The Dragon and His Wrath
Part 2 of 5
Disclaimers in part 1
His movements swift and efficient, Kreegan drew forth a key ring and unlocked Methos's door. Olaf traded the dart gun for a more conventional gun and stood ready should the unconscious immortal suddenly awake.
Kreegan swooped on Methos, pulling the tattoo'd flesh to him like he was kneading dough. He stared at the tattoo, motionless, for a time, but Joe could feel some powerful emotion building in the room. He looked past Kreegan to where MacLeod stood watching, his hands high on the bars.
"Olaf," Kreegan's voice was low and steady, but with a deadly undercurrent. "My sword."
"What are you doing?" Joe demanded.
"I'm not explaining myself to you," Kreegan replied.
Olaf vanished beyond the wall which blocked Joe's view of the door, but returned promptly carrying a no-nonsense looking broadsword.
"MacLeod!" Joe cried.
"Whatever twisted concept of honor you have, Kreegan, it can't include beheading an unconscious man," MacLeod said.
"Don't pretend you can lecture me about honor, Barbarian," Kreegan fairly snarled. "This is an execution. You don't know what this man has done. This is the crest of the Hidden Dragon, a Roman special forces unit that made the SS look like a Gentleman's Club."
"Roman?" Duncan asked. "Ancient Rome?"
Even Joe was taken aback. Unfortunate gaps in Watcher coverage through the ages had resulted in the loss of some crucial information. He hadn't known Kreegan was that old.
Olaf handed Kreegan the sword.
Kreegan kicked Methos's crumpled form, not to damage, but to shift him into a prone position. He knocked one arm down, away from Methos's head.
"A tattoo wouldn't last that long!" Joe yelled. "I know. Mine needs touching up all the time!"
"Wait!" said MacLeod. "What did he do?"
Good, Joe thought. Keep him talking. Offer him the chance to vent. Stall, stall.
"I'm not impressed with your choice of friends, Mr. MacLeod. Has he told you what he was doing two thousand years ago?"
"What do you think he was doing?"
"He was slaughtering the citizenry of Carthage and burning its beautiful buildings to the ground. Murdering my wife and her two little girls. Raping. That's what Hidden Dragon did. That's what Romans did." Kreegan shook as he spoke. He tested the distance to Methos's neck with the tip of the sword, holding it two-handed, and positioned his feet shoulder-length apart.
"So you didn't know him, specifically," Joe said, desperate. "What if you're wrong? You could be murdering an innocent man. What kind of legacy is that for your wife?"
"What kind of vengeance is it?" MacLeod asked, steadily. "A quick, easy death?"
Kreegan paused, then glanced at MacLeod. "Nice try, Mr. MacLeod. I notice neither of you has protested that he isn't old enough to have committed those atrocities." He raised the sword over his head. "The problem with immortality is it allows remnants to linger of things which should have been buried and forgotten long ago."
"I'm telling you, that's a new tattoo!" Joe cried. "No way is that centuries old!"
"They salted the earth, didn't they?" MacLeod still spoke steadily.
Kreegan's arms holding the sword wavered.
"Did they rape and torture before they killed? Your wife and daughters. Wouldn't you rather hurt him than kill him?"
Slowly Kreegan lowered the sword, still scowling at Methos.
Joe held his breath.
MacLeod said, very deliberately, "You could pour salt in his wounds."
Kreegan turned to face MacLeod, so Joe couldn't see his expression. "I'm beginning to think he isn't your friend, Mr. MacLeod." He considered a moment. Then, "Olaf! The chains."
Olaf vanished beyond the wall again and returned shortly with heavy iron manacles, a welding gun and a proper welder's mask. He stepped past Kreegan into the cell and went to work fixing the manacles and their three-foot lengths of chain to loops of rebar which protruded at regular intervals from the back wall, above the trough. Joe noted with a chill that those loops were in all the cells. He wondered if the place had held animals at some time. In addition to the trough, there were large drains in the corridor, so the entire interior of the place could be hosed down.
With little talk and those efficient, minimalist movements, Kreegan and Olaf chained Methos's wrists. The chains allowed the immortal only enough movement to lie down, beside the trough.
Kreegan studied his prisoner, his expression dark. "Wake him," he said.
The well-equipped Olaf took out a hypodermic, injected Methos, and stood back, outside the cage.
Methos opened his eyes and looked at Kreegan. He moved slightly, noting the bonds, and his groggy expression grew wary.
Kreegan continued looking at him, breathing heavily. Then, he spun around, exited the cage, and locked it.
"Bring food for Mr. Dawson only, Olaf," he commanded. He gave Methos a narrow-eyed look. "I'll deal with you later," he said. Then the two men left.
MacLeod cursed again and began a thorough inspection of the lock and the bars on his cage.
"Did he know me?" Methos asked.
It was not exactly funny, Joe reflected grimly, that Methos took waking up in chains as evidence that he had been recognized.
"He didn't seem to," Joe said. "He recognized that tattoo on your rump."
MacLeod came to the bars on Methos's side of his cage. "He said it was the insignia of a killing unit of the Roman Army. Is that true?"
Methos frowned and did not look at MacLeod as he answered. "The Roman Army was a killing unit, MacLeod; that's what armies are for." He glanced at Joe and then at MacLeod. "Surely I'm too young to have been in the Roman Army? There aren't many of us around who are that old?"
"Too late," Joe told him. "He's a clever one, and he picked up on us not denying your age. Sorry, man."
Methos closed his eyes. "Any idea what he's planning?"
"No," Joe lied.
"Probably torture," MacLeod said. "So, were you in this Hidden Dragon unit?"
Methos sighed. "I can tell you the truth, MacLeod, or I can lie to you, and either way you can't check it. Would you even believe what I told you? So, what does it matter?"
"It matters," MacLeod said.
Methos looked at him for a long moment. "Yes, I was. Happy now?"
MacLeod turned away.
Methos asked Joe, "I assume he's a Carthaginian?"
Joe nodded, wishing he could remember more about Rome and Carthage.
Methos laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Life. Coincidence. Alexa thought getting tattoos would be wild and daring. I picked that one because the pattern was so close to the old insignia."
"Nostalgic for the bad old days?" MacLeod asked over his shoulder, as he examined the base of the farthest bars.
Methos didn't rise to the bait. He shook his head absently. "Just a twisted inside joke with myself. That'll teach me. So, uh, about this torture? Did you suggest that, MacLeod?"
"You would have preferred I let him behead you right here?"
Methos's face tightened. "Thank you," he said sarcastically. "I hope I get a chance to return the favor."
"Guys! Guys!" Joe interjected, dismayed to see yet another wedge pounded between his two friends, particularly when it was so important that they work together. "Can we concentrate on getting out of here?"
They discussed their options as the daylight from the high windows faded. They abandoned hope of bribing Olaf after their attempts proved futile when the huge man brought Joe's dinner. Olaf ignored them.
Joe insisted on sharing his meager dinner, but, split between the three men, each got three mouthfuls of oatmeal, a palm-sized piece of baguette, and one third of an orange. Their likely fate closed in on Joe, then, and the two immortals sat in silence, too.
"All right," Methos said quietly, into the darkness. "This is what we do. If he decides to kill me, it will be execution, not challenge, so I'm not the one who can save us. MacLeod, he won't abandon his challenge of you, so you have to win. You get the food from now on."
"No," MacLeod said with finality. "Starving won't kill you and me, not permanently. The food is Dawson's."
"It will kill us, and Joe, if you don't win. So what if we buy Joe a month and then he dies, along with us? I'd rather gamble on you defeating Kreegan."
This conversation, held in pitch darkness, was one of the eeriest experiences Joe could remember having. He saw the cold logic of Methos's argument, the hot defiance of MacLeod's argument, and he saw how it would have to end.
"Hey guys, I'd like a say in how my food gets used."
The immortals quieted.
"Methos is right, Mac. Our other options are sure death. I'd rather gamble on you. You're a pretty good gamble. There's one thing, though." God, how he hated to say this part! "I have to eat some, too, or it will be too obvious to Olaf that someone else is getting my food. So I eat a part, and you get most of it."
"And Methos gets nothing!" MacLeod protested. "I can't do that."
"Yes, you can," Methos said quietly. "Like you said, starving won't kill me. But beheading will. You have to be strong, Highlander."
"Don't give me that! You're the one making the sacrifice!"
"Which I don't like doing any more than you like watching other people do it! So we both have a hard job to do! I won't complain about mine if you don't complain about yours. You eat, stay healthy, and stay in condition as well as you can. I just try to keep Kreegan from offing me." For all his brave words, Methos's voice shook a little at the end.
Silence fell again. Joe didn't trust himself to speak, he was so moved by the courage of the other two men. And his chest constricted in sympathy with Methos's fears.
That is when Kreegan returned.
An unseen light switch illuminated three bare bulbs in the corridor, the white light harsh and painful to Joe's darkness adjusted eyes. When Joe could bear to look, Kreegan stood before Methos's cage, unlocking the door. Olaf stood beside him with, of all things, a golf bag. The implements protruding from the bag looked nothing like golf clubs, however. Joe had to clamp down on the panic that welled up in him.
Methos's chains clanked as he shifted.
Kreegan entered Methos's cage, wheeling the golf bag with him. Olaf took up his former position, dart gun in hand, outside the cage.
"Kreegan," MacLeod began, a warning note in his tone.
"Shut up, MacLeod," Kreegan returned, "or Olaf will drop you."
Olaf gestured with the dart gun, and a scowling MacLeod subsided.
Kreegan turned to the golf bag, and Methos kicked. The immortal's lanky form, curled deceptively into a small space, uncoiled with snake-strike speed, and his bare foot almost connected squarely with Kreegan's groin.
Almost. Kreegan dodged at the last second, and with a snarl, drew forth the broadsword he had held earlier and plunged it into Methos's chest.
Joe cried out in horror at the sight. Methos's body convulsed under the blow, blood spurted out his mouth and nose, and geysered out around the blade. Kreegan withdrew the sword and stabbed again. And then again. Joe turned his head away, but not before catching sight of MacLeod, pale beneath his dusky skin, gripping the bars so hard his hands were white.
Joe heard Kreegan pause, panting. He had to force himself to look back, as visions of carnage in Viet Nam came unbidden to the backs of his eyelids. When he did look, what he saw was bad, though he'd seen worse, as he reminded himself over and over.
Methos's blood was everywhere. On himself – his torso and face were drenched – on the floor, running in the trough, spattered on Kreegan, and on the motionless MacLeod. Joe knew that if he looked closely through the gore, he could see the unthinkable – parts of internal organs and splintered bones. He took care not to look that closely.
Instead, he looked at Kreegan. The immortal's eyes glittered dangerously as he waited for his victim to revive. Beyond him, MacLeod slumped as though his legs had given out, and slid to the floor. Joe spared a moment of sympathy for his immortal assignment, whom he knew so well. There was nothing harder than being a helpless witness, prevented even from speaking.
Well, almost nothing harder.
Kreegan spoke in a low, dangerous tone, in a language Joe didn't recognize. Then, apparently losing patience with the wait, Kreegan raised his sword over Methos's head.
"No!" screamed both Joe and MacLeod.
Kreegan brought the blade hurtling down, to ring on the cement beside Methos's head. Then he raised it for another blow to the other side. He yelled words as he struck, words which Joe dimly thought might be names. Joe flinched with every blow. He couldn't help it. Any one might be the one where Kreegan changed his mind and decided to behead Methos. Or the one where he missed.
Kreegan stopped, still fuming. With a curse he spun and stormed out, leaving Olaf to lock the cage and follow.
"MacLeod," Joe said the moment the outer door boomed shut. "You kill that fucking bastard, dead."
"I will," MacLeod promised. "I swear to God, I will."
Methos opened his blood-crusted eyes. He coughed.
"Methos," MacLeod knelt at the same end of the cage as Methos's chains. He looked more directly at the other immortal than Joe had seen him do in some time. "Don't do that."
Methos moved painfully to a sitting postion, wiping blood from his face in distaste.
"Did you think you'd piss him off, so he'd kill you instead of torture you?" MacLeod went on. "You don't know how close he is to beheading you for the hell of it. Don't do that!"
Methos turned on the faucet, and put his face beneath the water flow, opening his mouth to drink. When he emerged he looked gravely at the Highlander. "All right," he answered. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
MacLeod shook his head. "I don't know how you've lived so long."
Both immortals raised their heads, just before Joe heard the squeak of the wheels on the golf cart. In came Kreegan and Olaf.