Then the creature screeched again and went down as Teyla lashed out again with her sticks, its feet flailing. He could hear fabric tearing as one claw snared his pants leg. Ronon had slashed free a section of the staked net and was wielding it like a gladiator, while the other bird circled him warily.
Then Rodney was tugging him up, somewhat to his surprise. “Go, go!” Daniel needed no more encouragement. He sprinted for the horizon, Teyla and Rodney following.
“Come on, Sheppard!” Rodney yelled.
“We’re coming!”
There was an enraged squawk that he interpreted as a large bird being entangled in net. He risked a glance back over his shoulder and saw that both John and Ronon were running after them, already beginning to close the distance between them. His leg was beginning to sting in an insistent way that suggested the claw had connected with more than fabric.
The smaller of the two birds was on its feet, reaching down to bite at the strands of net that still entangled it.
Ahead of them, he could see the green line of brush that sloped down to the river. So could every small animal trying to escape the fire. Anything that wasn’t caught in the nets would make for the protection of the water.
“They’re going to be waiting at the river,” Ronon said, catching up to Daniel. He sounded as though this were no more than an easy jog.
“I know,” John called from behind him. “But they don’t look like great swimmers, so when we get there, everybody into the water.”
“We’re going to have to go through these guys,” Ronon said.
“We’ve just met an entirely new intelligent species, and we’re about to make first contact by shooting them,” Daniel said.
“You got a better idea?”
“Try warning shots,” John said. “And, yes, Rodney, I remember why that’s a bad idea, but we’re heading straight for the river.”
“I’m just saying the two things I didn’t want in my day were dinosaurs and fire!” Rodney said, unslinging his own P-90 and cradling it as he ran.
“They’re not dinosaurs, McKay.”
“Birds are essentially dinosaurs, any paleontologist—”
Ronon grabbed the back of Rodney’s jacket, thrusting him forward faster. “Shut up and run!”
Daniel could see the bird-creatures as they neared the river, their beaks and feathered heads partially concealed behind bushes and scrubby trees. Unnaturally sharpened sticks protruding from the bushes suggested that some of them had constructed spears to add to their natural weaponry.
The grass ended well short of the greener tangle of brush that led down the bank, with an area of scraped bare ground between them. A firebreak, he realized, and couldn’t help wondering if they’d used their claws or some kind of shovel — their wings were too short for a hand-held digging tool to get much leverage.
“Net!” Teyla called, and leapt over it gracefully, landing squarely in the dirt on the other side. Daniel managed to jump it himself, although when he landed, the stinging in his leg increased to an urgent burn. By the time he steadied himself, the others were over, John and Ronon moving out in front.
“Get out of our way!” John yelled.
“I don’t think they understand what you’re saying,” Ronon said. Daniel could see several of them moving closer, and he suspected that meant there were more moving that he couldn’t see.
John clearly felt the same, because he fired, a short burst of bullets that spat against the ground between him and the nearest of the creatures.
The nearest bushes went up like a torch. There were cries of alarm from the creatures, several of them backing out into the cleared section of dirt. It looked to Daniel like they had a clear path to the river. Teyla was already moving, and he followed her, shrugging out of his pack on the way and scrambling through the underbrush toward the river bank with its straps hooked over one arm.
The bank dropped off more sharply than he was expecting, and he slid more than scrambled down into the water. There were nets in the shallow part of the river, too, supported by floats, and as he reached them, two of the creatures splashed into the water, paddling toward him. They weren’t particularly speedy in the water, but they beat their legs powerfully, churning along with what seemed like determination.
He tossed his pack over and then tugged out a knife and slashed the net, squirming through and then diving, making for the middle of the river where the current was stronger. He stayed under as long as he could, his lungs burning, before he finally broke the surface and rolled over onto his back, lifting his head to make sure the others were following.
They were, and although one of the creatures was pursuing, kicking along like a malevolent paddleboat, they were already outdistancing it. It seemed safe enough to retrieve his pack, now bobbing in the current, and to keep hold of it as he swam. When he looked back again, their pursuer had apparently given them up as not worth the effort, and was clambering out on the opposite bank from the one where a fire was now blazing through the scrubby trees.
He kicked against the current, letting the others catch up to him; Teyla was swimming against the current to get back within earshot. “How far do you want to go downstream?” he called.
John looked back at the milling creatures, several of whom were now hauling nets weighted down with dead or struggling animals across the river, out of reach of the fire. They were still chattering to each other, in what Daniel had to guess was at least a rudimentary language. “A good long way,” he said. “Let’s give them plenty of room.”
The water was probably barely cool, but after the blazing heat of the fire it felt cold on his skin. He swam doggedly downstream, entirely on board with the decision to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the hostile birds.
“What was that?” John said abruptly, rolling over in the water and looking around.
“What was what?” he called.
Ronon kicked abruptly in another direction. “There’s something moving in the water. Something big.”
“I think we’ve gone far enough,” John said. He started making for the bank, and Daniel followed his lead.
Something broke the water in front of John. Daniel was expecting the smooth slickness of a fish’s back, or maybe the scales of something crocodilian. Instead, he had a quick impression of something streamlined but feathered. It surfaced again, and he could see its beady eye, tracking Daniel as it swam, and its six-inch long beak. The beak looked decidedly sharp.
Another one breached behind Daniel, and as he splashed away from it he got a better close range look at the thing than he particularly wanted. It looked like a penguin, he decided a little incredulously, if penguins were mud-colored and as big as Teyla. Another one surfaced, and then another, swimming in swift bobbing motions along the surface of the water between Daniel and the nearest bank.
“I hate to say this, but I think these things are hunting us,” John said, as two of them cut off his route toward shallower water.
“We are very big to be prey for these creatures,” Teyla said.
“Maybe they’re ambitious.”
Teyla rolled over with her P90 in her arms and sighted at the nearest of the swimming birds, but held her fire. “If I shoot one, it may drive them off, or spur them to attack.”
“I could stun them,” Ronon said.
“But can you stun them all before they attack?”
“Sure,” Ronon said, rolling over almost lazily and sighting on what Daniel could only think of as a giant penguin. “Couldn’t you?”
“Well, do something,” Rodney snapped. “Before we wind up penguin food.”
“You’ve seen these things before?” Ronon said.