wasn’t even entirely sure whose scolding was worse, the doctor’s or his quick tempered wife’s. He had barely crossed the threshold when he’d found himself forced into a chair for examination, while Mrs. Beckett fetched him some water and a piece of dried pork. Between mouthfuls and remonstrations, he recounted what he and John had seen on the road.
Carson, content for now with his patched up patient, returned his attention to his stores. Laura had gone to the well to replace the water Cameron had drunk and used to wash, and when she returned, she tried to get her husband to sit down. Cameron watched with no small amount of amusement as she listened serenely to his concerns, while deftly maneuvering him away from the table at the same time.
“What if there aren’t enough bandages?” the doctor asked as his wife finally all but pushed him into a chair.
“I saved my entire trousseau when the house burned,” Laura said calmly, sitting and taking out an embroidery hoop from under a chair. “We can use the linens my mother sent.”
“But – ” Carson spluttered.
“It won’t come to that,” Laura assured him. “You’ve enough there to swaddle a regiment.”
“How can you stitch at a time like this?” her husband demanded.
“It fairly beats pointless worrying.” Laura said, and that was the end of that.
Cameron hid his smile by turning to his guns. He slid the window open and discovered that Elizabeth was quite right: he could see the south road well from here. He hoped it would not come to firing, though. There would enough guns on the street for that, and Carson didn’t strike him as the sort of man who would appreciate gunfighting in his practice unless it was a dire emergency.
xxx
In the end, the plan was this: Jack, Caldwell and Teal’c would meet Anubis on the street. The Dog Soldiers typically sent in their gang leader and one or two lieutenants, while the rest of them circled the town. That way, if the sheriff fell, they could swoop in and if their own leader fell, they could melt away into the woods. It was, as Teal’c said with disdain, a coward’s tactic, but John had heard stories of how it had worked with deadly efficiency in other towns.
John himself would be riding out with Daniel to cover the road to the north, while Jonas, Lorne and the deputy sheriffs would circle back from the south after Anubis entered the town. They would cover Anubis’s retreat, should all go well, and both teams would be in place should things end badly. A rider from the Reservation had arrived earlier to say that Skaara and his age-mates would be in the woods as well, attempting to outflank the Dog Soldiers that surrounded the town.
Sarah had taken shelter with Kate, who was under strict instructions from Carson not to go into labour, in the storm shelter that Lorne had just finished constructing. It was not particularly attractive, but it was easily hidden because it was under the stables which boasted a lot of hay. Even if the stable burned, they would be safe. Elizabeth had gone with them, much to her husband’s protestations, and had taken with her one of the rifles.
The town was ready. All they could do was wait.
Chapter 6
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter Five
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Ronon Dex was not a small man, and even with his latest barely healed injuries, he was more than a match for most of the people in the immediate vicinity, but when he heard Miss Fraiser’s voice behind him, he froze in his tracks. He sighed and turned around.
“John is going to warn the outlying settlements,” he said. “I have to find Teyla.”
She was now standing as close to him as social conventions allowed, though from what Ronon could tell, Anubis himself could walk into Vala’s café right now and not divert any of the attention from Jonas and the Gardiner woman. Janet narrowed her eyes, and Ronon felt a sudden compulsion to explain himself further.
“I’ll get them to safety and then I’ll stay with them,” he added sincerely. “No riding back to town this time.”
“Just be careful,” she said, looking up at him. “I would hate for Dr. Beckett to have to sew you up again.”
He smirked at her.
“Get out of my town.”
Vala came over and handed him a packet of food for his trek; there was no way of knowing where Teyla’s band would be located. He tipped his hat to both ladies, and headed to the post where his horse was tied. As he rode out of town, he risked one look back. The people in the café had barely noticed his departure, but one face was still turned in his direction. She didn’t raise her hand, and neither did he, but he knew that leaving Atlantis would never be quite so easy again.
xxx
Cameron Mitchell was still a new face in Atlantis, but John rather liked him. Cameron hadn’t spent much time in the town before his ranch burned, but between their tentative plans to buy a ranch and the reconstruction work his healing body allowed him to do around town, John had come to appreciate Cameron as a kindred spirit.
Cameron was riding slowly. His wounds had been more extreme than Ronon’s, which was why Ronon was riding further today. Any doubts John had about the other man’s woodcraft were soon laid to rest. He wasn’t the tracker that Ronon was, but he moved through the underbrush with a decent amount of stealth, considering he was mounted.
They moved cautiously, shadowing the road out from the town towards the Reservation. They had reasoned that this would be the direction Anubis would most likely take, but had agreed that should they go more than two miles without seeing anything, John would leave and go in the other direction. After the first mile, John noticed that the birds had all but stopped making noises. Cameron caught his eye, and pointed to the sky in the west. John looked up and saw four vultures circling.
He signaled Cameron and both men dismounted, Cameron with a hiss of pain when his feet hit the ground. The two men crept forward on foot through the threateningly silent woods, crouching low to the ground and with their holsters unclipped.
Cameron held up his hand and John stopped in his tracks. Cameron leaned forward and sniffed the air, a strange expression on his face. John followed suit, initially confused, until he caught the scent that his companion had. He nearly gagged when he did, for it was badly cooked meat and unwashed bodies and not a small amount of blood. They had found their quarry, and they were altogether too close to the town.
“We have to get a look at them,” John whispered quietly. “We have to know how ready they are.”
Cameron nodded, but his face was pained. John looked hard at him, and realized the toll that creeping through the forest had taken on him.
“Go back to the horses,” he said, finally. “If I’m not there in twenty minutes, ride for Atlantis and tell them the worst is coming fast.”
“As if I’d leave you here and face your wife alone!” Cameron replied, but his face was grateful.
They shook hands and parted ways. John crept on, even more silently now and with his pistol in his hand. He could hear them now. They weren’t even trying to conceal their presence. He hoped devoutly that they were not so prideful because they had destroyed the Reservation village on the way to Atlantis.
John saw the first sentry when the other man was about a hundred yards away. He hid himself behind a tree and listened hard. He could hear men moving about, but they didn’t sound like they were moving in a deliberate way. He glanced around and saw that the sentry was occupied sharpening a rather cruel looking knife, so he carefully darted closer, taking shelter behind another tree.
From here, his view of the camp was better. He saw immediately that ‘camp’ might be a generous word. The tents were ragged and torn, and then men were equally disarrayed. Their bearing, however, indicated that they were fighters all, and that they were spoiling for a squabble. They showed no signed of being ready to move out, however, and John breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He couldn’t see Anubis, but he knew which tent the gang lord would occupy; it was the only one of the lot that looked like it might keep out some of the weather. He felt a surge of anger, that anyone should be forced to live like this, and then a swell of admiration for Miss Gardiner for having the courage to escape it.
Finally, he remembered what he had told Cameron, and with a final look around the squalid campsite, he went back as quietly as he had come.
xxx
Elizabeth Sheppard paced back and forth on the steps of her mercantile. She looked out over the town and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. So recently they had begun to recover, rebuild, and now they were being forced to board the windows and run for cover again. It infuriated her, this feeling of powerlessness. Inside, the sheriff and the deputy mayor wrangled back and forth about assignments for the coming battle, while the last few townspeople made fast their houses and left the street.
Elizabeth heard horses, and looked down the street. Her husband and Mr. Mitchell were galloping hard, the latter’s face so tied up with pain she marveled that he could stay atop his horse. That too was something Elizabeth hated: the people of Atlantis were no more recovered than their buildings, and again they would be coming under fire. The men took their horses directly to the stable beside Lorne’s smithy, and then crossed the street to join her. Both men carried a pair of rifles in their hands.
“They’re close.” John said, reading the anxiety in her face. “They’re not close to moving yet, but they’re close.”
“Go inside and try to talk some sense into Jack,” Elizabeth said. “And you, Mr. Mitchell, should go to Beckett’s.”
Cameron started to protest, but Elizabeth overrode him.
“It’s a good vantage point for a gunman in the window,” she said with brutal practicality. “And you’re no good in a stand up fire fight right now.”
Knowing he was out matched, Cameron glanced ruefully at John and tipped his hat to Elizabeth before turning back the way he’d come.
“What are they fighting about?” John asked.
“Who gets to stand in the street.” Elizabeth replied. “Jack thinks Caldwell is too hurt and Caldwell thinks not having the sheriff present will make us look weak.”
“Teal’c will be there?”
“Yes, and Jack too.”
“Then Caldwell will be fine.” John said. “Besides, who else is left?”
“They’d have asked Ronon, but Janet told us he was staying to help Teyla until the danger’s past.” Elizabeth looked down at her feet. “Jack said no husbands on the street.”
“Jack is right about that, at least.” John said. “We’d better get inside.”
They went inside together. As he reasoned with Jack and Caldwell, he could not stop glancing at her. His face hardened with resolve: today they would establish such a reputation for Atlantis that it would never be attacked again.
xxx
Cameron had done his best to conceal his discomfort from the Sheppards, but there was no hiding it from the Becketts. He wasn’t even entirely sure whose scolding was worse, the doctor’s or his quick tempered wife’s. He had barely crossed the threshold when he’d found himself forced into a chair for examination, while Mrs. Beckett fetched him some water and a piece of dried pork. Between mouthfuls and remonstrations, he recounted what he and John had seen on the road.
Carson, content for now with his patched up patient, returned his attention to his stores. Laura had gone to the well to replace the water Cameron had drunk and used to wash, and when she returned, she tried to get her husband to sit down. Cameron watched with no small amount of amusement as she listened serenely to his concerns, while deftly maneuvering him away from the table at the same time.
“What if there aren’t enough bandages?” the doctor asked as his wife finally all but pushed him into a chair.
“I saved my entire trousseau when the house burned,” Laura said calmly, sitting and taking out an embroidery hoop from under a chair. “We can use the linens my mother sent.”
“But – ” Carson spluttered.
“It won’t come to that,” Laura assured him. “You’ve enough there to swaddle a regiment.”
“How can you stitch at a time like this?” her husband demanded.
“It fairly beats pointless worrying.” Laura said, and that was the end of that.
Cameron hid his smile by turning to his guns. He slid the window open and discovered that Elizabeth was quite right: he could see the south road well from here. He hoped it would not come to firing, though. There would enough guns on the street for that, and Carson didn’t strike him as the sort of man who would appreciate gunfighting in his practice unless it was a dire emergency.
xxx
In the end, the plan was this: Jack, Caldwell and Teal’c would meet Anubis on the street. The Dog Soldiers typically sent in their gang leader and one or two lieutenants, while the rest of them circled the town. That way, if the sheriff fell, they could swoop in and if their own leader fell, they could melt away into the woods. It was, as Teal’c said with disdain, a coward’s tactic, but John had heard stories of how it had worked with deadly efficiency in other towns.
John himself would be riding out with Daniel to cover the road to the north, while Jonas, Lorne and the deputy sheriffs would circle back from the south after Anubis entered the town. They would cover Anubis’s retreat, should all go well, and both teams would be in place should things end badly. A rider from the Reservation had arrived earlier to say that Skaara and his age-mates would be in the woods as well, attempting to outflank the Dog Soldiers that surrounded the town.
Sarah had taken shelter with Kate, who was under strict instructions from Carson not to go into labour, in the storm shelter that Lorne had just finished constructing. It was not particularly attractive, but it was easily hidden because it was under the stables which boasted a lot of hay. Even if the stable burned, they would be safe. Elizabeth had gone with them, much to her husband’s protestations, and had taken with her one of the rifles.
The town was ready. All they could do was wait.
Chapter 6
