"That's it?" asked Kronos. "You're leaving your brothers because I made a decision you didn't like?" "No," Methos said. "I'm leaving because I *could* find a plan. We would have done all the killing I suggested, but I'm tired of it." He walked on, talking with the unseen figure that kept pace beside him. "Silas isn't," explained. "He's happy as long as he's fighting or there's the prospect of fighting. He'll be content as long there is something to keep his axe busy. "Caspian? Well he's happy, if Caspian understands what that means. He lives for killing, for inflicting pain. He can't reason. He would single-handedly attack a legion, a city, a sea, anything to feed that raging hunger for blood and pain he has inside him." "And me?" "Oh, Kronos," Methos said, sadly. "You're not tired of The Horsemen. It's still the life you love. But you *are* getting bored." Kronos was silent at this and Methos went on. "The raids aren't enough for you. Burning villages and slaughtering peasants doesn't satisfy your rage anymore. I can see you looking around for other objects of entertainment. Well I was that entertainment once before, I'll not be it again!" "Entertainment?" Kronos sounded puzzled. "Cassandra," Methos explained. "When you took her, you said it was because I had to share with my brothers. But you also did it because you knew I cared about her, because it would amuse you to watch me make the decision between her and you." "That was over two hundred years ago! You're not still angry at me for that?" Methos slowly shook his head. "No, my brother. You don't get angry at a viper, you just learn to avoid it. Well I learned my lesson from Cassandra. I've never let you know what I cared about since. I tried not to care about anything." He found the energy to raise his voice. "And that's another reason I'm leaving. I've had enough of not caring!" He walked on, concentrating on the business of putting one foot in front of the other. It was becoming more and more difficult. The snow dragged at him as he walked. His whole body ached from tensing against the buffeting from the unpredictable wind. The world had narrowed to a few feet of blurred whiteness on either side of him. "One more step," he muttered to himself, "just one more step." He kept going not for fear of what followed him, but because of the thought that he might die here and then revive, frozen in place, to endure cold death and icy rebirth in a hellish cycle of pain. He stopped and made a few tentative steps forward and then back. He shook his head. He had thought that the ground was levelling off or even falling away from him. Had he reached the head of the pass? He couldn't tell. Squinting through the blizzard only chilled his face even further. He had no choice anyway; he could only go on. Then the ground slipped from under him. He did not know whether he had made a false step or if the ground had given way beneath him, but he found himself tumbling and sliding down a gully. His numb and already aching body screamed in protest as it bounced to a halt, but he could only moan. "Is all this worth it?" Kronos was sitting cross-legged in the snow beside him. "What?" Methos said around a mouthful of snow. "Is leaving your brothers worth all this pain?" Kronos asked again. "And for what? So that you can become one of the little people again? So you can go back to crawling and grovelling to your 'betters'. Go back to living with mortals but never being one of them? Go back to hiding, worrying, living in fear? I saved you, remember?" "I remember you saved me from being stoned, Kronos. I remember I owe you." Methos got to his knees and looked up the side of the gully to where his horse stood. "I didn't save you from being stoned. I saved you from a life of nothingness! I saved you from that and then together we created The Horsemen. We don't hide what we are. We don't grovel. We are free. We do what we want, we go where we want, we take we want!" Methos shook his head and began to crawl out of the gully. It was so hard, every part of him protested him moving. "No Kronos," he said. "I did what you wanted, I went where you wanted, I took what you left!" Anger gave impetus to his words and his movement. "And anyway, The Horsemen's time is over. Those archers are only part of the problem. People are better armed. The armies are more organised. We can't roam free any more. Those days are gone." Kronos' voice was scornful."Is that was this is really all about then? You're leaving because times are going to get hard for The Horsemen?" Methos reached the lip of the gully, pulled himself out, and then staggered to his feet. He tried to focus on the phantom before him, but his brother's figure kept wavering, blurring into the falling snow and then reforming. "It doesn't matter why, Kronos," he sighed. "It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what I say. It only matters what I do. And I'm leaving." His hands were too cold to hold his horse's reins so he twisted them round his arm and moved off. He was no longer walking; he stumbled and shambled along barely putting a foot in front of the other. But it seemed that he was going down hill now. He knew it might be back the way he had come, back towards the pursuing horsemen, but he no longer cared. Then he walked into a boulder blocking his path. He didn't see it, just walked straight into it. This final obstacle was too much, he leaned his forehead against it in weary defeat. From somewhere a spark of defiance raged against the fates that had led him to this position. He raised a hand and banged his fist against the rock in frustration. The rock resonated hollowly, more felt through his bones than heard. He knocked again. It was hollow, wooden. He ran his hand against the side. His fingers were too numb to feel any texture, but there was a feeling of regular bumps. Planks? A building? He fell to his knees and crawled round it, feeling for an opening. It was there. He pushed his way into a dark and musty place. But there was no snow and no wind. In the fading light he made out piles of grass hay in it. It must have been a hut the shepherds used for storing food for their mountain herds. It didn't matter. He crawled into the mound of hay and pulled it over him. He still shivered, but the absence of the wind made the place seem warm to him. "Looks like you might make it." Kronos was clearly visible in the darkness. He smiled. "Well, no matter how far you run or how long you run for, you can't run from me, brother. You can't run from yourself. We are the same, Methos; we are brothers. We will always be brothers." Methos nodded, acknowledging the truth. "I know, Kronos," he said. "We are brothers." His head sagged back wearily. When he looked up again, Kronos was gone. His head dropped back again and he found that he couldn't lift it. A warm, comforting darkness surrounded him, cocooned him. He tried to struggle against it, but had no strength left for the fight. It might bring sleep or it might bring death, but he could not summon the energy to care which. He closed his eyes and surrendered to the dark's embrace. When Methos awoke, light was filtering through the walls into the room. Outside, he winced as the bright sunshine reflecting off snow stabbed into his eyes. Holding his hand up as a shade he saw that his horse was nearby so he walked over towards it, the fresh snow crumping under his feet. An investigation of the saddlebags produced a honey cake and a water skin, with a reassuring gurgle coming from it. He drank through dry and cracked lips, ate and drank again before pouring water on his palm for his horse to drink. He looked up towards the pass he had come through. A wall of snow lay across it. Nothing was going to get through that until the spring thaw. A wave of elation rushed through him. He raised his hands and shouted a wordless cry of exultation to the white land around him and the empty sky above him. He had done it! He was free. The valley below him sparked white under the blue, blue sky. Methos picked up his horse's reins and started walking towards it. Somewhere before him, under the snow, was the road. He only had to find it. The End