"You should see it in winter." Ronon grinned.
After realizing that the journey through the gate had had the same rejuvenating effect on him that it'd apparently had on Teyla, the rain couldn't even begin to bother him. What did make him shudder, though, was the litany of complaints they'd be treated to once they found McKay. Then again, he'd gladly listen to it and the inevitable encores, just as long as they did find the scientist. Ronon wanted to go back to his Atlantis and hug a few Wraith.
Ahead the trees were gradually thinning out, admitting wads of glum gray light that seemed tired enough to wink out at a moment's notice. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was, though Ronon guessed it had to be mid-afternoon or thereabouts. If they were lucky they had maybe three hours of daylight left, perhaps four, tops. Which meant that they'd better find themselves some shelter, because even Ronon's current tolerance of the weather conditions didn't extend to wanting to spend the night out in the open.
When they reached the edge of the forest he stopped, pulling Teyla in close beside him. Stretching out before them was a vast alpine meadow that sloped down toward a jumble of farm buildings at its bottom. More than likely the home of those pigs and their herder-who might or might not be McKay. Still, instinct warned him against wading in there and asking questions. Two strangers suddenly appearing out of the mountain wilderness were bound to raise suspicion.
Interestingly, there was a lot of non-agricultural commotion happening on the farm. In pairs or small groups people were filtering out through the main gate and onto the road. Further down in the valley more people from other farms and homesteads joined the stream of travelers. It looked like birds gathering for their winter journey south. Ronon had a fairly good idea of what this was all about.
"You know," he murmured to Teyla, "my father had a farm back on Sateda."
"As a matter of fact, I didn't know that. You never told me."
"Yeah, well, I don't think of it much anymore." Which wasn't entirely true. He did think of it, but he refused to hanker after things that were lost. Neither the farm nor his parents had survived the Wraith attacks. "Farm sounds too grand, really," Ronon continued. "He farmed maize, made barely enough to feed us. Once a year there'd be a market in the nearest town, everybody would go and the roads into town looked just like this" A boyhood memory of the sheer excitement of trekking to the fair made him smile whether he liked or not. "Place was full of gossip. If you wanted to hear all the latest news, that was where you went."
"Let's go to the market then." Teyla grinned. "It's been a long time since I've been trading. I'd like to know if I still remember how to do it."
"Hate to break it to you, but you haven't got anything to trade."
"I'll think of something."
After a moment's deliberation, Ronon decided to stay in the cover of the trees and only cut across to the road further down. A lot further down. It forced them into a detour back toward the interior of the forest, but eventually, the trees thinned again and from below he could hear the rattle of wooden clogs on paving stone and the murmur of conversations. Fewer than fifteen feet beneath them ran the road, filled side to side with a throng of people, all bedraggled, all pushing toward town. The forest trail had handed them a shortcut.
He snatched a fistful of Teyla's shirt, skidded down an embankment and onto the road in a small avalanche of mud and pebbles and twigs, and almost knocked into a burly mid dle-aged man who glared his suspicion from under the brim of a sodden hat. Several others who'd witnessed their entrance looked equally wary, and Ronon congratulated himself on not stopping at that farm. These folks weren't exactly the trusting kind.
Jerking his chin at Teyla, he offered the first harmless sounding excuse that sprang to mind. "Wife's pregnant. Has to go every five minutes."
Teyla pinched him, hard, and it was all he could do to choke back a yelp. "Why don't you shout it out, so everybody can hear about my private business?" she snapped.
"She's moody, too," he muttered with a conspiratorial wink at the burly middle-aged glarer.
The glare softened a little, but the guy still didn't offer anything in the way of chat. Head ducked between his shoulders against the rain that was still hammering down, Ronon took his cue from him and trudged on in silence, furtively scanning the people around him. Local fashions were so eclectic that he and Teyla hardly stood out. Made sense, too. In this climate you wore whatever was handy.
After about an hour, his taciturn companion finally grunted, "Shame." The hand he waved in front of his eyes clarified the rest.
"She was born that way," Ronon lied, shrugging. "Pretty enough, though."
"Aye," grunted the man and slumped back into his reticence.
Which proved that Ronon had given the appropriate answer, even if it earned him another pinch from his `wife.'
At last the road emerged from the forest, offering a cloudmuffled vista of a broad river valley below. Smack in the middle, clamping the river like a vise, sat a surprisingly large city. Its center and probably the most ancient part was protected by heavy fortifications-well-maintained, as far as he could judge from the distance-and outside those walls stretched a vast sprawl of small houses. Obviously their residents were deemed expendable, else they'd be sheltered within walls as well. The only protection consisted of an earth levee that didn't look like it could hold back a cup of tea. In places the river was licking over the top already, and people were scurrying to pile up sandbags.
As they drew closer, Ronon recognized the squalor. He'd seen it in the slums festering around the government district in the version ofAtlantis where he'd been exiled for more than ten years. The reek of poverty-a nauseating perfume of boiled cabbage, trash and raw sewage-bore down on the road, which bisected the suburb. Though built of stone, the houses were tiny and pockmarked by decay. Hunched in doorways that were shuttered only by strips of moldy fabric sat old people, staring in toothless curiosity. Children, wrapped in wet tatters and frozen blue, darted in and out of the throng pushing along the road, pickpocketing where they didn't beg. Above it all, like a lid to keep in the misery, hung a choking layer of brume, struggling up from countless chimneys only to be pushed back into the streets by the rain and the clouds.
The flow of bodies heading along the road had swollen to a flood heavy enough to separate them from their travel companions and carry them off into complete and welcome anonymity. Teyla stayed in character anyway. The picture of the timid, pregnant wife, she huddled tighter against him. "I smell wood smoke and lots of it," she murmured under her breath. "If they originally built those ruins up in the mountains, their heating should be a little more advanced than that."
She was right. And now that she'd mentioned it, Ronon realized that he'd seen no technology that even remotely approached that of the Ancients. Transport was basic to say the least; most people walked, though here and there he spotted men on horseback. Goods shuddered along either on the bent backs of their owners or in rough-hewn carts drawn by oxen. A quick glance through a window proved that artificial lighting was restricted to tapers and torches, cooking was done on open fires. Tools and weapons were just a hair shy of primitive-down one street he discovered a smithy complete with anvil and bellows.
Before he could decide what to make of it, the procession ground to a halt, and people were being nudged into the backs of folks in front. Nobody complained or protested, so this had to be a normal occurrence. As they approached the outer ring of the fortifications at a snail's pace, Ronon understood what was going on; under the soaring arch of the city gate stood a detachment of soldiers, dressed in leather and polished steel. They'd closed off access, conducting some kind of headcount and only letting a trickle of people pass on into the city, though the criteria for admission remained a mystery. For a while it looked as though anyone carrying weapons would be turned away, but then Ronon saw three heavily armed men being waved through the gate and breathed a sigh of relief. The relief didn't last. By the time they'd shuffled their way to within five meters of the guards, he was able to spot the furtive transactions and knew what was happening.