A/N: Our fourth battlefield! And we're over the hump too! It's really getting going, isn't it? Anyway, I have a confession to make: Talo was never intended to be in this story. Yep. Completely true. I have no clue where he came from, but he's here and he gets his own POV too! They grow up so fast! *sniff*
Thanks to my amazing beta, kiboeme. Next chapter should be up sometime before March 14th.
Warnings: Typical battlefield stuff, use of vulgar Gerudo language, peril, unnecessary Goron references . . .
Disclaimer: Don't own TP or OoT, although I am borrowing heavily from both.
Read, Review and Enjoy!
~Shard of Freedom
Legend of Zelda: Shadow Reign
Chapter Thirty-Six: Battlefield: Bridge of Eldin
Nabooru looked out across West Hyrule Field. The Hawkeye that Talo had given her to borrow was rather effective. From her perch on the Lookout Shack—another one of Talo's typical haunts—she could see all the way to the tented city at the base of the Bridge of Eldin, where the Hylian Army was camped.
Hina leaned next to her. "What do you see?"
"There's about an equal amount of citizens and soldiers camped outside of the bridge. I would estimate around four or five hundred soldiers are there."
"And the opposing force?" Hina asked hesitantly.
Nabooru moved her eyes to the Western Gate of Castle Town. Out of the tunnel came the shadow beasts, clawing the dirt and ruining the earth. There were a decent number of the bird-like monsters as well. At the head of the pack, riding on the back of one of the largest Twilight beasts that Nabooru had ever seen was Ishizu. Nabooru snarled upon spotting her. She remembered how her followers had once been numbered as three hundred. But not now. They had dwindled now—because of the battles they had been forced to fight, because of Ishizu's blade shoved through their gut when they tried to escape.
Nabooru was disgusted and ripped the Hawkeye away from her face. "There's about the same number of beasts headed towards the encampment and they can't die."
"They'll be routed," Hina murmured.
"That they shall," Nabooru responded, turning away from the Hyrule Field. She began to walk down the ramp leading back into Kakariko Village. Hina stumbled along behind Nabooru, trying to keep up with the clan chief.
"Chief," Hina protested, "aren't we going to help them?"
"I offered help. They denied our aide. If they want it now, the general can lament that he didn't take up my offer. We will not provide."
Her tightfitting clogs kicked up dust as she walked down the slopes of earth, nearing a blackened and demolished shack. Hina walked behind her, slowly, processing the words spoken by her clan chief.
Nabooru gritted her teeth. Her pride would not allow her to bow to some foolish men simply after they had spurned her, simply because they were outnumbered.
"Chief!"
Running up to her was another one of her Gerudo—unranked, like all of them were apart from Hina and herself. Jinja, the name came to her. The girl had cropped her red hair short and it barely touched her cheeks, but she always insisted on wearing complex gold hoop earrings.
Jinja stopped in front of Nabooru. "It's incredible . . . I thought that she was dead . . ."
Nabooru took a step forward. There were so many people who could have been dead that she wished were alive that she couldn't even guess who it might be. "Who?"
"Nephenee. She's returned."
Nabooru didn't even hesitate as she sprinted past Jinja and threw herself off of the top of the bomb store. For a moment, her eyes were filled with nothing but wind, but then the ground rushed to meet her. She rolled upon impact, lightening the landing. She looked around the village frantically, searching for the sight of Oath-Sister. After so many long months without her, she wouldn't believe that Nephenee was really alive until she saw her with her own eyes.
In front of the spring, tossing stones the same way that she had been days ago, sat a girl who looked remarkably like Nephenee but acted nothing like her at all. She threw the stones in the water with enough force to make them plop all the way to the bottom immediately. One of her legs was drawn up to her chest, her chin resting on her knee.
Nephenee approached silently and sat down next to the girl, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Hello, Oath-Sister. It has been a long time since you walked these sands," Nabooru said with caution in soft-spoken Gerudo.
Nephenee threw another stone. "I got lost in a desert storm, Oath-Sister, and I fear that I have come out worse than I was before they took me. I wish to return to those winds."
Nabooru abandoned the traditional Gerudo turn-of-phrase as she looked at the face of her sister, her best friend, her partner-in-crime and practically the other part of her soul. But Nephenee looked far away, lost in her memories.
"What happened to you?" Nabooru murmured.
"Lots," Nephenee said sadly. "I made friends with the Legendary Hero, the one that the elders tell stories off in our clan. I met the princess and a clan of shadowed warriors. I discovered friends where I least expected them. I found war. I found my own loyalties. I found . . . someone."
Nabooru smiled and raised an eyebrow. "You found a man?"
Nephenee smiled slightly, for the first time since Nabooru had seen her. "I have. He is willing to wait for me and I will come back for him."
Nabooru laughed. "I will admit that I was a bit worried there, after two years of denying to come with us after the ranking day into the towns. I thought that you had had no desire for a partner."
"I didn't. He just sort of . . . snuck up on me."
"His name?"
"Colin. He is a warrior, a swordsman of great strength. The apprentice to the Hero himself. He . . . he is kind, far kinder than I will ever be. He is a healer and he is good with children. He likes to play games and tell stories and ride horses. But he is so fierce in a fight. Sometimes I think that he is better than me, though I would never admit that to him. He is loyal and faithful and hopefully . . . he is mine."
Nabooru watched Nephenee as she explained all the greatest parts of her partner, watched as her eyes sparkled like the water that she stared at.
Nephenee turned to her Oath-Sister. "I hope you understand that I cannot stay. I have a duty to both Link and Colin to return to them."
Nabooru clapped Nephenee on the shoulder. "Well, it's good enough that you are here. I was afraid that you were dead."
"Me too. It pained me for some many weeks to know that I had left you at the hand of that . . . that freskic."
"Nephenee!"
"What? He is!"
"Maybe, but you don't call people that!"
"I'm almost sixteen! I can call him that if I want to. You can't deny it!"
Nabooru shook her head. The two of them got up from beside the spring and wrapped their arms around each other. Nephenee squeezed harder than Nabooru thought possible, and Nabooru knew that she squeezed just as hard back.
Nephenee took a step back from the embrace. "What is this I hear about a battle between the Twilight beasts and the Hylian Army? Jinja was telling me about it."
"The shadow creatures have come from Castle Town to attack the last of the Hylian Army," Nabooru said with a grimace. "There is no helping it. The beasts are immortal."
"Not quite," Nephenee said with a wicked glimmer in her eye. "You just have to know the trick. I was in the Sheikah Tunnels nearly a week and a half ago when the beasts attacked. You simply have to remove their heads from their bodies in a timely fashion."
Nabooru's face broke out in a grin; she couldn't help it. It had always been that way among her Oath-Sister. "Nephi, I can't tell you how happy I am to have my Hand back at last."
"It hasn't been easy on me either, big sister," Nephenee said. Her smile was washed away as her face grew solemn. "But why aren't we helping the Hylian Army? They need anything that they can get."
Nabooru scowled. "You have heard about the attack on Castle Town and our escape?"
Nephenee nodded.
"Well, when the general came to ask if we were hostile, I explained the entire situation to him. He, unfortunately, said that we couldn't join the war effort because we were a known enemy of the state. No pardons for us. He denied my most generous offer of help," Nabooru spat. "Now, he will regret it."
Nephenee slapped her.
Nabooru didn't flinch—she had taken worse hits before. But her cheek stung. And her pride burned even worse. Nabooru raised a hand to her reddened cheek. "What was that for?"
"Because you're being a fool. I fought for the Sheikah for no reason other than that my friend was one of them. I fought in Ordon Village because it was the right thing to do, even though it was against my own people. Your pride is about to allow almost an entire race to die. I will not allow you to make that mistake! Nabooru, you were always a better leader than I would have ever been. But you cannot lead without advisors to keep you in check when your pride gets the better of you. I am your Hand. And I'm telling you right now—you're making a mistake."
"But Nephi—"
"I don't care. If you don't go and help them, they will die. And I will walk back into the Sheikah Tunnels and you will likely never see me again." Nephenee's eyes burned like fire. "Don't make me walk away again."
They stood there in a deadlock, in a meeting of golden eyes for longer than a minute before Nabooru broke it and yelled back to her troops.
"Suit up! Prepare for battle!"
General Falnoff was not having a good day. It actually hadn't been that bad until one of his scouts reported that an army of monsters was heading towards their encampment, with one of those Goddess-forsaken Gerudo women leading the pack.
To make matters worse, Princess Zelda hadn't yet shown.
The general spent most of the day pushing all of Castle Town's citizens onto the Bridge of Eldin, giving a few of the older boys swords and telling them to protect their siblings and mothers. Every man who was able to wield a weapon was given one as well. Mothers who didn't have small children to look after unrolled bandages and prepared to take the wounded. Some of the younger women grabbed daggers and gauze for themselves and said that they would be field medics, ready to heal.
Falnoff was touched by the show of loyalty to Hyrule, but he spent most of his time readying his own troops. The beast arrive at any moment.
The general knew he was at a disadvantage. There was no way to funnel the enemies—it was an open plain. They could try fighting on the Bridge of Eldin—they could try fighting on the Bridge of Eldin.
"Push the citizens back to the Great Tree!" Falnoff shouted. "Set up a defensive line of shield-men at the entrance of the bridge with half of the archers behind them. The rest of the archers, climb the battlements and get into position!"
A chorus of "yes, sirs" rang out as the men hastened to their positions.
"Anyone who can man a bastille had better do it! The rest of you men sharpened your spears and get behind the archers of the bridge! The arrows aren't going to last long, and that's where we'll come in!"
A resounding cheer went up from the men.
"And for the love of all that is holy, if I hear that one man has fallen off the Goddess-forsaken bridge, there will be hell to pay!" Falnoff added as an afterthought.
The men scrambled into their positions as Falnoff walked between them, his cape fluttering like a red phoenix behind him, the sword on his back heavy. Hopefully it wouldn't get any use today. It was an impossible dream. He climbed the tower with the archers and stood at the top of the stone structure, watching the black mass make its way across the battlefield.
"Archers, to the ready!" He shouted and watched all sixty of men draw and nock their arrows. For such new recruits he was proud at their unity. The black mass moved closer. "Aim!"
Bowstrings were pulled taught at his command.
"Hold!"
Just a little closer. Just a little bit . . .
Falnoff saw the pinkish markings of their hides.
"Fire!"
A volley of arrows was unleashed upon the enemy. The first two waves fell down in a mess, but the rest continued on.
"Reload!"
More arrows were draw and nocked, bowstrings pulled back again.
"Fire!"
Two more lines of the beasts dropped with arrows sticking out of their black skin. More kept coming, but at least there was a dent in their forces now.
But then one of the creatures, the one that that wretched Gerudo woman was riding on, screamed to high heaven. Falnoff had to plug his ears when the horrible sound reached them.
There was a flicker of movement among the fallen.
Then suddenly, the dark masses were rising off the ground, cracking their necks and pulling the arrows out of their bodies with thick monstrous claws. Falnoff's eyes widened. "Impossible . . ."
But his eyes had the proof right in front of them. All of the beasts felled by their arrows shrugged their deaths off, walking away as if they were . . . as if they were . . .
"Immortals," one of the archers whispered in fear.
His morale dropped like a stone in his stomach.
Then, a wall of gold burst out of the rocks leading to Kakariko Village. It moved towards the black mass with startling speed and was almost upon the monsters before Falnoff realized who it was—the defected Gerudo.
As the two forces clashed, Falnoff yelled to his troops, "Hold your fire! The Gerudo are allies!"
Many of the men looked skeptical, but the general was sure in his decision.
A faster, lighter member of the Gerudo headed through the front lines of the Hylian Army and climbed up the battlement to talk to him. To Falnoff's surprise, it was Talo, the young archer from Ordon Village.
"Hey, Captain. Thought that you needed some help," the boy said casually.
"Just in time," Falnoff replied less easily.
"I have a message from Nabooru. She says 'if you want the Din-forsaken black heathens'—her words, not mine—'to stay dead and gone, you have to take the head.'" Talo paused. "She also told me to tell you happy hunting."
Apparently, that was all there was to the message because Talo moved away from the general as he strung his bow and took his place in the archer nocks with the other snipers.
Falnoff waited for a moment, awestruck, before he moved quickly and started shouting orders to his troops.
There were very few places where Nabooru felt at peace. When the Marked were huddled around a campfire after a mission well done, swapping stories and forgetting about hatred for a moment. When she stood as a leader in front of her people, knowing that they trusted her, knowing that they believed in her choices. When she spent moments alone with Nephenee, playing games and sparring. When she talked to the old clan chief about the old customs and everything that she needed to know to take over the clan one day.
When she was fighting.
Nabooru fought like many of the other Gerudo. There were only two ways of fighting in their sisterhood—with a spear or with dual scimitars. Most fought by the rules and traditional styles of the clan. But Nabooru was different.
As the clan-chief-to-be, Nabooru fought in the styles of the chiefs that had come before her. They were efficient, they were deadly, and now she was the only one who knew the old ways. It was an extension of her being, and the main reason that she was the most powerful fighter of all of the Marked.
Nabooru shoved one of her blades into the face of a Twilight Messenger before twisting in the last split-second and taking its head with her other sword. She rubbed her blades together like she was about to carve a piece of meat, allowing the bloody hunk of flesh to fall from her sword. Sheathing one of her scimitars, she pulled one of her few knives from the bandages wrapped around her calves and ankles. They were mainly for cutting fruit and taking small bones from meat, but they worked just fine in a fight.
Balancing the knife in her hand, she whipped her arm back and flicked her wrist as she brought it forward, felling one of the birds that flew above them. The dagger hit the side of its face. That was alright, she supposed, since she had been aiming for the heart.
She tightened her fiery red ponytail before grabbing her scimitar once more. She couldn't help a smile from spreading across her face.
"COME ON!" She shouted in Gerudo, yelling at the beasts in front of her.
Nabooru understood death; she knew pain and imprisonment and torture. But something had always brought her back to the field of battle. She loved the adrenaline spiking through her veins, the feeling of blades in her hands, the knowledge that she was fighting for something and that she was good enough to be winning.
Sometime into the battle, she was suddenly back-to-back with Nephenee, fighting against the beasts. Soon there were only two left around them. The rest of the monsters surged forward to the ranks of the Hylian Army, who were faring far worse than the Gerudo.
"I'm heading on ahead," Nabooru said back to Nephenee, who nodded while decapitating the monster that she was fighting against. The blood flowed and drew a thin line across Nephenee's star tattoo on her shoulder. Nabooru was reminded once again that Nephenee was one of the Dark—she could take care of herself.
"Anyone who's free, follow me!" She shouted back to her warriors. Six girls came to her side, and they headed back into the fray.
They were winning, Nabooru realized as she cut a deadly arc into the black forces. The veteran fighters, like herself and Hina and many of the powerful warriors of the Hylian army, carved into the enemy lines. Many of the lesser fighters among the Gerudo and the Hylian armies simply waded through and scalped their enemies, taking heads and preventing the beasts from resurrecting. Archers on the walls kept the birds at bay, careful not to fire into the fray on the ground and harm one of their allies.
They were winning.
Since Ordon Village, Talo hadn't seen much action. As a guard and the sole lookout for Kakariko Village, he saw everything that occurred across the Gorge and the fields. But nothing came to the dusty village, even with the rumors of Castle Town falling to an unknown force.
But, as he took his place among the Hylian archers, it was good to know that he hadn't lost his touch. He was equal in skill to most of the other archers there, if not better. Link had never taught Talo as adamantly or as well as he had taught Colin, but the Hero had still spent a decent amount of time in the evenings to show him how to string and shoot a bow.
When he had ventured to Kakariko Village in the months after Link had left them, he had learned more from the Goron Elders. How to make a bow out of the right kind of wood and not to get discouraged—only few trees were ever made out of the perfect bow-making wood. Gor Coron taught him how to feel the wind when he was making a shot. Gor Liggs had taught him how to make different types of arrow heads out of the rocks he found on the mountain. Gor Ebizo had shown him the different types of feathers to use for fletching and how, if he tore off one of the feathers on an arrow, he could shoot two at once and make them go in different directions.
Gor Amoto, the smallest of the Goron Elders, had probably taught him the best lesson of all. One day while he was making arrows with Gor Liggs and Gor Ebizo, Gor Amoto had come and dragged Talo into some of the deepest parts of the mines.
"This is the Star Chamber," Gor Amoto had said while he shoved the young archer forward. Talo looked around at the different corners of the room, a Beamos glaring in each one. "The goal is simple. Shoot them before they shoot you."
"What?"
Then the Beamos had come alive with glowing red lights. Talo spent two weeks coming back to the Star Chamber every day, trying to increase his speed and accuracy. When he finally shot all of them within his designated time of two minutes without getting burned once, Gor Amato had clapped him on the back.
"Now you've learned the most important part of being an archer," the little creature had said.
"What's that?"
"An archer is not often on the front lines of battle. Usually they just sit on their perches and wait. But the best archers, the very best, know that sometimes you can't just be on the fringes of the battle. Sometimes you have to fight on the front lines. And when it comes to that point, and it will, the most important thing to know is dodging. Getting around your opponent's attacks long enough for you to shoot an arrow in the chink of their armor."
Talo had never been more grateful for their advice.
Talo had good eyes, so he was the one who spotted the second mass of black heading out of the tunnel that came from Castle Town. He also spotted the lone figure rushing towards the battle from Kakariko Village.
He knew him.
"Second wave!" Talo shouted as he shoved both his arrow and his bow back into his quiver, pulling a dagger out his belt. He moved away from the wall.
"Where are you going, lad?" one of the older archers called to him. "Don't even think about joining the fray. We archers are meant to stay here and watch out for those who are below."
Talo flipped his dagger in his hands and descended down the stairs, paying no heed to the man's words.
"Even archers are warriors," he called back, "and warriors have to fight for what they believe in."
Nephenee watched Nabooru go deeper and deeper into the fray as she shoved her blades through the skin of the monsters. Nephenee smiled grimly. Nabooru had always loved fighting, much more than she ever had. There was something alluring about war that drew the clan chief in, but Nephenee had never understood it.
Not that she didn't understand a good fight, she thought as she blocked a claw with one of her swords. It just wasn't her go-to stress reliever.
In the midst of this battle of claws and blackness, Nephenee didn't see the silver blade that came from the edge of her vision. Just in time, she moved back, but the steel still sliced through the muscles and tendons of her upper left arm.
She cried in Gerudo as she jumped backward, tears springing in her eyes. She dropped one of her blades when she realized that she could no longer control the muscles in her hand.
"Injured again," she murmured ruefully. Always injured. Just when she had recovered from the last of her wounds from Ordon Village, here she was again, crippled with pain.
No. She would not let this stop her. Of the three of her companions, she was always the one who was dragging them down, the injured girl who always got in over her head. She would fight in spite of this—she was a warrior, dammit!
"Well, well," a voice murmured from behind her. The voice was quiet, but Nephenee could clearly hear the Gerudo over the voices of the battle, and it made her blood run cold. "If it isn't Nabooru's Hand."
Nephenee turned towards the voice with a hand on her wounded shoulder, the blood running through her fingers.
"Ishizu," Nephenee spat.
The new leader of the Marked stood in front of her, twisted her dual scimitars in her hands, looking abundantly pleased with herself. Her hair was longer than Nephenee had last seen it, loose and brushing against the top of Ishizu's back. Her ears, as always, had large, impractical golden hoops dangling from them.
"Nice to see you again too," Ishizu said.
The battle was one-sided, but Nephenee had never been more pleased that she had kept her own, especially with an injured arm and only one blade to use. But she still steadily fell back, pushed to the defensive as Ishizu hammered away at her blade.
One particularly strong blow had her falling to her knees.
Nephenee scrambled backward, trying to make her situation more favorable that it was.
Ishizu sighed mockingly. "Oh, well. You had a good run of things. It's sad that it came to this, Nephenee, but I suppose that that's the way the bread breaks. We were friendly once, but then I guess that you just choose the wrong side."
"We were never friendly, you snake," Nephenee bit out, "and you'll soon discover that you, you cowardly mangy little mutt, choose the wrong side."
Ishizu snarled. "That's enough out of you." She raised her blades, and Nephenee responded by unsteadily pulling herself to her feet, ready to defend herself until the end.
I promised.
Ishizu came forward with a close guard; ready to strike like the snake Nephenee had accused her of being.
I promised that I would come back.
She pulled her arm back and Nephenee, blind with the pain in her arm, closed her eyes.
The blow didn't come.
When Nephenee opened her eyes, a boy was standing between her and Ishizu, locking blades with the evil Gerudo and eventually shoving her back into the grass and the dust.
"You," Ishizu snarled.
"Me," Colin agreed, flipping his sword in his hands. "And you would live a lot longer if you would just keep your hands off my girl."