Warning:
In this chapter of the Great Destroyer, there is violence, strong language and a gruesome death scene.
Unholy Ground
A man bearing a cowl raced across the desert on horseback. Green, sickly sweat trickled from his forehead, preserving the only source of water for miles around. His hands and torso were bound in cloth, soaked by the continuous perspiration that erupted from his body. Both of his legs were plated with light, black armor that blistered from the sun's terrible heat and burned the flanks of his horse. The mare itself was just as dark as its rider's armor, and had two, complete red spheres for eyeballs. It also wore armor, but the surface was stainless steel instead of the mysterious, black metal.
The rider headed for a strange structure in the way distance, bordered by an indistinct wall and dusty, orange canyons. He gained on the building rapidly, his horse skipping over the sand dunes as if it was flat as a prairie. The smell of death and fire traveled with him over the desert hills, bringing an obscure wind of evil to the bright desert.
As he approached, unexpected clouds began to stretch from the sky above the structure. The rider and his horse paid no attention to these strange anonymities and continued to gallop even as the clouds boomed with thunder. The outer wall soon came into view, and revealed itself to be as broken and scattered as the pieces of a shattered mirror. Figures appeared on the sides and peaks of the broken wall, holding long objects that were incredibly vague in the desert heat. A smirk suddenly broke from the rider's lip.
When his horse reached the edge of the wall, the clouds had stretched out over the entire desert and had prevented the sun from scorching the earth. The rider reared up his horse to screech into a loud echo that sounded over the ruined sandstone and drifted off to the great beyond. The figures noticed him.
"Halt, rider!" a female voice yelled, "What is your business in the land of the Gerudos?"
The man dismounted his horse and removed his cowl, revealing a frightening green face.
"I seek entrance to the Arbiter's Grounds!" he shouted back, his voice as deep as the thunder's booms, "You shall give me it!"
There was a pause in the air, then a bellow of laughter from above. Directly after their endless squawks, the man watched several silhouettes sitting on the wall pull back their arms, longbows in hand.
"And what gives us a reason not to shoot you now, rider?" the same voice spoke.
The man chuckled to himself.
"Because I am your king!" He said, "And you would never shoot your king!"
Silence passed over the perched people above. The rider breathed heavily over the fading humidity of the desert, keeping a twisted smile that was unseen by the stalking figures roosted atop the wall. A strong wind passed over them then, blowing away the man's tan wraps and revealing leather armor. The cloth drifted off into the current of the gust, travelling far off and eventually blending in with the now dark desert.
The rider stressed his chest, showing to all a single, peculiar symbol embedded onto the center of his armor. Any untrained eye surely would've had no sense of what this icon meant, but the people above understood. He heard much commotion above (the majority of it being doubtful) before he finally decided to speak up and give his grand speech.
As he did so, the archers lowered their bows.
"I am Ganondorf!" he yelled to the heavens and his audience, bringing with his voice a crash of abnormal thunder, "I am the Prince of Darkness and the sovereign King of Thieves!"
He swiftly pointed to the large fissure in the wall.
"As your leader," he said, "I command you to let me through!"
Frustration burned aggressively behind his irritated eyeballs, creating painful bloodshot veins that seemed to bulge out of the watery globes. His hands were closed incredibly tight, but their pressure was easy only to the point of his nails poking his skin.
But he knew they would listen. They just had to. He had led them to promise. He had delivered them from the Hylians! He was their king, their god! He was the surrogate son of the Twinrova, the great sorceresses of the Gerudo! How could they ever turn on him, a man?
But as a reply came to him, it was with no pleasurable laughter or welcoming chant. Instead, he heard a terrible, womanly war cry sound from the top of the wall and pierce the cumulonimbus clouds as if Din Herself had screamed from the highest mountain of the heavenly realm and shouted the entire land of Hyrule apart.
Ganondorf stared on in disbelief as the archers readied the longbows again, echoing the threatening sound of elastic cord bending back from a wooden frame. A woman stood up from her sitting position on the end of the wall and raised her hand.
"How DARE you mock and falsely mimic our great king." She screamed with the savagery of a diving eagle, "Our great dead king!"
As if she was weeping, her head turned away from Ganondorf and towards the majestic coliseum sitting far back behind the sandstone wall. Her gaze was focused in on the palace for a while before turning back to him with a loud snarl.
She drew two scimitars from her waste and pointed one down towards Ganondorf, who stared back up with angry eyes.
"Kill the bastard!" she told the others, "Mount his head on a pike so he may join the other men who have foolishly mocked our monarch!"
The archers took no hesitation and let go of the bands of their bows. Tens of iron arrows suddenly shot from the silhouetted figures and threw themselves down on Ganondorf, who stood staidly in the sand at the base of the wall, emotionless. He did nothing to flee as the sharp, bladed sticks came flying down with an incomprehensible speed, headed for every part of his Gerudo body.
The wave of arrows reared up high to blot out the already dark sky, as if threatening to head through the clouds and kill the golden goddesses basking in Ganondorf's pathetic misunderstanding in the heavens. The miniature spears quickly deviated and headed towards the surface of the desert, fiercely cutting a path towards Ganondorf.
The Gerudo man tilted his head down in sadness, but ceased to let a tear loose.
Above, he could hear the constant insults and laughs coming from his once beloved feminine allies.
He closed his eyes as the shadow of the arrows overtook him, and opened his arms as if he would willingly allow the steel tips to puncture his skin and send his soul careening back up to the limbo realm for the divines' and the Gerudos' further amusement. His body was ready to die.
But his rotten soul wouldn't allow it.
With an evil grin, he looked up at the wicked betrayers and yelled loudly:
"May your treason be repaid!"
Instantly, the arrows unnaturally reversed direction and began to trace back their original path, right towards the shocked Gerudos. Frantic and yearning for an escape, the brigand women began jumping off the sandstone wall to an unlucky death at the will of the hardened sand. Others who didn't jump off had pushed others aside from their greed and done their share for Death.
Those who stayed alive were violently impaled by fast-traveling arrows that often knocked the archers clear away from the wall and into the softer sand, pitiably bleeding out from the very weapons they had launched themselves.
Yet, there were still some that remained, and many of them had already began to pull back on their bows and ready to fire another barrage of arrows.
Ganondorf smiled at this act.
"Pathetic." He whispered to himself.
Almost pleased at the thought of the situation, the King of Evil closed his steel-clad arms over his chest and pushed his hands cogently into his pectorals. A green glow suddenly appeared around his head and shoulders, alerting the Gerudos.
"Get ready to fire again!" Ganondorf heard one of them yell.
The glow grew wildly, and soon became a great ignition that baked his body in the flames of his very skin color. He continued to smile throughout all of this, knowing all-too-well the great power he possessed.
Just then, the Gerudos let go more arrows, which came with a force just as devastating as the last. They soared through the air at blinding speed, giving the smallest fraction of hope for the desperate sand pirates that strived to please their "deceased" king. However, their arrival to Ganondorf's vitality was far too late, for the Great King of Evil had reached his power limit.
With a grand yell, the green man threw his arms outward and let forth an enormous shockwave of dark energy that hurled across the physical world and disintegrated the arrows to petty wooden pieces and iron fragments. The blast carried on through the desert wind and kicked up large clouds of sand, which head straight for the wall.
Without taking any action, the Gerudos watched in horror as the destructive shockwave busted through the wall like a battering ram and sent all the remaining archers hurling high into the sky and into the hellish, damned realm to which their entire civilization had unconditionally settled themselves into.
The giant sandstone bricks fell into the courtyard of the coliseum, where they broke into multiple fragments and buried themselves into the sand. A mild sandstorm swept through the ruined area following the instance, further entombing the ancient pieces and buildings that were scattered all throughout the yellow-orange valley.
All was then quiet. The cumulonimbus above had receded from thundering, and the desert wind had silenced its annoying, whipping behavior. Those who had survived the cataclysmic demonstration of Ganondorf's power took their last breath, disavowing any vague sound of breathing.
The Evil King himself then walked over the extinct border of the wall into the sandy courtyard, striding forward with a repulsive expression and crimson red eyes. There, he was unpredictably greeted by at least a hundred female warriors with readied pikes and scimitars. All of them bore a look of hatred.
But as they gaze upon the culprit, the man who had murdered their kin, they disarmed their weapons and looked upon him with interest. Ganondorf had also lowered his brawny attitude and lowered his shoulders, attempting to relax.
A woman suddenly pushed her way to the front of the crowd. Like the other women, her face and exposed skin was incredibly tan, most likely from the heavy exposure to the sun. Her hair was bright red, almost extraordinarily, and her lips were silver from synthetic lipstick. However, unlike the others, who wore royal purple two-pieces garments, she wore an alternate, differing white outfit, signifying her position as higher (or possibly lower) than the others'. On her belt, she wore two, identical, sheathed scimitars, displaying her mien of peace and negotiation.
Outstretching her hand with affection, she spoke to Ganondorf:
"Our king…" she said softly, "… it is you."
The Gerudo man had no returning pleasantry.
"So it is." He replied with a tone of discontent.
The woman stepped back in astonishment and looked back in forth through the crowd of women. Without a word, she knelt down to the ground and leaned forward towards Ganondorf, bowing with sincerity and fear.
The others, without delay, dropped their weapons and did the same, creating a strange semicircle around their ordained leader.
Ganondorf said nothing to them, but only looked down with that deep, continuing expression of cynicism and doubt.
"Treachery is the only thing I see from you, Nabooru." He said, causing the woman in white to look up, "Your loyalty no longer matters."
With an iron grip, he swiftly reached down and grabbed the frightened female by the throat. She struggled to breathe in his hand, but kept herself from bringing to him any sort of harm, as if she still respected his leadership. Ganondorf, however, showed no mercy and continued to tighten his already pressured grasp over Nabooru's neck.
The others stood still in fear, trying to keep their submissive positions over the dry sand. A few had even begun sulking.
"My king…" she coughed, "… please… understand…"
Ganondorf's brows were angled almost vertically, displaying his volatile rage. Black, evil energy flowed from the inside of his hand, bubbling like beer over the edges of his fingers and dissipating into the desert air before hitting the ground. Nabooru's neck suddenly made a sickening crack, and her dark eyes widened.
The King of Evil clenched his teeth, straining his grip as far as possible. His veins appeared distinctly over his exposed hand, appearing as if they would burst at any second. Despite the pain, he kept holding and holding until he could go no further.
Then, with exposed fingers, he outstretched his hand and sunk his overgrown yellow nails deep into Nabooru's neck, squirting hot, sticky blood over his hand.
The girl croaked for a final time, and let her head droop towards the sand.
Ganondorf, not satisfied, screamed in anger and continued to hold Nabooru's bleeding body in his death grip. The Gerudos tried not to watch, although many had already broken out crying at the sight of their king's fury and the horrible corpse of their murdered comrade continuing to be mushed together by a merciless butcher.
"You fucking traitor!" his voice bellowed, echoing through the courtyard.
Suddenly, out of vehement passion, Ganondorf drew one of the hanging scimitars from Nabooru's belt and began stabbing and hacking at her body with blinding speed. Thousands of heavy, bloody gashes appeared all over her once beautiful skin, scattering spots of gore across the sand and even onto the horrified Gerudos. He continued to yell throughout his bloody rage, and didn't stop until he had cut the body to the point of bisection, at which point he threw the sword deep into the corpse and let it fall apart.
When the two halves of the mutilated Gerudo had dropped to the ground, the King knelt down and buried his head into the desert. Having exhausted his anger and chopped his victim to pieces, he had been gratified. His desires had been fulfilled.
He pounded his hands into the ground, releasing the final remnants of his killing frenzy, then looked up at the cowering pirates around him.
"Do not fear me." he said, speaking as softly as possible.
With exhausted strength, the Gerudo man pushed himself up to a standing position.
"Fear what has made you forget your king!" he told them, pointing to Nabooru's dismembered body, "A king who had delivered you from your oppressors!"
Sweat dripping from his brow, Ganondorf took a single glance around at his people.
"Stand up." he said staidly.
Although hesitantly, the Gerudo women sprung up from the ground, not bothering to dust off the sand that had clung to the side of their pants. They took their weapons, and listened as Ganondorf went on with his wild speech.
"Let us put an end to the threats." he proposed, "Let us put an end to the petty tyrants you have surrendered your honor and your bodies to."
They all looked at him closely, knowing he still had one more thing to say:
"The Hylians will fall."
I hope that last scene didn't deserve an M rating. It was violent, but I tried to subdue it as much as possible without destroying the deep passion of Ganondorf's wrath.
