Author's Note: Before anyone begins reading this story, realize that this is a sequel and will tend to be confusing if you have not read the first installment. You can go ahead and read this if you want, but I suggest reading my first story before this one. It is called The Lost Legend of the Triforce and can be found on this site as well. Enjoy.
Chapter One: The Fall of Carthor
"The demons of Siragoth approach! Every man to his battle station!" Shouted captain Aramoth of the Cathorian army to his men. The soldiers were quick to drop whatever task they were previously concerned with and rushed towards their various posts. The men were terrified as they took their positions. Few of the soldiers had ever actually seen these demons, for those who were unlucky enough to encounter the beasts seldom ever survived to recount their experience.
The demons of the land of Siragoth, or the Siragons as they were often called, were a belligerent race of beings that a little over two years prior had suddenly appeared in small numbers and began terrorizing whatever civilized settlement they came across. As time wore on, the Siragons numbers increased and they soon began coordinated assaults on a few seemingly random countries through out the eastern world. One by one, those nations fell to the Siragons, who after they plundered all of the land's resources and valuables, left it barren and void of any life. The Siragons had destroyed five such countries and Carthor was next on their list.
Carthor was one of the largest nations in the world and boasted the second largest army in existence. Only the land of Asrenath possessed a larger military, but both of those armies combined did not equal the armies the land of Acromiar had under its command not two years prior.
Acromiar was the first nation the Siragons invaded, but they were not then numerous enough to take Acromiar head on. According to the accounts of the few soldiers and the hundreds of thousands of refugees that were forced to flee from their homes before the fall of Acromiar, the Siragons somehow unleashed a flood of monsters on the land. Acromiar tried fighting back the demons for months and in the final weeks of the war against demon hordes it appeared as if the Acromiarians would survive. Eventually the Acromiarians did manage to destroy the last of the demons, but by that time they were too weak to stay the sudden attack of the Siragons. Acromiar could have defeated both the demons and the Siragons, if their allies had not abandoned them.
The reason for the desertion were the claims of the nations of Cyntir and Tyfiria that Acromiar had acquired some weapon of great evil and that the demon infestation was a punishment sent by the gods. Most of Acromiar's so called allies were already beginning to worry about the seemingly infinite size of its military, so at the prospect that Acromiar might gain even more power if left unchecked, the other nations of the world decided to let the military superpower fend for itself.
After Acromiar, the Siragons destroyed four smaller countries, but never in those invasions did the demons of Siragoth risk open war. They instead, cutoff their prey from their resources and gradually wore away at their defenses. In this manner Carthor was different from the rest of the Siragons victims. The demons had not bothered to attack Carthor's supplies. Instead, they simply began destroying every city and fortress that they came across as they marched through Carthor.
Before the Siragons destroyed many cities, Carthor's king, Hakama, ordered all of the men under his command to pull back to Carthor's largest stronghold, the fortress of Adorik, and for the women and children to evacuate to the north. A few of the soldiers now stationed in Adorik had met the Siragons in battle and they were the ones who were the most afraid, for they new the horrors the demons brought. Weapons of a strange design, capable of shooting a fire powerful enough to break through the walls of nearly any fortress and able to burn any defenders from atop the tallest battlement.
As the demons of Siragoth came within in sight of Adorik's garrison, many of soldiers felt a sudden urge to flee from their posts. Others were awe struck the menacing appearance of their foes. The demons were tall creatures, most measuring about six and a half feet high. The majority of the Siragons were clad in grey steel armor and carried with them heavy swords and shields and wore strong helmets. One group of demons did not wear the heavy armor. Instead they wore shirts of chain mail under clothes as black as the night, along with black steel wrist and shin guards, as well as light armor on their shoulders. These types of demons were called the Rimgard and were known by their enemies for their tremendous speed and agility. The Rimgard were a little shorter than the other Siragons and possessed less muscle mass, but they were no less deadly.
The Siragons were indeed a fearsome sight to behold, yet one man remained unmoved by the Siragon army. This man had seen the demons countless times before and had slain dozens if not hundreds of the loathsome beasts in battle. However, this man was not from Carthor, he was a Hyrulian, or at least he had been at one time. He was Link, the Hero of Time. He was garbed in a light coat of green along with a pair of pants and a long cap of the same color. He also wore brown leather boots and gauntlets and under his coat, a shirt of chain mail. The chain mail was the only armor he wore in skirmishes with the Siragons, for the demons were strong enough and their weapons sharp enough that armor did little to protect its wearer against their blows. On the other hand the Siragons were quite slow, with the exception of the Rimgard, so Link preferred to exchange an extra layer of protection for his natural speed when facing the demons.
Link had been trying to defend the enemies of Siragoth ever since the Siragons revealed themselves to the Acromiarians, but ultimately, there was nothing he could do to save the demons' quarry. As the Siragons ominously continued their march towards Adorik, Link thanked the goddesses that the creatures had not yet found their way to Hyrule; however the Hylian also found himself cursing his homeland for never sending any aid to the countries that were attacked by Siragoth.
Link had not been back to Hyrule in over three years, but he had not been in contact with anyone from that nation in thirteen. Link originally left Hyrule at the age of ten. He wandered in the wilderness by himself until the age of sixteen when he joined the Calrigan mercenaries. He fought for the mercenaries for four years. During that time Link fought in dozens of wars, but he rarely believed in the cause he was fighting for. Eventually he grew weary of the pointless conflicts he fought in, but it was not till fate led Link to Cyntir that he finally decided to leave the legionaries.
While looking for work for his mercenary companions, Link was stranded in the land of Cyntir. Link soon learned of the war between Cyntir and its northern neighbor Tyfiria. By sheer chance, Link stumbled on to the plot of a vengeful Tyfirian general named Ormek. Ormek located and then stole what was the apparent fourth Triforce piece, the Triforce of Knowledge. Link then set out on a quest to retrieve a relic, which would return the Triforce of Knowledge to its rightful place, but by the time Link got back to Cyntir, he found that Ormek was already dangerously close to destroying that country. At one point, the Calrigans had a chance to aid the Cyntirians and push back Ormek's forces, but because they were not paid to help, they allowed a large majority of Cyntir's populous to be carried off captive. Link was successful in defeating Ormek, but afterwards he could not bear to continue fighting for a group of people who only cared about money. Link left the Calrigans with a resolve to return to Hyrule.
When he finally made his way back to Hyrule, he first headed for Hyrule Castle, the place where he first met the princess Zelda. When he arrived at the main gate of Hyrule Castle Town he suddenly froze. Memories came flooding back to him of when the princess sent him his quest to save Hyrule from the clutches of Ganondorf and of his ultimate failure when he led the king of evil to Sacred Realm and the Triforce. All the memories Link had been running from for ten years all caught up with him at that instant, but it was not his memories that drove the hero from his native land. Link forced himself to face his demons and enter the city.
By coincidence the warrior arrived on a day the princess was out in the marketplace mingling with her people and shopping for various items. Link spied her from a distance. She was more beautiful than the hero's fondest memory of her. It seemed to Link as if though she was from a distant dream, forgotten long ago. The princess's long golden hair was illuminated by the noonday sun and gave her an angelic aura. Every step she took was poetry in motion, but nothing affected Link more than the smile he saw on Zelda's face. It was apparent to the hero that she was not weighed down with all the cares that he carried with him. Nor did it seem that any of the villagers were concerned with much other than finishing their daily chores. They could never understand the horrors Link had experienced all his life. It was then that Link was overcome with the feeling that he did not belong in a land as peaceful and as full of beauty as Hyrule. He finally understood he had outgrown the fair country.
Link then left his native land with a vow never to return. He wandered aimlessly throughout the known world for a little under a year, never taking up a permanent residence; his only home became the road. Eventually, Link's travels brought him to Acromiar. There he discovered that the Calrigan mercenaries had been contracted by the king of Acromiar to protect his people from the enormous infestation of demons sent by Siragoth. Link determined he could be of use to the Acromiarians and rejoined the Calrigans. He fought with the mercenaries till Acromiar's last stand against the Siragons. In that last battle, nearly every Acromiarian and all of Link's fellow mercenaries were killed by the demons of Siragoth.
After experiencing the carnage the Siragons caused, Link dedicated his life destroying them. As soon as Link learned of other Siragon invasions, he immediately set out for the land that was under attack. The Hyrulian had fought the demons during three of their first five raids. Link had been unable to stop them in any of those invasions and as he gazed in awe over the approaching Siragon army, he was confident he would fail yet again. There were at least ten thousand demons marching under the banner of Siragoth and though there were about eighteen thousand men defending Adorik, Link was certain it would not be enough to hold the fortress. For the demons possessed the weapons that Ormek of Tyfiria used in his war against Cyntir, but the hero prepared to meet them in battle nonetheless.
Where the Siragons obtained the weapons was unknown. However, sometime after Ormek's death, most of the blacksmiths the general used to mass-produce his creations disappeared. Most of the people who knew that the Siragons' weapons were based on Ormek's designs, believed the Siragons abducted those blacksmiths and forced them to recreate the Tyfirian general's weapons. Link, on the other hand, knew more of the actual story. Many of the weapons the Siragons used were actually more advanced than the ones Ormek created. For instance, the cannons the Siragons used were much lighter, more maneuverable, and were capable of firing much greater distances than the ones Ormek made, but before his death the general designed many weapons which he was unable to create before he began his assault on Cyntir. These designs were complied into a single volume that was kept in the main castle in Tamerec, Tyfiria's capital.
About six months after Ormek was defeated, the king of Acromiar, who was absolutely obsessed with having the world's most powerful army, sent a band of men to Tyfiria to steal that volume. The Acromiarians were successful in their attempts to secure Ormek's work, but when they got the volume back to Acromiar, they discovered they could not read it. Ormek had written it in some foreign language that the Acromiarians had never seen before. They tried to translate the text, but could not. It was actually the Acromiarians that abducted the blacksmiths who had worked with Ormek. After they were unable to translate the strange text, the king of Acromiar sent another band of men to kidnap the blacksmiths in hopes of developing the Tyfirian general's older weapons. It was at that time when the demon hordes first appeared.
Tyfiria was well aware that it was Acromiar that stole Ormek's notes and was frightened by what a nation as powerful of Acromiar could do with them. The Tyfirians then told the Cyntirians who had experienced the destructive capabilities of Ormek's weapons first hand and they both began to speak out against Acromiar. During the war against the demon hordes, Link and a group of soldiers rescued one of the king's chief advisers from a demon assault. The adviser was charged with protecting the manuscript, but he dropped it while fleeing from the demons. After the battle, Link found the book on the ground an instinctively began to flip through its pages. As he thumbed through the volume he realized the manuscript's importance. He tried to hide his knowledge from the king's adviser, but the adviser would not risk allowing anyone else to know about the book. He told the king of Acromiar about Link, who then ordered the Hyrulian and a band of his mercenaries on a suicide mission, but he underestimated Link's skill in battle. The hero managed to survive though all of his men were killed.
Link returned to Acromiar's capital, Marcom, after he realized the king had betrayed him to find it already under attack by an enormous mass of monsters. The Acromiarians managed to defeat the demon hordes, but they paid for the victory sorely, they lost most of Marcom's garrison during its defense. The Siragons then came in to finish the job. In that last battle, the Siragons managed steal the volume from the Acromiarians, but before they could leave the city with it, Link found the chieftain of the Siragons and retrieved the volume from him. The Hyrulian then destroyed the book by casting it into a nearby fire. However, the Siragons still managed to create much of the weaponry detailed in that book, but exactly how they did it was still a mystery to the hero.
The Siragons that were advancing towards Adorik had about seven dozen of their cannons in their arsenal. For that reason, Link did not expect the Carthorians would be victorious, and yet he still prepared to meet the demons in battle.
Once the Siragons were within a cannon's shot of Adorik's outer wall they halted; yet one of the Rimgard Siragons proceeded to walk towards the fortress. On his back, the Siragon carried two swords as well as a black bow and a quiver of arrows. Not an ounce of the Siragon's flesh was exposed, for the black cloth of the Rimgard covered him from the chin down and his grey steel helmet hid his face from his foes. His helmet was of a strange craft and was far more ornate than the rest of the beasts' head gear. The helmet's design was and indication of the Siragon's rank and was the only thing that separated him from the rest of his troops save his eyes. This particular Siragon's eyes appeared to burn with a hellish red flame, which seemed to testify of the creature's destructive intent. The demon continued to approach Adorik until he was well with in the range of the Carthorian archers' arrows. The Siragon then lifted his hands over his head and spoke.
"Greetings soldiers of the fair realm of Carthor," The demon said in a friendly tone, "I am general Mygar of Siragoth. I come before you this night to prevent the spilling of much blood. For I see in your eyes a great deal of fear. Rest assured my troops and I did not come to this land with the intent to destroy it and its people. We merely came in search of one of the black stones of Malikar, which the king of Carthor possesses. This stone is of great religious significance to my people. If you value your lives, you will surrender the stone to us. If you cooperate, my men and I will depart from this land in peace and leave the Carthorians to their own affairs, but if you refuse, we will not hesitate to destroy your fortress and kill all those that stand in our path to the stone!"
"Do not think us fools, hateful Mygar!" king Hakama retorted as he stepped out from behind his men, "I know the stone which you seek must contain some malicious power, for the Siragons seek only the destruction of all civilization! If I gave you the stone you may depart for a day, yes, but you would soon return and with the power given to you by stone and you would consume this land and all its beauty! The dark stone is not safe in the hands of a loathsome creature like you! My people will fight to the death to prevent it from falling into your hands!"
"So be it!" Mygar yelled in anger, "You condemn yourself and your men to death, for their can be no victory against the armies of Siragoth!" Mygar then turned his back to Adorik and began to walk back towards the other Siragons. One of the archers atop Adorik's outer wall caught the demon's mistake and quickly strung an arrow. He shot at the Siragon aiming for his back, but before the arrow reached its mark, Mygar drew one of his swords, spun around, and deflected the dart with his blade. The arrow fell uselessly to the ground in two pieces. Mygar glared at the archer who had tried to kill him.
The Siragon growled and under his breath he said, "Such is the honor of men." He then pointed his sword towards the fortress of Adorik and roared. The rest of the Siragons answered with a roar of their own, eager to begin the bloodshed.
"Load the cannons and get them into position." Mygar ordered. The demons immediately sprung into action loading their firearms and pointing them towards their pre-designated targets. Once the Siragons were ready, Mygar gave the command. "Open fire!" he shouted. Link tightened his grip on his sword as he heard the first cannon shot fired. He had seen the cannons in action many times before and still had not seen an effective way to defend against them. As the first cannonball crashed through Adorik's main gate, Link wished the Cathorians possessed cannons of their own to return fire but as of yet, the only nation with such weapons was Tyfiria and even they were having trouble using the ones they had.
"Return fire!" captain Aramoth ordered his men who quickly strung their arrows and began to shoot at the demons, but none of the darts found their mark. The Siragons were too far away to be hit by arrows, but they were just close enough that their cannon fire could devastate Adorik's outer defenses. Nearly every shot that the Siragons fired was dead on. Either they landed atop the battlements amidst the Cathorian soldiers or tore through the wall itself as they knocked out key support beams beneath the stone, which caused large portions of the wall to crumble.
Link watched helplessly as men all around him were blown off the wall or fell to their deaths as they floor gave way from under them. He soon grew impatient with waiting for cannon fire to claim his life and left his post in search of king Hakama. The king was holding his position atop Adorik's main gate, which for some reason the Siragons had not yet fired upon since the first cannon ball broke through the bottom of the gate.
"Sire!" Link yelled once he found Hakama, "You must order you men to retreat, they will not last much longer against the cannons of Siragoth."
"Who are you that I, the king of Carthor, should give heed to your orders?" Hakama asked cruelly, angry that a mere peasant would have the gall to command him to do anything.
"One who has fought the Siragons many times before," Link answered, "I know how these creatures fight. They will not advance on the fortress until the top of the wall has been cleared. It will profit us nothing to stay up here. The Siragons are out of our range, but we are not out of theirs. We need to draw them towards us, so that we may at least have a chance to kill them."
"And how do you suggest we do that, green stranger?" Hakama asked smugly.
"By pulling back," Link replied, "If we pull off the wall the Siragons will have no choice, but to send their troops into the fortress after us and when they do we can send our troops to meet them in hand-to-hand combat."
Hakama pondered the Hyrulian's proposal for a few moments before he turned to Aramoth and asked, "What do you think captain?"
"We have to do something, soon or we'll all be slaughtered before the enemy suffers a single casualty." Aramoth responded.
"Very well," Hakama nodded, "Aramoth, give the order."
"Yes sir," Aramoth said. He then proceeded to shout out the order to fall back. Shortly after the captain gave the command, Link took him aside and told him another of his plans that could hold of the Siragons back, if only for a moment. The soldiers were more than happy to get off the wall, for they already saw the futility of holding their positions. Within minutes, the Cathorians had deserted the wall and rallied around king Hakama. Link, however did not join them. He remained atop the wall, so low to the ground that the Siragons could not see him. Captain Aramoth and four other Carthorians followed Link's, example by Aramoth's orders.
Once the Siragons saw Adorik's wall was free of any Hylian presence, they began to march towards the fortress. When the demons came to Adorik's walls they halted once more.
"Bombers!" Mygar called out. Soon a pair of Siragons emerged from the ranks carrying a large round black object. Before the Siragons could get the object to Adorik's gate, Link jumped up from behind the battlements with a flaming arrow already strung in his bow and fired it a the strange orb. The arrow struck the object, which then exploded with enough force to kill dozens of surrounding Siragons and wound dozens more. Aramoth and his men then sprung from their spots and began to pour vats of boiling oil on top of the hosts of Siragons gathered around Adorik's gate. The Siragons panicked and began to retreat.
"What are you doing you cowards?" Mygar yelled, "There are only six of them." With that Mygar drew his bow and strung three arrows at once. The demon smirked beneath the faceplate of his helmet as he released the arrows. Incredibly all three of them proved lethal as each one pierced a Carthorian soldier.
"Fall back," Link commanded. He, Aramoth, and the last remaining soldier then ran to join the rest of the Carthorian troops at the bottom of the wall. After seeing Mygar land three fatal shots at once, the Siragons regained their composure and marched back to the wall. Soon another pair of demons emerged from the ranks carrying yet another bomb. This time, they made it to the gate and placed the bomb on the ground. The two Siragons then drew a pair of axes and began to chip away at the hole in the gate made by the initial cannon shot. Within a minute the hole was as large as the bomb. The demons put the explosive in place and ran back towards the hosts of Siragoth. After the rest of the Siragons backed away from the wall, one of the creatures fired a flaming arrow of his own at the bomb. It then exploded with enough punch to destroy the entire gate. Before the smoke even cleared, the Siragons rushed inside Adorik, but as soon as they got passed the broken gate they were met with a flurry of arrows. Many of the Siragons were slain as they tried to enter the fortress, but there were far too many of them to be held back with arrows alone.
Soon a wave of demons crashed against the Carthorians front lines and the two races engaged in hand-to-hand combat. At first the Carthorians were crippled by terror. They were too terrified by the fearsome looking Siragons to put up a good defensive front. Link on the other hand was eager to fight and lessen the numbers of his enemies even if only by a little. He drew his sword and shield and assumed a defensive stance as he watched the demons of Siragoth charge towards him. As the first demon lunged at Link, the hero stepped aside and the beast missed his target completely. Link responded by slicing the back of the beast's neck before he had a chance to recover from his mistake and dark blue blood then shot from the wound. As soon as Link felled the first Siragon, another one swung at the Hylian with a large blade in an attempt to avenge his fallen comrade, but Link managed to deflect the blow with his shield impale the demon beneath his ribs with his sword.
Many of the Carthorians who saw Link kill the two Siragons were inspired by his courage and soon they forgot their terror and remembered what they were fighting for. The men of Carthor experienced a domino effect as the men who were inspired by Link inspired others. Soon, almost all of the Cathorians regained their composure and began to fight with a renewed zeal.
Before long the Carthorians started to drive the demons back, they had almost managed to force the Siragons back through the gate when general Mygar yelled "Grenades!" Moments later the Siragons began to toss black spherical objects the size of doorknobs into the midst of the Carthorian ranks. Mere seconds after the objects hit the ground they exploded and cast out wave sharp metal debris in every direction at tremendous speeds. The metal fragments managed to tear through the Carthorians armor with ease and with each grenade that went off, two or three Carthorians were injured or killed.
The Siragons' new weapon sent the Hylian soldiers into a panic. The Carthorians soon fled from the Siragons, hoping to find cover away from the demons' horrible invention. Even Link was flustered and he soon found himself running from the enemy, for he had never seen the Siragons use such a weapon before and did not have a strategy ready to counteract its use.
"Fall back to the keep!" king Hakama cried in a desperate attempt to rally his men as he saw them fleeing before their foes.
"No!" Link shouted as he ran towards Hakama, "We can not retreat. Once the Siragons box us in the keep they will start to use their cannons again. We must stay at close range with the Siragons, where their weapons are less effective." Link's words fell on deaf ears. The Carthorians were too anxious to get away from the Siragons to pay any attention to the strange foreigner.
"No," Hakama replied coldly. "The fires of Siragoth may be strong, but they will not find us in the tower of Adorik. We will hold them off in there."
"No tower can protect you from the evil these demons possess," Link growled angrily.
"I am king!" Hakama yelled, "It is my charge to protect my people! If I leave my men out here they will die! If you wish to stay out here and perish that is your choice, interloper. As for me, I believe our best chance for survival is in the tower."
Within a few minutes, nearly all of the soldiers in Adorik had entered the keep. After seeing that neither the soldiers nor the king would listen to his advice, Link reluctantly followed the rest of the men.
"Barricade the entrance!" king Hakama ordered, "The Siragons will not enter this place." The Carthorians obeyed with out question and began to pile whatever they could find in front of the keep's door. Although Link did not believe the Carthorians had much, if any, chance to hold off the demons of Siragoth at bay, he did what he could to aid them the soldiers in barring the entrance.
For several minutes, the Carthorians fortified the keep door uninterrupted, until they heard the thunderous crack of one of the Siragon's cannons. A large iron ball then plowed through the tower's gate as well as a couple of soldiers. Soon afterwards three more balls broke through the door in the same manner.
"Your majesty," captain Aramoth said to his king, "No doubt the Siragons will break into our stronghold. They will be after the dark stone. You can not let these monsters get their claws on it. Please, your highness, make your way to the roof of the tower. I would not have the Siragons win their prize so easily. They will lose many more soldiers before they reach the top, but they will take the entryway in a matter of moments." Hakama simply nodded and then headed up a nearby flight of stairs unnoticed by his men.
Less than a minute later, the Siragons blew open the tower's gate with another well placed bomb and then they poured in through the entryway. As Hakama heard the explosion he quickened his pace, so that he might reach safety in the group of men that he had been stationed on top of the tower before the battle began. However, when Hakama arrived he found only the corpses of his men lying on a blood drenched stone floor and general Mygar looking over the fallen soldiers. The demon held one sword in each hand, both of which were stained with blood of the Cathorians. As the Siragon looked up from the bodies of his victims, his burning red eyes paralyzed Hakama with horror.
"Your men were so busy watching the battle in front of them that they forgot to watch their backs," Mygar said without a shred of emotion. He then pointed to the side of the tower opposite of the side the Siragons were attacking from with one of his blades. Hakama looked over to see a black grappling hook latched to the tower's battlements.
"Where is the stone?" Mygar then asked abruptly. King Hakama did not say a word, but instead he drew his sword and prepared to fight the Siragon.
"It is not safe in your keeping," Mygar said as he began to approach the king slowly. "I can protect the relic from my brethren better than you. For the armies of Sokor suppose me to be on their side and will think it safe so long as I possess it, but if you keep it, the Ulgerons of Siragoth will never stop hunting you. Not until they take what they seek." Hakama was confused by Mygar's words, but he quickly put the demon's statement out of his mind, and again he concentrated on protecting the dark stone. Without warning, Hakama lunged at Mygar with his sword, but the Siragon easily turned the king's blade aside with one of his swords.
"Do actually think to challenge me?" Mygar laughed, "You are indeed a brave man, but very foolish still." As the Siragon spoke more anger began to swell within Hakama until he finally swung at his adversary with all of his strength, but Mygar was to fast. He ducked beneath the king's sword and then with a quick slash of his blade, he sliced off Hakama's hand. The king let out a cry of pain and then fell onto his back as blood began to drip from his wrist.
Mygar sheathed his swords after he saw Hakama would not give him any more trouble. He then walked over to the king and knelt beside him.
"Fear not," Mygar said, "For your soul will help me stay the darkness that consumes my mind."
"Hold your ground!" Aramoth cried as swarm of demons burst through the gate of Adorik's tower. The soldiers of Carthor quickly drew their weapons ready to repel the invaders and as the first Siragons emerged from the door, the tower's defenders hewed them down as they entered. The demons continued to send more warriors to face the Cathorians, but surprisingly they were unable to push the Hylians back, but the Carthorians could not force the Siragons back either.
The Siragons tactics confused Link at this point. It was not like them to simply throw troops at their enemies. They rarely tried to achieve victory with only brute strength. They usually attempted to use their cunning or superior weaponry to destroy their opponents. Link wondered why the Siragons had suddenly changed their strategy as he helped the Carthorians hold the demons at bay. Before long he remembered seeing king Hakama fly up the stairs before the Siragons broke into the keep.
"It's a distraction!" Link gasped. The hero then fell back to the stairs to follow the king, but not before he killed a couple more Siragons that tried to stop him from leaving the fray. Once Link reached the stairs, he began to run up them as fast as he could manage, hoping that Hakama had not fallen into the Siragons trap, whatever it was. When he reached the roof of the tower, Link saw that he was already too late. To his horror he saw general Mygar kneeling over the king with a black obsidian rock in his right hand.
"You," Mygar said in shock once he saw the Hyrulian, "How long has it been Link? Two and a half years since we last fought. I have anxiously been awaiting the day I would meet you again. For much like the king, you possess something I desperately need." Link growled loudly as he pointed his sword at Mygar.
"I have not stopped fighting against you and your kind since the fall of Acromiar," Link said angrily, "I have seen all the devastation you and your troops have caused. There could be no punishment great enough for your crimes against this world, but I will be content with your death."
"You are a fool, Link," Mygar replied somberly, "You concern yourself so much with the past that you are blind to the future. If you only knew the fate that awaits this world, you would cease to mourn those who are dead, but instead you would pity those who still live, for their doom is far worse. But you can still save the living, by surrendering your soul and the great magic in your keeping, to me." Without another word Mygar swung at Link with one of his blades, but the hero put up his shield and blocked the blow. Link then tried to stab Mygar with the tip of his sword, but the Siragon jumped back before he was run through. The demon then began to swing both of his blades simultaneously. Link suddenly found himself backing up as he desperately tried to block every swing Mygar took at him. The hero soon realized he was swiftly tiring and that he needed to change his strategy or more specifically his weapon, but there was not enough space atop the tower for him to create a large enough distance between himself and Mygar to do so.
Link tried desperately to get away from the Siragon, but could not. His muscles began to burn, as Mygar's attacks seemed to become more frequent and powerful. Link thought he would lose the battle until he heard the voice of Aramoth and many other Carthorian soldiers coming up the stairwell.
"Your majesty," Aramoth cried, "the Siragons are retreating!" The day is ours!" Once Mygar realized dozens of Carthorians were coming to Link's aid he backed away from the Hylian. "We shall meet again," the demon said, "but next time we will finish the fight we started in Acromiar and if you lose then, I will take the golden relic of the so called gods that you posses." Link was stunned by Mygar's statement.
"Does he know that I am the keeper of the Triforce of Courage?" Link thought to himself. Before Link could ponder the question any further, Mygar leapt back to the place he left his grappling hook and slid down the rope. Link rushed to the edge of the tower and tried to cut the rope from the hook, but Mygar reached the ground before he could. The demon then ran off to join his retreating troops.
Seconds later Aramoth and a dozen other soldiers arrived at the top of the tower. "No!" Aramoth cried when he saw his king lying motionless on the ground. He ran over to Hakama and knelt beside him.
"Thank the goddesses," the Carthorian captain said as he felt Hakama's breath on his face. "He's not dead."
"He is not alive either," Link said grimly as he watched the Siragons flee from Adorik.
"What do you mean?" Aramoth asked.
"General Mygar has taken his soul," Link answered turning his gaze to the fallen monarch. "By what means I do not know, but I have seen it happen many times before. Your king will not awaken, but his body will remain alive so long as it is cared for." Aramoth looked up at Link with a look of dread.
"Is there nothing we can do to save him?" Aramoth inquired.
"I do not know," Link replied, "but it may be possible to retrieve Hakama's soul from Mygar. If we can find him that is."
"The Siragons will pay sorely for their trespasses against Carthor," Aramoth whispered under his breath. He then stood up and spoke to his men with an authoritative tone. "We have defended Adorik from the Siragons, but in doing so we have lost our king. But we may still save him if capture the Siragon general. For too long the Siragons have terrorized the nations of the east and none have stood against them. Only when the Siragons came to us did we fight against them. We did not aid the other countries that were attacked by Siragoth. We were too concerned with our own affairs, but no longer will we stand idly by as those demons run rampant. The Siragons will strike again and when they do, we will ride to their foe's aid. We will destroy the Siragons and take back our king's soul. Now all of you see to king Hakama, we must bandage his wounds.
"Yes sir," them men all responded. Two of the soldiers then carefully picked up king Hakama and carried him to a lower chamber where they bandaged his wrist.
Once all of the soldiers had left, Aramoth turned to Link and said in a commanding voice, "You will accompany us when we learn of the next place the Siragons will attack."
"I am not a soldier of Carthor,' Link said in an irritated tone, "I am not obligated to obey your commands."
"You know much about the Siragons and their ways," Aramoth said in a more friendly tone. "While it is true, you do not have to listen to my orders, I do not see why you would not join us in hunting those foul demons. After all, you came to Adorik of your own freewill to help us in our fight against them. Will you abandon us now?"
"No," Link sighed, "I have followed the Siragons this far and I will follow them to wherever they go next, but I will not stay in Carthor while I wait for my enemies to strike again. I plan to travel to other lands to see if I can not discover some sort of information as to where the Siragons will next appear."
"Very well stranger, I hope that when my men and I next face the demons of Siragoth I will meet you again." Aramoth said, he then began to walk away, but turned to Link before he descended the stairs and said, "Your hatred for the Siragons must be very strong if you have fought them as many times as you claim and you still pursue them."
"It is not hatred that drives me," Link said to himself as Aramoth left him alone on the roof of Adorik's tower amongst the bodies of more than a dozen dead Carthorians, "It is fear."