Violence warning
Link found himself in a particularly bland spare bedroom, pressed against the bedpost with sweat pouring off of him as he clutched his ribs. Still with him were six soldiers, each catching their strained breaths. There had been an old pitcher of water in the room that they'd shared between them, leaving bloodstains around the rim and the handle. Every one of them looked like they'd bathed in blood.
Link felt it particularly in his hair where it had hardened. It reminded him of his time as a prisoner, a time when he'd been caked in it. Only out of instinct did he run his hand along his face a few times to try and wipe some off. It wasn't bothering him in any significant way, but he still made some attempt to appear less… red. From the face wound on his cheek alone, he knew he'd bled a lot. Honestly, he considered stopping himself from clearing it away, hoping it made him look slightly more intimidating to anyone who crossed him, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it might make him look weaker and more injured.
"Commander," one of the men asked, turning to Link and breaking him from his distracting, spiraling thoughts. Link acknowledged that the title meant they were addressing him; he'd also tried to correct them numerous times earlier, reminding them that he wasn't a Commander, but they didn't seem to care. To them, he was. "Where next?"
Link shook his head, unsure. "Just keep going. He'll be somewhere. And if he is nowhere that we can find, we've cleared a path for those who follow."
"But Commander," another said, "We've lost so many of our people."
"Finn has the other side, and we have this one. We'll reconvene with him in the middle eventually and merge up. And if we don't, we just keep going ourselves."
"I'm so tired," a third soldier muttered, hunched over and gasping for breath.
Link wasn't surprised, and he felt the same. They'd taken out Ganondorf's troops on three floors, clearing patrols, rooms, and clustered groups that were specifically sent to meet them. Speaking for himself, he wanted nothing more than to give his muscles a break. From how sore he felt, he knew he'd been fighting for at least an hour straight—though it was likely longer—since leaving Zelda's side. But gods, an hour on a battlefield was days to a soldier. There was no break, no single moment to set their minds at ease. There was the constant high that came with an adrenaline rush, and the crashes that went along with every surge. One blink at the wrong time meant missing an arrow through the neck and taking your last breath. It had only been after seeing his small unit's utter exhaustion that they'd gone out of their way to find a semi-safe place to catch their breaths.
"Take another minute, then we have to go," Link said, using his minute to check his injuries for anything he'd missed that needed immediate aid.
He had the line along his cheek from the arrow, and the wound in his leg. His right hand had met with a nasty blade, and though the wound itself wasn't the worst, it burned with an obvious infection, and the Link knew the flimsy cloth he'd wrapped around it was useless in that regard. He had more bruises on his body than he had skin, but his assessment of wounds was much better than his check for bruises. He'd taken a shallow stab in his chest, one that had resulted in a slight nick, but mostly bruise thanks to his chainmail. He'd felt one blow to the back of his head, but it had mostly been pommel, and only a small bit of the sword's edge had nicked him. But there was little else he'd sustained from a blade. While those wounds could be deadly, the bruises that covered him were far more painful and revealing of his battles. He was just about positive his nose and a few fingers had broken or —at minimum—snapped at some point. But he still preferred being alive, and his body effectively blocked out the pain for him.
"Okay, let's get back out there," he muttered, pushing himself off the bedpost and heading for the door.
He and his six soldiers braced themselves before heading back out into the corridor. Link glanced over the balcony and looked up, seeing about two more landings, though from his angle, he couldn't be positive if there were more.
That's when he heard the heavy panting of an approaching enemy, and he managed to spin just in time to defend himself from a raised sword. He let out a grunt, losing under the powerful upper hand the soldier had over him, and he felt the wood behind his back begin to snap from the aggressive pressure put against him.
The soldier relaxed his sword for a moment before letting a tavern brawl-style punch fly into Link's face before his sword was bearing down on Link again.
Link shook off the punch, his blood racing too fast to feel it in any significant way, and glanced behind him over the railing to see the drop. It would be one floor, not nearly long enough of a drop to kill his opponent, but enough to wind him if Link could just manage to flip him over the rail.
But with a surprised cry, he was falling.
The railing cracked again, sending both him and his opponent tumbling over the edge, landing hard on the floor below.
Link had heard the expression 'seeing stars' before, but he'd never experienced it. For him, a hard blow was followed by a near perfect circle of all-encompassing darkness that ensnared his eyes. But this time, when his back hit the solid wood boards of the floor below, he saw saw both, which entirely obstructed his vision. The impact sent him arching up into the air with a howl. In the deep recesses of his mind, he knew that was a good sign. Despite the fall on his back, nothing had broken.
Link spat blood off to the side and clutched his ribs as his vision cleared up slightly. With his body fighting to keep Link alive, he took in Ganondorf's soldier's appearance as best he could. It wasn't a terrible surprise to see that the soldier was in horrible shape as well. His face was covered in scars, old and healed, and new ones from the day's battle. He had a horrible limp, one that seemed to be worsened by the fall. His body was bleeding, and his left arm had a bone sticking straight out.
Both men reached for their fallen weapons, but neither was able to stand, too injured from the fall. It left them both kneeling, holding on to their sides as they were doubled over, staring the other down. But the other soldier had the luxury of landing on Link during their fall, and he'd taken less of the impact. It helped him pull himself together at a much faster rate than Link could.
To Link, the man looked like a blur that grew wider as the soldier stumbled towards him. And the connection of the sword on his skin felt like a burn where he felt the blade cut open his flesh. And it felt like nothing when he collapsed.
He realized that, for all the pain he was in, he didn't make a noise. His cheek was against the floor, resting in a sticky pool of his own blood, and he realized it had become even more difficult to see from his eye. Somehow, his body still moved of its own accord, and his hand went up to his face where he could feel the skin flapped over, cutting straight down from over his eyebrow and down his cheek. But stranger still, he could see something. It meant that his eye wasn't gone, and that was the Goddess' true miracle. His face should have been cleaved in two from that blow.
Rolling over a bit, he saw how he'd survived.
His six soldiers were hovering over him protectively. Two took care of the soldier, one helped apply pressure, and the others guarded Link. It was clear that one of them—though Link's vision was too blurry to make out who—had taken his assailant down as he'd swung, throwing his sword off its intended mark.
Link didn't know how long he lay there, unable to move, unable to see, unable to feel. That was the most frightening part of it all.
So, when he saw Shad suddenly in front of his face, muttering something that Link couldn't quite understand as his brain worked overtime to click back on. He felt an immediate wave of relief wash over him. Relief, and a twinge of fear. How long had he been lying there? Long enough for Shad to find them.
He felt Shad's needle move too rapidly through his skin, a rushed job to patch Link up as quickly as possible, a sure sign of a badly healed scar in the future. But it was still better than death.
And that was the first time he realized it: it was better than death. He wasn't content to die. He didn't feel like a pawn on a gameboard, and he wanted nothing more than to make it back to Zelda alive for his sake, just as much as he wanted it for hers.
Shad dumped potions down Link's throat, talking to him, though it took a while for Link to begin to hear the words.
They weren't anything profound, just small stories to take Link's mind off his pain. And never more acutely did Link understand his old Commander's phrase: pain reminds you that you're still alive. He'd known it, he'd understood it, but as he began to feel again as the potions took effect, he realized that his blissful ignorance of his own levels of severe discomfort had been a bad sign. As he writhed, trying to claw at the bandage on his face as Shad waited for the stitched wound to stop bleeding enough that he could take the bandage off—and thank the Goddess that someone once concocted the first potion—Link realized that the pain was a grounding point. As long as he felt it, he was okay. He was alive.
"Good," Shad muttered to himself as he waved someone over. It was Oton, Ellie's uncle. "Oton is going to take care of you until you're good to go. I'm not going to bother fighting with you. I know you won't go back to the Princess or Owl, but just know how much damage you could do. You'll be in my clinic for a few days again once all this wears off."
Link managed a halfhearted grin and Shad took off with his guards to find other wounded soldiers in the castle.
Link turned to his soldiers. "Keep going. Don't wait for me. And thank you."
"Commander…" one tried.
"No, that's an order. Go," Link breathed, feeling a little too much like Ashei or even Zelda when commanding others wasn't his role.
Again, Link didn't know how long he'd listened to Oton's distracting stories about the farm before he finally felt the pain fade into the back of his mind rather than the front. Oton had cleaned most of the wet blood off Link's face in the meantime, keeping himself busy as he waited to know that the potion had taken effect.
Pushing himself to his feet, Link tested his side with a quick spin of his hips. It sent a dull ache through him, which was good enough. He didn't know how long the potion would take effect for, so he knew he had to move fast while everything was still dulled.
"I need both eyes," Link muttered to Oton, who helped him peel the sticky bandage away. Blinking away the darkness again, this time, Link was met with the sights of the world and not just a black ring of nothing. Good signs.
"Your stitches might burst if you get hit. Just be prepared. It will bleed a lot and you'll need to get it taken care of. Do you still have that potion Shad gave you earlier?"
Link felt at his belt, relieved that he'd landed on his back and not his front where the vial would have shattered. "It's here."
"Okay. Are you alright by yourself?"
"I am. Thank you, Otan," Link said before making his way up the stairs. He couldn't run, but he walked as quickly as his injuries allowed. Passing the broken railing, he headed into a small hallway sword ready, as he peeked into a dark room.
Eight dead bodies and a severed leg were all that the room contained, so he backed out, determined not to dwell on what could have occurred there in the middle of a battle.
He turned back and made his way up another flight of stairs, walking a ways into the back halls of the castle before he pushed open the first door he saw.
More blood.
He made a face, but gripped his sword to see that there were none of Ganondorf's soldiers inside. But as he was looking, he caught sight of the being that had made all that blood.
Viscen.
"Oh, gods," Link muttered, taking a step inside. The blood was still dripping from his body, an incredibly recent kill. His hand was warm to the touch, and Link looked him over quickly, though he knew he didn't have the time to linger.
Viscen had been tortured to death. Clear signs of inhumane treatment littered his body, but it was obvious that a large stab wound up through his stomach had been what killed him. The freshest blood came from that wound, and its large, fatal placement left little doubt. Link wondered if he'd taken his secrets to the grave or not.
His heart broke for Zelda. He knew that she'd blame herself for sending him into the castle. He knew that Viscen was the last member of her family's household she'd known to be alive. He was a positive reminder of her family, a useful ally, and a friend. He knew that Shad would not handle his brother's death well, and Seres would mourn her old friend. With Ashei and Viscen dead, he knew it would be on Zelda to replace them, and he knew that would not be an easy task for her.
Backing out of the room, he wished he could do something, but there was nothing left to do for the spymaster. Link had to keep repeating it to himself. There's nothing you can do.
But he did hear a faint noise on the floor above him, too far away for him to make out clearly, and he hurried—or attempted to hurry—to the stairway. Just as soon as he could see onto the landing, he saw his soldiers head into a room. After a second, varying noises made it through the doorway from panic, horror, and rage.
He picked up the pace, and as he neared the door, he could hear the sound of a soldier's pained whimpering. He didn't know which it was, but it had him hurrying through the open door, sword ready for whatever awaited him.
