So here it is, tomorrow's chapter today, and let me tell you this was harder to write than anything in Prophecy or any of the other arcs bar none. But I think I finally got it pinned down.
I'll leave you to it, then. Thanks for the incredible feedback on the last chapter- comments are pretty awesome. Ladies and gentlemen:

Chapter Ten
Recite In The Name Of Your Lord

A Hylian footsoldier leapt into the breach and Gor Coron shoved him down with a hand like the wrong end of a shovel, drove a kick into his ribs that rattled them like ninepins and stole his breath away. A sword flashed to his left- near miss. His flailing elbow caught the man-at-arms in the throat, snapping his neck. Two down in five seconds and Link was just standing there, stroking his monstrous hawk and talking nonsense as the Brotherhood died at his feet in blood.

"The scholars knew, of course," said the Ordonian. "And I knew the scholars, or at least I knew where they went to get drunk of an evening."

Something was happening. Gor Coron gritted his teeth, narrowly dodged an arrow that would have stuck quivering in his shoulder. Link was still talking.

"The records they keep are actually quite good."

"Whose records?" ground out Gor Coron, raising his fists. A cavalier saw them, turned to run- too late. Zelda's army dealt unmercifully with deserters. A moment later he was choking on his own blood in the dirt and a short man with sergeant's stripes was stepping over his body with the cutlass that had done the work steaming in his hand.

"I promised him he'd eat well, poor fool," said Link, "and he'll bolt down meat today, raw and bleeding from the bodies of the war dead. I ask you, who had more right to know than I?"

"Know what?" asked Gor Coron. The sergeant darted forward like a fish against the current and brought his saber down.

They did not know who had come for them. They only knew that the horns were blowing at the mouth of Kakariko Gorge, and it was not their horns that blew. They only knew that something had gone wrong.

The rear guard stumbled out of their tents cursing and moaning, strapping on their broadswords, swinging their quivers over their shoulders. Then the arrow storm came down on them in a flurry of barbed death and there was no more time for complaint- the time for complaint was over and done with, and the sixth part of their ranks was dead.

The first man to come fact to face with the enemy was Lieutenant Marue, who had been promoted to the officers corps after the war and had served with distinction in Zelda's army ever since. He had hacked a new door in the back wall of his tent with his saber and lunged out into the morning to confront the sons of bitches who had blindsided them and deal out even-handed death until the threat was resolved.

But when he saw them the shock froze in his veins and rooted him stock-still to the dusty ground.

"Why-" he asked, and did not have time to finish the sentence.

This is how Lieutenant Marue died: an iron weight like a battering ram stove in the side of his skull and sent his thoughts and lights spilling insensate into the cool air. He was dead before his body touched the ground.

The sergeant's blade came down. Gor Coron ducked and rolled and damn near lost half an inch of skin as he skidded out of the way. The man scowled and swung down and that was all the patriarch needed. His first blow shattered the saber like a stone going through a windowpane and his second blow shattered the man's ankle and when the sergeant dropped howling to the ground his third blow broke his spine and stilled his screams forever.

"There was a wife," said Link. "The line of succession is complicated, but she was- is- a strong woman. And there's precedent, of course- you need only look at Midna."

Goron curses make a sound like distant explosions, firecrackers going off one by one in the pits of their stomachs. It took a moment for Link to realize what the noise was.

"Are you insane?" roared Coron.

"Don't you ever say that," spat Link, and the hawk exploded off his wrist and into the blue agave sky in a frenzy of wings. "I did what I had to do."

The line was moving, shoving against the Gorons like a red tide coming in from the sea, and the shouts of confusion were not all from the same side. Something was wrong, wrong, horribly wrong.

"What did you do?" asked the Goron, and Link appeared to consider this.

"I sent a message," he said. "After that it was only a matter of time."

They fought with their swords and with their long and graceful spears, and did their best to keep the interlopers back, throwing down their lives when necessary with courage and resignation to stem the flood before it swept the world away. They fought hand to hand, because there wasn't room for the archers, and when it came down to it they fought hand to fist and knee and elbow, because it was understood from the first moment that there would be no quarter asked for or given.

They might as well have tried to dam Zora's River. The rebel army pushed irresistibly forward, and where it passed the bodies draped the ground like carelessly discarded angels.

This is how Lance-Corporal Tyrus died: just as the bells were tolling the hour in Castle Town, a barbed shaft struck him under the collarbone and when he lost his balance he was trampled to death by the retreating boots of his countrymen.

This is how Lance-Corporal Bones died: at two minutes past the hour, he parried two blows off his broadsword but did not parry the third, which sliced open his belly. He expired three minutes later, by which point he was well behind enemy lines.

This is how Sergeant Wrren died: at three minutes past the hour, the blade of a yataghan got past his guard and cut off his head at the neck.

The Gorons were falling back fast, now, losing ground moment by moment as the Hylians tried to break through the line with a new and furious abandon. As Link watched two Gorons fell before the slashing arsenal at the front ranks and were trampled. The choke point came rushing up behind them like an arrow loosed from the bow.

Gor Coron grabbed his shoulders, squeezed down hard. "What did you do!" he screamed again. Link told him.

Flabbergasted, he let go. The din of battle rang distant in his ears as the familiar shape of his comfortable world shifted around him.

"They will call you Link the Traitor," he said.

"No," said Link, "they'll call me Link the Mad."

A curved sword, hilt wrapped in badly-cured coyote fur that stank of piss, swung down to cleave a Hylian helmet in half and sink deep into the skull behind it. It had been so damned easy that the interlopers were still reeling over their good fortune.

The Ordonian's epistle had reached them within hours of its dispatch and four great chiefs had met in the Place of Loneliness to decide what was to be done, and by who, and how many. The debate had raged on until she took up her axe and walked between the boulders that ringed the fire like a mouthful of giant teeth to join them.

Ten minutes later and three great chiefs emerged with a single will, and saddled their mounts, and rode off across the sands. And when a day had passed every one of them came back. And they didn't come alone.

An iron-headed mace crumpled a breastplate like cardboard and made a ruin of the pigeon chest behind it.

A day and a half marching across the grasslands with not so much as a token resistance. This time it was different. This time they wouldn't see it coming. This time, with the strength of the four nations united behind the inspired leadership of the Red, surely-The war-horde of the Bulbins surged up the canyon, and where they went they let out loud ululations and gutteral battle-cries and left broken bodies and oceans of blood in their wake. Caught off guard, the armies of Hylia trampled each other to be the first to retreat and fell like wheat before the onslaught that they had never seen coming.

Because who but a madman would have looked for help from them?

Malgrim's children had come down from the mountains, and Death rode with them.

They had reached the pass where the canyon was the narrowest, and there they held. Zelda's troops pressed against them like champagne against the cork, boiling and screaming and throwing themselves against the lines again and again to get away from what was hunting them.

But they held, because there was nothing left to do but hold- the line, the gorge, Kakariko. And for every drop of Goron blood spilled the defenders took a sevenfold vengeance.

They were losing. But she was losing faster.

The calvary came galloping up the south road, five and forty outriders on their splendid horses, and made for the north and west. The Queen's army was the anvil; they, the hammer, and between them Gor Coron's tiny army, waiting for the forge. Every man of them understood, in that moment, the significance of their actions. It meant that they had won. It meant that the war was over.

This is how Zelda's calvary died: the city had been burnt and ravaged by cannonfire, torn asunder by the Queen's artillery and littered with the refuse of panic. But the survivors, lacking a place to go, crouched yet amidst the rubble, and in their hands they clutched rocks blasted from the cliff wall by the very force that had ravaged their home. In another day it might have occurred to them to rebuild. For now, their teeth were bared in hatred and adrenaline poisoned their blood and they knew- knew- that the horsemen were coming through.

When the horsemen came through Kakariko surged to it's feet and stoned them with stones, denting armor and breaking teeth and shattering bones. Faced with an enemy they could not see, they panicked. Kakariko did not. The horseman was lucky who was struck dead or dumb by a thrown cobble before the townies got him.

One second- one single second- and Zelda's troops were drawing back like lips from teeth. A few of the more adventurous Gorons waded out to follow them, striking them dead on the spot with their fists and feet, but Gor Coron- Patriarch Coron, now- shouted them back into line with a drill sergeant's gruff authority.

Out of the corner of his mouth, he said "What is going to happen now, brother?"

"And why should you believe me when I tell you?" asked Link, humorously, his tunic caked with dust.

Gor Coron, whose face was a mask of blood, shrugged massive shoulders. "You have always been right before." And Link laughed at that- laughed and laughed and laughed.

"She's going to surrender," said the Ordonian a minute later, wiping his eyes with filthy fingers. "Her envoy will be along presently, I expect- not Barbarossa, I killed Barbarossa. Sit tight, Coron, my brother, my patriarch. It's all over now."

Coron's scowl spread across his face like ink. "I do not see why-"

"Oh, goddesses," breathed Link intently. "Will you stop bothering me?"

Silence.

"There's nothing left for her here," said Link. "Can you understand what it must be like to be cornered so thoroughly that you'd have to dig your way out with your shoulder blades to get away? That's where she is now. The game is over and she's lost it."

Someone was coming out of the dust. The Ordonian watched them carefully and went on.

"Some would choose to reject it, but Zelda will no more end her life than I would. We do not decide to live or not to live- something in us forbids it. So her only choice is who to lose to, and that isn't really a choice at all, because the warlord's woman hates her even more than she hates me and brother, she hates me."

"What will happen when we accept her surrender?" asked Coron, and Link shook his head.

"Hard to say," he said. "There's the Bulbins to be dealt with but they've gotten what they came here for and they know it. They'll raid the western provinces unopposed for twenty years if they play their cards right. Hyrule is over."

"Who is that?"

It was Ralis. The boy king plodded out of the dust with a gloom about him that the golden afternoon light did not soften.

"'hoy, fisherman," said Link. "Have you come on the Queen's business?"

"You shouldn't have won," said Ralis hopelessly. Then, "Was it you who called them?"

"Yes," said Link. "It was me who called them. She sent you?"

Ralis sighed. "She'd see you- you and you alone- in her coach and four. She's going to surrender."

"I know," said Link gently. "It's almost over now." And started walking.

"Link," called Coron.

"Yes, patriarch?" said Link, without looking back.

"What happens now?"

Link didn't bother to answer him.

The soldiers parted before them as they walked, dragging the wounded into the shade and retiring to the sides of the road to comfort themselves with drink and medicine and the sweet nectar of hatred. Somewhere further along the canyon the rear guard had finally managed to halt the Bulbin offensive, but the screams and the clatter and the din of battle were still audible on the faint breeze that came from the West. Even in that last extremity it did not occur to Link to fear treachery. He was their man, whether they had rejected him or not, and here and now no one would raise a hand against him.

"She was right, you know," said Ralis. Link shook his head.

"It doesn't matter," he replied.

"How can you possibly believe that?" demanded the Zora King. Link said nothing. He kept walking.

Zelda stood in the open door of her carriage with a face as placid as Hyrule Field. She turned and disappeared into the dimness without a word.

Link followed her, and-

"I surrender," said the Queen of Hyrule. "Get me out of this and it's over, now and forever- no more war, no more modernization, no more Villanova. You know I'm right but the hour is growing late. Get me out of this and things can go back to the way they were."

Link the Mad grinned his grin and shook his head. "No," he sang, "No, no, a thousand times no." And he left her there. And he left her there.

This is how Zelda died:

In the next six hours the Bulbins destroyed the Army of Hyrule down almost to the last man. Only those few soldiers who made it over the barricade and defected to Kakariko survived the slaughter.

The Queen was captured almost immediately, and shut up inside her carriage with guards at every corner. From the dimly cushioned interior of her fragrant prison Zelda could hear them killing the coachman.

They came for her at sunset, and dragged her to the stones of the barricade, and forced her to her knees before the warlord's woman. Zelda looked up into those glowing eyes and knew in that moment that the word would go on without her. She knew in that moment that she was about to be-

-left behind.

Mathilde the Red brought the axe down herself and slipped out of the canyon at the head of her husband's army with a minimum of fanfare, leaving the Queen's body behind her.

Two days later her army sacked Castle Town, killing and rapine and burning indiscriminately and taking fivescore slaves and many treasures beside, for such was the fate of the vanquished in those dark days.

When Link rode in he found them cold and leaderless. And he put out the fires, and he hanged the looters from every tree in the city, and he ordered the massive doors of the city swung shut for the first time in half a century, for the safety of his people. The sound they made when they closed was deep and final and went on for a long long time.

Link the Mad presided over the ruins for forty years.

But this did not happen, because

Midna was sitting on a cushion in the dusky light of the carriage, Midna, with the light on her face and a smirk that said You thought I was dead? Really, Link? You really thought I was dead? Poor boy- you're just not very smart, are you? But don't worry about it. I'm here, and I'm clever enough for the both of us.

My wolf. Mine.

There was a lump in his throat and he swallowed down. "Hey, imp," he said in greeting.

"Hey, Link," said Midna, kicking her feet idly. "Your house burned down."

"I heard," said Link.

"I always thought that you were going to burn your house down," said Midna. "I always thought there was going to be toast involved. Has your cooking improved since Ordon?"

Link blinked back tears. "No, not really," he said. "That you, Midna?"

"What a question," said the imp. "You know anyone else this beautiful?"

He laughed, then, and for the first time in days it felt right.

"I surrender," said Zelda, and all the sudden nothing was right anymore because the bottom had dropped out of the world and he was falling, falling, falling into the darkness.

No, no, a thousand times no and he could feel the words bubbling up in his throat. The other was going to have his way after all, and how could he ever have thought he had won? He was going to be King, King hereafter, and who would watch over his benighted country when the hero sat on the cold throne at twilight?

Midna flipped off of the cushion and into the air with righteous indignation flashing in her eyes like the narrow beam of a lighthouse. "You think that ends it?" she said. "Do you think that's ever going to be enough?"

No, thought Link. No, it won't be, will it?

"It's not enough to give in. You have to set things right."

Set things right, thought Link, and then he was

down on the floor of the coach with the madman's hands hot and sour on his throat and the madman's eyes burning coldly down on him. The air was thick as treacle and color was leaching out of the world, turning Midna and Zelda and Ralis into statues and bringing the twisted face, the tangled hair, the ermine robes of the madman into stark relief.

"What do you think this changes?" hissed the madman. "Nothing, that's what- she's lost and she's afraid of what comes next. Do what has to be done!"

No, thought Link, and the madman's hands clenched down tight.

"It doesn't matter, anyways," he said. "You've lost. The widow will have her and I'll have you and we'll have the throne together. Hyrule is mine, mine, mine. Finally-"

Something flickered across his face. "-finally I'll set things right. You'll see," he said, choking the wolf to death. "yes, you'll see. I'll put everything the way it's supposed to be. She can't break the mirror, you know. Not this time. And everything's going to be fine, everything's going to be fine, everything's going to be just fine-"

Mine, snarled the wolf, and the madman's face collapsed like a rotten pumpkin.

"How-" he whispered, and Link's paws were on his wrists, pulling with irresistible force.

(You told me she was dead

"Let go of me. Let go of me!"

(You're a liar and you've always been a liar.)

"Let me go! I'm the real one! Me!" Fingers tightened in shaggy fur- but whose fingers were these, and whose fur?

(She's alive, you son of a bitch, and I don't have to make your mistakes.

"No, no," (no, no- stop it! Stop that!)

"Stop what?" said Link.

(Stop- that! Goddesses, what are you doing-)

I know how it feels to take a shit on all fours, and I know how raw meat tastes-

"You did it yourself. Din's love, you did it yourself. In this world as in the next."

(All I wanted to do was make things right.)

-and I know how godawful wrong it feels not to have her on your back, because I was here first, I was here first, I was here-

"They were," said Link, drawing his sword. "They were right all along. I've been a fool but I'm not going to be a fool anymore- goddesses help me, I don't want to be a fool anymore."

(Are you going to kill me-? You can't kill me. You can't. You- no. No no no no no-)

I was here first-

"No. I'm not going to kill you," said Link, and the voice fell silent.

(What will I do?)

"Be a wolf," said Link, "with a wolf's appetites and a wolf's ambitions. Walk the world a time and remember how it was, and mourn what you've lost if that's what your heart commands. Only remember."

Remember her. Remember us. Remember all of it-

"You have not lost, wolf- not yet. I know you didn't kill her. There's still time."

Slowly, irrevocably, color was coming back into the world.

(It's too late,) said the wolf. (Even if I didn't- it's too late.)

"Too late?" said Link, incredulously. "Too late? You're the hero!"

Silence.

(Yes,) whispered the wolf, savoring the word. (Yes. Yes, I am. I had forgotten. Do you think she remembers me?)

"How could she not?"

(Yes. Perhaps-)

It fell silent.

(And you. Where will you go?)

"To set things right," said Link.

"Link?" whispered Midna. "What the hell do you think you're doing? There's not much time left-"

"You win," said Link, and sat up. "It's over."

Silence reigned as Link got to his feet. "I'm sorry?" said Zelda frostily, and for the first time in days Link's teeth shone in the slow bleed of light from the candles.

"You win," said Link. "Modernization- yes. It's what Hyrule needs, isn't it? I told you that."

Zelda's face was a picture of confusion, Midna's of anger. Hope was dawning in Ralis's jade eyes.

"I'm not sure I understand," said Zelda, slowly. "You're coming over to my side?"

"Oh, sides," said Link, waving it off, "I don't know that I believe in them. But I won't stand in your way. No. You're the Queen, after all. It wouldn't be proper."

Zelda stood stock-still. "No," she breathed. "It wouldn't be, would it."

"What are you doing, Link?" asked Midna with a flicker of annoyance.

"You'll help me deal with the bulbins?"

"I'll do better than that," said Link, merrily. "I'll tell you how to beat them."

"Ah," said Zelda.

"But," said Link.

"Ah," said Zelda.

"But," said Link, "you'll have to do it the hard way."

Silence.

"I'm sorry?" said Zelda. Ralis was sitting straight up and Link winked at him.

"No more invasions," he said. "No more annexing provinces, and fealty is something you have to earn before it's given. You withdraw from Kakariko and you damn well pay for the repairs. And you call a vote in Ordon for vassalage to the Kingdom of Hyrule, although I wouldn't worry about that much- Bo was right, and anyways they loved Villanova, goddesses above know why."

"We would have won," said Zelda.

"But you didn't," said Link.

"It will take years," said Zelda. "Decades, even. I may not live to see Kakariko fall in under the Hylian banner because of what you did here today. It would have been better for them."

"But that choice is theirs to make," said Link. "Don't you see? It has to be. Or you're no queen."

"And if I refuse?"

Link shrugged. "I walk away. You can negotiate with the Bulbins if you like."

Zelda's mouth twisted bitterly.

"It would seem," she said, "that I have no choice."

"There's always a choice," said Link. "Always, always. There's always a choice and afterwards you live with the choices you made, or you don't live at all. That's life for you."

"You killed Barbarossa," said Zelda, and Link smiled sadly.

"So did you, lady," he said. "A thousand times over."

"So what happens now?" said Midna.

Zelda's map of Hyrule was spread over the wall of the carriage, every bit as creamy as marzipan, and Link stood in front of it with his hands folded behind his back. My country, he thought.

"Do you know what I think?" he said to Zelda. "I think you think that I've served my purpose in the world. I think you resent how long I've stuck around after Ganon fell. That I kept on trying to save the world past the point where the world was threatened."

"Yes," said Zelda. "I did and I do."

Link half-smiled. "But you can't get rid of me, can you? I'm the hero, but at the end of the day that's not all I am."

"Then what are you?" asked Zelda, and frustration crept into her voice on mouse feet. "What are you supposed to be? You've ruined everything."

"I'm the conscience of Hyrule," said Link, and she sagged into her chair at what she heard in his voice. "That's what I'm supposed to be, me and the ones that came before me and the ones that came after- the dead ones and the ones being born. All of us, the living and the dead, standing on the outskirts asking for something better. Do you know, I think this time we might actually get our way?"

Zelda said nothing and Link laughed, rich and mellow and strong. "But it's your better world, Zelda, not mine. I'm only here to point the way. Will you do it?"

"Yes," said Zelda. "Yes, I will. But they'll hate me."

"Of course they will," said Link, and the smile dropped from his face. "You killed hundreds of people today that weren't meant to die and hundreds the day before that who should have been at home with their wives and mothers. You burned my house and sent Barbarossa after me. I should kill you for what you've done today."

"But you're not going to," said Zelda, and as she said it she finally understood. "Because I'm the best you have."

Link said nothing, only laughed. "C'mon, Midna," he said. "We're going home."

"Wait," said Zelda, half-rising. "The bulbins, you were going to tell me how to deal with the bulbins."

Link paused in the doorway, whispered something to Midna. The imp giggled and Link turned around.

"Who was it supposed to be, princess?" he asked.

Zelda didn't even stop to think about it. "It was supposed to be you."

Link laughed and turned to go. "Keep your word," said Zelda, harsh in the cramped coach, and the Ordonian smiled sadly.

"Don't you know?" he said. "You're going to deal with them the same way you dealt with me."

"And what is that?" asked Zelda.

"The hard way," said Link, and left.

He stepped out of the carriage and stood there on the top step, momentarily blinded by the noontide sun. Only when his light-flooded eyes adjusted was he able to see the carnage.

Kakariko Gorge was a slaughterhouse, packed wall to wall with the dead and those who had sent them there. The moans of the wounded, less than half of whom would live to see the sun go down, were the only sounds there were - save for the flapping wings and the guttural cries of the hawks, who would eat well today.

But for a moment, as Link stood there blinking his eyes, it didn't look like an abattoir and the corpses didn't look like corpses, sloughing off in the sun and the heat with flies thick as honey in the air about them. In that perfect moment of clarity- never to be replicated- all he saw was men and Gorons and bulbins lying head to foot and side by side, their weapons broken on the ground around them, at peace forever.

For a moment it looked like heaven.

"Link," hissed Midna beside him. "They're waiting for you."

And he understood her perfectly, looking out at that sea of upturned and multicolored faces- understood her with the rare and unspoken insight of lovers. All these soldiers, all these Gorons and Hylians and Bulbins, they were waiting for him to tell them what Zelda had said, no, they were waiting for him to tell them who had won, no, they were waiting for him to explain what had happened this day in words that they could understand; they were waiting for the coming of the prophet.

Link raised his sword above his head and every eye tracked it. The blade of the ancients was reflected in two hundred dying eyes.

"Hyrule united!" cried Link, and went home.