Highlander

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  How to get onto the roof, without being seen? MacLeod’s eyes scanned the room. In one corner was a gantry with a rope hanging from it. Above this crane was a skylight. MacLeod put his sword in his sheath and began climbing the rope. He reached the beam swaying dangerously, but managed to haul himself on top. The window to the skylight proved to be a bit tricky. Rust had stuck it fast. MacLeod took out his sword and, balanced precariously on the gantry, ran the point of the blade around the edge of the window. This time it opened.

  He crawled through and out onto the roof. He could hear someone moaning.

  On the roof top hard, just in front of him, was a huge erection bearing the SILVERCUP sign and he thought the sound was coming from that direction. He studied the framework and caught the flutter of some material in the wind.

  Then he saw her, tied to the metal poles.

  Now, where was the Kurgan?

  Chapter 33

  THE KURGAN WAS waiting in the shadows at the corner of the rooftop. He had seen the car arrive and had witnessed the first part of MacLeod’s ascent up the fire escape, but he had lost the figure somewhere near to the top.

  It did not matter. There was very little doubt about the outcome. The Kurgan had fought over a thousand battles since he had been born the son of a peasant farmer on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over three thousand years ago. He was the oldest of the immortals, just a shade older than Ramirez would have been.

  The Kurgan had fought with Tartars, Cossacks, Huns, Vandals, Goths, Visigoths. Almost always he fought on the side of the barbarian. He preferred barbaric hordes to civilized armies, because he hated treating war like a drawing-room activity. War, in his opinion, should be a noisy, disorganized, chaotic affair, full of dust, blood and routs. The Mongols, the Vikings: those were his kind of people. They enjoyed putting the fear of God - or rather the Devil - into their enemies. The Europeans were always too neat in their wars and the Americans had tended to follow that lead.

  He stared out, over the city, seeing the dark areas amongst the light. That dark area within him, there since the beginning: that would soon be gone. The prize was within his grasp now. He had waited a long time for this day, this night. Revelations were about to take place.

  The Kurgan had many old memories that had hardened under the suns of many days. His first was from when he was five years old. His father, not wishing to feed him any more, had dashed his head against a stone and left him with a split skull for the wolves and bears. He had recovered, of course, within a few hours. He had followed his father’s tracks, along the edge of the hills, to his camp.

  He waited until his father was asleep that night and then crept out and took one of the hot stones from the edge of the fire. He carried it in the fork of a twig and it was still so hot that it burned through the bark. His father used to sleep with his mouth open because of a nasal blockage. The young Kurgan dropped the red-hot pebble into his father’s mouth. The shepherd could not dislodge the stone: it burned into the soft flesh in his throat and stuck there, choking him to death. His son took his sheep down the hillside the next day, to the farm and told his mother that a bear had attacked his father and killed him.

  When he was twelve, he left home to join a group of bandits who used to prey on caravans crossing the steppes between India and the Mediterranean. He became proficient with the slingshot and would stand on an outcrop picking off individual members of the merchants trains, thinning down their numbers before an all-out attack.

  At twenty-five his physical deterioration ceased and his bodily characteristics remained stable. He realized then that not only could he not be killed by a normal sword or arrow wound, or by a blow, but that he would not grow old. The ageing process had been arrested.

  Still, he had no idea of his full potential until he met a desert Arab, a Bedu, who claimed to know the secrets of him and his kind. The Arab told him what he was and said that he was not alone. There were others like him. Not many, but he was not unique. The Arab magician taught the Kurgan how to recognize other immortals and revealed that he too, was a brother in immortality. He showed the Kurgan the way to the Quickening, much in the way that Ramirez had taught MacLeod, centuries later. He foretold of the Gathering and prophesied that the Kurgan would be one of those present at the final battle.

  Once he had learned all the Arab knew, the Kurgan cut off the man’s head while he slept. Then he burned the body. The only possession of the magician that the Kurgan retained, was the scimitar that the man had kept by his side. Later in life the Kurgan changed this weapon for the broadsword.

  Now the time had come.

  The Kurgan’s thoughts were interrupted by a sound – a scraping of glass. He stood up and melted into the shadows of the scaffolding which criss-crossed the light from the moon. He was ready.

  He saw MacLeod move out onto the roof top. He called out, softly, ‘MacLeod!’

  MacLeod turned and the Kurgan could see the hard light in the other man’s eyes. This was no mean adversary. He might have been a mere boy on the battlefield when the MacLeods fought the Frasers, but Ramirez had had a hand in his training since. The Spanish peacock had prepared him. He had also been through many fights since: had defeated Fasil. The Kurgan was not about to underestimate such a foe.

  ‘We meet at last, Highlander.’

  MacLeod replied, ‘And both of us armed with our favourite weapons, for once.’

  The Kurgan nodded. ‘That’s as it should be.’

  ‘Let’s get to it then.’

  The Kurgan stepped forward.

  Chapter 34

  THE EDGE.

  The cutting edge.

  He could feel his strength flowing into the wakizashi blade, flowing along the cutting edge that could slice to the thickness of a shadow. His strength was in the keto with its fine masame grain, as clear as straight-grained wood. It gathered the light to itself, a bright sharpness that looked cold to the touch. The swords met and rang out, over the roof tops.

  MacLeod felt the force behind the other man’s blow. It was all he could do to contain it: take the sting out of the power by allowing the two blades to melt into one another.

  The Kurgan obviously saw that his adversary was surprised by the strength of his attack and followed up with two more hefty swings, but these were a little more clumsily delivered.

  ‘This is no Fasil, eh?’ grunted the Kurgan.

  Both swordsmen knew the value of psychology. It was important to seem the more confident, the more knowing, technically skilled. MacLeod knew that his face should give nothing away. Impassive. He must be like the rock. Solid.

  Unyielding. Immovable. He must appear to have been there, where he stood, for centuries. To have weathered all storms; to have withstood all the elements; to have rebuffed all onslaughts. It was important that his body looked hard, full of strength. His strokes must be sure, confident, secure. He must put doubt in the other’s mind: doubt of his ability to breach this solid wall. Doubt of the superiority of his own skills. Any hairline crack of doubt must be widened to a gulf. His self-assurance must be the greater. He must be both the irresistible force and the immovable object: two in one. There was a brief exchange of thrusts and parries.

  The Kurgan said, ‘He taught you well.’ It was a grudging compliment, but MacLeod knew he had surprised the Kurgan thus far.

  There was an inscription in Sanskrit on MacLeod’s sword hilt. ‘I cannot cross another river.’

  He repeated it to himself to give himself spiritual strength. It meant that he had a task to do. A single task. It was necessary to put his whole mind, his whole being, into the execution of that single task. All other thoughts, missions, desires, needs, concerns, must be put out of his mind until he had crossed the river that swirled about his ankles. The next river must be blanked from his mind. He could not think about Brenda, or the danger she was in. He had to think only of crossing the river of the moment. That river was the Kurgan.

  The swords clashed again. The Kurgan trying to force MacL
eod to the edge of the roof. Somewhere above them Brenda was calling, but MacLeod took no notice. He concentrated on stemming the flood of blows and returning some of his own, to worry the opponent.

  Attitude. His was better. The Kurgan had more technical skill, but lacked improvisation, spontaneity, inspiration. ‘I cannot cross another river.’ Intrinsic strength.

  The swords lock. Part. The Kurgan ducks and weaves. MacLeod follows through, misses. There is a clash of blades below the water tower. The Kurgan’s sword skims MacLeod’s head, as the latter ducks. It bites into one of the supports to the tower. The structure begins to buckle...

  Brenda screamed. It seemed for a moment that the water tower was falling her way. It teetered for a second as the two immortals fought beneath its weakening legs, then suddenly lurched to the side and came crashing down on the roof. Floods of water gushed from the fracture, the white torrents sweeping the two men off their feet. For the moment the fight had to be abandoned as they struggled in the foaming waters that poured from the ruptured tank. Thousands of gallons rushed towards the edge of the building and formed instant Niagaras and Angel Falls.

  MacLeod struggled to his feet, in real danger of being swept over the edge of the building. The Kurgan held onto a support, allowing the floodwaters to take his feet for a moment. Neither man could reach each other as the currents swirled around the roof top, but gradually the waters subsided until they were only ankle deep and the fighters began to assess their relative positions again.

  MacLeod was nearest to the scaffolding and he began to climb, to get the height advantage when the Kurgan was forced to follow. The Kurgan was very quick. His sword slashed at MacLeod’s ankles as the highlander tried to gain one of the platforms. Luckily the Kurgan’s blade cut through a power cable and for the moment the air was full of sparks and black smoke, the live end snaking through the air and fizzing out its high charge. Though the cable was not of any consequential danger to the Kurgan, he nevertheless avoided it. It would hamper his movements.

  MacLeod waited in the darkness below the SIL of the sign. The Kurgan made the ledge and ran towards him. Their blades glanced from one another with a ring of steel. MacLeod’s weapon slid down the other, over the hilt of the broadsword and dug deeply between the fingers of the Kurgan’s right hand.

  The Kurgan grunted in pain. For a moment it appeared that MacLeod’s sword would not budge: that it was stuck in the bones of the Kurgan’s hand. But then it came free.

  The Kurgan quickly recovered. The Kurgan kicks out. His foot finds MacLeod’s thigh. But the Kurgan overbalances. He falls, crashing between the scaffolding poles. His head strikes an horizontal support. His arms and legs flail, as he breaks his fall. He hits the roof with a thump, knocking the wind from his body.

  MacLeod was too high to get to the Kurgan in time to take advantage of the fall. He saw the Kurgan climb to his feet and recover quickly. There was nothing to do but wait until the Kurgan climbed up again. The Kurgan had no such intention. Instead, he would bring MacLeod down, to the roof. He began running along the supports to the framework and, using all his strength, cutting through them with the broadsword. Each pole buckled, or was severed by the heavy blows. The SILVERCUP scaffolding began to bend outwards. Brenda screamed, fighting with her ropes, trying to free herself.

  MacLeod worked his way along the poles as they began to loosen, or crumple. The S from the sign crashed to the ground, its neon tubing shattering in brilliant showers of glass. Then the C came down, exploding in the shallow waters.

  Wires snapped and lashed out, into the air. Cables broke like over taut bowstrings, whipping at the poles. The structure creaked and groaned, its weight unevenly distributed now. Metal collars whined out, into the night, as they were catapulted from poles suddenly released from high tension. Pole strained against pole. Then the total collapse.

  MacLeod went flying off, into the darkness, like a pebble from a slingshot. He landed on the far side of the roof from the Kurgan, debris falling all around him.

  Brenda, still strapped to the poles, ended up about six feet from the ground, hanging on the bent supports like a dangling crucifix. She worked free from her bonds and fell to the roof top, relatively unhurt.

  The debris still rained down in showers of splintered glass and fragments of metal. Poles fell like tall, cut pines, crashing around all three people. There was a jungle of metal left. MacLeod and the Kurgan struggled through the criss crossing pipes, some bent to fantastic angles, to get to each other again. As soon as they were within striking distance, the swords flashed out, sometimes hitting ironwork, or becoming entangled in a cable. It was an impossible place for a swordfight, and both men knew it.

  They fight to the edge of the parapet. MacLeod is there first. He uses the height advantage to hack down, raining blows on the Kurgan’s head. Then the Kurgan is up beside him. They are both aware of the drop.

  Their eyes locked. The Kurgan cried, ‘You’re weakening. I can see you weakening, Highlander.’

  MacLeod responded positively. ‘I am too strong for you. You thought it would be easy, didn’t you? Now you realize - I’m too strong. Too late. You’re going to die.’

  The Kurgan responded with another flurry of strokes but MacLeod could tell that his enemy was not as confident as he had been once. MacLeod was the underdog, and the underdog survives by proving himself a greater obstacle than previously believed to be. If he could just keep the Kurgan back, protect himself, the Kurgan would begin to doubt...

  Above them the stars swim. They both reach out for the influx of energy from the night sky. It flows, crackling along’ the parapet, through the shallow waters lapping within the roof. Energy. They call the Quickening to themselves. Lightning arcs through the darkness, filling both men with new strength. The parapet dances with live energy...

  ‘Now,’ said the Kurgan. The swings from the broadsword, came thick and fast and MacLeod felt himself being forced backwards, towards the skylight to the studio below. Suddenly, he found himself right on the edge of the glass. His feet went from under him. He reached out and grabbed the Kurgan by the jacket, pulling him with him. The pair of them fell, struggling, through the glass, to crash down onto the studio floor beneath.

  MacLeod’s sword landed a few feet away. The Kurgan was first on his knees, and then upright, before MacLeod could recover his weapon. The Kurgan kicked the Samurai, sending it spinning through the fragments of glass. MacLeod was on one knee as the Kurgan closed. The Scot reached up and gripped the wrist of the giant as he tried to take a swing at the highlander’s head.

  Gradually, MacLeod managed to climb to his feet, still forcing the Kurgan’s arm backwards. The Kurgan broke free. For the first time in the fight, MacLeod felt entirely vulnerable. The Kurgan saw it in his eyes.

  ‘So now it ends?’ said the giant.

  MacLeod took a step backwards as the Kurgan prepared to swing.

  At that moment, Brenda came up behind the Kurgan and struck him with a piece of metal pole. The Kurgan staggered sideways. MacLeod ran across the glass-strewn floor. He found his sword in the moonlight.

  The Kurgan gripped Brenda by the clothes and flung her at MacLeod, who caught her in his arms.

  ‘What kept you?’ he asked, frivolously.

  A new strength had entered MacLeod now. The Kurgan had had his chance and failed. Now it was the highlander’s turn. He stepped forward, confidently, while Brenda found the deep shadow at the edge of the studio. The swords locked.

  There was a frown on the face of the Kurgan. A thick, deep line marred his facial expression. The sword edges scythed along one another, causing a shower of sparks. MacLeod’s blade continued past the hilt of the sword to slash deeply into the leather jacket of the Kurgan. MacLeod could feel the bladed edge slicing through flesh. The Kurgan staggered backwards: pain, annoyance and a certain puzzlement fighting for possession of his face.

  The split tunic flapped open, revealing a red gash, dripping flesh. The Kurgan was distracted by his wound. His
left hand went to it as he, ineffectively, tried to parry another blow.

  This time the cut is across the chest. The blows are getting higher, closer to the neck. Blood ran along the line of the slash: red staining the black leather.

  ‘How. . . ?’ says the Kurgan. He slashed wildly at MacLeod.

  The effort was desperate and ineffectual. MacLeod saw the frustration and recognized the lack of conviction behind the blow. The highlander felt the exhilarating headiness of victory surging through him. He knew - at that moment, he knew - that the Kurgan was finished. The vitality had all been drained from the giant figure. He was concerned with his wounds. He paused to consider his pain.

  That was enough for MacLeod.

  The bright Samurai blade flashed out.

  The tight grain of the wakizashi short-sword, with its undulating temper line, impacted with flesh. It sliced through the soft tissue of the Kurgan’s throat.

  The Kurgan looked surprised.

  For one moment, MacLeod was not sure that the cut had been deep enough. Then the head lolled backwards. The cut was almost along the same line as the Ramirez wound. But this time it was deeper. Much deeper. The spinal cord had been severed. Only a thin strip of skin prevented the head from falling to the floor. It hung there: dangled from the cord of flesh. Yet the Kurgan was still not dead.

  The mouth flapped, though no sound came out. From the open neck, the exposed stump, energy gushed forth. The body danced and jerked, as if on live strings. The wound coruscated, like electrified glass.

  The Kurgan dropped to his knees. MacLeod was amazed at the tenacity of the man. Still he clung on to life. Still he fought against death. His head flopped on the narrow bridge of skin, yet the body fought to stay upright. The strength of will behind such action was phenomenal.