Free Stargate SG-1: Trial by Fire: SG1-1 by Sabine C. Bauer

towards a nearby cedar. Stay put, indeed! They weren't going to
take her without a fight!
    Albeit savage, the savages weren't stupid. They spread out,
offering less of a cohesive target, and the front men carried shields.
O'Neill was firing again, several times, rounds pinging on metal
plating, probably piercing whatever armour those people had, but
they still kept coming. She heard the crack of a breaking branch
behind her, wheeled around and lashed out wildly. She must have
connected, too, for her attacker howled in pain or fury and raised
a stubby sword.
    A gladius. Here? How did they come by those? While some
distant corner of her mind still puzzled over the incongruity, another
shot rang out and the Roman sword sunk limply, followed by its
owner in whose forehead gaped a small round hole.
    Covering her had been a mistake. With O'Neill's attention
diverted, five men had made a dash for him. The flat of a blade
crashed down on his arm, sent the gun flying. He ducked, rolled out
from under them. When he rose again, he was hefting a knife.
    Well, that was no good, was it?
    Wishing she' d joined the fencing club instead of the debate team
when she'd first enrolled at Oxford, Professor Kelly grabbed the
hunting stool with both hands and charged. The spiky end impaled
itself in the posterior of one of O'Neill's attackers, and the man
leaped forward with a roar, his knees sagging, dragging down her
makeshift weapon. She wrested it free and hit him over the head
with it.
    For a second or two there was a dumbfounded lull, then four
more men launched themselves into the fray. O'Neill disarmed one
and wounded another, just as a third snuck up behind him. The
pommel of a sword struck his temple, vicious enough to split skin,
and he crumpled. The attacker snatched him as he fell and held him
propped up like a puppet, fist locked in his hair, edge of the sword
across his throat.
    "Remitte!" the savage shouted at Kelly.

    Give up? Not on your life, duckie! In response she swung the
hunting stool at the nearest victim.
    "Remitte!" This time the blade had drawn blood.
    Obviously that pillock meant it, and O'Neill was unlikely to
be any more pleasant with his head cut off. She supposed she
owed him one. If he'd taken to his heels and left her there - which
anybody with half a brain would have done, by the way - he could
have outrun them.
    "Oh alright, then!" Grudgingly Kelly dropped the stool and
raised her hands.
    "Nolite occidere!" the man barked at his compatriots and almost
gently lowered O'Neill to the ground.
    Don't kill them? Well, that just wasn't cricket! If she'd known
Some broken-nosed oaf cautiously approached her, and
suddenly his eyes went wide.
    "Quam avia mea videtur!" he hollered, and a few of the men
started laughing.
    "So I look like your grandmother, do I? I'll give you your
grandmother!"
    A huge, beefy hand snapped around her wrist and blocked the
blow. Simultaneously something very hard impacted with her skull.
Kelly's last conscious sensation was a teeth-rattling thud, then she
blacked out.
    Teal'c had escorted Ayzebel into the house, and Daniel had
posted himself by the open front door waiting for his team mates
and the Professor. On the streets some kind of carnival was in full
swing. After the darkness and quiet of the hillside, the city seemed
garish and noisy. Torches stuck in iron brackets at every house and
flickered over a scene that had mutated from worshipful elation
to Bacchanalia. The good burghers of Tyros had raided their wine
cellars, pitchers and amphorae were passed to family and strangers
regardless, with everyone vying to achieve maximum inebriation
in minimum time. A delicate, dark-eyed girl caught his eye, smiled,
and glided towards him.
    "Please, friend, drink." Small brown hands held up an
amphora.

    Her smile, shy and placid, reminded him of Sha're, and he
grinned back. "No, thank you. I... uh... get sick..."
    "Please, friend. Just one sip,"