Chapter Fifty: The Story of Light and Shadow
Soon enough, Link couldn't tell the difference between the sound of his breathing, the sound of Epona's steps, or the sound of his sword cutting down Rebel after Rebel. He felt the heaviness of the blade in his palms and saw the drips of blood falling from its tip as they crumbled at his feet. One after another after another. His sword clashed with Rebel weapons, and they fought him with a valiance he could not deny. But he gritted his teeth, he tightened his grip on his sword, and he let out his battle cry. He saw it in their eyes when they fell: they were happy to die for what they believed in. It was the same as the Loyalists—he heard it in the bloodcurdling screams of his soldiers as they fell around him, fought with everything they had and sacrificed everything they had.
As blood tainted his vision, everything began moving in slow motion. When he swung his sword across their throats, he saw it with such clarity and with such detail that when he closed his eyes, he could replay the image just as it had been. But nothing stopped him. He continued to fight, to show what it really meant to be the best swordsman in Hyrule. He continued to fight.
Just as he always had.
All of the power, all of the skill, all of the bloodlust that Damita had been lacking for the past few months rushed back to her as soon as she drew her swords. She could see the princess standing on top of that hill, shooting arrows into the eyes of her comrades, and there was nothing that could stand in Damita's way. Absolutely nothing. As soon as Ganondorf gave the word, she licked her lips, ran her swords along each other, and leaped into battle with the knowledge that none would be able to best her. Princess Zelda would try to fight—but she would fail. She would die with her throat slit, gasping for air, pleading for mercy. And then Damita's name would go down in history and she could die in peace.
She didn't have to scream. She didn't have to wipe the blood from her face. She didn't even have to tense her muscles. She just let her swords fly and watched the Loyalists, enemies who had once been friends, fall before her. Their screams echoed in her ears, and it made the corners of her lips twitch upwards. She remembered now why she was such a good assassin: killing made her adrenaline pump. It made her feel alive, it made her feel as if she had purpose.
Taking someone else's life was an act of god.
Sheik didn't need weapons. He never had; after all, he had become incomparable in hand-to-hand combat. He knew which points of the body to hit, which nerves to strike, where to dart and where to jab and where to pinpoint. It was like an art. The most perfect thing of all was that Sheik hated to kill. He never wanted to see his hands tainted with blood like that, even if it was a Rebel. So the idea of being able to paralyze somebody in the blink of an eye was absolutely perfect. He could avoid the swings of the swords, of the axes, leap to the side as Rebels swung uselessly at his head, and then with one jab of his arm they would fall to the ground. Still breathing.
"I just saved your life," he would spit. "You're a lucky bastard. Any other Loyalist would have your head on a platter."
And then he would lift the cloth back over his mouth and nose, crack his neck, and move forward, still wondering how long it would take Link to kill Ganondorf.
Or, Din forbid, the other way around.
Nabooru liked to smile when she did it. She knew that if she were about to die, she would want to see her killer smile at her. She wasn't sure why, but that was what she thought. And so, each time she twisted in the air and brought her sword to someone's throat, she smiled, made sure the sparkle in her eyes was bright as theirs dimmed. Most of the Loyalists were skilled fighters; of that she was certain. And in the midst of the turmoil that was war, while a stained breeze blew around her, she found herself breathless at times. But none could come close to besting her. She knew that in all of the Loyalist camp, there were two people and two people alone who had the capability to kill her, and neither would ever dare.
"A pity," she would laugh to herself. "Their lives would be so much easier if I were dead."
And then she would dig her sword into the mud to clean it, leaving it perfect for the next layer of blood. While she fought, though, there was something else in the back of her brain. Something other than the complete annihilation of Loyalists.
She prayed to the goddesses that if anything, Damita would make it out alive.
Each time Zelda shot an arrow, it hit its mark. On either side of her, other Loyalist archers were shooting arrow after arrow, nocking and letting fly. But she took her time. She would nock her arrow, aim for a single Rebel, and then watch. Without fail, without hindrance, without any mistakes, she hit where she wanted every time. But also without fail, her stomach would twist and turn on itself, causing her entire body to shake with agony. There were people dying because she was forcing them to. There were loved ones flying up to the heavens, even if their time on earth was not finished. And it was because she decided it, with her own hands.
"But if the goddesses are giving me strength," she said, "it has to be right."
She continued repeating that in her head as she released her arrows and watched blood fall. She saw Sheik, leaving a trail of unconscious Rebels behind him. She saw that woman with the red hair, smiling as she forced blood to fall. She saw the beautiful assassin, moving like a storm. And she saw Link, swinging his sword and riding and almost glowing with divinity.
Then she saw him. The King of Evil. Just looking at him, even from afar, made every inch of her skin burn.
He wasn't fighting. He was simply standing on the opposite hill, atop his black, red-eyed horse. She could sense his smile, overpoweringly cruel and overpoweringly ruthless. She saw the puppet strings around his fingers as he ordered chaos to unfurl. She saw the raw evil in his eyes.
Link. O Chosen Hero of the Gods.
She looked back down at him as he carved the path toward peace.
You are the key. You are the guardian. You are the protector.
She nocked another arrow.
So open the doors. Guard your people. Protect this land.
Link looked up and saw Ganondorf smirking down at him from his pedestal, surrounded by soldiers who were willing to die for him.
Am I like that? he thought.
Then he decided that it was now or never. It was at this moment that he felt the courage, the true courage instilled in his being as a decision from the heavens, push him forward like the strongest gust of wind. He twisted his sword in his hand and dug his heels into Epona's belly, and with a loud bray she leaped into the air and began galloping up the hill. Link never let his guard down. He cut down any Rebel that tried to stop him, winced as Epona's skin was tainted red, but kept moving. And he could sense Ganondorf's eyes on him, watching him come up, calling out to him. Finally he was at the top of the hill.
At the same time, reading each other all too well, the two leaders dismounted their steeds. Everything suddenly became silent. They were alone. Their Triforces glowed as they readied their swords, and Link felt something so surreal. So divine. He felt his purpose, his destiny as the hero, shining up through Ganondorf's wicked smirk.
"You look so familiar to me in that tunic," he said. "Like a long lost friend."
Link narrowed his eyes and bent his knees.
"But the past is the past, you know. Heroes fall just as victims rise to claim what is rightfully theirs."
He drew his sword. It was long and white, but it had tales of sorrow engraved in its blade. Link saw his reflection in it and nearly drew back. But he didn't. He stood his ground.
Ganondorf laughed a horrible laugh. He threw his head back and let his voice fill the universe, carried by the wind.
"Show me what the hero has become two hundred years later," he cackled. "Read to me the story of light and shadow!"
Damita was getting closer. As more and more Loyalists crumbled at the hands of her two swords, she felt the princess's presence growing stronger. She was so close. That was what kept her moving, even as her body trembled with the desire to rest. She took one step after another, each one fueled by more power than the last. The fear that surrounded her like a shield made her strong—the Loyalists trembled in her wake. They knew who she was, what she stood for, what she had done in her lifetime. And it scared them. She felt it. She basked in it.
"She's right there," she murmured.
She was almost all the way up the hill to the line of archers. The princess was standing in the center, the symbol of everything and anything Damita hated. She needed her dead. Needed her in pain, needed her screaming for mercy from the goddesses.
You won't get any, she thought. I'll make sure of it.
But when Damita took another step closer, the ground began to rumble. Every soldier on the battlefield stopped, gripped their weapons more tightly, felt the earth shake beneath their feet. And then she saw them rising up from behind the hill, smiling and screaming and drawing their weapons.
It was another army.
An army of Zoras and Gorons, come to fight them.
"Ya!"
Link was thrown back by the force of the first collision. Sparks flew around him as his blade scraped Ganondorf's, blinded him for a single moment. He dug his heels into the ground and pushed himself forward, back toward the very manifestation of evil itself. The two swords met once more, shaking the entire earth. Link pushed against his enemy's sword with as much strength as he could muster, felt Ganondorf pushing back, until their faces were inches away. And then, Ganondorf smirked, and both of them stumbled backward from the sheer force. Link was beginning to strategize, beginning to find weak spots in Ganondorf's stance, the way he held his sword, the way he moved—anything. But that was when he realized that strategy was pointless. This battle was a timeless one. This battle was one of instinct. So he released all of the tension in his bones and let himself fly forward, let himself swing the sword as if it were a reflex, let himself forget about what Ganondorf was going to do next or what Ganondorf wasn't going to do next. He simply fought, his feet doing whatever they may.
Link swung his sword horizontally and was blocked. He jabbed his sword forward and was blocked. He brought it down vertically and was blocked. It seemed like Ganondorf was using so little strength when he moved his sword ever so slightly to shield himself or when he took the smallest step backward, forward, sideways.
Then it was Ganondorf's turn to attack, and when he did, Link suddenly noticed how small he was compared to the Rebel leader.
First Ganondorf swung from above. Link lifted his sword and could feel the edges of the blade fall just away from his cheeks. Then he swung across Link's chest—but just before the tip of the sword tore through his tunic, he jumped backward and felt the droplets of sweat fall from his forehead. With a terrible, bloodcurdling cackle, Ganondorf took another step forward and let his sword fly again. Link was just barely able to raise his shield, but the force of the blow knocked it from his hands and into the grass, what seemed to be miles and miles and miles away.
Before Ganondorf could take advantage, Link gritted his teeth and gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and swung it diagonally, straight across Ganondorf's chest. The King of Thieves threw his head back and screamed as his blood fell into the grass and the front of his robe was ripped to shreds.
And then, Link saw it.
The shimmering, gaping hole in the center of Ganondorf's stomach.
I've seen this before, he said. I...I...
"Not again," Ganondorf seethed, his breathing heavy. "NOT AGAIN!"
Before Link could regain his senses, Ganondorf brought his fist up beneath his chin, and the world began to spin. And as it spun, around and around and around, that horrible white sword came forward at the speed of light. Yet somehow, in his daze, Link was able to force himself backward onto his back, watching the sword jab straight above him. Ganondorf screamed again in frustration, but it was a demonic scream. One riddled with insanity. He stepped forward and lifted his sword above Link's chest, drove it down. But with instincts as honed as any warrior's, Link rolled the side and felt the ground shake.
I'm not going to die, he kept repeating in his head. I'm not going to die!
He stumbled back to his feet and decided to take the offensive.
It was time to end it.
May the goddesses help me.
May they not forsake me.
May they not forsake Hyrule.
