‘So, remind me, what are we doing here?’ A squint at the sun, head at angle, casual grip on his gun. Jack O’Neill. Behind him, a frustrated glance exchanged. Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson, world weary. Teal’c, eyes surveying carefully, posture as solid as ever and one hand gripping his staff weapon. The eternal sentinel.

‘Well, this is P3X 009 and when SG4 visited here they reported finding a building containing inscriptions. Their description suggested that it might be similar to the runic script we found on Cimmeria.’ They we walking away from the gate, fanning out slightly, but keeping within hearing distance of Daniel, who gesticulated haphazardly along. The ground was undulating; the heather combing their legs as they pushed away from the platform. O’Neill scowled at his boots as peaty water oozed around them.

‘Did they say the bog men live here?’

‘Well actually, they didn’t meet any locals, we’re looking for ruins.’

‘Right, well I wouldn’t live in this bog either. Shall we walk on the higher ground?’ O’Neill struck out to the left.

‘Actually,’ said Carter, turning to follow him, ‘there’s no reason to assume the planet’s uninhabited. SG4 were on a strictly recon mission and they didn’t exactly get far from the gate.’

‘Those your ruins, Daniel?’ Daniel scrambled up the rise after O’Neill, wiping his peaty hands on his trousers. He followed the direction of O’Neill’s arm with his eyes and saw the grey concentric circular walls, the great slabs of rock lying beyond them, great markers of lost ways, and, in the centre, one tall, circular, funnel of a building. A grin of excitement crossed his face.

‘Doesn’t look much to me…’ O’Neill offered, but Daniel cut him off,

‘It looks like a broch’. The other three waited for him to continue as Daniel took off his glasses, cleaned them vigorously. ‘You know I think it is. I didn’t quite believe SG4’s description, but… Brochs were built in the Iron Age in Scotland, er, actually over quite a long period of time. Because the Picts, that’s the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, weren’t conquered by the Romans, they kind of maintained their old way of doing things right through to the 1st millennium AD. Brochs are structures synonymous with the social system of the time, small clans with strong centralisation around a laird living in a broch or a crannog.’

‘Crannog?’

‘Settlement built out on a loch, on stilts, or an artificial island. I visited an excavation of one back in..’

‘Nice. Let’s go take a look, shall we?’ O’Neill strode off, followed by Teal’c, while Carter listened to Daniel’s explanations as they made a slower descent towards the ruins. Half way toward it, O’Neill turned,

‘These Picts got anything to do with Thor?’

‘Well, that’s an interesting question. The Vikings did go to northern and western Scotland, particularly Orkney and they did influence and interact with Pictish culture of the time, but that was in the 10th century mostly.’

‘Cos Thor is why we’re here, right?’

‘So you were listening in the briefing’

‘Oh come on Daniel, you were talking, we were sleeping, but even I caught the word Thor.’

‘When I read SG4’s report’ Daniel trotted down the last piece of slope. ‘I was intrigued, they thought the inscriptions were possibly runic and you remember the rune stones on Cimmeria?’

‘On Thor’s hammer?’ Carter offered.

‘Yeah, well that’s a Swedish style of sculpture, but what SG4 described sounded more like the picture stones of Gotland.’ O’Neill was moving away again, so Daniel raised his voice. ‘And those picture stones don’t really concentrate on Thor, so much as on Odin.’ O’Neill turned and looked at Daniel, as was expected. ‘And Odin really was the leader of the Asgard, the Viking pantheon of gods. He was a warrior, a smith and he could change into animals. He’s strongly associated with the raven.’

‘I do not know this animal’ said Teal’c

‘It’s a bird, a corvid, found wild on moorland in Europe.’ Carter explained

‘Big, black and croaky,’ O’Neill added

‘We need to learn everything we can about Thor and the Asgard, if we want to make an alliance with him. And you’ve got to admit this is interesting’ Daniel had dropped down to examine one of the large slabs marking a way toward the broch. ‘Especially, if Odin’s involved too.’

‘Sir, didn’t Thor say that he was commander of the Asgard fleet?’ Carter looked at O’Neill.

‘Well, yeah, that’s what he ... his hologram said to me’

‘So where does that leave Odin?’ Carter asked. Daniel looked up at her, smiling,

‘Good question.’ He replied

‘O'Neill, these are wolf prints’. Teal’c had squatted down next to Daniel, but now he was looking away to the group of conifers in the distance. O’Neill glanced around, saw Carter doing the same, both suddenly less casual about their rifles. Their survey revealed only moor, marsh and woodland. Daniel seemed not to have heard and had moved onto the next stone. He scrabbled at the reedy stems growing around it.

‘It’s inscribed, it’s a picture stone.’ His hand flew to his pocket to withdraw a notebook, but then instantly changed his mind and reached to remove his pack. O’Neill found himself smiling,

‘Happy Christmas, Daniel.’ As the doctor pulled out his video recorder, he added, ‘Carter, you stay with Daniel, make an estimate of how much there is to see’ he glanced resignedly at the numerous slabs around the broch ‘and how long it will take you look at it. Teal’c and I will go scout around, ok?’ Sam watched them go, then looked first to the sky, which was beginning to cloud over, and then once more at the woods. It was wild country, no doubting that, but it felt good on the skin and now that they weren’t squelching through tough peat, Sam suddenly felt exhilarated by the smell of the earth and the wind. There was an honest smile of appreciation on her face as she turned back to Daniel.

‘This is fascinating, isn’t it’ he said, grinning back at her. She picked her way around the broch, pausing now and then to look at the slabs. Some were inscribed, but most weren’t. The broch itself was dug out of the ground, with a grey outer wall and the funnel tower in the centre. In between, these two walls were the foundations of small individual rooms packed against one another and the outer walls. It was easy to understand them as lean-to cells and Sam skirted around them, following the narrow ways between, for once fully appreciating Daniel’s interest. There were no inscribed stones within this outer circuit, however, and she reached for her torch as she ducked through the very low, square entrance to the funnelled building. She stood and met a second wall, as tall as the outer one and not more than a foot within it. She hastily backed out.

‘Daniel, I’m just going in here, ok?’ she called, her voice dropping as he rose from behind a slab a few yards away, but he sounded distant as he replied

‘Ok, no problem.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Um, I’m not sure’ He scratched his head with his pencil, pushing back his floppy hair. Sam watched his perplexed head disappear again and ducked back into the broch tower. There was no need for her torch as even with the narrowing of the walls, light came in from above. No rain would though, she thought, as she edged around the space between the outer and inner wall, at least unless it was coming at an angle. She smiled, thinking of the wind outside: strong, but somehow gentle when compared to the landscape. She thought it could be a lot more fitting to the moorland expanse than it was today. Today it was playing, like the fitful sunshine. The way in through the inner wall appeared when she reached the opposite side to the entrance. It was hardly a staircase, but more like a set of diagonal footholds which ran up the wall to a dip at the top. She pulled her rifle over her head as well as her shoulder, made sure it was secure on her back. It was easy to haul herself up the steps and at the top she sat astride the thick wall, feeling the little breeze, which reached in ruffling her hair, and staring up at the circle of sky above the framing of the taller, outer wall. Sam felt the strangeness of the place in the stonework, or rather felt her strangeness to it, her removal.

Inside there were proper steps leading down, there would have to be, considering how the wall was built to taper in. The inner space was no more than twenty feet in diameter, scattered with thin slabs of rock that Sam was tempted to reconstruct as chairs, large chairs. And there were tall thin pillars, four of them, each inscribed as the stones outside with myriad hunt scenes, strange animals and men with distorted limbs. There was runic script running vertically up the edges and, was that a raven? She moved closer, fingers keen to trace what her eyes had identified. A raven, above a mounted man on an eight-legged horse. She glanced at the pillar opposite. It held a similar motif, although without the bird. In between these two pillars was the largest rough stone ‘chair’, and its back, a jagged slate resting against the wall bore the picture again and in this case, the raven’s head, she saw, emerged from the back of the warriors head, where a queue of hair might have been.

‘Daniel?’ She knew he wouldn’t hear and even as she hastily turned back to the staircase she saw other things her eyes had missed, cubby holes high up in the walls and down below, what looked almost like ways in. Well, the wall was thick enough for it, she thought as she straddled the top once more before scrambling down the other side. She doubted the Colonel was going to like it, but she knew they’d have to stay here, at least for a while.

-

In fact, dislike it as he might, O’Neill brought further news which ensured that they set up camp, for he and Teal’c had found a loch and on it, a ruined crannog. Two days later, he was growing increasingly bored watching and hindering as Teal’c and Carter helped Daniel with his work. Daniel would talk enthusiastically about it all given the slightest provocation, and, interested though O’Neill was in the Asgard and the prospects they might bring, should SG1 ever find them, he would wave a dismissive hand and grumpily find some other task for himself. There was always firewood to gather, since at night the wolf prints prayed more greatly on their minds and a fire seemed justified when the landscape seemed so abandoned. That said, the only moment of excitement created by anything other than inscribed stone was when Teal’c spotted what might have been a craft at the far loch’s end. With this in mind, on the third day, O’Neill called Teal’c away and the pair set off down the lochside to discover what was to be seen beyond the conifers that reached down to the shores there.

-

The day was fairer than any of those previous. The wind no more than a dancing skate across the loch’s reflective surface and the lightness touched Sam and Daniel’s spirits as they worked among the crannog ruins. There were no inscriptions here, that they’d found, but the complex was nothing like that which Daniel had expected. The ruins started on the shore, a group of round buildings, some with walls still standing several feet, and stretched out into the loch, where small islands reached, slimy and guanoed, out of the dark water. The islands held walls and slabs, all ruined, and were connected by what seemed like widely spread stepping stones – platforms for wooden plankways that had been removed, or rotted away. As the sun rose higher, they finished their work on the shore and, jacket discarded, Daniel eagerly began to attempt the stepping stones. The spaces between them were too wide to reach without making an all-out jump and, on his third attempt, he missed his footing entirely and crashed from the rock into the loch. Sam, who had been readying to follow, hastily dropped jacket, rifle in a heap and rushed forward to pull him out.

-

Their laughter drifted across the water. Magpie, who had grown confident as she recognised the stranger’s preoccupation, peered out from behind a ruined wall and watched the woman brush off her sopping companion and replace his glasses. Voices, and then another burst of laughter. Magpie felt herself smile too, drawn to their easiness, as she had been to their fire the night before. She quickly scrambled the distance between this wall to the next, the nearest to the water’s edge. She felt a tinge of excitement in being so close, knew it for risk and kept her head down for several minutes. When she looked up again, the pair were returning to their efforts to get out to the first island. The woman jumping between rocks, the man wading, black shirt stripped off and held above his head. Once they reached it, they began an investigation as earnest as that which Magpie had witnessed earlier in the day. Magpie gave a small smile, seeing her chance, and grabbed it. A dart from cover, a snatch, and back into the walls. Pleased with her catch she pulled on the black sleeveless jacket, examining the strange pockets which stuck shut again after being pulled open. She carefully assessed the contents of each of these pockets, most of which were a mystery to her, carefully replacing each item. The belt had a knife, a very sharp knife, and this excited Magpie a lot more. She spent several minutes balancing this first in one hand, then the other, before replacing it in its sheath. The belt was too big for her, even at its narrowest setting, so instead she slung it over one shoulder. The rifle was heavy and cold and Magpie instinctively disliked it, but uncertain of the worth of this and the handguns, she carefully hung her body with these too. She wrapped the green jackets into a bundle and tucked it under one thin arm. She was delighted with the haul, and her eyes moved up the slope to the higher ground where the strangers had their camp, unguarded.

As she rose to go, she saw a flash of light; the sun reflecting off Daniel’s glasses. They were further out on the loch and progressing toward the outmost of the islands. Magpie wondered what they could be about. Not fishing the way they disturbed the whole valley with their cries and blunders. But Magpie sunk back down and watched. The sun reached its zenith and began to descend and still the pair explored the loch ruins, and Magpie watched. At around noon, the woman had fallen in too; their voices had carried over the water as they sat basking afterwards, faces turned up to the sun. Magpie recognised their relaxed contentedness and also their curiosity and found her own curiosity aroused. She watched the way they worked together, hearing the strains of their banter, if not their meaning. They disturbed a cormorant on the one of the islands, Magpie wondered why it had not taken flight before and watched it power away from the loch. She knew it was time for her to leave as well. Reluctantly she crept, heavily laden, through the ruins and up to the camp. There was little here worth taking, few possessions and Magpie already felt like a tree hung about with creepers. She turned away and disappeared back into the conifers from which she had come.

-

The light was going and, very suddenly, Sam felt how cold she had become. Daniel did not feel it, his passion kept him warm so that even now he was happily standing knee deep in the water the better to survey the assemblage of white splattered slates. She felt herself begin to shiver and thought of the shore, and the fire. They had stayed at it too long and her creeping sense of irritation led her to call shortly to Daniel and to make for the shore. There, the creep turned into something else, an internalisation of sinking cold. Their jackets and guns were gone, some scuffled footprints added to their footprints on the fine shingle where they had left them. The footprints disappeared on the wiry grass and the growing shadows of the ruins created a sense of eeriness that had not lingered before. For a few minutes, while they searched the area, they did not speak. Eventually, Daniel came to her, teeth chattering. She had been scanning the edge of the conifers, the shadows in the undulating moor, but the dusk light made the grey areas difficult to focus upon. Now she focused more easily on Daniel, who suddenly awake to the situation, looked as through he had been torn from a dream.

‘Come on, let’s go make a fire to dry out’

‘But...’

‘There’s nothing we can do’ she glanced around even as she said it. ‘We may as well get out of these wet clothes’ They began to climb the slope.

‘Should we make a fire?’ His voice sounded small, doubtful.

‘I think it’ll be alright, we should get it going. After all, Teal’c and the Colonel will be back soon.’

The tents had been flattened. The way the canvas moved in the wind it was clear that it had been ripped. The ashes from the fire had been kicked over the debris of their sleeping kit.

‘Sam?’ They had instinctively turned back to back, eyes scanning the darkening horizon, at least to the west there was still some light, but elsewhere the shadows were long, the silence pregnant. They both inwardly cursed their stupidity, Daniel reaching for his knife, the only weapon they hadn’t left on the shore.

‘So, maybe best not to light the fire.’ Her response was little above a whisper.

‘You’re shaking.’

‘It’s cold.’

Daniel plucked at his damp shirt, he was frozen too. ‘I feel naked.’ She turned her face towards him, questioning, the smallest quirk of amusement playing on her lips. ‘Well, you know, exposed.’ He added.

‘Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c will find us if we stay here, but lets move a little.’ They moved warily away from the camp. Sam was torn between seeking a hollow in which to hide and a high point from which to keep watch.

‘Do you think wolves…?’

Sam shook her head. ‘Our guns.’ He nodded and they continued up the slope in silence. The movement generated a little warmth and Sam had decided that, considering their position was clearly already known, it would be more useful to try and see the enemy, than to hide from it. Later, she wondered that she did not contemplate hiding in the broch. Not that it would have made any difference if they had.

For this was where the men were waiting for them. They did not pass close to the ruins, but rather steered around them and once they had moved on enough for the emergence to go unnoticed, the men spilt out. There was almost no fight. Both heard the running feet before the men reached them, both turned, Daniel fumbling with his knife. They moved forwards, rather than running, but a little courage and a single blade was nothing to the opposition, whose many bodies quickly surrounded them and brought a swift conclusion in the dim light.

Magpie had found a good place to lay low in the woods. It was a slaty outcrop. She took off the guns, dropped the jackets and carefully constructed a stone safe for them among the needles. As the sun was dropping, she fingered the dull green of the jackets, glanced at the darker green and brown of the trees above and around. Smiling she pulled one on. She cooed gently to herself as she pulled some of the undergrowth over her safe, nodding contently in appreciation of her work. Then she froze. Eyes with large whites turned upwards and scanned the small patches of sky visible between the boughs. The raven cried again. Her body gave an involuntary, jerking shudder beneath the large jacket and she slipped backwards, closer to the dense trunks. Minutes passed and then, ears finely tuned for another sign that the bird was overhead she cautiously moved among the trees. She knew what the raven meant. She knew the raven. She thought of a body, all bloodied to carrion and plucked by days of wind and rain into a strange parody and a raven there, and always a raven. She drew to the trees’ ending and there peered out from the shadows. It was not so dusky that she could not see the strangers from the loch standing in the ruins of their camp, back to back. She looked from them to the ruins of the broch further up the slope. Run, she willed them, even as she drew back. She saw the dark bird perching there. But they walked up the slope. Magpie felt sick helplessness, unexpected and strong. She did not wait to watch, but rather heard the capture as she fled into the trees, blindly running towards the loch edge where the open shore space would allow her to speed away. The jacket flapped around her like the wings of some strange bird.

-

O’Neill froze as he rounded the promontory. In the falling light he saw a figure stumbling towards him along the shore. He half turned to call Teal’c, but then his movement was arrested by recognition as the small figure at last saw him and pulled up, feet digging into the shingle. O’Neill saw the SG1 jacket hung over a tiny body bearing two huge white eyes as wet as the lapping loch by their feet. Magpie saw a tall man, clad as the other strangers in their forest tones, but face covered by a strange hat so that he seemed all shadow and dark. For the smallest moment they stared at one another and then Teal’c scrambled over the promontory rocks. The small figure gave a near inaudible yelp and, almost tripping over herself, fled into the trees. O’Neill didn’t think, he simply followed, heavy boots pounding the shifting pebbles and then suddenly cushioned by the needles as he ran into the close trees. The movement made more of his vision in that place than his eyes would have done and he moved after it, over trunk, rock and under sweeping branch. He heard Teal’c behind him but kept moving on deeper into the trees even as questions began to form in his mind. Eventually he admitted to himself that he could no longer see anything at all under the trees, let alone any figure to pursue. He cursed, the sound rasping and abrupt in the dampened surroundings. A moment later Teal’c came up on him, alert, questioning. O’Neill held up a single hand and they stood there with only their quickly drawing lungs to create a sense of life in the quiet world.

-

Magpie heard them. The more they crashed, the lighter she moved and now, having halted and thrown herself down on the piny bed, she could hear their uncertain stillness. The moments were a quick chance to think. Raven. Strangers, knives, shadow-hats and staffs and strange weapons, but loch side, wet laughter, gold hair and dark. She fought with herself briefly, then decided, stood abruptly, adding a broad flap of the jacket to her jerky ascent, heard the startled voice, and hastened on.

-

At the sudden reappearance of their quarry in the darkness, O’Neill put away questions once more and followed. But his questions returned with a growing sense of being drawn in, of a quarry that waited for you to be near, but not catching-near. He knew they should halt, but the persistent reappearance of the figure in the dark drew him on.
‘Hey’ he called at one point as they crossed a small clearing and he briefly saw the khaki-clad form in the moonlight.

‘O’Neill.’ Said Teal’c sometime later, not a question, more a reminder of reality, perhaps simply of the strong reality of his presence.

‘Yeah, I know’ He replied quietly but he didn’t stop. After a bit the ground began to slope more consistently and then, quiet suddenly, they came upon a burn, cutting a channel among the trees. The water gave off strange quivers of light, and the sound it made as it navigated the rocks finally brought O’Neill to a stand. He watched it and then, without knowing why, looked upstream.

She was standing, caught in the moonlight, quiet still, watching. He took off his cap, running his wrist across his brow as he did so, and stared back. She tipped her head slightly to one side, plucked at the jacket, but held his gaze. He started to climb up towards her. He heard a clamour of bird call, looked up, but saw nothing overhead. She had not moved and he pulled himself up the rocky burnside, every now and then looking down from her, to place his feet or hands. At the top a hand stretched out to pull him over the last boulder, and unthinking he grasped it, being hauled up into the stare of two set eyes. He blinked and the blade was at his throat. There were figures all around, his quarry indistinguishable in their ranks. His eyes thought to turn, but his assailant read their path and with a shake of the head, said no, a single finger rising to the thin lips. He felt hands on him. They pulled away his rifle that he had shouldered on his climb. Small fingers found his sidearm, knife, and explored his pack, all near silently, and without breaking the locking gaze of the eyes that held a blade at his throat. Then they blindfolded him and he felt the knife withdraw.

The hands still on him pushed and pulled him into stumbling movement and he obeyed as best he could their rough directions. He heard the water close, and then stumbled into an icy pool, the water overflowing his boots. He hissed, attempting to retreat. The hands on his back saying ‘no, no’ and pushing him on. He thought he heard the smallest laugh nearby. Then a pair of hands began to guide his feet into the footholds of a proper climb up slimy damp rock. He heard behind him, splashing, but did not break the silence to call to his friend. He felt the spell of the forest and the hands and the water. He felt drugged before threatened by it. He moved with it, allowed it to dull his senses and yet heard again at the edges, the smallest laugh, perhaps to go with the smallest hands which at that point went ruffling into his hair, pushing down his head into an ungainly stoop. A few echoing steps on, they tugged him up again, and held him less closely, as if their trust had grown with his compliance. A single pair of hands clasped his arm and guided him patiently and eventually, with a quick hand to his chest, halted him. Another body bumped against him. Hands pushed him to a hard rock floor. He reached out and felt the material of Teal’c’s uniform jacket, as an answer to his question. Time stretched out. He became tempted by tiredness. He thought of putting up his hands, lifting the fold, but he knew that he would see faces watching him if he did. They did not speak, but he knew they hadn’t gone. Perhaps Teal’c felt the same. His silence said so.

Some hours later, he had begun to seriously doubt that there had been any people at all. He had shuffled back to back with Teal’c and the regular breathing of his friend soothed him deeper, until he started to see a figure moving in the woods. He thought he recognised the jacket, thought it was Carter, made to call to her, but his mouth was dry. She was beyond his reach, always just beyond, further into the darkness. It was very still there, no movement, just darkness and…

The snore, echoed loud. He woke himself, eyes instinctively opening to fabric, hands flailing slightly. He heard laughter, tentative at first and then with growing confidence. Young laughter. A pair of hands clasped his head and pulled off the blindfold. He saw a blur of youthful face, then turned to look at Teal’c.

‘You ok?’ He asked. The spell was broken.

-

They were taken to the broch. All the way Daniel’s attention was split between the throbbing of his bust lip and trying to hear any snippets of conversation passed between their captors. They were all but thrown down the inside steps of the tower. A group followed them down, tied their hands behind their backs while a single huge figure stood before them. He examined Daniel first, his own face shadowed in the tower, then turned to Carter. He stepped forward and she unconsciously shuddered. There was just enough light to see his horribly scared face, the bloodshot eyes, the mauled skin and the coarse beard rebelling from it. He moved close to her and then roughly grabbed her by the shoulders. Daniel watched her looking back into the face, wide eyed, but defiant.

The man snorted, disgusted perhaps. Turning to the other men said, ‘They’re wet.’

‘We saw them by the loch, my lord.’

‘What were they doing there?’ He asked this question looking directly at Sam. Snarled, or perhaps smiled. ‘Search it.’ The other men made to leave. ‘No,’ he said suddenly, ‘there were others’ again looking at Sam. Daniel sucked his bleeding lip and watched her blank face. ‘We’ll search in the morning, the crannog and the forest, but tonight we’ll seek the others.’ He turned with a flurry of his long cloak, cuffing Sam on the head with one hand.

He and his retinue left, two men remaining at the top of the steps, watching. Sam stared at them, face upturned for a moment, and then with a beckoning jerk of the head, led the way over to one of the pillars. They sat down awkwardly, arms pinioned, but side by side. After a pause, Daniel spat onto the grass, bitterly. Now they were still, he realised he hurt and, more than that, he was desperately cold. He had been wearing a thick cloak of adrenaline for the last hour, but now it evaporated into the growing dark. He thumped his head against the pillar, letting out a gasp of frustration. In response Sam moved closer to him and he looked down slightly onto her shivering head of blond hair. He had been going to voice something near to despair, but instead,

‘Er, well it was difficult to see, but it seemed like they were Vikings. At least, fairly Nordic dress, but late, maybe 12th century. What was that?’ Something had swept suddenly over their heads.

‘I think it was a bird.’

‘And their swords were, yes they were definitely late, that type of blade, later than the Saxon steel period, could be Frankish imports, but probably later still…’ Sam made a small choking noise,

‘Oh, Daniel.’ He could hear her smile through her chattering teeth and felt himself grinning.

‘Well, this isn’t too bad is it, could be worse and I just thought, you know, know you’re enemy. Two guards, do you think?’ He dropped his voice as he said the latter. She shook her head.

‘I saw them calling down to some more people in the passage.’

‘Maybe we could draw them in?’ Sam considered this. Somehow draw them into the dark space and then set on them enough to confuse them, make a dash up the stairs…. If it had been O’Neill …

‘Don’t think so, Daniel.’ He seemed a little relieved. ‘Lets just concentrate on’, she grinned, ‘knowing our enemy.’ She shivered into the night as Daniel kept up an impressive monologue on Viking material culture, but eventually even he ran dry of things to say and fell silent.

A figure dropped down the steps, came and squatted down in front of them. He was difficult to see in the dark, but Daniel saw him put out a hand to Sam’s arm.

‘You’re frozen.’ He commented. Daniel felt defensive, tried to sit up slightly, but he’d misread the tone of voice. The man stepped back, pulled off his woollen cloak and dropped it over them. ‘Here.’ He seemed to be waiting for a response, disappointed when it wasn’t forthcoming. He took a few steps away, called up to his companion. ‘Håkon, give me your cloak.’ They couldn’t hear Håkon’s response, but the man came back empty handed. Daniel was now awake with interest. He thought he saw embarrassment in the man’s movement.

‘Thank you.’ Sam’s lead had been to keep silent, but he acted on instinct and, though she shifted slightly, she offered no protest. The man nodded. He lifted up a leather flask which hug from his belt, tugged out the wooden bung with his teeth, and proffered it. Seeing Daniel’s hesitation,

‘It’s water,’ he gestured, ‘your lip.’ Daniel looked into the man’s face, close now.

‘Thank you.’ He said again. He found himself moving forward to help the man clumsily pour water onto his face. Some of the water splashed onto his damp shirt.

‘Would you like some?’ Pushing the bottle towards Sam, who shook her heard.

‘Nils, you son of a whore…’ the voice floated down from the wall above. The man stood abruptly.

‘Aye.’

For a moment longer he stayed, looking at the pair, who were shuffling in an attempt to better arrange the cloak over themselves. Put out a hand, and then changed his mind and disappeared back up the stairs to become a silhouette once more.

-

O’Neill woke into light, sat up suddenly; eyes open to a sight that he could not quite believe. Then a flood of memories, injected his mind with understanding.

‘Good morning, campers.’

They were sitting on a ledge overhung by a craggy wall of a gorge. The burn, in bursts of white water, passed beside them a few yards away. On the far side, a set of jumbled boulders and beyond that the low entrance of a cave. A scatter of figures sat on the boulders, watching him. One turned and called into the cave, then after a couple of seconds rose and disappeared into it. The watchers looked tired, motley, fascinated. O’Neill found himself wishing for Daniel’s usually unasked for appraisal of the strange people they met, but all he had was Teal’c, deep in meditation. He considered his watchers. He could tell that there was something strange about their dress. There were rough clothes in dark colours anachronistically mixed with flashes of colour, identity, different cuts and materials. And the faces. They were all young, had seemed pale the night before, but now appeared like a tumbled group of children and youths gathered from any street, or perhaps from many streets. There were a few older faces, a sandy haired man with a stubble beard, a woman with tightly curling hair and a relaxed grip on a longbow. Perhaps these were the real guard, the others bystanders. He rubbed a hand over his own stubble.

‘Any chance of a cup of coffee?’

A group emerged from the cave, blinking in the light. In the middle of the group was a slight woman, who looked directly at him. She spoke in a low voice to the sandy haired man, who nodded and rose

‘You heard’ he said, ‘go on.’ The watchers dispersed and he and the curly haired woman withdrew up the burn’s course. O’Neill read the order as a demand for a return to everyday life. He stood up. No one protested. Stretched. The group around the woman had also dispersed, two of them going to a pool in the burn to wash. There was a small figure already there, he took a step forwards.

‘Any chance I could have that back?’ He gestured to the jacket lying on the rocks next to a small figure who was vigorously spraying water over her head, over those around her, like a bird in a puddle. One of the others gently pushed her, but she chattered and splashed regardless.

‘You have one of you own.’ The woman replied. She had dark brown hair, pulled back by two braids that ran around her head. She wore a short brown jacket, with a belt running over one shoulder. At her waist, a cloth wrapped sword hung, her left hand resting on the covered pommel.

‘It belongs to one of my team.’ His tone was a little more antagonistic than he intended.

‘She was cold.’ The woman replied, looking down to the pool. ‘Come.’ She turned and led the way up the stream. The small gorge narrowed here, and he noticed another cave entrance, with a group sitting in it. Beyond that there was a waterfall, sealing the gorge with its steep face. She paused as they reached it.

‘May I?’ He requested before leaning forward and diverting some of the spray over his face. After a moment, he went to join her on a rock nearby. She was looking up, to the top of the gorge, and he followed her gaze. For a brief moment he saw the sandy haired man, holding a bow and looking back down on them, before he disappeared over the lip. O’Neill smiled slightly to himself. So they were still under guard. Going nowhere. For a second staring at the waterfall, some of last night’s torpor returned and he thought, ‘Why would I want to?’ Then he shook his head clear.

‘How did you get that jacket? What’s going on?’ Those where the questions he should have asked earlier. She didn’t reply and then, glancing at his face, asked,

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Colonel Jack O’Neill. I’m… we’re explorers.’

‘Explorers?’

‘From Earth, heard of it? The Tauri.’

‘Earth? I do not know it.’ She tossed back her head thoughtfully, ‘but your friend is with the lizardmen.’

‘With the Goa’uld? You know the Goa’uld?’

‘We know them.’

‘Teal’c was with them, but now he’s with us. He’s part of my team.’

She studied him. ‘I understand.’

‘You do? ... and you’re not with the Gou’ld, at all?’ He loosely gestured with one hand.

‘No.’ There was a pause. Jack pushed back his cap,

‘So what the hell is going on?’

‘What are you doing here? Why did you come here?’

‘Well, we like bogs, for a start.’ For a moment he thought she hadn’t followed, but then she gave him a thin lipped smile.

‘It was you last night, with the knife, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, you are easily snared… K’nell.’

‘Er, its colonel.’

‘Kernel?’

‘Yeah, right, but it’s a rank… a title, my name is O’Neill. Jack O’Neill.’

‘And you are a leader, O’Neill?’

‘Of a team of four, yeah. I need to go and find my other team members.’

‘You cannot do that.’

‘No, I need to, they will be wondering where we are, we should have gone back to them last night and… how did you get that jacket?’ She sighed, looking up at the small stretch of sky above.

‘Magpie decided.’ O’Neill waited. ‘She decided it all.’ There was another stretch of silence, in which O’Neill sensed a kind of sadness, a weight of knowledge. He squinted up at the sun. ‘Well,’ he thought ‘I know what that feels like.’

‘My name is Lief. I do not have a rank.’

‘But you are a leader?’ She only smiled in reply.

‘Last night… I have spoken to Magpie. She took the jacket.’ She paused, but when he moved to speak, she held up a hand. ‘She told me… she saw your friends, down by the loch, out on the stoneways. They left some things on the shore. We call her the Magpie, she acquires things.’

‘Steals them.’

‘Collects them, like a magpie. She sees things too. She saw the Odinsmen.’ She read his blank expression, seemed relieved by it. ‘You do not know them. You are indeed strangers to this land. The Odinsmen took your friends.’

‘Whoa there, what do you mean?’

‘I was not there. I did not see what happened.’

‘But… come on, give me some information here.’

She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Magpie took your friend’s weapons. She did not know what they were. She did not know who you were.’ O’Neill made a frustrated noise, made to get up. ‘When she saw the Odinsmen,’ Lief put out a hand to hold him back, ‘it was too late. She fled, ran into you. She was frightened of you, but she recognised your cloth. You were going towards the Odinsmen. She was frightened, but she brought you here, to us.’

‘And who are you?’ He gestured around the gorge.

‘We are of the Picti. We are the Gaterunners.’

‘Gate, as in Stargate?’ There was real, direct interest in his eyes now.

‘The circle gate to the worlds?’

‘Sounds like we’re talking about the same thing. You’ve been through the Stargate?’

She laughed at his astonishment. ‘You are amazed? Is that not where you sprang from?’

‘Well, yeah, but…’

‘Odin forbids it. However, we are the Picti.’

‘Odin, the god? Is he around?’ She laughed again.

‘You are a strange man.’

When they stopped, Sam sat down instantly and removed her boots. Their clothes had dried with the wind and their movement, but her wet socks in wet boots had rubbed her skin into ballooning white blisters on either heel and on one big toe. One of the men nearby saw what she did and snorted. Daniel was still standing, staring blankly into the heathered slope. Sam reached up and tugged him down beside her. He let out a tired sigh as he flopped onto the ground.

‘Ouch’ he said, staring at the exposed feet. ‘You’re not going to… ach, do that. Look I know we haven’t eaten but please’. Sam ignored him and rung out her socks as tightly as she could before trying to force them back onto her numb feet. After a moment, Daniel lent back onto the bank by the roadside and shut his eyes. Sam let him. She looked around at their escort who were drinking and eating a little way away. Her mind instantly thought of escape, but she as soon knew it to be hopeless. They could run, but in this landscape, they could not hide.

They had been walking for five hours, she had cursed the drizzle which had come with the dawn, but now she was thirsty and tired with fighting the wind that had risen up. She rubbed at her face. These were physical problems, but her heart was raw with other troubles. Tramping along the road from the broch there was plenty of time for the mind to play with fears, fears for Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c, fears for Daniel, fears for herself. There was an utter helplessness to their situation which begged her to meekly go along with their captors demands, to avoid the difficulties of confrontation, but the ignorance in which they trudged irked her as much as her feet. In the morning light, as they had been moved from the broch, she had demanded answers, but had been met by silence and a little laughter. The only words from the men to them were orders to move, to keep moving, to stop, to move. Daniel had been interested in some of the runestones they had passed on their way, but she had only been interested in the ever growing distance between themselves and the camp as they trudged down the lochside opposite the forest. She squeezed her eyes shut, ‘What the hell was going on? What did they want? What was going on back at the camp? Where was Jack and what the hell was she going to do?’ She opened her eyes again to the reaching green-brown of the slope and the grey of the sky. There was no answer to her thoughts, or if there was, it was nothing.

Daniel could have been sound asleep, his glasses slightly skewed, his hair flopping onto his face. He could have been, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was blocking out all interfering sounds to home in on the conversation, to one particular conversation, passing between the Norsemen. This would explain the slight frown on his forehead as he tried to catch again the voice which had spoken of Odin. Håkon was complaining of warts to Trygver, this he could follow, when he did not want to know, but the soft voice talking of the gods would not reach him.

‘…and they came back just when the old witch visited us and I would not drink with her.’

‘but she’s of sejd, you should never have slighted a women of sejd, take your warts lightly man…’

‘… and the weather won’t hold, there’s a cloud out that will reach in a downdraught presently…’

‘…for there’s nay warts on your face now are there?’

‘not yet…’

‘and it will fair come on to rain, aye and blow, I reckon…’

‘…the witch wasny after you, it’s your wife you should watch for.’

‘well, she hasn’t a wart on her face either’

‘I shouldn’t look to her face…’

‘… the Røthjarl won’t find them if they’re gone to earth…’ Daniel’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly, that was it, the voice. ‘Røthjarl?’ he thought.

‘… he’ll set off back before dark…’

‘Jarl, as in the Jarldom of Orkney. Earl.’ thought Daniel.

‘…he’ll settle for these two well enough…’ Daniel didn’t catch the reply that was given to this, although he thought he caught the word Dinhalle. He brought his lessons in Old Norse to the fore of his mind. ‘Røthejarl. Red Earl.’

‘…well, moonwater cures boils so maybe you should try that…’ Daniel went back to tuning his ears.

Sam had turned to look over the grey water, quite a way from them now. There were geese down there. Every now and then the wind threw up their distant honking. She suddenly charged herself with the thought that she’d have preferred to come face to face with the showy architecture of the Goa’uld, when coming through the gate than this expanse. It had beguiled her when they had first arrived, but now it threatened with its bleak uncertainty. The further they went the more the unknown quantity seemed to surround her. Her eye was caught by movement. There was a small group of horsemen coming up the road towards them. They were moving quite quickly, she could tell, and yet, at this distance the progress seemed rather pathetic as they put their steads to each slope. There were three, one slightly ahead, its rider in a dark red cloak. She turned to look at the group of Vikings. One, seated furthest away, the man they called Tostig, wore a cape of similar colour. As she looked at him she saw his eyes widen slightly. He stood up,

‘Hey now, look who comes.’ The other men all turned or stood to see the riders for themselves.

‘Swainarse’s mare won’t take kindly to that.’ Said one.

‘Pig’s bottom,’ said Daniel quietly. He was sitting up, also looking to the approaching riders. ‘They called him Pig’s ass.’

It was clear, as the foremost rider drew nearer, why this was the case. Tostig strode forward to greet him, another man going forward to hold the bridle as the portly man heaved down onto the road. He first mopped his face with his sleeve, then, spoke in a surprisingly high voice,

‘The Røthejarlsen sends to know what news.’ His small eyes were fixed on the two captives as he said this. He started to move towards them, but the other man put a hand out to his shoulder and spoke to him in a low voice. They removed themselves slightly, conversing, one animatedly the other with restrained force. The other two riders who had drawn up decided to dismount. Their feet had, however, barely touched the ground, before they were ordered away.

‘Go on to the Røthejarl at the loch’s end, I must stay I’m afraid, but you hasten.’ With darkened faces, the two riders mounted and went on, while Swainarse clapped his hands together, looking once more with intensity in the direction of the two captives.

‘Let’s crack on then shall we?’

‘Perhaps,’ Tostig replied, ‘you should go on ahead of us.’

Swainarse put his head to one side, hands still clasped, ‘I’m not sure I should leave.’

‘Well, then perhaps Håkon could take your mare and go ahead with the news?’

‘Ah, well,’ came the hasty reply, as Swainarse went to take back the bridle, ‘Yarrow wouldn’t take to him. Not at all. Only cares for me of all the Odinsmen.’

Daniel distinctly heard, Håkon mutter, ‘the only thing that cares for you is a horse and your witch of a mother,’ as Swainarse made an ungainly ascent into the saddle.

Daniel had plenty of time to contemplate the derivation of Norse names as they followed Yarrow along the road as it turned with the bend in the loch and made for a small settlement nestling below a craggy outcrop at the loch’s coastal reach.

-

Teal’c had risen from mediation but stayed seated in his calm. Two men came and shared food with him. Told him his friend was upstream. Fed their curiosity, as they fed themselves. When they reluctantly left, to answer an irritated call for help from inside a cave, Teal’c rose and investigated the gorge. He recognised the seclusion it offered and wondering down the course of the burn met with a guard standing at one end. The guard raised a bow, Teal’c a hand, to indicate he meant no offence, and quickly turned and left. He followed the burn upstream and there saw O’Neill seated on a large boulder conversing with a woman. Nearby crouched a small figure, hung in khaki, clearly eavesdropping. For a moment he watched this strange scene, then withdrew.

He encountered two youths skinning a deer, and seeing the trouble they were having, bent to the task. They silently accepted his aid. At first the silence was hostility, uncertainty, but presently it lost that tenor, and became absorption.

O’Neill and Lief talked on for some time. He asked and answered many questions, she asked many, but answered few. Jack was pressing her once more for a reason why he could not go after Carter and Daniel, for an explanation for their capture and the threat she implied lay all around in the forest, when they were interrupted by a dark skinned, slight boy. ‘Where was Magpie’, he wanted to know, ‘where was the knife she had promised him?’ Lief looked alarmed jumped from the rock.

‘She was here, she was at the pool.’

‘Is she gone? Did you send her out?’ The boy asked and Lief, moving hastily towards him stopped dead.

‘No. I did not. Call Nethran and search the gorge, now.’ The boy was turning away. ‘I would never have sent her out.’

Colonel O’Neill followed her down to the caves where, suddenly all was action. He went and sat with Teal’c who was sharpening a knife on a whetstone.

‘O’Neill, I do not know what is amiss.’ He said, looking up from his work.

‘Ah, its just some kid gone awol. The one who stole the jacket.’ He threw a pebble into the burn and watched a group of young men coming out of a cave. ‘How many people are there here?’ he thought.

‘I saw her earlier.’

‘Yeah? You know these are weird people. I think they’re helping us, but I’m not entirely sure.’

‘They do not appear hostile.’

‘Well, no they’re not, but they’re not exactly helping either. I was talking to Lief… that’s their leader or something. She’s not hugely keen on us leaving, but you know, I don’t want to hang around playing in puddles when these Odinsmen, or whoever they are, have got Carter and Daniel.’ As he said this he threw a handful of gravel into the stream.

‘We should not antagonise these people, O’Neill. They could be allies.’

‘Oh for crying out loud, you sound like Daniel. I don’t care about their sensibilities, I care about getting the hell out of here, all four of us, in one piece…’ He was standing now. ‘… as soon as possible.’

‘Magpie has gone’ Lief’s tone was flat, but it might have been an accusation.

O’Neill turned to face her, ‘Do these people make no sound?’ he thought.

‘Gone where..?’ He started, but Teal’c cut him off.

‘Is she the girl in the uniform jacket?’

‘Yes.’

‘I saw her listening to O’Neill and yourself when you were talking near the waterfall. I believe you would call it eavesdropping.’ This last was directed at O’Neill, who raised his eyebrows, shrugging slightly.

‘Yeah?’ but Lief did not shrug, her face looked briefly distressed.

‘Then I think I know where she is.’ She said, in a low, cold voice, walking away from the strange men toward her own, who stood around their faces anxious, expectant and alert.

-

‘I think this is a souterrain.’

‘A what?’ Sam asked into the darkness.

‘A souterrain; an Iron Age underground storage chamber as built in Scotland in the first millennium BC… and probably used long into the first millennium AD… including, it would seem…ouch, I think the roof’s lower over here…by the Vikings.’

‘Great. Any way out?’

‘Apart from the way we came in? No, I don’t think so.’ Daniel’s attempt to circumnavigate the walls brought him back round to Sam. ‘Should we try the trap door?’ Sam looked upwards to where chinks of light could be seen creeping through the door over the vertical shaft down into the chamber.

‘If we’re going to try it, we should probably wait ’til its dark.’

‘Well, at least it’s not raining in here.’

‘Actually, I think water’s coming in. Not much good for a storage chamber.’

‘I don’t think they’ve been storing anything here for while. Ow.’

‘Sorry, Daniel.’ Sam stepped backwards again and then giving up found a wall to sit against. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she saw the figure of Daniel, still poking about. After a minute she shifted. Her tee-shirt might have been wet following the sudden downpour as they had descended to the settlement, but the wall was definitely damp. ‘Perhaps, we’re meant to die a slow death by drowning in here.’

‘Then we won’t die of thirst, first.’ Replied Daniel, taking something over to the light to examine.

‘What is it?’ Sam could see his floppy haired head in the grey light beneath the shaft.

‘Er, a bucket.’

Sam snorted. ‘We could use it to bail out.’

‘We could, but I figured it would make a better seat. Here.’ He stumbled towards her proffering the upturned bucket, but Sam declined.

‘I wouldn’t Daniel, it’s probably not clean. You know?’

‘Oh, right, yeah.’ He said, hastily putting it to one side and wiping his hand on his trousers. A silence began to develop. Daniel’s searches brought up some potsherds and then a metal object, which excited him considerably. He stood, muttering to himself under the hatch, frustrated by the lack of light. Eventually he gave up and proffered this to Sam as well. She smiled at him in the darkness, and he saw the brief flash of white teeth.

‘Thanks, Daniel, better than a bucket.’ She took the object in her hands and felt it. ‘It’s a brooch.’

‘Yeah, but missing its pin. A fibulae, actually. Not late Viking, but then it could have been here for years…. Or brought here on someone else, I suppose.’ He could tell that, like him, she was exploring the metalwork form with her fingers. It was what he liked to do with artefacts. Perhaps he should conduct more of his study in the dark.

‘We’re going to be alright, Sam. Jack and Teal’c will come for us.’

‘I know.’ Daniel smiled this time. She sounded a little too firm and he knew why. She had a scientific mind, she’d have been working it out; the chance of Jack and Teal’c having not been caught and then, the chance of them not being seen if they had followed the group tramping to the settlement, and then again, if Jack and Teal’c hadn’t followed the group, the chance of them finding the settlement and the souterrain, when they had a vast landscape to search. ‘Are you shivering?’

‘It’s cold in here.’

‘We should run a caucus race.’

‘My feet couldn’t bear it.’

‘How are they?’ Daniel asked as he started to jump up and down in the darkness.

‘I don’t want to look.’ Her stomach grumbled loudly. She was so thirsty, only pride had stopped her turning her face to the sky when the heaven’s had opened on them earlier. As it was the dripping water by the hatchway kept catching her attention. ‘What did you think of the settlement?’

Daniel paused to answer her, ‘A strange mixture, just like everything else here. Some ruined Iron Age stuff, some still in repair, those were the stone structures, and several Viking longhouses and of course the great hall up above. Very impressive and definitely Nordic. Late decoration too, Ringerike maybe Urnes.’

‘What about the runestone?’

‘I wasn’t close enough to read it. It looked interesting though.’ He looked across to where he knew she was sitting ‘Not much to go on, is it?’

‘No,’ thought Sam, ‘not really’. Nothing to give her the explanation that her indignant demands had failed to provoke from Tostig and his distant men. She got the definite sense that he wanted nothing to do with them. Swainarse, on the other hand… she shuddered suddenly, goose pimples rising on her arms.

‘I feel quite awake now,’ said Daniel, ‘why don’t you get some sleep? Sam?’

‘Okay, but wake me after an hour, alright?’

Daniel gave her two.

‘O’Neill I think we should not disturb them.’

‘To hell with that, Teal’c. I’m done waiting; they’ve been talking for two hours.’ He rose and walked purposefully towards the seated group. A figure popped up and pressed a hand against his chest.

‘It is the council’ the young boy said earnestly, ‘you must stay here.’ O’Neill pressed forwards. ‘No, no, sir, you must wait. We must all wait.’

‘Look, kid, I don’t have the time to wait. My people may not have the time to wait for whatever it is you’re doing. I want my weapons and I want to leave. Now.’ He had progressively raised his voice as he said this, so that those seated nearest turned to look at him. He glowered right back at their disapproving stares. For the last hour they had sat, watching Lief holding ‘the council’ with a select group of the people in the gorge. The others had hung around the boundaries, catching snippets of what was said, watching the strangers. Teal’c’s two ‘friends’ had brought him some food and talked to him in low voices. They had seemed awed by him, but now they were standing up, Teal’c at their side, watching him in horror. ‘Well, in for a penny…’ Jack thought and he pushed his way into the seated group. ‘Lief? I’ve got something I want to say to this council: ‘I want to go, right now.’’. He paused, made uncomfortable by the white face of Lief as she rose and stood a few yards before him. ‘We’re going.’ He stated as firmly as he could.

‘Going?’ She asked, ‘just like that? Gone?’ Her voice was taut with a cold anger and she flicked back her hair and placed a hand on the hilt of the sword she wore. ‘You do not know us, O’Neill. You do not know our ways. You do not know this land. You do not know what lies beyond the brim of your hat. You do not know what goes on here and most of all,’ O’Neill caught a glimpse of red reflected light as she drew the cloth wrapped around the sword’s hilt away, ‘You do not know me’. And in a flash she had drawn the blade and O’Neill saw not dull grey, but a searing wave of blue-tinged energy that arced, ringing, around the sword’s trajectory and clung to its strange surface.

‘Holy…’

Lief looked right into O’Neill’s face which lay open with wonder. She stepped towards him, the sword crying as she cut it through the air before her. He stumbled backwards, feeling the sharp movement of the air as though the sword was a scythe pushing it towards him.

‘This is Odin’s blade, strange man. Do not cross me. I will not brook it.’ Jack could not draw his eyes from the weapon. Beyond the blue grey aura surrounding it, was the shape of a normal sword, doubled edged, and yet each edge was strangely faceted, crailed. The hilt looked of gold, set with many red stones that threw light themselves adding to the forceful presence of the blade.

‘Odin’s blade?’ he held out his hands in a gesture of appeasement, ‘weapon of the gods. I’m not going to argue with that.’ She looked at him and her council watched her, the numbers swelled by all the people of the gorge who had appeared at the council’s edges. She held the sword up for a moment, looking at it. The light fell on her face. The audience was rapt. Then she glanced back to him.

‘Sit, then.’ She did not resheathe the sword but leant back against her boulder, the blade resting across her body. ‘If you must, sit in the council, and listen, and learn to keep your council, until you understand those around you.’ People immediately shifted to provide O’Neill with a space, as though he were a feared thing, a strange, but daring entity. He mutely sank to the ground. She held up a hand, the seated figures gave her all their attention, the peripheral watchers melted away. She nodded slightly, ‘It is not well to hold the call of force at this council, let me lay it down.’ The girl to her left, without a word, held out her cloak and Lief took it and laid the blade part wrapped within it at the council’s feet. O’Neill saw the sandy-haired man look from the sword, to Lief and then to him. He could not read the look in the man’s eyes. ‘Then Nethran, continue as you were saying,’ Lief commanded.

-

‘Why is it’ said Sam, ‘that the locals are never happy to see us?’

‘Well … that’s a … rather ethnocentric… way of seeing it.’ Replied Daniel through clenched teeth.

‘I don’t follow…left a bit’

‘Ah … that enough? … calling them the locals, I mean.’

‘Keep still.’

‘I’m trying’ his voice was gritted

‘Oh come on, Daniel, you know what I mean.’

‘Yes, yes I do… can we take a break?’

‘Mmm, ok. Ready?’ She lifted first one leg and then the other, jamming herself into the narrow shaft of the souterrain entrance, Daniel walked away hastily, rubbing is shoulders, then swinging his arms.

Having been woken by Daniel, Carter had attempted to keep watch while he slept, but finding that she was in danger of drifting back into sleep herself she had directed her attention to escape. Eventually, when Sam had fallen off the upturned pail a third time in her attempts to reach the trapdoor shaft, Daniel had woken and was now, somewhat testily, aiding her attempts by allowing her to stand on his shoulders freeing her hands to work on the hatch.

‘We’re always outsiders, that’s all’ came Daniel’s voice. ‘They’re no more hostile then we’d be… in fact, they’re probably a lot less. If you think about them as ‘locals’ you make them sound like village rustics compared to us, the suave metropolitan types, but, you know we’re hardly that, we’ve only known about the gate for a few decades and been able to use it for less, we’re fumbling round the galaxy, the new-kids-on-the-block.’

‘So basically, we’re as rustic as they are?’ It was Sam’s turn to sound clenched as she held herself in her cramped position several metres above the floor, twisted like a spider-cast.

‘You have to see things from their perspective…’

‘Even if their perspective is looking down on us in a poky hole?’

‘…their response is no different to that we’d receive in many communities on Earth, if we turned up saying we came in peace, but holding guns, saying we’re just explorers, but quite happily taking whatever we can get.’

‘Hey, come on, we use what we take against the Goa’uld. Are you ready to have another go yet?’

‘Just a second. Yeah, I know and, of course, I’m with you on that, but its not always what the SGC’s about, is it? I mean we take for America too, don’t we?’

‘So taking stuff for science is alright, but not for politics?’

‘All I’m saying is that it’s difficult. We don’t exactly come with pure hearts and the intention to take only memories and leave only footprints. Like explorers of the past we’re mixed up with the politics of nation state and of military strategy… we’re not just here to learn.’

‘Ok. Yeah, I get it… add to that the new dimension of intergalactic politics and threats and you get SG1 looking for weapons as often as sentient life… or even in preference. Can you hurry up, I’m slipping.’

‘Besides, half the time we’re popping out of the portal known mostly for its association with the Goa’uld - not necessarily the best introduction.’

‘So… I can’t see you, are you there?…’

‘Here, I’ll guide your foot’

‘… you win, its perfectly acceptable for the locals, sorry the various Tauri inhabitants of many worlds, to be so unhappy to see us.’ She had got one foot down onto his shoulder now and was about to shift her weight back onto it when she froze. She had no time to do anything more than this before the trapdoor opened and a burst of rain-bearing air thrust itself into the souterrain. A ruddy face appeared looking straight down on the surprised expression of the contorted Captain Carter. She blinked. His face broke into amusement.

‘Well, well.’ He said. He stared at her for a long moment. ‘I brought you some food… and something to drink.’

‘Thank you.’ Sam replied, not moving. Daniel, standing below, recognised the voice, it was the same man who had given them his cloak the night before.

‘I brought you a couple of blankets as well, since I reckon it’s none too warm in there.’

‘Not especially.’ Sam agreed.

‘Hmm... You going to take these then?’

Sam gingerly removed an arm from its bracing against the shaft. She had quickly drawn her left foot back off Daniel’s shoulder but hadn’t found a secure purchase for it. As she reached up for the first parcel, she felt its grip slide and then shoot loose out of the base of the shaft. Daniel half caught her, half was flattened by her. The parcels bounced onto their prone bodies.

‘Goodnight, then.’ The Norseman seemed all the more cheerful for the incident. He was moving to lift the door shut again. Sam stumbled upright.

‘Please, you have to let us go.’ He paused to look at her.

‘And why is that, hmm? Why is that?’ When she didn’t answer, he snorted. ‘No good demanding things of me.’

‘We’re not demanding.’ Daniel’s voice seemed very small and caused the Norseman to pause again at his work. He squinted down at their upturned faces in the low light of the overcast evening.

‘What do you think I can do?’ He asked, shaking his head. ‘I brought you food, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, thank you, but…’ He made a humphing noise as he pulled the trap shut. For a few moments longer, they listened in the resumed darkness, then Sam began to seek out the bundles.

‘You alright?’ Daniel asked as he squatted to help her

‘Nothing damaged except my dignity. How about you?’

‘I didn’t have much dignity to start off with.’ He was eagerly unwrapping a large loaf from within a woollen cloak.

‘Right, but anything else damaged? You did kinda break my fall. Urgh, that’s not water.’ She handed Daniel a canteen. ‘Mead?’ He gave it a sniff, then took a swing.

‘Probably small beer, but I’ll drink to that.’ He raised the canteen for a second, then took a satisfyingly long draft. ‘You caught me in the ribs with one boot, but I’ll live.’ Through a mouthful of bread Sam asked,

‘Broken?’ He shook his head too busy to reply. They fell silent, engrossed in their urgency for food. After they had consumed more than the edge of her mind told her they should, Sam held out a hand to stop Daniel from finishing the bread off. She stood abruptly to rap herself in one blanket, clasping it shut with a cold hand. Daniel squinted at her,

‘I bet you look really Nordic.’

‘I bet I look a complete sight… at least the Colonel isn’t here to have a good laugh.’

‘You never know, he’ll probably turn up in the night.’ Daniel wrapped himself up as well. ‘He doesn’t like to pass on an opportunity...’

Sam listened to the rain outside. ‘He’s not coming tonight,’ she thought. The wind was banging something nearby, rhythmically. Had the Viking forgotten to batten something down? ‘Shall we have another go at the trapdoor?’

‘Why not?’ said Daniel, whilst thinking of several good reasons why not, prime among them being his desire for sleep. ‘Can I stand on your shoulders this time?’

-

The trouble was, O’Neill decided, that they spoke too quickly. Try as he might he hadn’t followed the Council, neither its arguments nor its conclusions. Now the group had broken up and he went to sit with Teal’c on a hard ledge, none the wiser for his interruption. He moaned that the cold rock was no good for his butt, but Teal’c merely raised an eyebrow. After a moment, when nothing else was forthcoming, Teal’c decided a prompt was in order.

‘O’Neill, it appears that they are packing up to leave.’

‘Yeah,’ O’Neill agreed, watching the movement of people all around them. ‘Looks like it.’ Again, Teal’c waited, again O’Neill offered nothing.

‘The Council ordered that they should leave?’ He eventually suggested.

‘Mmm.’ Came the non-committal reply from O’Neill, as he adjusted his boot.

‘Are we to leave as well?’

‘I sure as hell hope so, Teal’c.’

‘You do not know?’

O’Neill pushed back his cap with one hand, slipped on his sunglasses with the other. ‘No.’ He conceded. Teal’c considered this in silence. O’Neill sighed. ‘From what I could gather at their meeting, council… thing, they were disagreeing over what to do. This man called Nethran wanted to do one thing, but Lief didn’t agree. After a bit, Lief put her foot down and said what was what.’ If Carter or Daniel had been there, thought O’Neill, someone would have said ‘and what was that?’, but Teal’c simply waited patiently. ‘I haven’t a clue what she said. It could have been a different language. I think it was a big deal though. It was definitely a big deal.’

It began to rain. O’Neill looked disgustedly up at the small patch of grey sky above the gorge. He slipped off the ledge and sort shelter in one of the caves, removing his shades and squinting in the dim. Bodies moved around them. He sensed the same restlessness among them as had stirred during the council. A figure pushed up against him. It was Nethran, shaking water from his sandy hair. He stared at O’Neill a moment and then said abruptly,

‘Perhaps it is as well.’ He looked down at the sword in his hands. O’Neill looked too, saw it was the sword, carefully wrapped up once more, its leather strap swinging below.

‘By which you mean…?’

‘That you came. Perhaps it is as well.’ He was strapping on the blade. ‘Some things will be.’

‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t know what the problem is and frankly, I’m not sure of I care, but please, tell me one thing straight – can Teal’c and I have our weapons back and go?... now.’ Nethran had his hand resting on the sword’s pommel, in exactly the way Lief wore it.

‘Of course.’

O’Neill looked thrown.

‘We’re gone. You’re gone.’

‘Hey, I said straight.’

Nethran smiled. It was a patronising smile to give to a man more than twice his age, but he was feeling charged. ‘Why don’t you go and find Lief?’ Then, suddenly, he reached forward and took O’Neill arms, saying earnestly. ‘I do not wish you ill. This is dangerous. You have brought this danger, but I wish you good fortune.’ O’Neill was again thrown by Nethran’s sudden change in attitude.

‘What’s going on?’ Nethran looked hard at him.

‘We are disbanding, the gaterunners and the Picti.’ He saw O’Neill’s lack of comprehension. ‘The runners, we are fifteen, the rest of the people here are of the Picti. They have come because they seek leadership that their elders do not offer. They find what they are seeking in Lief, but she does not know what way lies ahead for them, or for her. She cannot endanger them, so she is sending them back to the Pictish dwellings where they are safe. I will lead the runners on. There is much to be done.’ He pushed past O’Neill into the cave. O’Neill made to follow, but Nethran was calling orders into the cave and instead, he went back to the entrance, where he found Teal’c.

‘Well, that made everything clearer.’ He commented to the big man. They watched the rain and the closer, denser streams of water drizzling from the cave mouth. O’Neill found himself wondering where Daniel was. He would understand what was going on, would have been able to communicate with these people. ‘Have you seen Lief?’

‘I have not.’ A group of people moved past them and hurried out into the rain. A further group followed them. ‘Do you wish to find her?’ O’Neill did not reply. Nethran strode past into the rain, his voice calling people urgently. O’Neill stepped out of the cave and surveyed the scene. A motley group heading out of the gorge, Nethran, hair plastered down, moving quickly towards another group, two boys of no more than twelve standing forlornly at the burn’s edge. Lief was there. She appeared suddenly, spoke to each boy carefully, bending to instruct each, making direct eye contact. She straightened and O’Neill watched a strange look pass between her and Nethran. He was an intruder here, suddenly he felt it strongly, and stumbled backwards into the dry.

Two hours later, he looked out again. The gorge was deserted, but running hard with water. A little later, Lief appeared. She sat with them, soaked to the skin. O’Neill didn’t dare say anything.

-

Daniel looked up at the carved entranceway. The wood working was impressive interlace of a style he recognised as late 11th/early 12th Scandinavian Urnes ornament. Despite himself, he was impressed, squinting in the torch light to better see the designs. Beside him, Carter shifted uneasily. His eyes rested on a figurative panel among the interlace. He moved closer to the woodwork, causing their guards to stir from their casual postures. He lifted up an appeasing hand, but continued to study the carving. Sam came to have a closer look as well. There was a raven, similar to that caved in the broch, but beneath it were figures engaged in some strange activity. Daniel reached out a hand and touched the carving. One of the guards, holding a torch, came close behind them to see what they were about. The flickering light drew out the designs and Daniel muttered as he traced the figures, nodding.

‘Daniel?’

‘A smithy.’ He said in a low voice. ‘These people are casting metal and these are heating a furnace… there that’s a crucible….’ He pointed to a figure, directly below the raven, which was holding a crucible with a pair of tongues. The crucible was being tipped and the liquid metal pouring from a spout. Daniel reached out and touched the carving of the liquid metal.

‘Whoa.’ He pulled his hand back as if stung.

‘That’s not wood.’ Sam thought. She had seen the carving glow slightly as Daniel had touched it. Now she reached out herself and softly rested her fingers on the ‘wood’. Instantly she felt uncomfortable warmth, but she held her hand as it was and the cascading liquid metal, flowing from the crucible, glowed brightly. The guard reached from behind her and pulled her arm away. She turned and faced him, but saw only bewilderment in his eyes.

‘Sam, what do you think it is?’ asked Daniel, but Sam wouldn’t answer, not in front of the guard.

‘Naqueda,’ she thought ‘or some derivative. It has to be.’

Since they had been summoned from the souterrain they had been brought first to one longhouse, then another. Now they stood outside the great hall building, apparently awaiting admittance. Sam was on edge. She had given the same straight replies to the same strange questions in each house. It was quite clear that they were not believed. Stranger still, there was no getting round the fact that people kept referring to them as being ‘of the faeries’. She could imagine that O’Neill would find this extremely amusing. In another context she would have done too, but they were captives and it was quite clear that their captors held potent animosity towards ‘the faeries’ of which they spoke. The last house had been the worst. The abode of Sven Sturlesen. Swainarse. She shuddered again as she thought of his lecherous stares, the way he had put his warm, sweaty hand over her mouth to stifle her answers. His other hand had tightly gripped her arm, Daniel had begun to protest, Swainarse to angrily silence him, but then a messenger had appeared. They had been called to the Dinhalle. They must go immediately. Sven Sturlesen must attend the Røthejarle directly. So now they waited, with their escort, outside the large doors of the hall.

Swainarse emerged from the doors, halting suddenly as he moved towards them, his eyes on Daniel. The archaeologist, oblivious to the attention, had his bespectacled face inches from the wood and was noiselessly mouthing something as he traced his hand across the foot of the panel.

‘Daniel.’ said Sam, sharply and he quickly straightened up. In a brief moment of contact his eyes told her there was much he wished to communicate, but on the order of Swainarse, they were swiftly marched into the hall.

It was an incredible sight. Lit by torches that caught and animated the carved wood, the high hall was divided by huge, ornate posts into three aisles. Halfway down a group of men stood around a hearth, but their eyes were drawn beyond that. At the opposite end, on a dais raised a good four feet off the ground stood a vast box-like chair, on the back of which perched a raven. Beside the chair, a tall figure in a dark red cloak stood. His yellowed eyes were trained directly on them. Indeed every eye in the room followed them as they self-consciously walked toward the dais. The raven suddenly flew up, its flapping surprisingly loud as it careered into the roof space. The man arranged himself into the framing of the chair, resting his roughly bearded chin on a blotchy hand and Sam and Daniel came to a stand before him.