I do not own Zelda. If I did, I wouldn't be taking the time to write
stories for web sites, I would probably be basking in the sun near a giant
swimming pool while the beautiful afternoon crawled by and I did whatever
really rich people do.
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Queen Antia had gone out to meet Arfan and Foralin with the Gerudo forces in Hyrule Field. The army made a grand sight. Almost six hundred trained female warriors stood at attention as their leaders conversed, each one with a spear in their hand. Raker's fourscore ragged soldiers were forced to take up the custom Gerudo uniform and weapon.
The captains were geared up for war. Dak wore a heavy metal helmet and a long, dark cloak, and he twirled his battle blade skillfully in his hand.
Arfan's uniform was painted black as a sign of her rank and her shining orange hair was cropped up. A deadly scimitar hung from a sash around her shoulders.
Foralin struck a terrifying sight. He bore a might battle-axe, which gleamed in the sun like his red eyes, ablaze with the light of battle.
Antia's infamous double-sided scythe was slung across her back. Her golden hair flowed down to her shoulders, and her bright blue gaze shown from behind an eager face.
Anyone looking upon the group would not look long before abandoning the sight and getting as far away as possible from the frightening captains.
Queen Antia spoke to them. "Fail me and die. I feel that this will be the day that the hylians make their final stand. If I am wrong, we shall launch an attack on the goron's tomorrow at sunrise."
* * *
Zenk hadn't slept at all the previous night. However, he looked as alert and attentive as ever as he slipped on his battle helmet and faced about two hundred hylian soldiers.
Each one of the generals commanded one force. Ion, Farhill, Atron Doren, and Levin Bastor patrolled the ranks of the hylian army. If any one of them was nervous, they hid it well.
Zenk turned and looked up at Hyrule Castle, the impenetrable fortress that he called home. "I'll make you proud, father," he whispered. "And I will slay the one whose fault it is that you are not here beside me."
* * *
With both ally and foe awaiting his arrival, Lord Darronn gazed around at his tough-looking army of one hundred goron warriors. "This is it, rogues!" he shouted. "Chin up, chest out, let's show these show these girls what we can do!"
The goron yelled out their frightening battle cries, rolled up tight into deadly balls of spikes, and sped down the mountain.
* * *
Antia heard the gorons before she saw them.
"Daaaarroooooonn!" Their cries filled the air. Suddenly, the gorons were upon them, wreaking trails of havoc in the wake of their fatal spikes or using their giant fists to end lives of thieves in single punches.
Antia urged her warriors on. "We have six times their number. Attack! Go for the heart, they aren't invincible!"
Darronn's forces fought valiantly, but the Gerudo's numbers were beginning to tilt the battle in favor of Antia.
Three gorons spotted the queen and charged her, but with a mighty swipe, all three were beheaded. Foralin wiped his battle-axe off in the grass before leaping into the melee of screaming warriors.
Dak had worked himself into a frenzy and joined the fray as well, but Captain Arfan stood at the rear with her queen. "Foolish rock-eaters," she muttered. "What would posses a creature to do that?"
"Courage, bitch, courage," Antia replied nastily. "Something you wouldn't know about."
Darronn knew he had lost. Though it had been much easier to think about safe in his own chamber, it had been his plan from the start to be slain.
Suddenly, everyone froze.
"SOOOONEFOOOOOOR!!!"
* * *
Two hundred hylian soldiers poured over the hillside, waving their swords high in the air and yelling their battle cries. Both female thieves and stout mountain-dwellers stood, the battle temporarily forgotten, watching the army.
The hylian front line, led by a grim Captain Doren, collided with the flank of the Gerudos, and everything started up again.
Bodies littered the bloodstained grass. Fivescore Gerudos had fallen, but with them lay the carcasses of half of Darronn's forces.
The remaining gorons fought their way over to their hylian allies. Lord Darronn found himself battling beside Prince Zenk. "I told you not to come," the goron king said between punches. "You were Hyrule's last hope!"
Zenk gave him a fleeting smile. "Right, Sire, and we still are. Let's give these theives a fight they won't soon forget! Have you seen that queen of theirs?"
"Aye, she was hiding at the back of her forces, last I knew," replied Darronn. "But you can't go after her alone. She's flanked by one of her captains and that black bastard who calls himself a goron." He turned to the prince.
But Zenk was gone.
* * *
Antia, her brother Dak, and a score and a half trained Gerudo warriors had made their way back to Gerudo Fortress. Prince Zenk had spotted them. Gritting his teeth, he drew his sword and charged after the queen.
Flanked by a score of armed theives, the Queen of the Gerudos was seated at an elaborate wooden table sipping strong desert beer from a tall mug. Dak and the ten other Gerudos stood guard at the door.
Suddenly, Zenk burst into the room. Without warning, Antia's brother sprang upon him, dealing him a hefty blow to the stomach with the hilt of his sword. Before the young prince could regain his breath, the ten warriors had him disarmed and bound tightly.
"Like your father, you never amounted to anything," Antia laughed. "I decided that my army could defeat your pitiful excuses for soldiers without the aid of having you as captive." She stood, dropping the cape from her soldiers. Zenk was able to study the queen for the first time.
She wore knee-high white boots, and a patterned blue velvet cloth hung from her waist, suspended by a rope belt and studded with various rare jewels. She was clad above the waist in the custom Gerudo attire, aside from silver shoulder-pads and long white gloves. Her golden hair came down to her shoulders. Her pretty face was clean and delicate, and her notorious bright blue gaze seemed to bore into Zenk's mind. If circumstances were different, the young prince may have found Antia quite attractive.
"Which means," she continued, bringing him back to the present, "that I no longer need you. You are disposable."
"Stow the bitching, Queen. If you're going to kill me, get on with it."
Antia brought her face close to his. "Oh, it isn't a matter of whether I'm going to kill you. It's how I'm going to go about doing it." She turned and beckoned for one of the Gerudos to step forward. The Gerudo clutched her spear and untied her veil.
Zenk gasped. It was none other than the hylian maiden, Shina!
* * *
Ion was struggling for his life as he dodged and leapt around Foralin. Captain Farhill, seeing Ion's plight, rushed to his friend's aid. Quickness was the hylians' only advantage. The black monster roared and slashed everywhere at once with his devastating axe. Sweat poured down the captains' faces.
Foralin snarled and lunged at Farhill. The young captain's speed was all that saved him. He jerked to the right and the battle-axe bit deep into his shoulder. Farhill cried out in pain.
Ion ran to his side. "Get out of here, I'll take care of him!"
"Captain, look out!"
With surprising agility, the hylian whipped around and dove to the ground. The mighty battle-axe sliced harmlessly through the air above his head.
Abandoning the hylian captain at his feet, the black goron charged the wounded and helpless Farhill.
But Ion was there in a blur of gray. He knocked Farhill to the ground, where the younger captain looked up in dawning horror at the realization of his companion's sacrifice. Foralin's blade was already in motion. It's fatal axe-head raked across Ion's chest. The head captain collapsed in a heap. The black goron grinned, baring his yellow fangs, and prepared for one final slash.
In a whirlwind of cold steel, Foralin's right hand was severed and his battle-axe fell to the grass. As the goron turned to meet this new foe, Farhill seized his sword in his strong arm and struck. For the sake of his slain captain and using his last ounce of strength, Farhill plunged the saber into Foralin's heart. The black goron staggered and fell for a final time, revealing the young captain's savior.
It was Raker!
The Desert General wiped his double-edged razor sword off in the grass. "You're not on to cross, that's certain," he said. "Luckily, my fight's not with you. It's with the queen." He brushed by Farhill and bounded off in the direction of the melee.
Farhill had recognized him. He had just enough time to wonder what that was all about before he fell over in a dead faint from the screaming pain in his shoulder.
* * *
Nearby, the battle raged on. Side by side, gorons and hylians were dealing major damage to the army of the Gerudos, to whom Arfan was acting as temporary leader.
Lord Darronn was wounded in numerous places, but doggedly he fought on.
Among the countless dead lay the body of Hylian Defensive Captain Levin Bastor, who had fallen early on by a Gerudo spear.
Atron Doren was the only hylian captain left standing. "Come on, slackers!" he stirred his forces. "Let's do ol' Sonefor proud!"
But everyone could see that the Gerudos still held the upper hand. Together, Darronn's mountain warriors and the hylian army numbered less than one hundred. They were outnumbered at least three to one by Antia's Gerudos. Tasting victory, the desert thieves pressed forward.
Suddenly, a huge black explosion erupted from within the melee. Standing there, amidst the tense hylians, the baffled gorons, and the perplexed Gerudos, stood a single maiden.
Leen!
The dark-haired hylian's head was bowed, her eyes tightly closed. Atron Doren rushed to her side. "Madam, what are you doing here?"
Without warning, Leen's eyes burst open in a flash of light. The would-be fighters stared at her. Leen rose into the air, slowly. "Drop your weapons," a magnified bass voice emerged from the hylian maid's lips. "Everyone, now!"
Without hesitation, Doren let his javelin slip from his hands and ordered his troops to do the same. However, Arfan and the Gerudos clutched their weapons tightly.
Trying to prove herself before her fighters, Arfan stepped forward. "It's naught but a trick. She's just a maid!" She charged Leen, taking up her curved scimitar. Suddenly, Leen turned upon her and her dark eyes blazed gold. Arfan fell back, instantly slain.
"How dare you defy the command of a goddess!" Leen's body melted away. Every being witnessing the transformation drew in a gasp of surprise.
Replacing the body of the maiden was a beautiful goddess. Her sleek, unclothed body shown with darkness, and her whole perfect figure radiated massive power. She shot high over the battlefield.
Words sprang unbidden to the mouth of the lord of the gorons. "Behold, Leen, Goddess of Death!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------
Queen Antia had gone out to meet Arfan and Foralin with the Gerudo forces in Hyrule Field. The army made a grand sight. Almost six hundred trained female warriors stood at attention as their leaders conversed, each one with a spear in their hand. Raker's fourscore ragged soldiers were forced to take up the custom Gerudo uniform and weapon.
The captains were geared up for war. Dak wore a heavy metal helmet and a long, dark cloak, and he twirled his battle blade skillfully in his hand.
Arfan's uniform was painted black as a sign of her rank and her shining orange hair was cropped up. A deadly scimitar hung from a sash around her shoulders.
Foralin struck a terrifying sight. He bore a might battle-axe, which gleamed in the sun like his red eyes, ablaze with the light of battle.
Antia's infamous double-sided scythe was slung across her back. Her golden hair flowed down to her shoulders, and her bright blue gaze shown from behind an eager face.
Anyone looking upon the group would not look long before abandoning the sight and getting as far away as possible from the frightening captains.
Queen Antia spoke to them. "Fail me and die. I feel that this will be the day that the hylians make their final stand. If I am wrong, we shall launch an attack on the goron's tomorrow at sunrise."
* * *
Zenk hadn't slept at all the previous night. However, he looked as alert and attentive as ever as he slipped on his battle helmet and faced about two hundred hylian soldiers.
Each one of the generals commanded one force. Ion, Farhill, Atron Doren, and Levin Bastor patrolled the ranks of the hylian army. If any one of them was nervous, they hid it well.
Zenk turned and looked up at Hyrule Castle, the impenetrable fortress that he called home. "I'll make you proud, father," he whispered. "And I will slay the one whose fault it is that you are not here beside me."
* * *
With both ally and foe awaiting his arrival, Lord Darronn gazed around at his tough-looking army of one hundred goron warriors. "This is it, rogues!" he shouted. "Chin up, chest out, let's show these show these girls what we can do!"
The goron yelled out their frightening battle cries, rolled up tight into deadly balls of spikes, and sped down the mountain.
* * *
Antia heard the gorons before she saw them.
"Daaaarroooooonn!" Their cries filled the air. Suddenly, the gorons were upon them, wreaking trails of havoc in the wake of their fatal spikes or using their giant fists to end lives of thieves in single punches.
Antia urged her warriors on. "We have six times their number. Attack! Go for the heart, they aren't invincible!"
Darronn's forces fought valiantly, but the Gerudo's numbers were beginning to tilt the battle in favor of Antia.
Three gorons spotted the queen and charged her, but with a mighty swipe, all three were beheaded. Foralin wiped his battle-axe off in the grass before leaping into the melee of screaming warriors.
Dak had worked himself into a frenzy and joined the fray as well, but Captain Arfan stood at the rear with her queen. "Foolish rock-eaters," she muttered. "What would posses a creature to do that?"
"Courage, bitch, courage," Antia replied nastily. "Something you wouldn't know about."
Darronn knew he had lost. Though it had been much easier to think about safe in his own chamber, it had been his plan from the start to be slain.
Suddenly, everyone froze.
"SOOOONEFOOOOOOR!!!"
* * *
Two hundred hylian soldiers poured over the hillside, waving their swords high in the air and yelling their battle cries. Both female thieves and stout mountain-dwellers stood, the battle temporarily forgotten, watching the army.
The hylian front line, led by a grim Captain Doren, collided with the flank of the Gerudos, and everything started up again.
Bodies littered the bloodstained grass. Fivescore Gerudos had fallen, but with them lay the carcasses of half of Darronn's forces.
The remaining gorons fought their way over to their hylian allies. Lord Darronn found himself battling beside Prince Zenk. "I told you not to come," the goron king said between punches. "You were Hyrule's last hope!"
Zenk gave him a fleeting smile. "Right, Sire, and we still are. Let's give these theives a fight they won't soon forget! Have you seen that queen of theirs?"
"Aye, she was hiding at the back of her forces, last I knew," replied Darronn. "But you can't go after her alone. She's flanked by one of her captains and that black bastard who calls himself a goron." He turned to the prince.
But Zenk was gone.
* * *
Antia, her brother Dak, and a score and a half trained Gerudo warriors had made their way back to Gerudo Fortress. Prince Zenk had spotted them. Gritting his teeth, he drew his sword and charged after the queen.
Flanked by a score of armed theives, the Queen of the Gerudos was seated at an elaborate wooden table sipping strong desert beer from a tall mug. Dak and the ten other Gerudos stood guard at the door.
Suddenly, Zenk burst into the room. Without warning, Antia's brother sprang upon him, dealing him a hefty blow to the stomach with the hilt of his sword. Before the young prince could regain his breath, the ten warriors had him disarmed and bound tightly.
"Like your father, you never amounted to anything," Antia laughed. "I decided that my army could defeat your pitiful excuses for soldiers without the aid of having you as captive." She stood, dropping the cape from her soldiers. Zenk was able to study the queen for the first time.
She wore knee-high white boots, and a patterned blue velvet cloth hung from her waist, suspended by a rope belt and studded with various rare jewels. She was clad above the waist in the custom Gerudo attire, aside from silver shoulder-pads and long white gloves. Her golden hair came down to her shoulders. Her pretty face was clean and delicate, and her notorious bright blue gaze seemed to bore into Zenk's mind. If circumstances were different, the young prince may have found Antia quite attractive.
"Which means," she continued, bringing him back to the present, "that I no longer need you. You are disposable."
"Stow the bitching, Queen. If you're going to kill me, get on with it."
Antia brought her face close to his. "Oh, it isn't a matter of whether I'm going to kill you. It's how I'm going to go about doing it." She turned and beckoned for one of the Gerudos to step forward. The Gerudo clutched her spear and untied her veil.
Zenk gasped. It was none other than the hylian maiden, Shina!
* * *
Ion was struggling for his life as he dodged and leapt around Foralin. Captain Farhill, seeing Ion's plight, rushed to his friend's aid. Quickness was the hylians' only advantage. The black monster roared and slashed everywhere at once with his devastating axe. Sweat poured down the captains' faces.
Foralin snarled and lunged at Farhill. The young captain's speed was all that saved him. He jerked to the right and the battle-axe bit deep into his shoulder. Farhill cried out in pain.
Ion ran to his side. "Get out of here, I'll take care of him!"
"Captain, look out!"
With surprising agility, the hylian whipped around and dove to the ground. The mighty battle-axe sliced harmlessly through the air above his head.
Abandoning the hylian captain at his feet, the black goron charged the wounded and helpless Farhill.
But Ion was there in a blur of gray. He knocked Farhill to the ground, where the younger captain looked up in dawning horror at the realization of his companion's sacrifice. Foralin's blade was already in motion. It's fatal axe-head raked across Ion's chest. The head captain collapsed in a heap. The black goron grinned, baring his yellow fangs, and prepared for one final slash.
In a whirlwind of cold steel, Foralin's right hand was severed and his battle-axe fell to the grass. As the goron turned to meet this new foe, Farhill seized his sword in his strong arm and struck. For the sake of his slain captain and using his last ounce of strength, Farhill plunged the saber into Foralin's heart. The black goron staggered and fell for a final time, revealing the young captain's savior.
It was Raker!
The Desert General wiped his double-edged razor sword off in the grass. "You're not on to cross, that's certain," he said. "Luckily, my fight's not with you. It's with the queen." He brushed by Farhill and bounded off in the direction of the melee.
Farhill had recognized him. He had just enough time to wonder what that was all about before he fell over in a dead faint from the screaming pain in his shoulder.
* * *
Nearby, the battle raged on. Side by side, gorons and hylians were dealing major damage to the army of the Gerudos, to whom Arfan was acting as temporary leader.
Lord Darronn was wounded in numerous places, but doggedly he fought on.
Among the countless dead lay the body of Hylian Defensive Captain Levin Bastor, who had fallen early on by a Gerudo spear.
Atron Doren was the only hylian captain left standing. "Come on, slackers!" he stirred his forces. "Let's do ol' Sonefor proud!"
But everyone could see that the Gerudos still held the upper hand. Together, Darronn's mountain warriors and the hylian army numbered less than one hundred. They were outnumbered at least three to one by Antia's Gerudos. Tasting victory, the desert thieves pressed forward.
Suddenly, a huge black explosion erupted from within the melee. Standing there, amidst the tense hylians, the baffled gorons, and the perplexed Gerudos, stood a single maiden.
Leen!
The dark-haired hylian's head was bowed, her eyes tightly closed. Atron Doren rushed to her side. "Madam, what are you doing here?"
Without warning, Leen's eyes burst open in a flash of light. The would-be fighters stared at her. Leen rose into the air, slowly. "Drop your weapons," a magnified bass voice emerged from the hylian maid's lips. "Everyone, now!"
Without hesitation, Doren let his javelin slip from his hands and ordered his troops to do the same. However, Arfan and the Gerudos clutched their weapons tightly.
Trying to prove herself before her fighters, Arfan stepped forward. "It's naught but a trick. She's just a maid!" She charged Leen, taking up her curved scimitar. Suddenly, Leen turned upon her and her dark eyes blazed gold. Arfan fell back, instantly slain.
"How dare you defy the command of a goddess!" Leen's body melted away. Every being witnessing the transformation drew in a gasp of surprise.
Replacing the body of the maiden was a beautiful goddess. Her sleek, unclothed body shown with darkness, and her whole perfect figure radiated massive power. She shot high over the battlefield.
Words sprang unbidden to the mouth of the lord of the gorons. "Behold, Leen, Goddess of Death!"