Chapter Twenty-Four

The last fading blasts of the Quickening echoed through Laserocity like the wake of a powerboat on a calm lake, each blast lapping against the walls and diminishing in frequency. Duncan stood breathless, sword in hand, as he tried to split his attention between the residual Quickening activity and the foe before him. The darkness enveloped Silas, but Duncan could barely see light glinting in the other man's eyes.

"So, little man," the voice boomed out of the shadows, making Duncan start, "I would say Methos' woman is dead." The gasps, which had been so prominent moments before, were much less featured now. "And you are going to be next."

Duncan frantically pushed his earpiece further into his ear, hoping to hear something, anything, that would contradict Silas' words, but there was nothing, not even static. While the reasoning part of him noted the lack of electronic capability in the building as a whole, post-Quickening, the fearful part of him noted only the silence of his two friends.

"Cassandra is not Methos' woman." The words slid from Duncan's mouth automatically as he backed two cautious steps away from Silas, still craning for any sound from the other end of the hall.

"Ah, so she is yours now," comprehension sounded loudly in Silas' tone. "Why did you let her fight and die for you, little man?" The question did not quite cover the sound of Silas retrieving his axe from the floor.

"What makes you so sure she is the one who died?" As he spoke, Duncan tightened his grip on both his sword, and his hope. "I think it's just as likely that one of your brothers is the headless corpse right now."

As Silas laughed heartily at that idea, Duncan reluctantly acknowledged his own fear about whose Quickening had just played out. Despite his words, he was well aware that the death could easily have been Cassandra's… or Methos'. He was hard-pressed at the moment to judge whose loss he would feel more deeply.

Seeing his shadowy opponent beginning to approach, Duncan glanced over each shoulder quickly to discern the best route toward his team's base. He had to find a way to get there, had to find out…

**************

Cassandra huddled on the floor, vaguely aware of the drama being played out above her. Seconds before, Kronos had been about to take her head, and she'd had no strength to prevent it. More disturbing still, she wasn't sure she was inclined to prevent it, even if she'd had full vigor. Her emotions were in total disarray.

Methos' intervention settled the matter, for the moment. She stared up at him distantly, unable to determine how she felt, as he came to her defense against Kronos after two thousand long years. Better late than never, she thought, and would have laughed rather hysterically if she'd possessed the strength.

Kronos grinned contemptuously at Methos. The loss of Caspian – and thus of his dream of the resurgence of the Four Horsemen – was clearly an epic disappointment, instantly converted into hatred and a demand for retribution. His first target had logically been Cassandra, but now, she could see, he was happy to direct his rage at his prodigal, troublesome brother.

"So, Methos, you think you can make up for letting her down all those centuries ago by saving her from me now, hmm?" When Methos said nothing, Kronos' volume increased as he warmed to the subject. "It doesn't work that way, you know. She'll never forgive you. Why should she? The poor unlucky wench wouldn't even be in this predicament if it weren't for you."

"It won't work, Kronos," Methos said, his voice and his sword equally steady. "It was never about her, not for you; it was always about finding a way to stand on my neck, to keep me in line. Well, I'm out of line now, for good. I'm done being played."

Cassandra saw the subtle hardening and sharpening in Kronos' eyes as his smile faded.

"That suits me," he said as he poised to attack, "because I'm done playing."

***************

Hearing Kronos' voice but unable to make out the words, Duncan began to back away from Silas quickly but carefully, working his way toward the base.

"Where are you going?" Silas boomed, his belly wound healed or close to it. "You said it yourself, little man: There's nowhere to run."

Gritting his teeth, Duncan observed privately that the "little man" epithet was beginning to grate on his nerves. "Who's running? I'm just taking a constitutional while you get your wind back."

The breeze from a sudden stroke of the ax stirred some of Duncan's many loose strands of hair. He hastened his backward progress even though he dared not take his eyes off the large immortal.

His left shoulder struck the side of a barrier, and Silas used the sudden cessation of motion to take another swing. There was no way to escape the ax's arc. Scraping his back against the edge of the barrier, Duncan stepped back with his right foot to gain leverage and brought the sword upward. Blocking Silas' swing with tremendous effort, the Scot was taken aback by the sheer power of his opponent even though he had known what to expect. He couldn't repel the swing entirely, but merely deflected it, barely preventing its edge from striking him.

This was no good. Duncan needed a clear, open fighting area as much as he needed to know whether his friends were safe, and backing up blindly was perilous. There was only one way to get to the base alive.

Duncan MacLeod turned and ran.

*****************

Kronos' attack was full-throttle, brutal, passionate – much more in the style Methos remembered, yet subtly different. There was a wariness, a thoughtfulness that hadn't been present two thousand years ago. The oldest immortal spared a split second to wonder if his influence was responsible for that.

His opponent's eyes betrayed similar notations of changes in his fighting style as they exchanged formidable lunges, levelled lethal cutting swipes, ducked and dodged, blocked and beat on one another.

"So, you haven't entirely forgotten how to fight," Kronos said, breathing hard but radiating excitement and pleasure. "I thought you might have left that knowledge behind, along with the rest of your manhood. There may be hope for you yet, brother." He was obliged to duck abruptly during this last sentence as Methos' sword made a vicious lateral cut at his head.

"What I left behind was taking pleasure in the pain and domination of others," Methos countered after the follow-through. The two began circling in a dance-like motion. "It's called personal development, Kronos. You should try it sometime."

"The weak are meant to be plundered by the powerful, Methos. That law of nature hasn't changed since the world was new. To deny that is to deny yourself." With those words, Kronos swung his sword upward in a quick disembowelling stroke that Methos barely avoided.

Pressing his momentary advantage, Kronos rained a series of short, sharp blows on Methos' sword. Methos defended, mentally cursing as he stumbled over the detritus of the battle and subsequent Quickening. He was determined to lead Kronos away from the vulnerable Cassandra, but backward movement and broken terrain left him at a subtle disadvantage when confronted by Kronos' sure two-handed swings.

Eventually, there was a brief lag between Kronos' swing and Methos' block. The broadsword slid inside the steel web Methos had woven around himself, and scored a deep slice across Methos' left shoulder. Both men heard Cassandra gasp as Methos flinched in pain.

*************

Duncan ran cautiously toward the base, dodging poorly defined obstacles in the shadowy darkness. As he ran, he wondered when he had internalized the old man's mantra of "Live, grow stronger, fight another day." He also wondered if he would find the old man with head still attached at the end of this strategic retreat.

The closer he got to the base, the clearer the sounds of voices and clashing steel. Absently noting the destruction of one end of the catwalk, Duncan steered toward the low wall that surrounded the base. No longer sure of the location of the break in the wall, Duncan hurdled it like an Olympian, going for gold. What he saw both brought him relief, and brought him up short.

Cassandra lay in a heap on the floor next to Caspian's decapitated corpse. She was obviously still recovering from the effects of an ancient Quickening, and was even more obviously enthralled by that which had brought him up short: Kronos and Methos were engaged in a duel of spellbinding and lethal intensity, displaying an array of skills and tricks that Duncan had never before seen the old man use, nor even gotten an inkling of.

All three immortals were locked into a closed circle that did not even deign to notice Duncan's arrival.

As Duncan watched the fight, he immediately understood both the reason for Methos' strategy of backward motion and the disadvantage it put him at against the advancing Kronos. But he also noted the instinctive way Methos compensated for the drawbacks. He admired the skill shown in throwing up the defensive web, and admitted to himself that he didn't even recognize some of the moves Methos was using.

The revelation of these hidden depths of proficiency struck Duncan like a bolt from a particularly focused Quickening. How could he have possibly underestimated his friend's fighting abilities so severely? How could he have never even guessed at what lay beneath that carefully manufactured and guarded façade?

"Damn," Duncan breathed out, pole-axed. "You were right, old man." Although Methos could not hear the words, Duncan felt compelled to say them aloud in a self-imposed gesture of atonement. "I didn't want to see you, I wanted to see Adam Pierson."

Just as Duncan had his epiphany, Kronos slipped inside Methos' guard. Cassandra gasped, everyone froze, and the nearly-forgotten Silas walked through the gap in the low wall surrounding the base.