A/N Prequel to Early Days, please let me know what you think. Am currently tweaking the last chapter. Thanks for reading.
The man stood on the crest of the hill, his full white cloak and robe whipped and rippled around him in the bitter winter wind. The desert glittered before him promising hidden treasures. His face was obscured by a half mask that left his lower jaw exposed; the flesh of his face was painted a vibrant blue. His eyes glittered behind the mask. The man in white raised a closed fist over his head and unclenched it.
Behind him three men on horseback burst over the hill and charged down into the desert.
Their mounts were clad in terrifying armor and their own visages were terrible to behold. The huge horses easily cleared the crest of the hill and churned the sand into gouts and rivulets as their solid legs pounded downward sending their riders hurtling forward with weapons and voices raised.
At the base of the hill sat a well guarded caravan camp. The guards raised their weapons and rallied a split second before the three horsemen slammed into their defenses. The man in white stood as though stone. His eyes hungrily watching the battle below as the men on horseback slowly won through the guards and began to slaughter in earnest.
Finally the man in white whistled up his own mount and joined the men below. He used his own weapons to great effect achieving at least the same body count as each of the initial riders, with one chief difference.
Where his brothers sought pain, fear, twisted satisfaction in depraved acts he seemed to find satisfaction and peace in the swift delivery of abrupt death. None avoided his attention, the young, old, brave, cowardly. Each and every one fell before him. He was thorough as well.
Once the initial slaughter was complete he dismounted and while his kin sorted through their prizes and found diversions of their own among the dead and dying the man in white- now a dusty ochre from the bloodshed- busied himself among the dying. He mercifully executed all he met and scared up a few who had been petrified by terror, like startled rabbits they sat still and frozen while he approached and took their lives.
"Brother! Rest your tired arm and refresh yourself!" One of the riders called to the man in white. The man rose from his killing, his robe freshly inked with arterial blood. His unreadable gaze behind the mask regarded his comrade. He tilted his head to the desert sun and sheathed his gory blade.
"We are losing the light Kronos."
"So we lose it Methos, who among these primitives would seek to challenge us?" Kronos chortled.
"As you wish brother." The man in white-Methos- said and inclined his head in a gesture of acknowledgment and obeisance.
"He grows soft brother." Another of the riders hissed. The man was hip deep in the dead carving portions of tender belly meat from a particular corpse and devouring it with disturbing enjoyment.
"Silence Caspian, you'd do better to fill your gob with more of your preferred foodstuff than seek to criticize your betters, and mark me, Methos is much more invaluable to me than you, which makes him your better." Kronos growled. Caspian grunted and returned to his macabre meal.
Beyond the cannibal the last rider booted aside scattered cook pots and similar detritus of the camp. He grunted in satisfaction and picked up a length of twisted wood, it looked like a root or possibly driftwood. The barrel-chested man tucked the trinket into his belt and approached his brothers.
"Kronos I agree with Methos we should go back to camp." He rumbled, his voice was rich and surprisingly deep, as though it ascended from the very depths of his bulk to reach his throat.
"Silas my friend, my brother, Methos is a cautious creature, it is why we love him, but there is much of value here. We will gather all we need or desire andthen we will ride for home, only then." Kronos said. His voice was laced with the same cheer it had held earlier but with an unmistakably threatening undertone. Silas inclined his head in a gesture similar to Methos' and began searching the camp.
Hours later as the sun set the four men rode forth into the desert. They bore with them the surviving animals of the caravan and anything of value or interest the nomadic traders had carried with them. As they crested the hill the caravan had been foolish enough to camp at the base of, the man in white paused to look back over their work.
The bitter winter wind had served them well, all ready the majority of the camp was dusted with sand, by dawn or perhaps as long as a few days it would take a practiced desert eye to even tell where the camp had stood, in a week or so even the handiest tracker would be at a loss. Satisfied the man in white followed his brothers into the heart of the killing desert.
Water ruled the desert, the control of it and desire for it held more value and potential than any sultan's riches. The horsemen had a keen sense of this power and knew how to procure water in every portion of their familiar empire. Their raiding grounds stretched across the Middle East and most of Europe and at one point they had embraced the African continent but in recent ages they had migrated to the rich lands of the Mediterranean. But always, always, the four returned to their most familiar and powerful land, the wild deserts. Even the Bedouin and nomads who also called it home feared it, but more than the desert they feared the demons and mysteries within the land. Chief among them they feared the legendary horsemen.
The terrible man in white returned to the camp in the rear. His garments were blackened with blood and soot as he entered their encampment and slid from his mounts back, he stripped naked and left the clothing in a heap. He strode to his tent without a word and ignored the slaves scurrying like startled ants throughout his vicinity.
As he entered his tent he wordlessly accepted a bowl of warm scented water from a scantily clad slave girl and began to clean himself. The slave served him efficiently, exchanging the filthy water for clean, providing clean soft robes, delicious foods and cold wine.
He sat back in his clean, warm, soft clothes and regarded the girl speculatively. She had obsidian eyes and very short hair, it was shorn close to the scalp almost like a man's it was wiry and thick, jet black and coarse. Her features were thick and strong, the expression in her eyes was quiet and old.
Methos referred to all of his slaves by the same name, whether uttered in the height of physical passion or before delivering a killing blow, all of the slaves were dog to the man in white.
"Dog, you are excused." He said softly. His voice was rich and icy. The girl knelt and put her head to the ground and then stood and left in silence. She would remain within ear shot of her master should he require anything. Methos sat in the twilight comfort of his refuge and closed his eyes.
He leaned back on his furs and stretched his lean frame. The activities of the day had left him weary indeed. His limbs burned from the effort of the long ride and the arduous killing. He killed because it satisfied him, because it brought him peace, because it was his way and had been for what at times felt like eternity, he killed because he truly believed it was kinder than allowing their victims to live after witnessing the crimes of the horsemen. It was his final act of mercy for hundreds, for thousands of unfortunates who had chanced across the paths of the horsemen.
As he lay on the furs with eyes closed his thoughts strayed back, to the past, to the beginning, to an arena in a far land. To the day he met Kronos.