I'm back! Sorry if the beginning of this chapter is weak, or the full chapter itself. This is the first thing I've written in a while so it might not be up to what I consider my normal. Especially the first few paragraphs as I was having trouble getting started and moving things along. I'm expanding the size of Hyrule somewhat, making the land larger. I had difficulty figuring out where to go with the desert and so that made writing this chapter difficult, not to mention the length of time between writing. I should handle the next stuff easier, I hope. I'm already working on chapter 3 for this and I don't plan to have another break like my last.

"Talking"

Thinking

Sand churned as the wolfs paws tore into it as he rushed farther and farther from the cliffs overlooking lake Hylia. It hadn't taken more than a simple glance to tell him that jumping down into those waters was a very bad idea. It wasn't just the blackness of the waters, it was the huge...thing, that had shifted under those waters while he was watching. That left only one option left for him to take, the road into the desert he had taken on his trip here. That road had been cleared by the Gorons after the problems with the Twilight were finished and he had used it to reach the desert on Epona instead of getting blasted into the desert by Fyer. Even so that road was some distance from where he was and the morning sun was already heating things up at a swift rate. His current pace would bring him to a ruined tower that he had sheltered in on his last trip, the tower was heavily damaged but it worked as a good place to catch some rest before moving on. In truth he hoped to use it as a place to hide out until night and then he could begin to travel again in the dark. The tower wasn't the first set of ruins he had run into on his treks around the kingdom and he was starting to wonder where they all had come from. Even Shad had little knowledge on their original builders or purpose.

An hour later the tower loomed in the distance and he was swiftly approaching his sanctuary for the day when he heard the thudding rumble from behind him. Sliding to a stop he looked back to see a large Bullbo and its riders bearing down on him. They were still some distance off though and he quickly began a run towards the tower trying to reach it before the Bullbo and the Bulblins could reach him. Even so the Bullbo was starting to catch up and he began to swerve left and right as flaming arrows streaked after him. He was so focused on the run forward that it took him a moment to hear the muffled, but still very loud, crack that sounded from below the sands. He didn't miss the loud rumble and risked a look back when no more arrows shot towards him. The Bullbo was desperatly struggling to continue forwards as the sand dropped out from underneath it and the Bulblins squealed as they and their mount vanished under the sands leaving a spreading dark hole as sand plummeted down along with a thundering rumble of stone smashing into stone. Even as fast as he tried to move he wasn't fast enough.

Sun shone down into a hallway that had seen no sun in more years than anyone alive would remember. Much of the hallway now was choked with large blocks of stone and a huge amount of sand. Near the edge of the pile the sand shifted and a head broke free followed by the rest of a furred body and the wolf tumbled down the short fall to the stone floor with a yelp. Wincing and favoring his right front leg Link stood shaking the sand from his fur and looked around in confusion. He was standing in a hallway, that much was obvious to him, and it wasn't something that had been naturally made either. The large quarried blocks of stone that made up said hallway told him that much. Looking back he saw the entire hallway was clogged with the stone and sand making any travel that way impossible. It was possible that he could climb the rocks jutting out of the sand and reach the ground above but his curiosity was also starting to get the better of him. Looking in the direction of the tower he could make out the frame of a door and what looked to be a broken door still hanging from hinges. He listened closely trying to hear past the sound of sand sifting down from above but he could hear no sound of enemies or danger. Moving silently down the hallway he reached the door looking over the broken wood seeing where someone had smashed it inwards. He couldn't see much through the missing sections of wood due to the darkness inside and so ducked his head aside and put a shoulder against the door and pushed shoving it open to allow the light shining down through the new hole in the hallway to at least give some illumination to the room. The first thing he saw was to mummified corpses lying near the door as if they had been rushing for it when struck down. He hesitated but they didn't move or do anything to show they were anything but corpses. Dead things not trying to make me dead, that's new. He moved into the room watching everything carefully for enemies but as far as he was able to tell the place was abandoned even by monsters.

The room was obviously the base of the tower, he could even see a set of stairs leading up to a hatch that must have been covered in sand and rubble above or he would have noticed it when he was first in the tower above. There were five corpses total in the room, mummified by the desert heat. The two by the door had been killed by the simple act of being stabbed in the chest. There was one slumped over a table in the middle of the room and it sported two steel arrow shafts sticking up from its back, another two arrows were buried in the far wall and he tried to think of the strength of the bow needed to fire solid steel arrows at any distance and strength. They were too long to be crossbow bolts unless the crossbow was impressively large. The other two corpses were slumped near the table as well, one was missing it's head which appeared to be under the table, while the other had lost an arm and it's head. He had been about to move on when he noticed that the dead bodies were wearing armor bearing the Hyrulean royal crest. That would have meant these were knights of Hyrule, or at least soldiers of the crown. But he had no knowledge of anything out here, except...he recalled that the castle he had fought that large lizard in had also had the royal crest in it. Was it possible that all this was once part of the kingdom?

The room itself held some interest as he smelled water and a quick look at the walls showed him it's place. Attached to the wall was a small fountain with water running down into a small basin which apparently was also always being emptied to keep the water flowing so it wouldn't stagnate. Surprisingly there was a metal frame containing glass to keep the dirt and sand out. It took a bit of work with one paw, and eventually his teeth, but he managed to get the door open and gratefully dunked his muzzle into the water drinking his fill before backing off and sighing. Turning he surveyed the room again wondering when this place had been built. The dead had been here for a long time, that much was certain, but after a length of time in the desert heat they would look the same if they had been here for a hundred years or four hundred. But if this place had even been mentioned in the old histories he had no doubt that Zelda and the historical society would have asked him to try and find it. Even so he would have to make sure to speak of it to them, if he ever made it back there. And his instincts were telling him that he needed to make good time with all the strangeness going on.

He had just turned around when he spotted something on the wall, moving closer he stared in surprise at the huge metal map that appeared to have been hastily attached to the wall. The map was big and showed much but he noticed that Hyrule was shown on it with its name etched in gold. As he got closer he could make out the Zora domain, Death Mountain, and the Gerudo desert. But there was so much more. Hyrule was bordered on all sides by massive mountians and outside those mountains were other lands, and other names. Venix, Obrinia, Land of the Black Sand, Mist Ocean, Halfax, the list went on. Oceans and land masses were shown and he realized that this map must show the entire world, for there was nothing else that it could be. Hyrule was cut off from everything else by the mountains but he noticed that in one section of Hyrule there appeared to be the representation of a large road cutting through one mountain. He looked at it curiously, some kind of trade route maybe? Since it appeared to cut through multiple lands that was the only thing he could think it was. But if it was a trade route why didn't anyone know of it? In fact much on this map appeared different, the representation of Castle Town was not in the right place, and there were far more towns and villages shown than there actually was in Hyrule. Looking closer at the map he noticed that the mountains where the trade route entered them had a X marked in the metal and something written in tiny lettering next to it. He could see it but it appeared to be written in ancient Hylian and he couldn't read it. A danger warning maybe, or possibly just a name.

Even so he couldn't waste more time and moved under the stairs and curled up to sleep till nightfall.

Dim light from the setting sun barely lit the hallway much less the room when he woke and Link quickly took a drink, bowed his head in prayer for the ancient fallen knights and then quickly climbed his way back up through the collapsed hallway to the desert above. The sun was setting and he looked over at the tower, it was interesting to now know how much of the structure actually survived. The shattered remains that he could see from where he stood now made him wonder what had happened here, who had killed the knights and where that hallway had gone before it was blocked by the collapse. He shook the musings from his mind and quickly took off at a measured pace to make sure he would have his strength throughout the night. If he paced himself he could even make it to the base of the pass and reach a road to Hyrule Field. From there...he wasn't sure. Part of him wanted to head straight for Ordon village and the spirit that was in the spring there but it would be almost as easy, if not easier, to get to Kakariko and visit the spirit there.

As the sun began to rise in the morning he found himself passing off of the last sand and onto the more solid rock of the road that would lead him up into hyrule field. His trip, starting from the castle had been mostly unimpeded and he was starting to get worried that his luck was going to run out soon and he'd be in the middle of a fight with Bulblins or Bokoblins but besides a few worms he ran into nothing of danger on the route out to the Field. Sitting at the edge of Hyrule field he looked out over the land and considered his options. To get to Kakariko would take at least two days of fast heavy travel, most likely avoiding enemies, and possibly even mounted Bulblins. The second option was to head for Ordon woods and try to get to the spirit there. That was a just shy of a two and a half day trip from where he was though and could end up landing him in deeper trouble enemy wise even if it put him closer to home. In the end he decided for closer and less fighting and angled for Kakariko hoping to get help there and then head back towards home. It was possible he could even call Epona from there.

The first day and a half of travel had gone off with no problems besides a few irritating Bokoblins that he had dispatched quickly before moving on. But now he was crouched in the tall grass watching as a troop of what looked like armored skeletons tromped by down the road towards Kakariko. He wasn't sure what they were doing, or what they were for that matter but he knew he couldn't let them reach Kakariko without the town being warned, or at least put on alert. At their current rate of advance they likely wouldn't reach the town for a day at the least though he wouldn't put their arrival beyond a day and a half at most. Which gave him a limited time to get to the town and stir things up. While he wouldn't be able to warn them as a wolf there was a chance he could speak to the spirit and get help, and even if the spirit couldn't help him he could at least get the town to post lookouts who would spot the skeletal soldiers. Even so he also couldn't help but wonder where the things had come from and who had sent them. Ganondorf was dead and thus couldn't be involved, did it mean another enemy was here? He decided to figure it out later and began the long and difficult task of bypassing the enemy while trying not to be seen. In total it took nearly the rest of the day to do but he finally ended up ahead of them.

As the sun began to set, and he tried to hold off exhaustion from his nearly day and a half run he noticed that the skeletons weren't stopping. It was at that point he realized his mistake, the undead didn't need to sleep or rest, they'd travel through the night which would put them into Kakariko sometime in late morning most likely. In a second he made a decision and broke from cover running as fast as he could ahead of the skeletons heading for the village, he was far enough ahead that they would very likely not send anything after him. Behind him the skeletons at the lead watched disinterestedly as the massive wolf took off from the tall grass far ahead of them. Their orders where to head to the ruins of Kakariko, not attack or even care about wild animals so their pace continued as normal and no orders to intercept were given.

The sun had gone down several hours ago and now Link could feel the burning in his muscles as he continued to push himself. The moon gave enough light to see by and the night air cooled his lungs with each panting breath, he spent quite some time trying to ignore the tall grass whipping against his face as he ran through it. His approach to Kakariko was nearing the gates that he had dug under on his first trip to the village, gates that he could now see lay shattered on the sides of the path. Slowing his approach and finally stopping at the gates he sniffed around the wreckage but could only scent Bulblins, and something else that was to faint to really identify. He moved now at a simple trot towards the village and the sacred spring until a strange, rotting scent wafted to him. He frowned and moved cautiously up the path sniffing everything ahead of him trying to identify the rotting smell. As he turned a corner and finally got his first glimpse of the sacred spring he realized that he had found the smell.

The Spring's water was as slimy and black as the waters of lake Hylia and his sense of smell was good enough that he didn't even want to get close to the tainted water. But as he approached he got his first look at the village itself. He passed the spring without paying any attention to it now, staring at the village that had suffered so much during the twilight invasion. A second later a mournful howl echoed out across the Field nearby and up to Death Mountain. As his howl faded the twilight wolf stared sadly at the shattered and burned buildings. It looked like some of them had even been destroyed by bombs. This was the last thing he needed to confirm what he had been fearing since he had seen Lake Hylia. There was no way this kind of destruction could have happened in the short time he had been exploring the castle, no way another enemy could have turned up so swiftly after the fall of Ganon. Something had happened, something bad had befallen his friends here, and there wasn't even a spirit to talk to.

His foray into the village was stopped when his instincts started to demand he pay attention. He froze as he realized there was no sound in the village. No scavengers, no monsters, no nothing. This damage looked to have been done years ago and yet nothing was moving in the village. He slowly turned his head looking at the opening above the spirits spring. Something moved, shifting around in the darkness there and then it began to come forwards into the light of the moon.

Armor, that was the first thing that he saw. Thick black armor covered in runes glowing with a dull red light. Said armor nearly completely covered what looked to be a huge lizard. The giant head swung one direction then another and a long thick forked tongue flicked out testing the air. A second later a huge clawed foot smashed down into tainted water followed by another. Link backed away slowly as the huge lizard pulled itself free of the water and seemed to focus its eyes directly on him. It dipped it's head down a little and flicked it's tongue out again before letting out a loud hissing and taking a crashing step in his direction.

Link back away again, flattening his ears back and growling. This just isn't my week.