Another fortnight, another chapter. I can only offer you a whole bushel of thanks yous for coming by, I hope that's enough and that this proves to be a reasonably enjoyable read. FYI this one's another bloody one I'm afraid guys.
Cheers, Freckels
It's oddly nostalgic to be sneaking around in the pitch dark again, if it's possible to feel nostalgic for the worst years of your life. Goddesses he hopes that the passage of time isn't trying to jam rose-tinted glasses onto his nose when he looks back on all of that. Regardless of whatever fuckery his memory is trying to pull, the clink and shuffle of the people padding behind him serves to break the illusion of having gone back in time.
It's not as gut-wrenchingly awful now as it was trying to get them all somewhere safe after the explosion. Not least because finally, finally, he's being listened to. His wealth of personal and inherited knowledge of clandestine, almost guerrilla, tactics at last being respected and lent on. So, once again, he's here at the head of the group as they edge towards Petrescu Manor, the perimeter wall of pitted brick rising to greet them. He beckons everyone forward to splay around him in the lee of the wall. He nods at one of men from Oxholm company, someone just as wiry and lithe as Sheik is, who immediately starts scaling the wall, his fingers and toes jammed into the pits and holes in the brick and mortar.
They wait as he peers over the top. They wait as he carefully shimmies back down the way he came. They wait while he drops the last couple of feet, landing with a quiet susurrus thud in the leaf litter.
`There are lights up at the house but everything in between is blacker than the bottom of a well sir.'
`Well then,' Sheik turns to share a look with Roucy, silent confirmation that they're on the same page, `over we go.'
The Empire is complacent. That's honestly the only reason he can find for there being no guards, no sentries, not even someone taking a piss in a bush. Maybe that's what years of overwhelming victories does to you. It probably makes for a very comfortable life as a commanding officer, to be so sure that no one is going to try and do exactly what they're trying to do. For Sheik, it feels very gratifying to be at the helm of a very rude wake-up call. Every muffled foot fall behind him resonating in his gut, making his heart thunder a bit faster and the adrenaline sail through him. They're good soldiers, good strong men and women that he has utter faith in behind him. Yes, they're definitely going to be a wake-up call.
In daylight and under better circumstances the manor's gardens are probably very nice. The lawns are neatly shorn and the looming patches of thicker darkness seem like they're carefully trimmed topiary, that or remarkably calm ghosts. He stifles a snort at the idea of a bunch of ghosts just shrugging to each other as a little cloud of people sneak passed. In his admittedly limited experience with the roving dead they are never that chill. Even the harmless ones seemed to have a taste for the dramatic and the less said about the screeching, shambling flesh pile ones the better.
The garden is split over two levels, the ground sloping sharply up about four feet before levelling out again into intricate flower beds. Closer to the house the grass gives way to a patio edged by a waist high wall made from stout marble pillars. He can hear the gentle trickle of a fountain somewhere ahead but it's not much of a problem unless someone falls in. The house itself is more of a castle than a manor, with towers and turrets silhouetted against the midnight blue sky. It's also huge, four storeys at least excluding the towers which go up about the same height again. Most of the patches of light are coming through windows on the ground floor, eerie rectangles of yellowish glow in the darkness.
They forgo the extra wide, sweeping set of steps and scramble up the bank. They head in the opposite direction to the densest area of lit windows and towards the back of the manor house. The windows are almost entirely dark here, the only light bleeding in through open doors to other rooms. The closer they get the more they can hear the Imperial soldiers inside making familiar soldiers at ease noises. One of them doesn't seem to have an indoor voice, and keeps booming out bits of Imperial or one of its many dialects. The replies are much more muffled by the walls and glass between them but every so often there's the unmistakable sound of laughter.
Roucy hand signals for everyone to stop, and they coalesce into one well-armed blob of shadows next to a thin wooden door. It is, of course, locked but no one expected otherwise. Their saving grace is the little leaded window above it, propped open on its latch. Gael braces his back against the door and cups his hands together to make a foot hold. He nods at Sheik and gives him a leg up, bringing him level with the window. Sheik flicks one of the few blades he's got left out of its hiding place and uses it to unhook the latch and let the window swing free. He grips the frame and pulls himself through, twisting his body like a cat to land as softly as possible. Picking the lock on the door is laughably easy after that.
The Hylians pad inside, easing the door shut again behind them. Sheik signs for them to split into the smaller groups they'd draw up back in the village and they all disperse, silent, predatory. Sheik, one of the Gerudo called Takisha and Jensen, the ensign from Oxholm company, edge away from the door and down one of many gloomy corridors. Every step is careful, considered. Every room they pass is checked for enemy soldiers or supply stores. They don't seem to be finding either.
The interior of the manor is fitting of the grandeur of the exterior. Thick, deep red carpets and beautifully woven rugs allow them to walk soundlessly. Some rooms have dark, carved wooden panelling, others richly patterned wallpaper or frescos or gilded reliefs. Tasteful chaises flank low, lion-footed tables decorated with now wilted vases of flowers. Stately bureaus hold orderly writing supplies and grandfather clocks tick in time with their footsteps. They find a music room, a harp and a grand piano stand dusty and unplayed. Sheiks fingertips itch to touch them so he balls his hands into fists to fight off the temptation. Now is hardly the time for anything as joyful as music.
The three of them spill into an entrance hall, huge twin staircases arc upwards on either side of them, their balustrades carved into the shape of local flora and fauna. Pink marble pillars hold up a balcony that juts over three sides of the room to give the hosts a chance to survey their party guests as they enter. Coloured moonlight paints a mirror image of the stained glass roof on the parquet floor slightly too distorted to be able to make out properly. Takisha raises her eyebrows at him and Jensen just shakes his head and jerks his thumb towards the stairs questioningly.
They're about six treads up when a muffled gasp and a less muffled clattering nearly makes them all have a heart attack. Sheik's vertebra crunch as he turns his head with vicious speed. There's a woman at the bottom of the stairs, her hands pressed to her mouth to stop any more noise coming out. A tray of pewter mugs splay around her feet dripping the last dregs of whatever had been in them lazily onto the wooden floor. Sheik raises his empty hands, holding them open and in sight as he pads back down the stairs towards her. She lowers the fingers covering her lips.
`Hylian?' she whispers, breathless, hopeful.
`Hylian' he nods, praying to Nayru that this goes the same way meeting Ioana did.
`Can you understand me?' She points at him and then herself, pantomiming along as she speaks.
`Yes, a little, my speaking is not so well though.'
She gives him an approving look, `I can take you to where the soldiers are without them seeing you. This is my house; I know all the bits they do not.' She holds a hand out, beckoning for them to follow her.
`Ah, slow, please,' Sheik waves after her, stopping her before she gets too far away, `can you us take to the things they taken have?'
She squints at him, head tilted to the side while she processes what it was he was trying to ask, `yes, of course, follow me please.'
She leads them to where one of the staircases meets the wall and presses a section of the panelling. It clicks softly and a waist high door swings outwards on spring loaded hinges. She ushers them through, everyone awkwardly crouch walking to avoid braining themselves on the tiny door frame. The passage way slopes down gently and after a couple of meters they can all unfurl, gratefully expanding into the extra room. Takisha rolls her shoulders, stretching achy muscle from having to compact herself much more severely than anyone else.
It smells incredible in here in Sheik's opinion, but Link has often told him people aren't as keen on the scent of laundry detergent as he is. Washing lines stretch from wall to wall, spaced out to allow two people to stand back to back between each one. Massive baskets sit at either end, waiting to filled with clean sheets or tablecloths or clothes. The slanted brick floor has little channels cut into it all running to drain hole in the far corner. There's a massive fireplace in the opposite wall, dry kindling and log stacked in recesses either side of it. Some part of him that is utterly detached from focussing on their actual objectives is incredibly jealous of this woman and her wonderful drying room.
They follow her, ducking under the washing lines as they go, passing through another door and into a cloister around a courtyard with a well in it. She waves them into what turns out to be an antechamber for the kitchen. Suddenly he's a kid again and it's not Takisha and Jensen behind him but Zelda and they're not fighting against an aggressively expanding empire but trying to sneak an after-dinner snack. The high, vaulted ceiling is the same. The wood burning ovens and clockwork spits hung over the fireplace are the same. The dressers and butcher's block and long, long wooden work table are the same. A castle kitchen is a castle kitchen he supposes.
He reaches out and taps his fingertips against the woman's shoulder, `where are everyone?'
Her chin wobbles, `many of them lie like heroes now, in the next place.'
He could tell her he's sorry, he wouldn't be lying. He's acquainted well enough with loss to feel genuine sympathy for those caught in its harrowing ache. He doesn't though and says something else he means just as much, `we will wound them just as well in return.'
She nods at him, gripping his shoulder briefly and squeezing tight before carrying on across the wide, tiled kitchen floor.
They twine up a tight spiral staircase that Sheik can only imagine must be awful to navigate for anyone having to carry food up from the kitchen. They reach a tiny room that has to be a staging post of sorts for the serving staff. A massive dresser full of napkins and meticulously polished cutlery is pressed hard up against the stone wall leaving a scant two-foot gap between it and the door. Just as she lays her hand on the door to ease it open something on the other side rattles.
No one breathes. Dust settles on eyelashes framing wide open, hyper alter eyes. Hairs on the backs of necks slowly prickle to attention. Sheik rolls his gaze from the door to meet the woman's eyes. He stares at her purposefully, and then slowly traces a line with his eyes back to the door they came through. She nods, mercifully quick on the up take, and retraces her steps with the utmost deliberate care. Sheik slides up to the door, pressing an ear to it.
`'Ow much beer can the bastards possibly need? Tis an insult this, keepin' it all to 'emselves.'
Sheik screws his eyes shut, biting his lip to stop himself laughing at the muffled, indignant Hylian seeping through the wood. He eases the door latch up as smoothly as he can, aiming for as little sound as possible, and steps into the room with his hands raised for good measure. Bright, angry, razor sharp steel dances under his chin. Any fear he might have had gets pushed out by odd and overwhelming swell of pride at how well Hyrule has trained her soldiers.
`Fuck me sideways,' whisper tones somehow make the profanity much weightier, `Sir Sheik, I. . . fuck I didn't. . .'
Sheik shrugs, `don't worry about it. How many teams are here?'
`About six, we've left signs for the other to follow as well. Reckon we can shift most of this with a few more hands.'
They both look at the vaguely organised trash heap of looted goods. Sacks of flour and grains are slumped over kegs of beer. There are things that look suspiciously like entire wheels of cheese and quietly mouldering vegetables. He lets his eyes pass over the body shaped lumps on the floor, their Imperial armour catching the slivers of moonlight from the window. There's no use in thinking too hard about them now. Goddesses only know what they did with the meat they took but Sheik fervently hopes it was spared the same fate as those poor carrots. Jensen tuts under his breath,
`Just because they stole it doesn't mean they can waste it, I think my ma'd cry if she saw all this.'
`Well, they ain't even gunna have the option to waste it soon. . . might leave 'em the rotten stuff though.'
Sheik nods, that seems like a fair plan to him, `can you handle this without us?'
`Oh aye, not a problem,' an awkward hand is laid on Sheik's shoulder, `give 'em hell sir.'
Takisha and Jensen follow him back to the room with the dresser in it, stopping briefly to explain the change in objective to their guide. She grins, her teeth an unnerving pale stripe in the gloom, and leads them back the way they came.
They skirt around the damp patch and scattered mugs in the entrance halls and pass through a door shadowed by the balcony overhead. The beating of Sheik's heart kicks up a notch when he notices the faint glow of oil lantern light bleeding around the corner ahead. The woman pokes her head around it, lips pulled tight and fingernails digging into the delicately patterned wallpaper.
Light and noise tumbles out of an open doorway at further down the hallway. She recoils from it,
`here, they are in there. . .' she tangles her fingers into skirt and takes a big breath, `I. . . I do not know how best to do this. . . m-my child, my daughter, she is in there, they keep her so that I will behave. Please, I. . .I do not want her to die like her father did.'
Sheik takes one of the woman's hands, feeling how badly her fingers are shaking against his,
`We will-'
A wave of noise crashes out of the door, splashing and reverberating around the corridor. Someone hollers, much nearer to them than before, and makes noises like their smacking something heavy against the doorframe.
`They are calling for me,' her eyes are huge, and she clutches at his hand.
He squeezes back and extricates his fingers from her grip, digging a throwing knife out from where it was secreted at the small of his back with his other hand. He pivots out from behind the corner and whips his arm, wrist and fingers with balletic accuracy to send the blade flying. The Imperial soldier goes down with a guttering, sucking breath, clawing at the steel lodged in his throat. Confused burbling trickles through the door and puddles around the dying man. Chairs scrape and hurried feet slap over the floor. Someone new pokes their head out of the door.
Sheik is already poised, crouched just out of view by the door frame. He springs forward, another of his dwindling stock of knives in his hand. His angle affords him a good shot at this second soldier's inner thigh and consequently his femoral artery. He yelps as he goes down, dropping to his knee on his uninjured leg. Thick hands reach into the tangle of bodies and drag Sheik into the brightly lit sitting room. Words that he can't understand are yelled into his face as he's bodily lifted and shaken like a ragdoll. His precious knife clatters to the ground, jiggled out of his grip.
He jerks and twists and wriggles to try and get free but the hands around his shoulders won't loosen. The ambient shouting keeps getting louder and louder. Takisha bellows something Gerudo as she and Jensen launch themselves through the door with no thought for the bleeding man they step over. Their reckless advance is met by a tide of Imperial soldiers finally over the shock enough to act. Sheik grips the skin on the underside of his puppeteer's upper arms and pulls down as forcefully as he can. The man howls, letting go and dumping Sheik on the floor.
His bad leg shrieks at his from the sudden impact and he fumbles getting back to his feet. Still, despite dragging an uncooperative limb he ducks beneath the big, crumple-faced man's fresh attempts to get hold of him. He feints a cross and instead drives a hook into an unsuspecting kidney. He tries to drown out the high, persistent wailing that soars above the cursing and grunting of the fight. It's a penetratingly annoying sound, repetitive and warbling and . . . and with a tumbling of his stomach he realises what it is. It's the sound of a frightened child crying.
He stops wasting time and desperately rams the solid part of his forehead into the soft bridge of the man's nose, felling him like a stout, hairy tree. He scans the room, head ratcheting to and fro fast enough to make him feel a little motion sick. He finds her, bundled in a corner, hands over her ears, face red and wet with tears and snot. He scrambles towards her, bad leg protesting, and simply hurls the soldier that tries to intercept him out of the way. She flails at him when he stoops to pick her up. Trashing and screaming in his arms, shoving her hands into his face.
`Viorica' the woman shouts the name over and over again, standing frozen in the doorway, the bottom of her skirt slowly soaking up the bloody puddle she's in.
`Mama' there's a tearful, hiccoughing reply for every terrified call of the little girl's name.
Sheik gets to take all of two steps towards the door before the dull steel of a standard issue Imperial short sword appears under his nose. He back pedals, trying fruitlessly to put some distance between it and the little wailing lump in his arms. An inhuman noise cuts through the room, the doorway empty now as the woman throws herself across the room and wrenches an oil lantern from the wall. She hurls it at the solider levelling his sword at her daughter.
It shatters, soaking him in flaming oil. His screams rival hers in volume as she launches herself onto his back, the cuffs of her blouse catching alight. They stumble around the room, the rug under foot flickering into flame. She scratches at his face as he reaches out to the rest of his company who recoil from him. He collides roughly with the wall, crashing into it again and again to try and dislodge her.
`Mama' small hands grip the front of his suit tightly and Viorica struggles to turn herself around to be able to see her mother, `mama? Mama? Mama?' Her whole body shudders every time she sobs.
Another crash against the wall makes the woman lose her grip and slide heavily to the floor. The solider crumples along with her, curling and twisting on the ground trying to put out the flames.
The barrage of noise doesn't let up as Roucy bursts over the threshold, a collection of Oxholm company men tumbling after him, summoned by the carcophany. Roucy barrels into the nearest Imperial soldier almost bringing him down with the force of impact alone. The men behind him fan out into the room, closing off the only exit. Between the sudden influx of more incensed Hylians and the slowly spreading rug fire the Imperial soldiers take the sensible way out and slowly start to lay down their weapons.
Jensen knees down next to the woman, his jaw clenched tight, as gentle tries to find a pulse. He lets go of her wrist and turns to look at Sheik and shakes his head. Everything around him turns into white noise. He tightens his grip around Viorica, curling an arm around her head so she can't turn and see mother. He bows his head down, closing around her like a coat of armour, and does the only thing he can think to do; start singing.
He sings to her as the others round up the Imperial soldiers. He sings to her as they make their way back to the dining room to re-join the rest of the Hylians. He sings her the nursery rhymes Zelda's mother and nursemaids used to sing them. He sings her the Sheikah songs Impa would sing for him as a boy when he was frightened by thunderstorms. He sings her anything and everything he can think of and he keeps singing and singing and singsing because he's not sure what he'll do if he stops.