Intense Violent Situations-all of which may not be suitable for some

audiences. You have been warned.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

"Fall of the Southern Kingdom"

Thanks to Ezlo's protective magic, the forests of Hyrule and Holodrum were easy to navigate. They were a great deal better prepared in the desert this time (now that Farore had her own cloak, Brittany didn't have to worry about getting another case of Desert Fever). And though the riding wasn't as hard as it had been on their trip out of the land they were still making good time because of Ganondorf's knowledge of shortcuts.

Before she knew it, a week had passed by since they had left Hyrule. Traveling had been a great deal quieter ever since Ezlo had awakened as a Sage. The girl sighed. It just seemed so odd to not hear the cantankerous imp spouting off at the mouth every five seconds. Truth be told, she was actually beginning to miss the old geezer. And she wasn't the only one.

"Vaati," Brittany looked over at the mage, "are you alright?"

The lavender-haired Hylian did not seem to hear her. Instead, he just walked along beside of her and stared down at the medallion in his hand. A sad smile crossed the girl's face. Even though Ezlo had given her the medallion, she had not the heart to pry it away from Vaati. As she watched the youth rub his thumb over the glistening green disc, she felt a bittersweet sadness well up inside of her.

She sighed once more and looked ahead. The sun was beginning to set over the Desert Wastes, but she saw that Ganondorf was making no attempts at stopping for the night. No, they were far too close to the Southern Kingdom to safely do so. She knew the Gerudo prince planned on sneaking them around the compound without getting caught and it would be far to risky to camp until they had passed it.

Of course, getting captured again wasn't the only trouble plaguing Ganondorf. Brittany noticed that the proud, haughty look of the desert monarch had been long replaced by a seemingly permanent scowl of anger. He and the rest of the group had developed an unofficial truce that no one should bother him-with the waves of rage flowing over of him, Brittany certainly wasn't about to be the first to break that agreement. She honestly didn't want to see the hellfire he would rain down on the traitors once he got hold of them, let alone anyone that happened to annoy him before then.

"How much further?" complained Farore. The Empath looked up to see the green-haired girl slumped against her horse's neck.

"Not much longer, Farore," Brittany assured her.

"But the trip went so much faster the last time we were here!"

"Last time," Vaati said coolly, his face not turning from the medallion, "we were running for our lives! And you, if I am not utterly mistaken, were asleep during your transport to the Southern Fortress."

Farore cocked her head at the mage's tone of voice but said nothing. Brittany shot Vaati a 'why-are-you-being-so-rude' look, but the Hylian merely ignored the two of them and dropped the medallion into a tiny wallet tied to his belt. The brunette was about to question the youth's behavior when she heard the whinny of a horse and a strangled cry.

"By the Great Goddess...!"

Brittany and her friends snapped their heads up to see the Ganondorf had stalled his horse at the top of a sand dune. Without warning, the Gerudo prince shot off down the sands, leaving the remainder of the party bewildered. Brittany and Vaati raced forward, with Altair loyally following the Empath like a puppy. Link and Zelda rushed in behind them.

Faint tendrils of smoke were curling up from inside the giant fortress. It wasn't until Brittany noticed that the minaret tops of the palace were gone and a strange blackness had lapped at its stone foundation that she realized what had spooked the warrior. She darted down the hill after Ganondorf.

As she drew closer to the desert kingdom, her nose was met by a foul stench. The reek burned into her nostrils with a sort of putrid rank that recalled a memory of her old realm to her. She'd been a hunter and had grown up around hunters, so the stench of death was well known to her. But this...this odor was too horrible to come from an animal's carcass. She had to cap her hand over her nose just to breathe!

"Oh...my...Lord..."

The Empath was overwhelmed by the stink that poured out from the city. The sheer magnitude of the smell sent the contents of her stomach spewing onto the charred ground. She hugged her midsection as the waves of the horrible stench wrenched the remnants of her breakfast from her body.

Retching could be heard behind her the moment her friends arrived.

"Goddesses, what is that reek!" she heard the princess cry out.

"You and Farore stay outside, Zelda! Don't come inside for any reason!" Link shouted. Brittany vaguely heard the whinny of the Hylians' horses through her gagging before she felt her hair being tugged back. A comforting hand began to rub between her shoulder blades.

"Brittany," Vaati coughed, "are you okay?"

She nodded weakly. Vaati helped her to stand and she stumbled over to the archway of the fortress. The mage uncorked his canteen and offered her a sip, which she gladly took. Brittany quickly swished out what raunchy taste she could and spat the water away before handing the bottle back.

"Where's Ganondorf?"

"I don't know," the girl wheezed. "He was gone by the time I got here..."

Vaati patted her on the shoulder. "You stay here with the girls while Link and I go look around." Brittany shook her head.

"No way...I'm going with you," she protested, grabbing at her head with one hand and wincing. "Something's not right here, and I've gotta find out."

The mage nodded as the girl struggled to a normal stance. Brittany was still trembling from losing her lunch, but with nothing left for the stench to bring up she felt well enough to press on. She looked up the road that ran through the city. All of the buildings were charred and most had caved in. Mysterious stains and slash marks claimed a few of the walls. Bits of the pueblo clay used to fashion the dwellings had actually melted from the extreme heat of some anonymous fire. Even the ground was blackened from the spent inferno.

The trio headed up the main road. An eerie silence surrounded them, but they were to perturbed to break it. Now and then, a board holding up one of the remaining ceilings would snap and debris would crumble onto the ground. The few buildings that had managed to remain standing they entered and searched.

"Didja find anyone?" Link asked after a fruitless search. Vaati shook his head.

"All I found was some melted glass from a beaded curtain. And you?"

"Nothing."

The duo heard footsteps and looked up to see Brittany exiting a dwelling. "I just don't understand it!" the girl thought aloud. "There's not a single villager left..."

"Well, I highly doubt they sent the whole population-children and all-after us," Link replied. "Could they have cut their losses and relocated?"

Brittany put a hand on her chin. "I don't know...there's a strange presence here. And what about that smell?"

"It could be the horses," Link said. "I mean, if they really did leave in a hurry, sacrificing a few animals in exchange for freedom..."

The Empath was not sure what to believe. Fearing for the lives of her two Gerudo friends and curiosity over the strange emotional silence and smell got the better of her. She headed out across the scorched fields toward the oasis, carefully scanning the landscape for any sign of life. As she walked further, the girl began to question the possibility of an attack. The fields had been torn up as if something had gone after the sparse crops, and the marks and brown stains on the houses worried her. It wasn't until they reached the oasis that she panicked.

"Oh, good Lord," Brittany pinched her nose shut, "that smell!"

She pointed out over the water. The once clear water was now a grungy color from a great deal of debris and sand that had been chucked into it. The bodies of several horses lay in the muck-their mouths open and eyes wide in horror. Brittany noticed something in the water and carefully edged her way toward the bank.

"Be careful, Brittany!" Vaati warned. The girl found a broken spear laying on the shore and picked it up. Using the end of the staff, she prodded something sticking up out of the muck. She grunted as she gave it a little shove. Finally, there was a sickening gurgle and the object floated to the top.

Brittany let out a gasp and jumped back, slipping in the mud in the process. The Hylians rushed over as she scrambled backwards up the bank. They helped the distraught girl to her feet as she pointed a trembling hand at the water.

"Brittany, what is-oh, my GODDESSES!"

Vaati and Link's eyes fell upon a severed arm floating atop the oasis' surface.

"It's an arm-an arm!" the girl screamed, her face contorted in terror. "My Lord...I knew...I knew what I sensed! That feeling," she shrank back with her hands gripped in her hair, "it's the same as when the Helmaroc was about to die!"

The color emptied from the Empath's face as she bolted around the bank, her feet kicking up sprays of the grimy muck as she went. Brittany tore across the last half of the fields in a frenzy-her mind only on one destination. She reached the courtyard and darted past Ganondorf's horse and up the stairs. She leapt over the cinders the feasted upon the doors and darted inside.

A few moments later, a blood-curdling scream echoed across the Desert Wastes.

Vaati had never seen anyone run so fast in his entire life. Hell, it took all he and Link could do just to keep up with their manic friend! From the moment he walked into the city, he had a feeling that something had happened to the Gerudo. That's why he tried to get Brittany to stay behind with the girls. Now, with blood spatter upon the buildings and an arm floating in the tainted oasis, his hypothesis had proven correct. He had wanted to spare the girl the horrors he was sure remained so he pushed himself as fast as he could after her.

After all-there was only one place left in the whole kingdom that they had not checked yet.

Ganondorf's warhorse stood outside of the palace ruins. Vaati watched in desperation as Brittany flew up the stairs and sailed over the remnants of the doors. The moment he and Link reached the top step, the screams emitted from inside the palace told him he was too late to stop her.

Vaati raced through the blackened foyer, his eyes sweeping across the blood-streaked floor. It looked as though someone had butchered someone and drug the corpse through the corridor. It wasn't until he saw the sunset-lit (thanks to the now nonexistent roof) throneroom and the trembling body of the Empath that he realized just how true his prediction was.

Brittany's face was so devoid of color that it was nearly the shade of the imp's. The roof had caved in, giving her full view of the pile of bodies that had been torched in the center of the chamber. Flies buzzed among the remains of charred, bloated flesh and blackened bones. Huge splashes of now dried blood marked every stone not marred by the blaze. And the stench...

Vaati walked up to the trembling girl.

"Brittany..."

"No..."

"C'mon," he said as he approached her, "let...let's get out of here..."

The moment he touched her shoulder, she shrank back and started screaming again. Her body began jerking in half, causing her to lose her balance and fall onto some of the bones. The horrified girl let out a shriek and started flailing about, her eyes wide with immeasurable fright. She scrambled for the wall and began clawing at the rocks in a blind frenzy-her gaze never leaving the mound of carcasses.

Vaati ran after her. He did his best to try to pick her up but to no avail-Brittany was fighting tooth and nail to get away. She kept tearing at the air so he could not even get close. The horrified maiden landed a particularly hard blow on the imp's jaw, sending him reeling backwards.

"Dammit," the mage shouted, "not now!"

"She's having a full-on fit! Grab her, Vaati!"

The two boys had to wrestle the young woman just to take hold of her. Finally, Link managed to grab her legs so Vaati could slip around behind the maiden and lock her arms. They practically had to drag the young woman-kicking and screaming-out of the palace. Her flailing caused Vaati to lose balance as he neared the last steps and they plummeted to the ground.

"Brittany! Brittany, stop it!" he tried to grab her wrists but she was jerking too badly for him to reach them. Desperate, he wrapped his arms around her from behind in a crushing embrace and locked her arms that way. Using every ounce of his strength, the mage clung to the fighting girl as she used her remaining energy to kick at some invisible enemy. He held tightly as she jerked and tried to send what healing magic he could into her body.

It took a lot of his strength to do so but he finally calmed her down. He sighed as he heard her crying.

"Shhh...it's okay," the mage said as he struggled to sit up with the girl. "It's okay...it wasn't your fault."

His heart ached as sobs tore from her throat. "They're gone...Malon will never see her mother or sister now..."

"It wasn't your fault, Brittany..."

"Yubira was my friend..."

"I know...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."

Vaati leaned his head against the Empath's and sighed. Moments later, he heard some footsteps upon the palace steps. He looked over as Ganondorf and Link appeared. Brittany looked up at the Gerudo prince for a long moment before hanging her head in shame. Vaati looked at the somber warrior as he mounted his warhorse and headed back towards the oasis. Once Brittany managed to stand, the rest of them followed.