"A life lived long brings greater pain
Than any briefer span,
For sorrows multiply with joys
And with sunlight comes rain."--Brad Ellison
When the Spanish came to California, they constructed a series of missions, to serve as both havens for weary travellers and bases for the missionary priests. Many of the old structures are now historic landmarks. Others are forgotten, lost to memory, fallen into ruin. The Highlander had long known of one such, and had maintained it to serve as his chief refuge on the west coast. Now, it served as Dirty Harry Callaghan's training ground.
"Hold!" Connor shouted at his pupil, who was advancing overambitiously in spite of his extreme disadvantage. "If you want to live, you need to be able to give ground sometimes."
"Tell me again why I can't just shoot any punk that comes after me." Harry stood with the deceased David Mann's sword in his hand, facing Macleod. He had proven to be a quick learner, but his native belligerence was proving to be a handicap. He simply would not retreat.
"We've been over this before, Harry." Connor was nearing the edge of his patience. "The Rules are ancient, and are held sacred by all but the most depraved. Break them, and you make yourself fair game for anyone, and the others will have no compunctions about breaking rules to take you down. We all hunt renegades."
Connor lunged abruptly as he finished his speech, nicking Harry's belly with the razor-edged Masamune steel. He would have disemboweled his student had not the former cop leapt back adroitly, taking a defensive stance, left leg back, saber held out before him at a forty-five degree angle.
"Better." Connor nodded. "Eventually, you may get good enough to survive on your own."
Now it was Harry that lunged, his saber cutting Macleod's exposed wrist, causing him to loosten his grip on the katana. Harry thrust the straight blade of the saber into his teacher's right shoulder, and kicked the Samurai out of his hand.
"Eventually." Callaghan scooped up the ancient Japanese blade and handed it to Connor, who had recovered from his injuries. Connor promptly jabbed the curving blade into Callaghan's chest. Harry surprised him by remaining upright, mustering his will, and performing the mind-bogglingly painful task of extracting the Japanese sword from his body. He then managed to execute a ido/i cut, slicing Connor's abdomen open. The Highlander gasped in pain, grasping his gut in an effort to keep his entrails internalized, and fell over. Harry speared him with his sword.
"Can you use crossbows?"
Connor winced, speaking though the pain. "Muscle...Pow...er...only." Connor threw a feeble kick at his unsuspecting pupil, hooking his knee and bringing him down. Then he drew the sword out of his body, slashed Callaghan across the lower back with his katana, severing the man's spinal cord, and passed out. When he recovered a few seconds later, Harry was just beginning to heal his paralysis. Connor kicked him in the head, and retrieved both swords.
"You're making progress, Callaghan. Its good that you're not holding back in practice." Connor kicked his student again, feeling some ribs break under his boot toe. "But you're still pressing to hard, overextending yourself. You have no concept of self-preservation." Connor rolled Harry over with his foot, then stomped his gut. "We'll work on that later. Right now, its time for dinner."
"You, Callaghan, are reckless, brutal, and utterly lacking in refinement." Their practice session over, the Highlander and his pupil now shared a dinner of canned chili taken from Connor's store of survival rations cached in the ruined chapel. They ate in the same courtyard they had reddened with each other's blood, next to a steady fire beneath the stars.
"You remind me a lot of myself, actually," Connor continued.
"Yeah?" Harry looked up from his tin bowl.
"I was actually much worse. I was born in the Scottish Highlands in 1518. I was killed in a battle with a rival clan, but I wouldn't stay dead. My neighbors decided it was black magic, and ran me out of the village." Connor stared into the dancing flames, his grey eyes filled with memories.
Harry let out a low whistle. "So you were on your own?"
Connor nodded. "For months. They had bound me to an ox-yoke, and were stoning me in the middle of the village. My own cousin Dugal, the man I'd looked up to, admired since I could walk...He took the lead in beating me. If not for Angus..."
Harry was fascinated in spite of himself. "Angus?"
"Aye. Angus. He was another cousin o' mine, of about an age with Dugal. The two of them took a great hand in th' raisin' of me. They even rode into battle with me on that day..." Connor's voice began slipping into a Scottish burr as he receded into his own past. His cold eyes were thawed, now. "But Angus didn't take th' villager's part in it. He dragged Dugal off me, and demanded that I be banished, rather than killed. Before ah left th' village, he gave ma' sword back tae me."
Harry watched in awe. The steel-hard man who'd spent the last weeks pumping him full of ways to kill a man with a blade, the grim and sarcastic sparring partner...This man was now almost on the brink of tears as he recounted his history. "What happened next?" Harry asked.
"I wandered the moors alone. Th' cold an' no food tae be had killed me a few dozen times over, those days. It took me a week just tae get loose o' that damned yoke. After that, ah' made mah' way as best ah' could. It was winter then, and maest o' th' crofters were to puir tae feed themsels, say nothin' of some wanderin' stranger come out o' th' snow." Connor sighed deeply, and in that sigh Harry heard the voice of a hundred fearful voices turning away a starving man, felt the chill of a thousand chill winter winds. Connor looked up, then, and Harry saw in his face the look of a man who had walked through to the gates of hell and back.
"If not for Heather and her father," Connor continued after a long pause and a large swallow of his Glenmorangie whisky, "I might be out on that moor yet." His voice had returned to its normal unplaceable accent. "They gave me a place to sleep, warm food. They brought me back to health, and they asked no questions. He was a blacksmith, living several hour's ride from the village he worked for. His home was a ruined keep, and his one treasure was his daughter." Connor sighed again, and this time Harry felt the trace of golden locks, crystal blue eyes, a smile that could warm a man more than any fire.
"His daughter. Heather. She cared for me until I regained my strength, and then asked her father to make me his apprentice. When he agreed, I thought I could never be happier. I was wrong."
Connor stirred, spooned more chili into his bowl, and took a long pull from the bottle of Glenmorangie at his side. "The happiest day, Harry, was when she agreed to marry me. This was about a year after I had come to them. Her father granted his blessing, and we were wed in the springtime. The only thing to mar our happiness was her father's death that winter. It hit us both hard, for he had become my father as well.
"Even so, life went on. Then, five years after I had fallen in battle for the first time, a man came looking for me. He was called Ramirez. He had heard of my exile, and realized the truth about me. He sought me out so that he could train me."
"Why did he do that?"
"Ramirez made it his life's work to keep the Prize out of the wrong hands. To that end, he sought out young Immortals, training them to survive. He told me that if the Prize fell into the wrong hands, mankind would suffer an eternity of darkness."
"Is that why you went looking for me? To set me on the straight and narrow, the way Ramirez did you?"
"The charge is heavy. If I die, who wil carry on after me? You, Harry, have a great power. It is your responsibility to use it well."
"What if I turn out to be a bad apple?"
"I know your record. You're a man who hates criminals, and there aren't any worse or more dangerous criminals than the ones we fight. If I'm wrong, and you do turn out to be a mistake on my part, I'll hunt you down and kill you without hesitation." The coldness of Connor's gaze left no doubt in Harry's mind as to his sincerity.
"Time for bed, Callaghan. We have another hard day's work ahead of us tomorrow."
And with that, the two men extinguished the fire, and went to their sleeping bags.
Than any briefer span,
For sorrows multiply with joys
And with sunlight comes rain."--Brad Ellison
When the Spanish came to California, they constructed a series of missions, to serve as both havens for weary travellers and bases for the missionary priests. Many of the old structures are now historic landmarks. Others are forgotten, lost to memory, fallen into ruin. The Highlander had long known of one such, and had maintained it to serve as his chief refuge on the west coast. Now, it served as Dirty Harry Callaghan's training ground.
"Hold!" Connor shouted at his pupil, who was advancing overambitiously in spite of his extreme disadvantage. "If you want to live, you need to be able to give ground sometimes."
"Tell me again why I can't just shoot any punk that comes after me." Harry stood with the deceased David Mann's sword in his hand, facing Macleod. He had proven to be a quick learner, but his native belligerence was proving to be a handicap. He simply would not retreat.
"We've been over this before, Harry." Connor was nearing the edge of his patience. "The Rules are ancient, and are held sacred by all but the most depraved. Break them, and you make yourself fair game for anyone, and the others will have no compunctions about breaking rules to take you down. We all hunt renegades."
Connor lunged abruptly as he finished his speech, nicking Harry's belly with the razor-edged Masamune steel. He would have disemboweled his student had not the former cop leapt back adroitly, taking a defensive stance, left leg back, saber held out before him at a forty-five degree angle.
"Better." Connor nodded. "Eventually, you may get good enough to survive on your own."
Now it was Harry that lunged, his saber cutting Macleod's exposed wrist, causing him to loosten his grip on the katana. Harry thrust the straight blade of the saber into his teacher's right shoulder, and kicked the Samurai out of his hand.
"Eventually." Callaghan scooped up the ancient Japanese blade and handed it to Connor, who had recovered from his injuries. Connor promptly jabbed the curving blade into Callaghan's chest. Harry surprised him by remaining upright, mustering his will, and performing the mind-bogglingly painful task of extracting the Japanese sword from his body. He then managed to execute a ido/i cut, slicing Connor's abdomen open. The Highlander gasped in pain, grasping his gut in an effort to keep his entrails internalized, and fell over. Harry speared him with his sword.
"Can you use crossbows?"
Connor winced, speaking though the pain. "Muscle...Pow...er...only." Connor threw a feeble kick at his unsuspecting pupil, hooking his knee and bringing him down. Then he drew the sword out of his body, slashed Callaghan across the lower back with his katana, severing the man's spinal cord, and passed out. When he recovered a few seconds later, Harry was just beginning to heal his paralysis. Connor kicked him in the head, and retrieved both swords.
"You're making progress, Callaghan. Its good that you're not holding back in practice." Connor kicked his student again, feeling some ribs break under his boot toe. "But you're still pressing to hard, overextending yourself. You have no concept of self-preservation." Connor rolled Harry over with his foot, then stomped his gut. "We'll work on that later. Right now, its time for dinner."
"You, Callaghan, are reckless, brutal, and utterly lacking in refinement." Their practice session over, the Highlander and his pupil now shared a dinner of canned chili taken from Connor's store of survival rations cached in the ruined chapel. They ate in the same courtyard they had reddened with each other's blood, next to a steady fire beneath the stars.
"You remind me a lot of myself, actually," Connor continued.
"Yeah?" Harry looked up from his tin bowl.
"I was actually much worse. I was born in the Scottish Highlands in 1518. I was killed in a battle with a rival clan, but I wouldn't stay dead. My neighbors decided it was black magic, and ran me out of the village." Connor stared into the dancing flames, his grey eyes filled with memories.
Harry let out a low whistle. "So you were on your own?"
Connor nodded. "For months. They had bound me to an ox-yoke, and were stoning me in the middle of the village. My own cousin Dugal, the man I'd looked up to, admired since I could walk...He took the lead in beating me. If not for Angus..."
Harry was fascinated in spite of himself. "Angus?"
"Aye. Angus. He was another cousin o' mine, of about an age with Dugal. The two of them took a great hand in th' raisin' of me. They even rode into battle with me on that day..." Connor's voice began slipping into a Scottish burr as he receded into his own past. His cold eyes were thawed, now. "But Angus didn't take th' villager's part in it. He dragged Dugal off me, and demanded that I be banished, rather than killed. Before ah left th' village, he gave ma' sword back tae me."
Harry watched in awe. The steel-hard man who'd spent the last weeks pumping him full of ways to kill a man with a blade, the grim and sarcastic sparring partner...This man was now almost on the brink of tears as he recounted his history. "What happened next?" Harry asked.
"I wandered the moors alone. Th' cold an' no food tae be had killed me a few dozen times over, those days. It took me a week just tae get loose o' that damned yoke. After that, ah' made mah' way as best ah' could. It was winter then, and maest o' th' crofters were to puir tae feed themsels, say nothin' of some wanderin' stranger come out o' th' snow." Connor sighed deeply, and in that sigh Harry heard the voice of a hundred fearful voices turning away a starving man, felt the chill of a thousand chill winter winds. Connor looked up, then, and Harry saw in his face the look of a man who had walked through to the gates of hell and back.
"If not for Heather and her father," Connor continued after a long pause and a large swallow of his Glenmorangie whisky, "I might be out on that moor yet." His voice had returned to its normal unplaceable accent. "They gave me a place to sleep, warm food. They brought me back to health, and they asked no questions. He was a blacksmith, living several hour's ride from the village he worked for. His home was a ruined keep, and his one treasure was his daughter." Connor sighed again, and this time Harry felt the trace of golden locks, crystal blue eyes, a smile that could warm a man more than any fire.
"His daughter. Heather. She cared for me until I regained my strength, and then asked her father to make me his apprentice. When he agreed, I thought I could never be happier. I was wrong."
Connor stirred, spooned more chili into his bowl, and took a long pull from the bottle of Glenmorangie at his side. "The happiest day, Harry, was when she agreed to marry me. This was about a year after I had come to them. Her father granted his blessing, and we were wed in the springtime. The only thing to mar our happiness was her father's death that winter. It hit us both hard, for he had become my father as well.
"Even so, life went on. Then, five years after I had fallen in battle for the first time, a man came looking for me. He was called Ramirez. He had heard of my exile, and realized the truth about me. He sought me out so that he could train me."
"Why did he do that?"
"Ramirez made it his life's work to keep the Prize out of the wrong hands. To that end, he sought out young Immortals, training them to survive. He told me that if the Prize fell into the wrong hands, mankind would suffer an eternity of darkness."
"Is that why you went looking for me? To set me on the straight and narrow, the way Ramirez did you?"
"The charge is heavy. If I die, who wil carry on after me? You, Harry, have a great power. It is your responsibility to use it well."
"What if I turn out to be a bad apple?"
"I know your record. You're a man who hates criminals, and there aren't any worse or more dangerous criminals than the ones we fight. If I'm wrong, and you do turn out to be a mistake on my part, I'll hunt you down and kill you without hesitation." The coldness of Connor's gaze left no doubt in Harry's mind as to his sincerity.
"Time for bed, Callaghan. We have another hard day's work ahead of us tomorrow."
And with that, the two men extinguished the fire, and went to their sleeping bags.