Disclaimer: Connor MacLeod and all 'Highlander' characters are copyright Davis/Panzer Productions, and Balthazar Blake and all 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' characters are copyright Disney. This fanfic is based off a lengthy Role-Play, heavily edited for added narrative. No profit made, but a hell of a lot of fun. Being an RP, this is effectively co-written by my girlfriend, who played Balthazar.
Up until now I've pretty much kept the story from Balthazar's perspective, so I apologize for the stylistic break, but things that happen when he's out of the room are pretty important, too…
Sword and Sorcery
29. Final end to Friendship
It didn't take Dave long to reach the Blake home, and when he read the note, his expression fell into grim lines. "We have to kill him this time."
Connor was pacing again, restless and radiating tension. "Someone does."
"I think David and I should go in," Veronica said quietly. "Like he expects. You can cover us, and get us out once we know his game."
Connor looked ready to protest, but hesitated when he met Veronica's eyes. His words came out as a whispered plea, instead. "But you're all so… fragile…"
She placed a hand on his shoulder gently. "Do you have a better plan?"
"…None you'd like." He sighed in clear defeat.
"All right then." She smirked slightly. "You drive."
"My car, or his?" The answer seemed obvious. Connor's junker hadn't been used much since his arrival, and looked untrustworthy. It was only luck Balthazar had taken the subway that day.
The keys were pulled off the rack by the door and handed over wordlessly, and Dave tagged after them meekly. It seemed obvious who was in charge of this rescue operation, and it wasn't either of the boys. New York was familiar, even though Connor's more recent exposure was limited; he took them to the address as swiftly as was safe and parked the Rolls Royce a block up the street. The building was an old paper factory, the machinery that showed through the windows broken down, rusted hulks. Connor eyed it thoughtfully. "I don't know how magic senses work, but if you want me to keep out of sight, there should be plenty of cover."
"Hang back," Veronica ordered softly, "But don't worry about magical senses. He'll be focused on us."
"Anything else I should know?" Connor slipped out of the car and got the door for her.
"Watch out for statues." Dave muttered, recalling the bull that had once attacked Balthazar outside Battery Park.
Connor raised an eyebrow, but his own thoughts went back to a bronze owl in Nash Antiques. "Go on, then." He sighed, waiting to shadow them and hoping the dark brown wool coat and his general scruffiness might help him blend into the background.
They weren't far in when they began to hear Balthazar's voice, raised in cries and groans of pain. Dave shuddered, and Veronica clamped a hand on his shoulder to steady him. The two sorcerers circled the main floor and followed the noises down stairs.
Connor stalked in the shadows nearby, resolve tempered by the sounds. The abandoned machinery provided ample places to hide, even as he started warily down a different set of stairs.
There were candles lit and scattered about on the floor below. Balthazar lay on his back in a magical circle, shirtless and twisted into an unnatural pose. He was blood-splattered and smoke or steam rose from him, but it was hard to tell precisely what sort of torturous magic was at work.
Off to one side stood Horvath, tall, heavily built, and well dressed. The tip of his cane glowed blue with the power at work, but he turned with narrowed eyes as the other two sorcerers approached. "Ah. So glad you could make it!" He held out his arms in a gesture of welcome, smiling coldly.
"N…no…" Balthazar wheezed, struggling.
Keeping well back, Connor circled and kept a lookout for traps, allies, and an advantageous position. He took great care to keep hidden, although the sorcerers seemed focused on each other.
"Let him go, Maxim." Veronica held out her ring hand threateningly. "It's over. Morgana's gone. Live out your life and let us be."
Horvath tapped his chin with his cane. "Veronica. Darling. You think Morgana didn't have contingency plans? One spell, one shot, that's it?"
"What are you talking about?" Dave bristled.
"Ah, yes. You." There was a sudden surge of energy, sending the apprentice flying back to be pinned up against the wall. A shield blazed blue around him, against the pressure of Horvath's magic.
"Maxim, stop it! We both know what this is about, and it's not Morgana." Veronica blazed with light, and Dave managed to push away from the wall. Together they stalked towards Horvath slowly.
"Perhaps not," He smiled evenly. "Shall we sit down? Have a heart to heart? Maybe you can turn me around." He gestured at Balthazar, and in the circle he screamed and there was a spray of blood. "Too late. I'm not the man I once was. Neither is Balthazar, as I'm surprised you've not discovered yet."
The scream halted Veronica's advance, and her eyes flashed with worry to Balthazar's prone body in the chalk circle.
Dave crouched slightly, watching, then made a sudden lunge to break the circle.
At a tap of the cane on the floor, spikes surged upwards from the cement, nearly impaling the young apprentice.
It was the spray of blood that broke Connor's patience, but Dave's lunge was a convenient distraction. He leapt from hiding, drawing the katana as he went, and aimed a thrust for the back of Horvath's right shoulder. Fast and nearly silent, he crossed the distance in a few bounds.
Horvath turned at the last second, but not quick enough to avoid the attack. Gasping in pain, he dropped the staff from suddenly nerveless fingers, and Veronica lunged in to snatch up the dropped implement.
Dave staggered back, bleeding from the spikes.
"Get him away!" Momentarily taking charge, Connor called out and gave a nod in Balthazar's direction, alarm clear in his voice. The blade had gone deep, and he was vulnerable to a close attack as long as he was beside Horvath.
"David!" Veronica's cry was an order, and the boy nodded, dodging around the spikes and rubbing out the circle hurriedly.
Balthazar went limp, gasping and trembling.
As he yelled in pain and anger, Horvath's new collection of rings glowed with a burst of power that finished the job of wrenching the blade free, and sent Connor back to slam against a hulking wreck of machinery.
The immortal kept a death-grip on his katana, but slid down to sprawl on the floor for a moment, breathless from the blow. He was moving again in seconds, on his feet while his injuries were still healing.
Horvath chuckled painfully. "I see Balthazar's made a friend. How sweet. The healing ability your kind possesses is so useful- as long as it works." His rings continued to glow, as Connor's injuries stopped closing and the edges began to burn and expand gradually.
Dave struggled with his teacher, dragging Balthazar carefully out of the circle, then levitating him gently.
Connor grunted and staggered a step or two, but kept coming, the intense gaze dark with malice. Immortals were used to fighting through injuries, and his relentless attack was buying time for Balthazar's rescue. He made a lunge that had momentum if not grace, but fetched up against a magical shield.
Looking quietly smug, Horvath clutched his wounded shoulder.
Veronica was torn, running to make a quick examination of Balthazar, then pushing Dave toward the exit. "Go. Get him to the car." As apprentice and levitating master fled, she turned back to Horvath. "Maxim!"
"In a moment, my dear."
Connor made a few slashes against the glowing shield, then dropped abruptly to make a vicious cut at Horvath's ankles, hoping to get under the edge of it.
"Maxim, you turn and face me now or I'll kill you with your back turned like the coward you are." There was quiet rage in her voice.
Staggering under the slash but managing to escape serious injury, Horvath fired a plasma bolt directly at Connor's head, then turned to Veronica with a raised eyebrow.
At close range, the sheer impact of the plasma bolt sent Connor backwards, head first. His legs were flung out from under him and he skidded flat on his back across the floor more than a dozen feet. He gave a gurgling gasp and fought through the shock, but seemed to be down for the moment.
Veronica gave Horvath no time to survey the result of his handiwork, but launched into magical attack. The flurry of exchanged spells between them was blinding and flung them both around the room. Power crackled over rusting machinery and arced across the cement floor. After a few minutes of magical chaos, Horvath skidded to a stop on the floor near the fallen Connor.
On her side on the floor, halfway across the room, Veronica wheezed for breath.
Rolling to hands and feet, Connor groped for the katana that had finally left his grip at the end of his earlier slide. Veronica's current state was worrying, but the opportunity to stop Horvath was too much to miss. The blade rose as Connor got to one knee, and he made a downward stroke that was ingrained into his arms over centuries. The blade bit slightly into the concrete below, but the only result of decapitating Horvath was that the slow expansion of his wounds ceased and began to reverse. His arm vibrated slightly from the impact with cement.
Slowly, Veronica struggled to her feet. "Is he…?"
The immortal leaned forward, grabbing at Horvath's hand, and viciously tugged off the extra rings. "Esh." He turned his head briefly, and spat out a couple of teeth. His face was bruised and burned, one eye swollen shut, nose and cheekbone broken.
"…You look like hell." She leaned against a machine and held her side, grimacing from broken ribs. "You'll recover?"
Connor gave a raspy, gurgling chuckle, coughed, and wheezed. "Had worsh." Struggling to his feet, he wiped the blade on Horvath's coat, then tucked it away and came to Veronica's aid. He was unsteady on his feet, broken and bleeding inside, but healing and striving to ignore it.
"I can walk. Just a couple ribs." She was tougher than she looked. "…Balthazar." Turning, she headed up the stairs as quickly as she could manage, Connor slower but trailing after.
Dave was kneeling next to Balthazar, hands on his chest. The apprentice himself was badly scratched up, but clearly more focused on his mentor, who was conscious but grey-faced. Breathlessly, Dave explained, "He's stopped breathing twice… his heartbeat's all over the place. I don't know."
"He's lost a lot of blood." Veronica said, kneeling painfully beside them.
Connor staggered up a short ways behind her, face looking like a train wreck.
Dave glanced up at the immortal and looked alarmed. "Dude! You… uh. Never mind." He turned his attention back to Balthazar.
"Plashma bolt. Fashe." Connor dropped in a crouch by the sorcerer, struggling a little to speak clearly. "Can you…" One hand waved in a vague gesture, "Transhfer magically? Blood?"
"Ow." Dave winced in sympathy.
Veronica stroked Balthazar's face, and his eyes drifted closed. "He's been through too much to die like this." Her lips pressed in a thin line, and she pulled his ring from her pocket and slid it gently back on his finger before answering Connor. "Not without equipment. I'm going to take him home. You two bring the car. Once you're fit to drive."
Connor wordlessly offered her the rings he took off Horvath, nodding grimly.
She accepted, eyeing them. "Four of these came from other sorcerers. Busy man." She pocketed them, then her own ring glowed and with a gesture she and Balthazar vanished.
Dave stood unsteadily, scratched and bruised, but not seriously injured. He looked at Connor, still crouched on the ground. "Um. You want me to drive, man?"
Connor nodded, but took a moment to feel himself over for anything healing misaligned. The assessment finished at his face, and he leaned forward, then reset his nose with a wet grunt. For a moment he sat there gasping while fresh blood poured, then he rummaged in his coat pocket and wordlessly offered the keys.
"Ngh!" Appalled, Dave turned a slightly sickly shade, accepted the keys gingerly, and scuttled off to bring the car closer.
Connor pulled out a handkerchief, but it was one of the ones Veronica had embroidered. Rather than ruin it with blood, he put it back and mopped his face gingerly with his coat sleeve instead. The blood was already slowing to a trickle, anyway. He staggered to his feet as the Rolls Royce pulled up close, and collapsed gratefully into the passenger seat, head tilted back.
Yes, of course Balthazar will live. I'm not that sadistic.
