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Chapter Eight: Should Auld Acquaintances
"Well I am not doing it!" Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod said for probably the fifth time in the preceding hour. "Not!"
Thomas Cross looked at Adam Piersen and shrugged, "He's all yours."
"Why don't you just go get that other costume, then," Adam flashed his wrist in a trail of holographic sparks.
"Other costume?" Tom leaned in and whispered.
"Yes, you know, the OTHER costume," Adam winked.
"Lord?" Thomas was completely at a loss.
"Yes, Thomas, any other costume would be better," Duncan squirmed in the leather and homespun as if he were infested rather than invested.
"You know, Tom," Adam reminded the short black Estate Master who was dressed in enough black leather and gild chains to upholster a Lincoln--if they were still making Lincolns. "You remember, in the study, when we were running up the last seams, the--"
"Oh," Thomas said. "The OTHER costume. I'll be right back."
"Duncan, for God's Sake, stop rubbing your face," Adam complained, "You're smearing the paint."
"I don't know how you stood this," Duncan grimaced in the mirror. "Well, it's coming off just as soon as Tom gets back. He shifted the heavy belt down and rocked his right shoulder under the rough material. It had made him itchy. It might as well give him a good scratch.
"Look, Duncan," Adam tried a different tack as he went about tidying their room, strewn now, ceiling to floor, with all manner of battle gear and sartorial cast offs. "I know you're in a bad mood, burying Anne, and all. I know it has made you madder still that everyone's so happy with how I handled things in your absence." Adam couldn't help being a little vain, if not quite proud of himself.
"This was your idea," Duncan growled accusingly.
"Duncan," Adam reached up and brought an errant shirt down from a beam in the ceiling. "You have done nothing but sleep and snore, rather loudly, since you got back yesterday. I tried to wake you but all I got was clobbered for my efforts. After that, Thomas and I decided to take matters into our own hands and--"
"This is the best you could come up with?" Duncan spit.
"It's authentic," Adam answered through a very tight jaw.
"Did you think I wouldn't know it was your Horseman gear?" Duncan asked.
Adam just turned away and threw the bundle of clothes he had gathered under the bed.
"Oh, good," Duncan greeted Tom's return. "Well, let's see it."
Tom held up an enormous white T shirt. "This was what Adam thought you should wear. Something totally appropriate and in the spirit of--"
"It's just a T-shirt!" Duncan snorted.
Thomas swirled the T around to show the back where Adam had painted a bullseye.
Duncan glared at the Eldest Immortal. "So help me, if you say 'hippity' one more time--"
Adam just smiled--or he seemed to smile. It was difficult to tell. Thomas had dressed him in a curious, skin-tight suit from scalp to heel. Duncan suspected it must look like a diver's wetsuit, but he couldn't be sure. The entire surface of the thing was rigged with a dynamic holographic display of flames and he looked like a living fire, roughly in the shape of the Eldest Immortal, or like Loki Incarnate.
"You don't have to wear the mask," Thomas offered.
"Oh?" A twinkle lit the smoke of the Clan Chief's eyes. "There's a mask?"
Thomas produced the face of Death and handed it over to MacLeod.
Duncan did not need to see the pallor that gathered beneath the flame-dancing features of his paramour to know that this Horseman costume had really NOT been the Old Man's idea after all. The Scot grabbed the mask, flipped the cumbersome half-cloak over his left shoulder, put on the mask and charged The Flame.
Adam babbled incoherently in some very ancient tongue and went peddling backwards out of the room.
Duncan was immediately sorry he had done so, but as he took the mask off again, he wondered if he weren't somehow the measure of just retribution culminating in this moment, born on a ghostly wave of countless uneasy souls. He was ready for battle. All his gentler skills had gone into latency and would remain there until the battle was done. He had no use for empathy just now.
Duncan dropped the mask suddenly, as if it were the real fire that Adam's costume only pretended to be. Both of his fists knotted at the top of the rough cloak and he pulled it forward as if he were going to rip it apart.
"Lord?" Thomas Cross' voice lifted above the Scot's mind-wrought storm. "Wear it. Please. For him. For you."
The Highlander opened his hands and let the fabric drop back into the folds that crossed his heart, back and forth, back and forth. He didn't want to know this ever, and certainly not now, not when he was about to be engaged in killing again. How would he ever find a way to look at Adam and not think of this? How would Adam not recognize what the Scot himself now knew?
"I could have been a Horseman," he was surprised that he could say it aloud without screaming.
"No, Lord," Tom came to stand in front of him, chin up. "You never could have been." Tom reached for the mask and handed it back to MacLeod.
The Highlander refused to take the mask.
"Lord," Thomas took the Scot's hand and placed the mask in it. "He had to learn what you have always known."
"What are you saying, Tom? Knew what? Learned what?"
"He could not feel the worth of life, Lord," Thomas answered.
Duncan took the mask and ran his rough hands over its face. "Yes, yes. Adam couldn't see the worth of the lives he took."
"No, Lord," Thomas laughed softly. "He had to learn the worth of his own life."
"Damn you, Thomas!" Duncan sailed the mask out the door. "Damn you!"
"Lord?" Thomas stood his ground, though it was all his own life's worth to do so.
The Scot reached around the diminutive Immortal and nearly lifted him off the ground, leather and chains and all. "You had just better not die tonight, and that's an order."
The sun was just setting when the last of the crew from Cross Estates set off for 'Couver by the Bay and the destiny that awaited them this last night of the year in the gaudy bower of the Tower Drieg.
The ones who remained behind to guard the Estates went over, one last time, all their instructions, like babysitters bidding the parents be off on their way, and, no, they wouldn't let the children stay up past their bedtime, and, yes, they had the number to call if there was an emergency, and, no, they promised not to have any friends over to trash the place.
"Ram?" Thomas had one last "goodbye" to make before he left. He found Ram sitting quietly in his study, three floors below the snowy ground, wrapped up in his favorite throw, sitting before the fire and dozing.
"Yes, Horse?" Ram had only seemed to be asleep.
"I wanted--that is--"
"You will do well this night, Tom," she said, snuggling down more deeply in the thick comforter.
"Just in case I don't--" Thomas wanted to hand the Estate management over to her, should the worst happen, but he seemed to be having some trouble just getting the words out.
"Malak is dead," Ram suddenly turned the conversation.
Thomas thought for a moment. He wasn't certain he should pursue this. Then again, "I think I've known that for a long time now, Ram. I think I always knew that.
"It's always been just you, hasn't it?" he finished.
"Just? Thomas?"
"I never knew the Master of All Horses, did I?" Thomas felt his heart lurch a little as he said this. "It was always you."
"Whatever you believe, Horse," Ram said uncomfortably.
"I might die tonight, Ram," Thomas tried to explain his rudeness. "I wanted you to know--."
"What, Horse. That I have been false to you?"
"Oh, no, Lord, that you have been a truer, braver, more wonderful friend than I could ever have imagined or even designed."
"That is high praise, HorseMaster."
"I had been beaten, Lord. I was digging in the mud, in the field. I might as well have been digging in my grave, my life was so hopeless. Then you came, riding that wild black horse, and you lifted me up and we rode away, like flying, like being born. You gave me my life back that day, Lord," Thomas took a deep breath. "I wanted you to know that I had not wasted the life you gave me, and that if it is to end this night, well--."
"Go, Thomas," Ram said evenly. "Any more of this and we'll have to break out the handkerchiefs."
"Of course. You're right. Good evening, Lord, and Happy New Year." Saying this, Thomas turned angrily on his heels and strode out of his own study as if he had been summarily dismissed. The hell if he was going to turn over Cross Enterprises to this harridan!
"I'd say he was primed for taking a few heads," Ram mused to the empty air.
"I am sorry, Lord," the deep voice affected a charmingly gracious contrition. "I tried to keep him from coming down here, but he was so adamant about it."
"You are forgiven, Grant," Ram threw off the comforter and stood up. "Everything set?" she asked.
"Do you really think this is wise, Lord?" Grant answered the question with another.
"Oh, about as wise as questioning your commander, or were you thinking of resigning your commission already, Field Marshall Grant?"
"Not at all, Lord," Grant placed his large palm against her back and steered her towards the door. "I could procure you a weapon," he suggested.
"You just get me there, Grant," Ram replied, "I have seen to the rest."
Duncan MacLeod was in no better mood as he and his second-in-command entered the strange world of the Drieg Tower and the demesne of Thomas Cross, here known as Master Xavier, no less.
The Scot had been here twice before, but both times had been in the daylight, and the Drieg was nocturnal. Now it was just beginning to come alive, beginning to stir with the assembling guests. Duncan recognized a good many of them. These were the Immortals who had flown out for Mary's burial and stayed to join the battle, should it come to that, or party their asses off, if it didn't.
He was surprised to see the Villancourts, standing at the bar, resplendent in period costumes that were probably the very same clothes they had worn in that period. He seemed to remember the red dress Gina was wearing. It might have been the same dress she had worn the day he fell in love with her. The Highlander was both happy and aggrieved that they were here. They had been too late to attend the funeral. He'd somehow hoped they would stay out of this, but he was also very glad to have them both here.
There were many other Immortals here, so many that his head was already pounding a bit with the force of their auras.
"Here, MacLeod." Flaming fingers handed him a brandy.
Duncan sipped--no, not brandy, cognac. Very good cognac.
"That should help the buzz," Adam said. They were his first words since the incident at the Estates.
"I really am sorry, you know," Duncan admitted when the last of the cognac had found its way, too hastily, down his throat.
"You must really hate me," Adam whispered. "And I cannot say I blame you."
"No, Adam, really--" the Highlander wanted to mend the distance between them before the battle began. Before he could find the words, the Old Man had made his way clear across the round main hall of the dark tower. What a damnably stupid time for them to be "on the outs" just when they needed their bond to be the strongest. The fault lay in his own thick-headedness and his broody bad gaelic humours.
Striker slipped in casually, at Duncan's shield side, and escorted him to one of the many alcoves which looked, through great stone archways, on the main Drieg floor. The Facet then excused himself to return to his duties, taking Mr. Grant's place as the Maitre de Tower, since the gigantic partner of the Drieg's owner was back home, busy with the dragonets.
Duncan removed the roughspun shoulder cloak and dropped it on the floor. He removed the death mask from his belt and dropped it on top of the cloak. He slipped the katana--he'd borrowed it back from Sean--and it's scabbard out of its tether on his back and placed it under the low table. Then he settled on some pillows at the periphery wall, where he had a good view of the entry and the main floor beyond.
All the while he subconsciously made a complete tactical review of the building. Not the best place to engage, if it came to that. The tower made a deep, confining well and the surrounding, ground-level alcoves were too small for swordplay. They would have to be careful about the wrought iron stairs and second floor walkway which encircled the interior of the tower.
He glanced up at Dragon, sitting in the command center, at third floor height, across the hall, above the kitchen. There some eight chefs plied their considerable skills, readying the feast in the enormous galley that was Master Cross' pride and joy. The Scot could smell the sage and duck, pork and garlic, and all manner of wonderful fare even at this distance.
"You must promise not to tell Petros that I stole this," Striker dashed back out before the Highlander could thank him. On the low table, he had set a largish antipasto tray--salami, anchovies, peppers of every hue and bite, and other wonderful bite-size tasties.
Despite the fact he wasn't hungry, the tray was soon half empty and his leather forearm brace had become mysteriously smeared with olive oil.
Thomas had finished his initial round of Drieg greetings and appeared at the arch with his two "accessories." The image was so vivid and startling, that the Highlander was dumfounded. He had given the DriegMaster a hard time about his leather vest and "painted-on" leather pants, and the chain-draped black boots than ran up to his thighs, but he had yet to see the "full outfit" as it were.
And what an outfit it was: attached to the ornate, carved leather belt, by two gild rings, ran two chain leashes to the neck collars of two identical slaves, now kneeling at each side of Master Xavier. Each "slave" was dressed in a shiny white body suit that covered them completely, except only for their hands, now crossed behind them. Their was a silver zipper pull that hung down over their foreheads, the zipper running over the top of their heads, down to the middle of their backs. The suits were so tight, they seemed to be naked mannequins done in white plastic. It was an effect at once sensuous and off-putting. The ornate silver gauntlets and neck collars and lateral thigh armor only enhanced their look of fully-clothed nakedness.
Their appearance disturbed the Scot, exceedingly. They had no eyes, no noses, no mouths, nor did they say a single word when asked who they were. A little like walking corpses, he thought, or animate machinery.
Thomas politely ignored the Scot's disgust and, with a tiny tug on their chains, he lead his shiny white faceless companions to their place on the pillows opposite the table from MacLeod where they knelt in perfect and unnerving stillness.
Master Xavier unhooked their leashes from his belt and came to sit by Duncan. "You don't approve?"
"No," Duncan definitely did not.
"I seem to have done nothing but distress you this day, Lord," Thomas pulled the tray his direction and started working on the leftovers.
"I take it they're not eating," Duncan commented.
Tom only smiled. "You are worried about their care?"
"Well, dammit, Man, how can they even breathe in those things?"
"You really don't approve," Thomas repeated his earlier assessment.
"I mean no disrespect, Tom. I'm just not comfortable with this sort of thing," the Highlander wished he had better words to express this, words that would not sound so judgmental of his host.
"I know, Lord," Thomas smiled again and patted the loose white pants of the Horseman's gear. "It does you honor that your comfort is never your first concern."
On that note, Thomas left to see to the rest of his guests, leaving the Highlander to have a spirited, if one-sided conversation with the faceless ones about how very skilled their master was when it came to damning with spirited praise.
Facet Dragon, owner of Joe's Bar, watched the Eve revelries build from his excellent viewpoint, three stories high on the west wall of the enormous old tower. Usually this job would entail nothing more than that of a leatherbar DJ, but this night his task was more command center and field reconnaissance.
The slim Mediterranean stepson of the Immortals had spent the night keeping track of the true Immortals, scattered among the guests on the ground and second floors. He could not feel their "buzz" as they did, but as each Immortal was identified by his boss, constantly trolling the crowd, then Dragon's computer put a lock on that individual and kept track thereafter on an elaborate digital map to his right.
The "Good Guys" were all white dots: MacLeod, seated down in Xavier's large room, Adam, having far too much fun flaming--in every way, the Villancourts, who had pretty much commandeered the second floor hot tub room--and for quite a while now--two Immortals he did not know, an Italian and bland looking young gentleman from the New England area and six others that he had no knowledge of except through the Watcher data base.
Dragon reviewed them again. He was too keyed up to keep anything but the battle in mind, it seemed. Oh, yes, the magnificent black man who had nearly decked the Master over some untoward suggestion or another. The Facet grinned. He could certainly imagine any number of untoward suggestions, more propositions, he might make to such a fine figure as this one. An athlete, yes, baseball, oh, yes, went by the name of Carl still, but he had changed his last name. As with many of the Immortals, he was in hiding from the Mortal constabulary, waiting for enough time to pass, enough memories to be forgotten.
The Italian--more correctly, Roman--Marcus Constantine, had turned Carl's wrath at Mary's funeral and reminded him that the HorseMaster meant no reflection on Carl's proud and very masculine self. Dragon seemed to remember the two mismatched mates had gone off for a drink, or twelve, and hadn't been seen at the interment.
Ah, and the sweet little child, well, young girl, who wielded a sword like Kali the Destroyer, as if she had many more hands and arms than the limit. And so disarming because she looked, and would look the rest of her days, like a virginal sixteen year old, wide-eyed and apparently helpless...
...until the blade fell. Of the newest Immortals, she had claimed the most heads of her peers, not that she had many, except in age. No wonder, really, she had been MacLeod's last student--excepting Sean, of course.
The very odd bland young gentleman, Dave--something--an artisan who had done some splendid work for Master Cross' various restoration projects. He looked the tragedy that would probably haunt him all his days. He'd killed the woman he loved, sheerly by loving her too much. Dragon sighed. He supposed such a thing was possible when affection became addiction and the blurred vision of the lover became the blind eye of the obsessed.
Oh, yes, there was his favorite, the Gaelic Warrior Goddess, painted now in intricate scrollwork of indigo and cobalt. Ceirdwyn. My yes, but the enemy would be well met.
Well met, indeed.
He couldn't help the shiver that crawled up his shoulders and neck when the first of the "Bad Guys" slipped through the front door and Dragon added him, as a black dot, into the computer's tracking program. There had been a half-dozen added since then, all remaining well-behaved, no challenges had been issued. They were expecting approximately twenty "Bad Guys," and Dragon just assumed the fight wouldn't start until they all joined the party.
"Dragon!" Xavier's voice screeched at full volume into the Facet's left ear.
He rotated the head phone to place the mike in front of his mouth, "Yes, sir?"
"We all know how much you love that song, Dragon, but if you play Killer Queen one more time, I shall personally come up there and wring your neck."
"Sir, yes sir." Dragon blended the music out to a newer avant-group that played synth tones and whale sounds, and then returned to his vigilance and his map.
Soon enough they were too busy eating and luxuriating to bother much about the music, though Dragon was more careful to follow the precise little play list taped up to the board above the mixer. He finished stacking the discs and programming the play, and then he pushed back from the console and stepped to the back of the booth where the shadows would hide him.
Except to key in the next four "Bad Guys," Dragon spent the two hours practicing his sword skills, loosening his shoulders, rewrapping his wrists, and just generally getting ready. They were all waiting for one of the Black Dots to make the first move.
Xavier and his crew managed to move most of the non-involved guests out of the main hall and into the peripheral alcoves. Instead of holding the entertainment in the center of the hall, as was usual, they had set up each alcove with different gaming, or dancing, dessert or other creative entertainment, in effect, ushering them out of harm's way and into the shelters beyond the archways of the first floor. Those who were already paired off and involved in each other were already tucked away, safe, in the second floor rooms.
An hour before the old year was officially done, Dragon noted that all the black dots had gathered in the area in front of the bar where Hello Allen, now "Doc," was plying his old trade. The white dots where also gathering, across the hall, near Xavier's alcove.
Dragon pulled his sword nearer and eyed the top of the rope ladder awaiting his descent, should that prove necessary. The whales had long since been replaced by some soprano wending her way through an atonal scale, some darling of the latest trend. He could hardly hear the music in any case, the blood pounded so strongly in his ears.
Dragon watched as the impressive Scot rose from his seat with Tom's latex lovelies and came to stand, completely at ease, beneath the arch, directly facing the black dots across the room. Despite the distance, Dragon saw the enemy Immortals turn, as one, to meet the Highlander's unspoken challenge.
Dragon wiped his hands dry and took one impossibly deep breath.
Now it would begin.
Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod strode forward into the field, straight for the circular platform beneath the throat of the deep tower. His katana danced circles in his hand, seemingly of its own accord, like a cane in the hand of a gentleman who has known it forever.
One of the black dots, a tall blond fellow, stepped away from the others and answered the challenge, approaching the platform from the opposite side of the hall.
They met in the middle only to find Mr. Fire Pants had beat them both there, brandishing a blade that caught his incandescence in sparks and flashes of blinding light.
"Stand down, Adam," the Highlander ordered.
Adam answered with a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree flourish, longsword spiraling overhead as if it were a burning branch of no consequential weight.
"That will be all, Lad," Duncan's voice softened in volume, but increased in power. Behind him, the Facets and the other Immortals had gathered, all the white dots except for Gina and Robert and Dragon who waited by their ropes on the second and third levels.
Around the circle of the tower, all secondary noises ceased. The guests who played at violence and mayhem had the sense to know the real thing when it was presented to them. There would be no safe words where these warriors were concerned. That much was certain.
Thomas spoke quietly into his mike, setting up the man-to-man defense, picking each of them a black dot of their very own, calling down the Vallincourts, and telling Dragon to stay on the sidelines and relay positions to them as necessary. Dragon complained that they were outnumbered two-to-one as it was and that it wasn't a good idea to try and fill out the difference with the Drieg personnel, but Tom did not heed him.
Adam's long legs gifted him a fiery leap from the platform and he took his place at Duncan's left side.
With everyone in costume, the two groups presented a bizarre tableau, more like two demented street gangs than Princes of the Universe. A sudden shout at the back of the black dot contingent broke the stasis and both sides charged the center, their steel clanging and slithering through the air, thudding now and again as they met meat or bone or ringing against the unforgiving stone of the tower's cold floor.
The grunts and animal noises began to mix with the truncated moans of the dying within moments of the battle's beginning. The air was soon thick with the fear and blood and dust of their skirmishing.
The Highlander had warned them to set the battle with all due haste because the crush of so many Quickenings Major would drop the surviving Immortals on their asses in short order and then the Facets and the Mortals would be left to face whichever of the Immortals recovered first. There was no telling whether the latter would be friend or foe, so it benefited them to take out the majority as quickly as they could manage.
The Non-aligned Immortals were unprepared for the fury of their defense.
The tall Scot with his flame-draped shadow fought, back-to-back, so skillfully and unmercifully that they drove the black dots to each side of them, each enemy Immortal doing his best to avoid confronting the Highlander and his fiery friend. This ended them in dire straits, facing the Tom's phalanx, with , or alternately, at the other flank, the Vallincourt's group, and neither choice prudent, or even survivable.
This did not even count Dr. Allen who had taken first blood with a most appropriate "surgical" strike, albeit from a posterior entry. He'd taken down the first two before they ever even realized the friendly bartender behind them was part of defense.
It ended as quickly as it had begun, with only their heaving pants and brave whimpers to break the silence--and Marcus bleating to be put down as he was lugged across the hall over Carl's broad shoulder. MacLeod jerked himself back upright and surveyed the killing field. Gina and Constantine wounded. Allen bleeding into his left eye from a deep gash in his forehead. Thomas was bent over a still body on the floor. Cross was all right, but he'd lost one of the mortals. Damnation!
"Dragon?" Duncan spoke to the mike that was taped to the side of his cheek.
"Just the one, Lord," Dragon came back with the answer to the unasked question. "I believe we can count ourselves victorious."
The Highlander jerked as Adam tapped his shoulder. "Are you wounded, Duncan?"
"No," the Scot answered, though this was only true in the physical sense.
"Nor am I," Adam added, in a "just if anyone cares to ask" tone of voice.
"Who could tell with that stupid suit," Duncan grumbled. "I was hoping it would short out with the--."
Adam damped down the "burn." He was just rolling back the head piece to form a cowl when the same thought struck him as well.
There had been no Quickenings, not one.
Duncan felt the solid floor begin to roll beneath his feet like the deck of a tall ship. "Adam! God help us! Did we make a terrible mistake here?
"Tell Tom to make some excuse while we get these bodies out of here," he added.
Adam suppressed his baser inclination to ask if he also wanted the removal of the heads, along with the bodies.
The Highlander dismounted the platform and went to pick up the mortal who had died. It made him feel more than miserable that he had to ask the mortal's name, and worse than that when he found out it was Petros, who had made his dinner this night. He cradled the body in his arms as if it were a sleeping child that he was taking up to bed and did not want to wake.
As Duncan MacLeod reached the exit by the galley, he heard Thomas' explaining to the guests about the great pains they had gone to, recreating this harrowing and seemingly real performance. The ovation spiraled round the tower and broke against the Scot's back.
All he could think was that something very wrong had happened here.
Terribly, terribly wrong.
"Dragon printed these out so you could see them, Master MacLeod," Striker set the stack of papers before Duncan on the low table. The Scot's place was the one empty spot around the entire table.
Everyone else, even the wounded, had voracious "post-game" appetites and their places were littered with all manner of tasty fare in various stages of decimation.
The Scot flipped through the printouts. They were the faces and the names and the particulars of each Immortal they had killed this night. "Tell Dragon, 'thank you'," he said.
So, Duncan thought, they were Immortals, Quickening or no. Perhaps the fact they had not met each other in the prescribed pair, that they'd met each other as armies and not single combatants, perhaps this was the reason their power was lost with their death. Maybe the Drieg was some sort of depraved Holy Ground, or had been, in the past. Maybe this was the consequence of fighting outside the constricts of their peculiar gladiatorial edicts.
There seemed to be no greater consequences forthcoming. Except for Petros, they had come away from the battle nearly unscathed. Still, MacLeod could not shake his uneasiness. He could not stop "counting his sheep," could not rein in the intense compulsion to vigilance, even though the danger was past.
Gina's wounds were already healed, but you would not have thought so for the way Robert hovered over her, commiserating in woeful, tender tones, seeing to her every wish and whim.
Constantine had given up arguing with Carl and agreed to a long, medicinal soak in the downstairs hot tub. complete with a magnum, or two, of Thomas' best champagne.
Striker refilled Duncan's glass with the single malt Oban whiskey, or usquebaugh, as it was named in the past. This was a Highland "water of life" with a distinctive peaty bite and smoky aftertaste that spoke straight to some very old memories, most of them dear. The Highlander felt he was damned if he were going sober into the beginning of the next year, not with how awful the year before had been.
All of his dinner companions seemed to have similar feelings about toasting in the New Year. With a quarter hour to go, they were all well into their cups already.
"Tom?" Duncan decided what he needed was a little conversation, anything at all that would distract him from the building uneasiness which was fast bordering on terror. "Thomas," he repeated a little more loudly.
"Lord?" Thomas answered. He turned back towards the table and looked down its length at the Clan Chief.
"Ah'm just thinking we should--" Duncan began.
Though his body was turned towards the Highlander, Master Xavier's glance drifted back towards the great throng dancing on the main floor, washed in in rivers of rainbow light, waves of passionate elegant motion.
"Thomas!"
"Oh, excuse me, Lord. You were saying we should--. Were you going to finish that thought, Lord?"
"Ne'er mind," Duncan grumbled just loudly enough to be heard above the throbbing baseline of the current musical selection. "Why don't you go dance with him," he added. "Everyone else has."
Thomas rose, leaving his shiny white "slaves," and came round the long low table to kneel down beside the Scot. "It means nothing, Lord. Adam is just enjoying himself in a social context--something he hardly ever gets to do, Lord."
"You're saying I am nay enough fr' him, Tom?" Duncan leaned closer to the Drieg Master, so his words would be understood without yelling.
"I am saying I will not dance with him, because that would mean something quite different, Lord."
"He's makin' a drunken spectacle of heemself, Tom."
"I believe you were the one who kept complaining about his costume, Duncan. You can hardly fault him if he chose to take it off."
"Might as weel be nekkid. That bit o' string 'n leather kin hardly be called proper, nor decent," Duncan couldn't even look that direction.
Thomas could only stare. "No one's complained up to now. Michelle is delighted to have such an able dance partner."
"And Michelle, old enough to know better," Duncan grumbled.
"And some of us even older than that," Thomas sighed as he watched the lithe pink musculature of the Eldest Immortal sway in a sinuous display of grace and strength and general mindless joy. "Stop being such a prude, Duncan. It's God's Own Irony that you can be dissatisfied, when you bloody well know you own the heart of the one man in the Tower we all wish we had."
"What?" Duncan sat up very straight, partly affronted and partly tickled by the notion.
"After you, of course," Tom added, rolling over backwards in a leather-bound vision of great guffaws.
A scuffle at the main doors to the Drieg, interrupted anything the Scot might have said in retort. A knot of party crashers were being met at the door. An old bum slipped through and made his way over to Xavier's alcove, dodging the dancers on the crowded floor, and completely ignoring Striker who bounced backwards in front of him the whole way, gesturing and warning.
"Get out of my way, Strike," they could hear the old man saying as he got nearer. "I have to get this to MacLeod."
Duncan stood up and extended his hand. "Judge Stoner! Are you all right?"
"I know," Tony snorted. "I look like hell, but I had to give you this." He indicated the large bundle he held close to his chest with both arms. "You'll have to take it, my hands won't work."
Duncan reached for the bundle and took it. It was so heavy he nearly dropped it. "What?"
"You can't open it until the New Year proper," Stoner explained. "Damn, I didn't think I'd be so late. Striker! Make me a path up to the booth!"
Striker glanced at Tom. Tom nodded. Striker did as the crazy old gentlemen jurist had ordered.
"What is it?" Tom asked, looking down at the filthy bundle of rags.
"I guess we'll know in about ten minutes, when the New Year comes in--'proper' " Duncan shrugged.
"Duncan!" A shout from the dance floor snapped the Highlander's gaze away from the disheveled Judge Stone and straight into the green and grey of his spouse's eyes. The Eldest Immortal was bounding their direction off the floor. "Sword," was all he said, but it was more than enough.
Thomas keyed in the booth. "Dragon! Clear the floor! Something's up!"
The music stopped suddenly and Dragon started announcing that the dancers should vacate the central hall immediately.
Duncan threw Adam his sword and retrieved his own, unsheathing it for the second time in the past two hours. He hurried to the Old Man's side. "What is it?"
Adam pointed his sword at the knot of crashers who were even now muscling their way past the Drieg crew. "I hope you're not too drunk, Kid," was his only comment.
They had planned so carefully, Duncan thought as they pushed their way, upstream, through the mass of drunken revelers who either hadn't heard, or hadn't understood, Dragon's command to clear the list.
Adam shook his head, stopped, and then screeched "Fire!" at the top of his lungs.
Then they had to deal with panicked, drunken folk, stampeding over them as they left the floor.
"Wonderful idea, Old Man," Duncan commented as he picked himself off the floor and then offered Adam a hand.
Adam crouched down and banged his sword against the floor in a fast staccato.
All the able-bodied Immortals and Facets responded to the signal, even Dragon, swinging down the rope ladder, hand-over-hand, his sword strapped over his shoulder. Robert left Gina in Xavier's alcove and dashed to their side. Striker and Tom joined them, as did Carl and Constantine, even less properly attired than Adam, having come straight from the tub with only their swords to accessorize their nakedness.
Michelle arrived with the rest of their defense team, except for the Facets, all drunk as lords. With Mokgobja, they made an even twenty, the exact number of the Immortals at the door. It was the only thing even between the two groups. Duncan's men were all tired and some of them still healing injuries from their first battle, not an hour earlier.
And none of them sober enough to legally drive, let alone fight for their lives.
Now we're in for it, Dragon thought as he caught his breath from his mad dash across the hall.
Thomas called the Drieg crew back from the door where they were only stalling the inevitable. "Gentlemen," he called out cheerily to the intruders. "And how may we help you?"
Dragon stepped up closer to the front. He couldn't believe the shit had so thoroughly splattered the fan. Their best fighters all snockered and the Facets, except for himself, too tired from the earlier battle, no matter they were all sober. And this fight they'd have no mortals to round out their numbers. Petros death had pretty much proven Dragon's fears to be right, that the mortals were too vulnerable to play in this league.
Hell, the Facets were probably too vulnerable, though not a single Facet had ever died.
Yet.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way, Dragon argued to himself. The Good Guys aren't supposed to be blindsided. There isn't supposed to be a whole second wave of Bad Guys, God Damn It!
He watched as the leading Bad Guy, a red-head of medium height and stocky build, drew his sword in answer to Master Xavier's question. The man bowed deeply, stepped to the side and motioned his cohorts to charge, all without a single word spoken.
Shiiit! Dragon dropped his knees into a deep crouch and braced against the sudden onslaught.
From deep in the pillows of Xavier's nook, Dr. Allen moaned and struggled to rise, but Gina stopped him. His concussion had rendered him useless for the moment, probably for the rest of the night. She reached for her own sword, testing it in her uninjured left hand. If it came to that, she could still fight, not well, but long enough to make them pay.
If it came to that.
Five minutes into the fray, it began to look as if it would indeed come to that.
Dragon found himself down for the count, a deep gash in his left thigh which hurt like the bejeezus, and not at all in a good way. The headless Immortal lying before him was small compensation for his being pinned here just waiting for one of the enemy to see he was both helpless and still alive. Not being an Immortal, however, the Bad Guys were drawn away from him, all except for the redhead who was still standing by the main door.
Waiting, but for what, Dragon wondered.
None of the Good Guys were finished yet. Dragon didn't think this was going to last much longer. Carl was dead and Constantine, while doing an excellent job of keeping the body safe against three of the Bad Guys, would soon be tiring at this rate. Adam and Mac had taken out five of the Immortals between them, but they were now surrounded by a half-dozen of the enemy and the Scot had taken a bad enough slice to his left arm that he was forced to wield the katana one-handed.
And none of the others was much farther from tragedy or disaster. Bloody Hell! Dragon couldn't really fault Facet Stoner for staying in the sound booth, out of harm's way. He'd seen the old judge's hands. They were more than mutilated and totally useless. Tony couldn't even take the music chip out for himself. Dragon had taken it out of the judge's pocket and put it into the mixer right before Adam had signaled and Dragon had descended.
Descended to this place, this fate, whatever dark destiny that turned out to be.
Dragon tried to be optimistic. He could count nine Bad Guys down and sans cranium. Still, there were more than that left standing and the Good Guys were just about spent. Sweet Jesus!
MacLeod was down!
Dragon gripped his sword more tightly and pushed up on his other arm, trying to ignore the blinding pain in his leg that seemed to climb all the way to his chest. Far off, to his right, he heard Thomas, calling up the Estates, not for reinforcements, but to put them on alert. To Dragon, it sounded like surrender, or at least damn close to it.
Dragon heard Adam's distinctive baritone howl out in moaning wave of pain or frustration, or both, and he didn't have the heart to look that direction any more. He didn't want to witness the end of that fabulous pair. He couldn't stand the idea that that would be the last thing he saw.
The whole tower began to tremble and Dragon's gaze jerked suddenly up to the sound booth. Tony was trying to help them, trying to buy them some time by using the enormous sound system to momentarily stun the Bad Guys. It was an odd song he'd brought, a boys' chorus, like a church choir, baby male sopranos. Not the sort of thing to put fear in anybody's heart.
And all the time in the world wasn't going to buy them victory this night. They didn't need a lovely little choral piece, damnation!
They needed a whole God Damn cavalry!
They were the Good Guys! Damn it!
Jeeesus, Mary, and Joseph! Dragon sank to his back and raised his blade across his face, bracing it across his other palm. His luck and the magic of his "white hat" had both run out and one of the Immortals stood over him now, readying the final blow.
Please, please, please, Dragon pleaded silently, if not life, then a short, short dying.
A bright blade intervened and a head fell onto his chest, the body thrashing over his midsection and tearing the wound in his thigh.
Then strong arms reached beneath him and began dragging him backward, off the field. Dragon looked up. Yes, oh yes. None other than his "Killer Queen," the very one he had serenaded so indirectly all night long until Thomas had made him stop--her own brave self, Ceirdwyn.
Dragon could have felt no happier were he an ancient Norse Warrior, born off the field on the back of a flying horse, behind a warrior goddess. The Drieg might not be Valhalla, but it was more heaven than he might ever have wished.
He tried to take back the prayer about a short dying.
When Duncan MacLeod fell, Thomas' heart fell with him. He contacted the Estates to warn them and then he started maneuvering his way in close to finish the Immortal before him, so he could go to stand guard, with Adam, over their fallen leader. If they took MacLeod, everything would be over, from this battle to their entire lives as they knew them--even for those who might survive this night.
Thomas' blade finally found the Immortal's heart, and then his head. He heard the tower start to rumble around him. Stoner was doing something with the sound system. Before he had time to think about this, another of the stranger Immortals started Tom's direction and his focus narrowed to the task at hand. His sword was growing progressively more ponderous and he couldn't seem to draw enough breath to keep up with his speeding heart.
Thomas Cross began to face the very real possibility that this would be the last fight, the last night, the last year of what had been up to now a fairly long life. The choir boys in the background started to sound like a mass for the dead. And then, at the worst possible moment, an impossibly loud sound of ascending cymbals ripped through the Drieg, jarring the dust down from the rafters and making the lights tremble and blink.
It wasn't much help, Tom granted, but his foe hesitated for a split second. The tiny black man took that one advantage afforded him and turned it into a bloody victory. The jarring, tinny harmonics continued to build. Then, louder still, so loud in fact that it echoed beneath his own diaphragm and somewhere deep in his skull...
...a strident defiance rang round the hall, emanating from the exact center of the tower.LET...The seven remaining Immortals and the red-head, who had yet to leave his place at the door, turned as one man towards the dais at the tower's heart, where a single figure, entirely in white, sang out the challenge with a stunning volume that outdid the speakers....the river run,...the faceless white form commanded.let all the dreamers wake the nation.Oh, Dear Lord, Thomas thought. Which one of the "slaves" was it? Molly or Margaret? He started towards the center. It was a foolhardy ploy and its sheer bravery stirred him to the bottom of his heart.
Thomas felt the hairs on his back and neck stand up in an electric excitement as the white figure lifted an enormous blade into the air. Not Molly. Not Margaret.Come, the New Jerusalem.The blade descended and bounced its command on the base of the dais, then pointed towards the place where the Highlander lay, struggling to breathe, struggling to rise, as the Eldest Immortal stood over him like a mother tiger, daring the ring of Immortals to advance and be killed.
But the Immortals had already moved back from the Scot and his ferocious protector, drawn to the white-clad, faceless singer, even as Thomas and his minions passed by them to stand the ring around their fallen Lord, and Carl roused in time to be hurried across the hall to join them.Silver cities rise, the morning lights
the streets that meet them,
and sirens call them on with a song.Ram--it could surely be none other--began to spin the blade as she bounded down from the dais and charged the seven, her weapon ringing a deafening counterpoint to the percussion of Stoner's music.It's asking for the taking. Trembling, shaking.Thomas raised his sword in both hands, standing with the others, his back to MacLeod and Adam, as he stood in the circle of swordsman that formed a living bulwark for their fallen king. He tried not to feel too much hope yet. He tried not to think about the fact that their deliverer was blind and wounded and injured before this battle ever began.Oh, my heart is aching.
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod lifted his head up from the flagstone of the Drieg floor and levered his good arm under him. The moment he put weight on that extremity, something tore like fire across his chest. The next moment there was a foot planted squarely between his shoulders and a familiar voice in his ear.
"Stay down, you stubborn Scot," Adam commanded with far too much tremulo to be entirely convincing.
Duncan heard the steel blades ring above his head and saw a blur of legs advancing and then retreating. At the next pause, he felt the foot leave his back and struggled again. This only managed to move him flat on his back, staring up at the nearly-naked form of the former Horseman, straddling him and fighting off all comers. The Highlander readjusted his grip on the katana as the scuffle of many feet rushed towards them. Duncan levered up on his arm, trying to engage what musculature remained after the deep wounding he had taken in the chest.
To his great relief and abject embarrassment, the Scot saw that the men who ringed them now were his own, each one standing bravely, side-by-side, their weapons raised, their backs as strong and true as a pallisade.
"Adam," Duncan choked and coughed. He was still spitting blood, but the pain had eased off a bit. "Help me up, you sorry serpent's son!"
"Here," Adam caught him under his armpits and pulled him to sitting, or something like, leaning his back against Adam's sharp shins. "Now be still."
From this position Duncan could see that the fight continued, just beyond the stalwart shield of his many friends. He could see the remaining half-dozen or, no, seven Immortals charging a point at the middle of the hall. The music had started again. He cocked his head sideways and sited between the upraised swords of his guard. There was Judge Stoner, up in the sound booth, cranking the speakers to their limits. It sounded less like a song of battle, more like a song of victory. The Scot wished he could feel so optimistic.
"Adam," he twisted around.
"What?" Adam leaned down and Duncan felt the hard knees press against his back.
"Grant," Duncan gasped, trying to lift his hand to point where Tom's gigantic companion stood like a marble statue just to the side of the point where the enemy were charging. "Get him out--," the Highlander started coughing again, but no blood came now.
"He has to stay there," Adam said. "Conserve your energy."
The Old Man didn't add, "because the fighting is far from over," but he might as well have done.
The Highlander didn't like the situation, but there was nothing he could do about it just now. They were buying him time to heal. Grant had brought in reinforcements from the Estate and, for some reason, was unarmed and standing apart from the engagement, but not "apart" enough. Duncan could not see the others, but he had a good view of the inscrutable blond giant. Something was clearly wrong with him. He did not move, hardly seemed to breathe. Only his eyes showed life and they were feverishly fixed upon some point at the center of the hall, beyond the charging throng of enemy Immortals.
Then the Immortals parted, three either side of their target, one of them hesitating in the middle. A thrumming scream of metal whirled above the middle man and he was headless and crumpled to the floor before his choice could be made. A white-sheathed, slender figure appeared as the body dropped.
Oh, the Highlander thought. And then he thought, Who else?
Hiding as one of Tom's faceless slaves, Ram had been waiting in plain sight, under their noses, waiting for the tide to turn against them. Duncan immediately remembered the last time he had seen that blade in action, heard its chilling ring and buzz, felt its merciless teeth. That had been nearly two decades earlier in a glade near his island cabin. He had felt Ram had bludgeoned him ruthlessly before she "killed" him. He could see now, she had been very careful with him then, almost tender, in comparison to the murderous assault she now mounted.
The next Immortal, approaching from the rear, found he had only given Ram the opportunity to "fly" the heavy steel airfoil through its full arc and into, nearly through, his midsection. The man went down and Ram made her first mistake. She finished the kill with a gigantic overhand slice, but the weight, the inertia of the blade sent it not only through the Immortal's neck, but also deep into the floor, with a shattering whine.
Duncan saw her lean and pull back hard to loosen the blade, but it didn't budge until she moved to another vantage and started rocking it free. Too much time unarmed, he thought--and so did another of the, now six, Immortals. The enemy moved in rapidly, his weapon poised to strike.
The Scot looked over to see if Grant would come to Ram's rescue, but the giant never moved. His pale eyes descended to the dead Immortal at Ram's feet and her white-masked face cocked sideways, listening, gauging. Quick as thought, Ram's foot slipped under the dead Immortal's head and lifted it, like a soccer champion, shooting it straight towards the middle of the advancing Immortal's forehead.
There was an echoing, retching sound around the entire Drieg, a sort of corporate physical display of sudden disgust.
The Dragon's blade finally rocked free and Ram dispatched the Immortal before he--or the Drieg guests, either--had recovered from the stunning and grizzly maneuver.
The Highlander was too busy wondering how his Shield Brother could have made such a mistake as fouling her blade in the stone floor. Having seen her wield the peculiar sword before, he knew this wasn't supposed to happen, but, of course, she couldn't do the breaking maneuvers because, braced or no, her left arm was still broken. She couldn't bounce the blade as she had done, couldn't slow it down by using her left forearm gauntlet. Now, that he watched more closely, he saw that she also couldn't hold the blade through its spinning course with the same accuracy she had shown in the glade that day.
Not that that made a big difference against the remaining Five. They had never seen such a sword, more buzz saw, and they seemed unable to defend against its ruinous path.
Any more than they seemed to be able to stop moving forward into that same path, like moths to candle flames, and much to the same ultimate effect. Soon enough their number dwindled to four, and then to three.
Ram had turned and run from them, towards the bar, spreading the remaining three across the hall as they continued to follow whither she led, Grant moving steadily down the hall following her at a slower pace, staying wide of the three.We, the great and small, stand on a star,
And blaze a trail of desire,
Through the darkning dawn.Duncan watched her scramble, a little clumsily, up onto the deep bar. Then it occurred to him what Grant was doing. He had forgotten that Ram was blind. She was using the giant as her eyes. That was why he had to stand so close to the fray, why his attention never wavered, why he hardly seemed to blink.
The vigilance of the Highlander's inner warrior pulled him back from the battle at the bar. He scanned the tower, searching until he was finally twisted around, his cheek against Adam's thigh, focusing in on the Immortal with the orange shock of curls, standing at the Drieg entry.
"Red" didn't notice the Scot's attention. The thickset Immortal was learning the Dragon's moves, studying the method of Ram's unusual fighting style. Exactly as Duncan had done in that long ago battle. The Highlander wondered if he noticed her weaknesses, if he recognized that she was tiring. Does he see how difficult it is for her to change the direction of the blade once she has started it spinning? Does he know she is blind?
As he watched, Duncan detected a curious dance in the man's movements. Red would be drawn forward, almost as if he were tethered by a spring anchored near the bar where Ram fought. She had taken one more of the Immortal's, cleaving his head down the middle and then completing the job, ear to ear, before the man had fallen. Before the flame-maned, stocky Immortal had taken the second step, though, he would stop himself and step back again, all the while studying the plastic white fighter with all the intensity of a surgeon.
"Adam?" Duncan tried to get his spouse's attention, to plan some strategy to take out this last Immortal. He was beginning to think Ram couldn't "magic broom" her way past the redhead.
The Old Man's attentions were locked on his mother, as was the rest of the Drieg. The Scot used the tools at hand. He turned his face into the Old Man's thigh and bit down hard.
Adam jerked backwards, but Duncan's muscles had healed enough that he could remain sitting upright even without the support of those long legs. The Old Man crouched down and complained in some short epithet that was too arcane to be effective, except in its spirited delivery.
"Oh, hush," the Highlander grabbed the curls at the nape of Adam's neck and pulled his face close. "Look at the door." Duncan jutted his chin toward the main entry and the Immortal there. He gave Adam a moment or two to see the situation for himself.
The grey-green eyes, older than any other eyes in the world--except for the blind ones across the hall--took the measure of Master Red, then swept back and took a more objective measure of the white catsuited warrior standing on the bar, almost toying with the last enemy there.
"She's tired," Adam bent forward, whispering into the Scot's ear, so he could be heard above the incredibly loud "Jerusalem" song. "She can't be killed," he observed. "Or did you forget the damnation thing?"
"If we let her die, though," Duncan grabbed the nearest ear. "And she wakes up knowing we let the babes die--just how long do you think we will live after that?"
"You do have a point," Adam's glance darted back towards the bar. "And she won't be blind then."
The smoke and peat of Duncan's intense stare suddenly lit even brighter with the answer to his own question. "Tell Tom to stop playing statue and get down here so I can talk to him."
Adam complied. Tom knelt down by the Scotsman. The Old Man took his place in the ring. He tried to listen to the plan that Duncan had made, but he couldn't hear a word above:
So we are, Adam thought...We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters....at least the "coming to the edge" part.
Except for the red-haired Immortal at the door, all the enemy Immortals had been separated from their heads through the due diligence of the Facets and the Immortals under Duncan MacLeod, and the dragon laureate. The drunken secondary guests, the more usual clientele of the Drieg Tower Bar, were having the show of their lives, an entire experience on visceral and visual levels, a feast of fear and ferocity and fabulous excitement. They gathered at the edges of the archways, wide-eyed and inebriate, swaying to the pulse of the music, mouths gaping with each new atrocity, each new murder, until even their seasoned palates were nearly satisfied.
They had come to the last battle, the duel between Red and the comic-book character in the white superhero costume, the slender woman with no face and her attendant giant, the manager of the Drieg.
The woman jumped down lightly from her perch on the bar and came striding across the room to stand beneath the tower proper at the center of the hall. She mounted the circular dais and waited for the broad-shouldered, red-haired man to join her there.
Red was wiser than the others, however, and he strode, not to the center, but straight towards the pale giant. He sensed that Facet Grant was other than an interested bystander, that he had somehow been integral in the victories of the small woman in the white latex with the murderous sword.
The Highlander rose, unsteadily, leaning on the short black owner of the Drieg. The ring of his guardsmen parted, and they marched, as one man, behind their Scottish Lord, to intercept the last of the enemy.
Above the strident pulse of the music, there rose a clanging like a deep-throated bell on Sunday morning. The woman was bent over, pounding the hilt of her great sword against the metal belting that braced the dais. Then she stood and motioned the giant back into Xavier's alcove, and signaled Duncan's "brigade" to stand their ground as she challenged the last enemy alone.
Duncan reinforced her unspoken command and his troops halted behind him. At his right, Thomas Cross Xavier started to speak into the small mike taped near his mouth, but the Highlander stopped him.
The woman stepped back to give Red room to mount the dais. She sketched a bow his direction and waited for him to begin the challenge.
Red reached beneath his dark coat and pulled out an impressive hand and half sword with a custom, swept-back cross piece that looked like two folded wings. He pointed the blade towards the floor and bowed his head.
Ram flipped her strange sword up suddenly so that it balanced straight towards the ceiling, the heel of the pommel on her outstretched palm, the thick blade spinning on its long axis, a little like a basketball player spinning the ball on one finger. It seemed an inordinately brazen display.
There were perhaps three persons in the entire hall knew what the gesture really meant. The Danaan sword was filled with mercury, enabling the wielder to adjust the balance and weight of the blade. Lifting it to vertical and spinning it in this fashion, Ram was un-weighting the blade, letting the mercury run back into the hilt to lessen the torque forces on the long blade. She was, in effect, decreasing the strength of the sword's blow in favor of lightening it overall.
Something Ram would never have done were she not at the end of her strength.
Ram threw the sword up and, catching it on the descent, pointed it towards the floor, and nodded back.
Then she charged the Immortal, bringing the blade up in whistling revolutions.
Red waited, motionless, until the last moment and then he soundlessly stepped sideways and brought his blade down on Ram's back.
Duncan cursed. The man had divined that Ram was blind! "Now!" the Highlander roared above the music.
Thomas spoke into the mike and Judge Stoner snapped to.
Ram rolled sideways and jerked back up to standing.
"Now!" Duncan repeated.
"He's trying, Lord," Thomas whined back. "His hands--he can't work the--"
High above them, on the opposite tower wall, Tony lifted a chair between his arms and brought it down suddenly onto the control console in a flurry of popping and sparks.
The music stopped. The lighting failed.
The tower was thrown suddenly into silence and absolute darkness.
Then the two blades found each other in the dark and sent up sparks of their own, briefly lighting the combatants, again and again, in a peculiar, strobing illumination, a series of motionless "snapshots" as they came together in the darkness.
Grudgingly, even the "Good Guys" had to admit this stranger Immortal with the red hair was an excellent swordsman, a superb tactician. None among them, save Duncan could have lasted against the unrelenting blade of the Danaan. Red was lasting, even in the blackness, using his ears to amend his sudden blindness.
Too quiet, Duncan thought. He hadn't meant for Stoner to cut the music with the lights. Ram was in need of some noise.
To the Highlander's left, the nearly seven-foot Zulu-Natal Prince brought his full, rich voice to bear against the stillness:
Far to MacLeod's right, from deep in the shadow's of Xavier's dining nook, came the two clear sopranos of Gina and Ceirdwyn, and Dragon's tenor, and Allen's gruff bass joined also.Lait d'rivahr rahn,
Lait ahhl d'dreamahrs wayke d'nayshauhn.Robert answered, as did all the troops on the floor, slapping their free palms against the hilts of their swords. Not a full bar into the next verse and the entire drunken throng, the unholy Host of New Year's "Driegers," joined the song that they now knew to the bottom of their besotted hearts. Their fists found table top and wall beam and the floor itself, pounding out the baseline as the very stone of the tower itself took up the accompaniment.Coooome, the New Jerusalem!Let the River---
Let the River Run, Ram answered.--Run. Let all the Dreamers--Let all the Dreamers, Ram's blade rumbled more loudly than their pounding.Wake the--Wake the nation.Ram nearly screamed into the high note as the blades met the last time and Red's lesser blade went sailing out of his hands and the Last Enemy descended to his knees in surrender.COME!
The blade, alight now with its own demonic flame, spun in her right hand and lifted high above the man's kneeling form.
THE NEW--
Down it flew, straight for his neck and the end of Red's life.
JERUSALEM!
An incandescent blue sparkling began to rise, first from the blood stained bar, then, across the hall to the dais, then straight for the knot of defenders standing with the Highlander, as if it were a flame following an unseen fuse.
Then the center detonated with the full worth of the two score, minus one, Immortals who had died this night in the victorious, if awkward, engagement between the forces of Good and Evil and Chaos.
A great cheer went up from the celebrants who drunkenly hailed this the best New Year's display ever.
An equally loud chorus of deep-throated screams rose from the surviving Immortals as they succumbed to weight of so many Quickenings.
And louder than these, the Drieg Tower groaned and whined and shrieked as its stony heart broke and the entire rise of its hollow central pillar shuddered, lifted with the rising column of pure energy, and then exploded, raining down in flaming bricks and sundered mortar.
So died the tower.
So died the year.
So were their memories blazoned on their very souls, though there were many things about that year they might have otherwise chosen to forget.
