Sometimes it's a mystery to Methos how he survived five millennia with his head still attached, especially with the stunts he tends to pull. Example: charging a horse through unknown forest terrain during the night with a nation of cannibalistic psychopaths on his tail, having completely lost his Immortality because he was on a quest for the Source, a mystical place guarded by some sort of humanoid with superpowers.
Yeah, he really does have the damndest luck.
Methos ducks another branch (he swears his horse is doing it on purpose) as the brute dashes down a hill. Praying hasn't really been his thing since his stint as a god, but right now he thinks it would be handy if God(s) really did exist. It's possible at any minute his horse might step in a hole and break its leg, tumbling down and crushing Methos under it. The horse might simply fling him off maintaining this suicidal pace, sending him crashing to the ground to break his neck. He might be shot. He might be stabbed. He might ride into a low-hanging branch with actual weight behind it and bash his skull in. He might die of exhaustion or exposure. He might be eaten.
Damn it, how did mortals do this?
The desire to live is so strong it wraps iron bands around Methos's chest, squeezing so hard he can hardly breathe. There's something in his throat and his heart beats wildly. Blood trickles down his face and drips onto his hands from a cut that hasn't healed yet, that throbs in time with his pulse. His lungs burn with exertion and fatigue gnaws at the edges of his awareness. If he dies, he won't be waking up again.
The bands around his chest squeeze tighter.
Escape is damn near impossible with the current odds. His only hope is that bloody Highlander. If MacLeod can somehow get to the Source and stop whatever's blocking their Quickening, Methos won't have to run. He can simply die and scuttle off when they've left his corpse unattended for a while.
One of his pursuers lets loose a bloodthirsty howl. The rest join in, and Methos wheezes with grim amusement. Like being chased by a colony of Caspians! He tugs on the reins, guiding his horse left where there are no howls. He's going to die on a horse, his own blood down half his face like a streak of blue and sword in his hand. Live a Horseman and die a Horseman, even if he is a few decades later than his brothers.
Kronos had known he hadn't really changed – had known it even when Methos did not. If he could only have waited, waited until this most recent collapse of civilization, Methos would have jumped back with hardly a complaint. The old ways come so easy when the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Methos had tried to fight them – he wasn't like that anymore! – but they slid under his skin until before he knew it he had three other Immortals looking to him for plans, calling each other brother and watching each other's backs.
A burst of gunfire has Methos hunched over his steed, grasping his sword and charging towards the lone enemy. Of course, his band had died before ever scratching the surface of potential (not the Horsemen, nothing like them… but something similar. Maybe something better. Perhaps even something that would come to haunt him three thousand years later.). Now the only thing left is to evade, kill off enough to buy MacLeod time to fix the damn mess. Not much of a plan, but better than succumbing to terror. Methos dispatches the man with a single stroke as he charges out from a covering screen of trees, and the arterial blood spatters back at him. It steams slightly in the cold climate, hisses as it contacts frozen metal.
The bloodied gurgle sounds like music to Methos's ears, the backspray like the softest touches of silk, and with that he's gone. To hell with surviving. To hell with living. He roars out all the aggression and anger he's locked away for millennia and circles his horse (gray, it should be gray, not black) back towards the enemy. Blood pounds in his ears, and he's far away, watching his own body from above. His thoughts stay a split second ahead of his body, and he can see the whole battlefield at once.
Fuck, he hasn't had this much clarity in a long time. It feels glorious. The bonds on his chest lighten and fatigue skitters to the shadows. He's good at killing, the best. His enemies don't stand a chance in the first charge, and he gallops through their line with blood flying off the tip of his sword. It spurts in his face and on his clothes then runs down in rivulets, reflecting the barest moonlight.
They try shooting him but Death is among them now, and all they hit are each other. Motorcycles roar in the distance but he and his horse dance among them, trampling and slashing. Something sharp scores his leg; another piece of metal impales his hip. He yells, an old battle cry from his Horseman days, and his horse whinnies with him. His own blood mixes with that of his victims but he keeps going, using five thousand years of pig-headed determination to buoy his failing strength.
A torch flashes in the corner of Methos's eyes and he turns to catch the flaming mess of rags and wood right in the chest. He howls and pushes the torch away with his left hand, feeling blisters form and burst. He slashes at its wielder, and then there's three holes in his back, each with their own sound of gunfire. His heart stutters, beats once, then twice, and stops. Methos snarls like a rabid dog and topples from his horse.