Chapter Twenty-six
With Kronos' rebuke still ringing in his ears, Silas felt his emotions shifting, slowly and gratingly, like interior tectonic plates. Anger which had merely smoldered quietly now began to flame up, building in heat and intensity and scorching his heart and mind.
The dream was dead. Caspian was gone, but that was of no real consequence; he had been negligible in the large man's reckoning. But Silas had been certain that Methos would come around in the end; that he would fall to Kronos and revive as their brother once more. Now it was clear that that battle would only end with the loss of a head. No matter the outcome, Silas would never ride with Methos again.
Needing a target for his grief and anger, Silas focused all his concentration on the young immortal he held responsible for the corruption of his favorite brother. The ax had swung purposefully before, but now it was powered by rage.
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Kronos and Methos circled one another in an ever-quickening spiral. With cat-like stealth, they placed their feet surely on the debris-strewn floor, the tips of their long blades dipping and diving in a complicated pattern of range testing and readiness.
Methos cast his mind back over five thousand years of tactics and strategies. There must be something that would be perfect for this situation. He evaluated and discarded several ideas quickly based on his knowledge of Kronos' strengths and weaknesses.
Relying once again on speed and skill, Methos went on the attack. Feinting to his left, he quickly turned and struck at Kronos' left side, but the leather jacket absorbed most of the blow. Carrying his slight advantage forward, he changed his angle of attack and slashed his sword at his opponent's right thigh.
As Methos continued with his rapid slashing attack, he knew it could only last for so long. While keeping Kronos on the defensive minimized the number of hits he took himself, it was also very tiring, and Kronos was blocking many of the blows now. Soon the strategy would have to change.
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The brilliant plan to stay within ax-range until he could make his move was really working out – for Silas. Within five minutes of resuming their fight, Duncan was feeling winded from all the avoidance. He saw clearly the change in his opponent's mood and attitude. Until now, the big man had been almost toying with him. Now, he was determined to get a head. Duncan, on the other hand, had all he could do to concentrate on keeping his.
A tiny misjudgment in maneuvering resulted in the ax striking Duncan's left bicep and his chest. His quick reflexes caused him to pull back enough to prevent lethal or disabling damage, but the pain wrung a yell from him and made him hunch over protectively. The chest wound was superficial, but the cut on the arm was down to the bone.
Grinning, Silas swung the ax laterally, trying to catch Duncan in the midsection. The Highlander blocked it with the sword, which was caught on the head of the ax and went sailing a few feet away. Silas twisted as the momentum of his follow-through carried him and the ax around in an arc. Vulnerable, bleeding, Duncan was dismayed to realize that his opportunity to enter the ax's circumference was finally here… and he was weaponless.
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Just as quickly as Methos' attack had started, it stopped. Kronos eyed his brother warily, waiting for the next trick. Taking a good look at his opponent, however, reassured him. The heaving chest and flushed face were those of a man who hadn't been forced to truly fight for his life in some time.
"What's wrong, brother?" he taunted. "Not only have you lost your taste for fighting, you've lost your ability. I'm disappointed in you, Methos. Somehow I expected more."
Moving with deceptive grace, Kronos swung his huge sword in a descending arc, trying to disable his opponent. Surprisingly, Methos blocked the blow squarely with his sword, catching Kronos' blade in the guard and letting momentum draw the two men close together.
"Never fear, Kronos," Methos returned the jibe, "I've got plenty more." Before Kronos could respond, Methos used his leverage to drive the pommel of his sword into Kronos' face. Feeling the blood drip from his shattered nose, Kronos tightened his grip on his sword and started swinging.
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Heart racing, Duncan suddenly realized he was not weaponless. Remembering the hatchet Methos had given him, the Scot reached back to where he had secreted it, hit the floor rolling under the ax-line, and swept his right leg around to take Silas' feet out from under him. The huge immortal came down with a crash.
Duncan threw himself upon Silas, but the ax was still in the bigger man's hands. The head of it was useless at this range, but he employed the handle to block Duncan's approach, keeping him far enough away that the hatchet was nearly useless too, able to make only small nicks.
Hand-to-hand combat with a half-severed left arm put Duncan at a serious disadvantage, and soon Silas had turned the tables, putting Duncan on the bottom with the ax handle crushing his throat. His vision beginning to fade with the lack of air intake, Duncan still had time to note the joy, the glee Silas displayed as he sensed the kill was at hand. Gone was the jovial giant he had begun to see and even to like. This man was a brutish thug who enjoyed killing, who lived for mayhem, who took pleasure in causing extreme suffering.
He didn't see Cassandra until she had wrapped her arms around Silas' neck to pull him off. For a brief moment, the Horseman took one hand off the ax handle long enough to backhand her savagely in the face with his huge fist.
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As Methos scrambled to avoid another blow from Kronos' sword, he wondered if he had miscalculated. Angering Kronos could be counted on to produce a strong offensive, but Methos had hoped it would tire Kronos more quickly. Silently rethinking his estimate of Kronos' physical reserves, Methos shifted tactics yet again.
Biding his time, dodging blows instead of blocking them, Methos waited for the small openings Kronos left in his defenses. Each time an opening appeared, he lunged forward and thrust his sword into the target. Though none of the blows were fatal, he hoped their cumulative effect would wear his opponent down.
"What now, brother, are you trying to turn me into a pin cushion?" Kronos asked. Redoubling his efforts, he wove a tighter defensive web around himself, leaving Methos fewer openings. With another slight shift, Kronos put his back to the wall of the base.
Sensing that the opportunity to defeat Kronos was passing him by, Methos concentrated his efforts on scoring a deep hit to a vital area. If he could just skewer Kronos, the fight would be over. Seeing his chance, he lunged forward, putting all his considerable strength into the thrust.
Methos saw the trap as Kronos easily sidestepped his thrust, but it was too late. His blade plunged into the remains of the speaker box, making contact with the electrical wiring that Caspian's Quickening had exposed. Live current flowed up the sword, and through Methos' hands that were pressed against the guard, sending his nerve endings dancing.
A final surge of power threw Methos away from the sword as the box short-circuited. The sword itself seemed fused with the wall, but Methos didn't notice as he staggered back a few steps. Kronos, now feeling assured of his victory, followed.
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Anger seethed inside Duncan as Silas viciously struck Cassandra, bringing with it a burst of energy and the realization that Silas was now close enough to be hurt by the hatchet. Closing his right hand in a fist around its handle, Duncan brought the hatchet up as hard as he could, catching Silas in the neck.
Roaring, Silas released the Scot as he tumbled backward to avoid another hit. Coughing and wheezing through a throat that was no longer flattened, Duncan sought frantically to stay within the ax-circumference as Silas continued to roll and shuffle away. Diving toward him, Duncan flung another wild hatchet-slice, this time cutting into Silas' side deeply. With another roar, Silas gave him an affronted look, as though he had no right to be making headway in this fight.
Silas' look of outrage and the sense of entitlement it implied lit the fuse on the small bomb of fury that had been slowly assembling itself within Duncan. He suddenly realized he was tired. Tired of being handicapped by his own rules and sense of honor. Tired of fighting with people for whom honor was a joke and rules applied only to others. Tired of struggling to make sense of a world without order, to be righteous when what was right was never clear enough, to define justice when everybody lived by the motto, "Nobody said life was fair."
Silas was trying to back up so that he could use the ax, but Duncan kept close. Another swing of the hatchet slashed into the arm flung up defensively. The next sliced open the gut, spilling a large amount of blood at their feet. Duncan swung again and again until he was simply pounding on Silas with the hatchet's blade, putting into each stroke all the angst and frustration he'd felt this past week dealing with the revelations about Methos and the Horsemen, making Silas pay for his pain.
In his haste to put distance between them, Silas slipped on his own blood and fell. He tried to crawl away, but Duncan dropped to his knees beside him, still chopping. Blood spattered his face, soaked his clothes, made his grip on the hatchet handle slippery, but still he kept pounding.
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Methos dropped to one knee, still shaking from the burst of electricity that had coursed through him… and swordless. Kronos loomed over him, ready to deliver the killing blow, but hesitating.
"It pains me to do this Methos," he said slowly. "I had hoped for something different."
"Wait," Methos shot back, stealthily reaching for the dagger in his boot, "let me guess, this is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me, right?"
"Ah, brother," Kronos shook his head sadly, "it is not just your skill, but also your wit that has deserted you. Perhaps this is for the best."
Kronos began to raise his sword for the final swing. Finally securing his grip on the dagger, Methos launched himself upward, bringing the dagger around in an arc across Kronos' forearms. The keen blade bit deep, slicing the right arm to the bone, and inflicting a deep gash to the left. With a scream of rage and pain, Kronos dropped his sword.
Reversing his grip on the dagger, Methos swung low to sever Kronos' femoral artery. Gushing blood from his various wounds, Kronos dropped to his knees. Methos bent slowly and retrieved Kronos' enormous sword. Standing again, Methos gripped the weapon, readying himself to end this chapter of his long existence.
"You were right about one thing, Kronos. This is for the best." So saying, Methos brought the blade around and severed his brother's head. He straightened and prepared to receive the blessing and the bane of Kronos' Quickening.
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Only when he saw that Silas was no longer defending himself, no longer moving or breathing, did he think about taking the head. Duncan never even glanced at the sword. The use of the hatchet felt so satisfying, he simply started hacking with it at Silas' neck.
Three, four chops were all it took given the force he was using. As Silas' head fell away, Duncan looked up in time to see Methos behead Kronos. In the brief moment of calm after the heads were severed, Duncan panted and began to actually think about what he had just done and, more importantly, how he had done it. A small whimper caught his attention, and he saw in Cassandra's face a kind of horror, as though she had just seen him grow a new and unpleasing face. He began to react to it, but the Quickening was now beginning, and it occurred to him abruptly that two ancient Quickenings occurring simultaneously might actually be dangerous.
He leaped to his feet in a panic, but realizing there was no escape from the consequences, he simply stretched his arms out, as though in penitence, and waited. On the other side of the base, Methos did the same.