Hello and howdy to my readers!
All four of you.
Sorry this took so long, but I moved recently, and had all sorts of unpleasant business to attend to, like looking for a job and an apartment and such. But, I have found both, and then I was all "Hey, I should write some more!", so I did.
Anyways, sorry this one isn't as long as the first one, but its something, and I should have more forthwith. Again, I must remind you this is a rough draft and is no way finalized, and I would appreciate all criticism and critiquing you can give me.
Also, I do not own the setting nor the game which this is based on, but Iido is mine so there. Please don't sue me, Reggie. I 3 you.
Chapter Two -- The Way East
Iido wasn't sure if she had made good time, or if she was closer to the road than she originally thought. In only half a day she had made it to the road, and recognized the small abandoned cabin on the hill ahead of her as the old lookouts house. This meant she was only a few hours walk from Kakariko, and she breathed a silent prayer to the Goddesses for small miracles. The road itself was a far cry from a main thoroughfare, and typically only saw heavy traffic during the summer months, so Iido wasn't surprised when she found herself alone on the road. She took a deep breath and her spirits lightened considerably. Her terrifying adventure in the woods was at an end, and before her she imagined warm food, a soft bed and reunions with old friends.
She had only been on the road for little over an hour when she saw the first plume of smoke ahead. She assumed it was from a nearby campfire and thought nothing more of it, until she had been walking for another half an hour and noticed it hadn't gotten much closer. Which meant it was not only farther away than she originally surmised, but was also much larger. A realization came upon her, and an icy chill grabbed her heart. She was still a few hours away from Kakariko, but she began to run anyways.
She began to smell the smoke when she was about an hours walk from the village. Not the friendly, familiar smoke of a campfire, but a dirty, caustic smell that caught in the back of her throat and made her want to gag. The smoke on the horizon looked like low, malicious storm clouds, ready to unleash natures wrath upon the land. She would have preferred that.
It was near sundown when she finally made it to the outskirts of the village. It looked as though the entire village had been stomped flat and burned by an angry god. Everywhere, there was fire. Not a single building was standing, and she could see the bodies in the street. Swallowing her fear, she unsheathed her sword and brought her shield to bear in front of her as she slowly walked towards the village.
She was trying to very hard not to look at any of the bodies, afraid of who she might see lying there, but she could tell from her cursory glances that both humans and moblins were among the dead. In fact, it looked as though the dead moblins outnumbered the humans by three to one.
"It isn't fair!" she thought angrily, fighting back tears. "It wasn't supposed to be like this! I was supposed to show up weary but smiling, and tell them all about my grand adventure in the woods while I drank mulled wine and…"
In her sudden desperation, she forgot not to look.
The boy lying prone on the ground couldn't have been much older than she was. He was lying on his back with an arrow in his chest and a slit throat, the dark blood congealing in a macabre smile, while his real face was frozen in agony and fear. His golden hair had blood and ichor in it, and his fair face had taken on an ashen color, his body stiff with rigor mortis. He still clutched a sword in his right hand, the double edged blade gleaming black with blood in the flickering fire light of the burning tavern.
"At least he took a few of the bastards with him," she thought bitterly, tears streaming down her ash and dirt covered cheeks. Then she fell to her hands and knees and retched in the street, sobbing between heaves as she threw up her breakfast from that morning.
Her stomach emptied, she sat back on her knees and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She tried to hold back the tears by focusing on the growing ball of hate that filled her, but that only made her cry harder. Blinking through her tears, she began to notice that nearly all the dead in the streets were young men, most of them armed. Hope seized her as she remembered that they had formed a militia of sorts back before she was born, for just this sort of thing, to give the majority of the villagers time to escape to the Goron city! Beth and Malo and…everyone should be alright! Grabbing her sword from the ground, she almost began to run towards the trail that led to the Gorons. She was making so much noise she barely heard a slight rustling sound from her left, and barely got her shield up before an arrow pierced her breast.
Standing not ten yards away was a moblin archer, cowering in a half standing doorway and already knocking another arrow. And, still inside the half collapsed building, were three more moblins, sitting over a fire, drinking, and cooking half of a horse over a spit.
What she did next surprised her and the moblin.
She sprinted forward, as fast she could, and managed to stick her sword in the moblin before it could loose the second arrow. It made a squeaky noise at her, disbelief in his eyes, and screamed when she twisted the sword before savagely ripping it out.
Rage was filling her, propelling her forward into the house, and a fight she knew she couldn't win. But she couldn't stop thinking about how that boy looked, lying dead in the street. Or about the other dozen or so bodies she saw strewn about the town. People she had known. As she jabbed her sword point forward into the neck of the obviously drunken moblin in front of her, with his sword still half in the scabbard, she thought of Fitz, and her terror at the river only a day and forever ago. She ripped the sword out of the moblins neck, spraying blood over the fire and herself. The moblin now closest to her brought his sword up for a downward slash, and she thought of how small and helpless she felt when the fear had swallowed her whole and wouldn't let go, half drowning her in her own river of suffering. She dropped her shield and batted the clumsy attack to the side with a two handed swing, and then brought her balled fists up to bash him in the nose. The fear had a face now, and she had felt its bones break beneath her fists.
The last moblin didn't seem as drunk or clumsy as the other two, and made sure that the large fire was between it and Iido. Iido tried to get around the fire, but she could see this moblin was almost as fast as she was. What Iido didn't see was the moblin standing outside as it pulled a bowstring taught and loosed.
Iido screamed with rage and pain as an arrow struck her right shoulder, waves of pain exploding out from the wound. Iido turned to look at the archer, and began to bring her sword up to stab him, but she began to feel all the strength draining from her arm, and it was all she could do to keep a grip on the sword.
She heard a footstep behind her, and she whirled around to face her attacker, but it was too late. The last thing Iido saw was a giant spiked club and a white flash.
Then all she knew was pain and darkness.