The Kindred
Chapter VI: Drakes, Steaks, Bruises and Aches
Author's note: Man, I haven't uploaded this in FOREVER! I hope none of you readers have stopped following, sorry if I lost your interest for a while, but ALL of my continuing stories are alive and well! Here's the long-awaited sixth chapter, and I thought I'd start it off with some humor:
Razor Lizardbane was about to call it a night and guide his griffon mount back into the safety of Hyrule Castle when a high-pitched scream caught his ear, making him turn in the saddle.
"Did you hear that, sidekick?" He said in his most heroic voice, which was quite heroic indeed.
"Of course I heard it. And I'm not your sidekick. If I had it my way, I'd have fed you to these lizafos years ago."
"Now-now, mister grumpy pants! I say we investigate. That way, ho!" The hero pointed north.
"What are you talking about?!" The griffon screamed at him over the howling wind, turning her head around but still keeping her wings in a steady beat. "The scream came from the opposite direction, I'm a girl, and I'm not wearing pants!"
"PANTS!" The legendary Lizardbane unsheathed his sword and pointed it east. Another shriek alerted the griffon, Anyala, of the drake's precise altitude and velocity. She reached up with a clawed paw and gently pointed the sword south, in the direction of the drakes.
Anyala listened closely, blocking out Razor's incessant chanting (he was singing about Pez candies, to be precise) enough to judge there were three drakes, traveling at them quite fast, fifty or sixty feet above. Her keen hearing proved her right when a trio of winged reptiles dropped out of the cloud layer some fifty feet above their current position, screaming their heads off. Razor was now tossing and catching his sword in time to his singing and Anyala had a nearly irresistible urge to slap him, but refrained. The blow would probably get them both killed, anyway. Anyala began spiraling upwards with great beats of her eagle wings until the drakes noticed her presence, and dove.
Her element of surprise gone, the griffon decided to attempt a hasty counter-strategy, and use Razor to her advantage.
"Razor! Bad guys!" She yelled over her shoulder at her rider, making sure to use words with two syllables or less, so as not to confuse the hero.
"Pez oh, pez oh, pez- huh? Where?" He stopped in mid-toss, his sword still in the air. The drakes were extremely close now, and one was even farther ahead than the others. Of course, the thing that makes a hero besides skill and experience was pure, sweet, dumb luck. And Razor had enough luck to choke Jabu-Jabu four times over.
The drake and rider both somehow failed to see the glistening weapon, and the winged dodongo sub-breed managed to impale both itself and the lizafo archer it was carrying on the huge sword. Both reptiles promptly began plummeting towards Hyrule Castle's moat with great speed. Razor glanced around and stared at his palms, thinking he had accidentally done some kind of disappearing act with his sword (he had seen some strange people with blue hair do a very impressive magic show in Clock Town once).
A glint of steel caught his eye below them and he quickly recognized it as his weapon (smart guy, neh?). "Dropped my sword," he said to his 'sidekick' and jumped off the griffon's back to retrieve it. This would have been a very sensible thin to do, were they not two thousand feet in the air. Anyala slapped a clawed lion's paw over her face and yelled after him,
"I hope you die!"
She groaned, allowed herself a small amused smile, folded her wings to her body, and dove to save the human she liked less than anything else (except really bad sunburns).
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It was still a few lapses until dawn, and the only light available was that of a lantern from certain poe.
"We're definitely an odd bunch," the certain poe remarked casually.
"How do you mean?" asked a certain scribe's apprentice. (Apprentice is the same as assistant in this context, so I'll use both for variety's sake.)
"Well," said the lantern-ghost, "look at us. A scribe's assistant, a poe, and a cucco farmer."
"I thought we had agreed on this," a certain cucco farmer interjected. "I get to be the archer, you're the lantern mage, and he's the flowsteel bladesman."
"Well we can hardly call him a 'bladesman'. He's never even used them in battle."
"He has blades, doesn't he? He's a man, isn't he?"
There was an awkward pause and both poe and cucco farmer turned an appraising eye on a certain scribe. The certain farmer raised a certain eyebrow, (Oh, forget it. You know who they are.) waiting for a response.
"Wha? Yes I'm a man!"
Both farmer and poe cackled quietly.
"It's settled then. You're a lantern mage," she said, pointing to the poe.
"I thought I got to be the wraith-watcher!" Rej whined.
"And would you mind telling me exactly what wraith you are watching?"
Rej didn't respond, just sulked quietly and grumbled something unintelligible as Skim patted him on the 'back'. Kit grinned, "Exactly. Now what sorts of magic can you do? Offensive, mostly, I take it?"
Squinting its incandescent, shimmering golden eyes as it peered closely at its lantern, the lantern-host waved a glove nonchalantly. "I am quite skilled in most fields of magic, thank you. Yes, I do have a specialty in offensive magic, but that also includes offensive support magic."
"Elaborate."
"An example would be enchanting your arsenal of arrows with acid or fire, or giving Skim's flowsteel a boost in speed."
"Ah, but does that also cover defensive spells during combat, for instance, a reflex-time increase?"
"Well you see, that particular spell could also be used for attacking purposes-"
"Hey," Skim nudged Kit gently, who shushed him and went back to listening to the poe's explanation of his abilities. "Listen, I think something's wrong."
"Why would you think that?" The archer asked, turning to examine Skim's face. The poe also whirled and glanced apprehensively at the apprentice. Kitana unleashed a quiet gasp as the scribe's assistant held up his right forearm, the entirety of which had transformed into a rather large, shining blade. Two smaller blades jutted out at the base, just below his elbow.
Rej managed a weak "Oh," and held up his lantern a little higher, so that the circle of light almost reached the banks of a small river that ran nearby. Kit quickly drew an arrow and notched it to her bowstring, drawing it back. As before, she flicked a small mechanical switch near the fletching, unleashing the holy enchantment inside the projectile's head. It lit an area no greater than Rej's lantern, but the poe shielded his eyes with an unoccupied glove nonetheless, uncomfortable near the holy light.
The farmer let it whistle off into the night, and Skim threw up his hands helplessly. "Great job, you just wasted a light arrow," Skim sighed. The archer shook her head and held up a finger, to be rewarded a fraction of a second later with a sharp bone-crunching sound. All three looked into the night to where the missile was stuck, in a stalchild's ribcage.
The skeleton unleashed an unearthly scream at the group, and several more erupted from the ground around it and behind the trio.
"I thought they cleaned out the Underneath," Skim whispered.
"So did I."
Rej whipped his lantern around to look behind them and then brought it back to the front to face the larger amount of foes. "I count six, but there could easily be another score beneath our feet, if the Underneath is truly infested."
"Some more light, please?" Skim muttered to the poe.
Bobbing his agreement, the lantern-ghost waved his lantern, now glowing a determined maroon. "Of course." One of the stalchildren behind them exploded into flames, illuminating another, for a total of six skeletons and a now smoldering heap of bones.
Scanning the field was easy with the three light sources, and the scribe's assistant directed Kit with a complicated series of hand gestures, a requisite for all Hylian Army members that he had taught the farmer out of sheer boredom. She nodded and drew another arrow, and the apprentice made a similar group of somatic movements to Rej, who complied with a few glove twists and a bob. Skim much doubted the stalchildren could understand Common anyway, but it was best not to take any chances. The makeshift conversation went as follows:
"Kit, take the two near the one you shot. Rej, finish off the two near the smoldering corpse. I'll attack the huge one to our left."
"Right, boss. Break."
Rej cackled enthusiastically and swooped over to toy with the two nearest to the burning mound and Kitana nicked a standard hunting arrow to her bow. Skim dashed off to the left, letting his large blade trail limply behind him. One projectile screamed directly through the neck of an unfortunate stalchild, releasing it of the burden of its head at about the same time the lantern-ghost relieved a foe of its torso and one arm. Skim approached the rather large skeleton, easily thrice as tall as he. Its fists were as big as his head, and its mouth was fixed in a lifeless grin, with one side of the jaw hung limply, like a door falling loosely off its hinges.
The apprentice rolled to once side to avoid a downward strike. His entire left arm from just below the shoulder joint had decided to become a vicious, rear-barbed whip, while his right had remained the blade. He flung the whip around the legs of the skeleton and pulled with all his might. Instead of just falling over however, the huge stalchild simply grabbed the coil with a bony fist and hoisted Skim into the air, leaving him helplessly suspended. The assistant attempted a wild swing, missed, and was rewarded with a rock-hard fist to the gut.
As all the wind was pushed out of his lungs he saw Kit loose another arrow, the stalchild she was firing at now resembling a pincushion, as it had a good fifteen arrows in it. It went down after the sixteenth. Rej was having a little more difficulty with his second one, which was larger than the rest, but not nearly as huge as Skim's. The ghost seemed to be holding his own, however, dancing in circles while loosing fire into the creature's face.
Skim was not faring so well, and managed a strangled "Help!" before a clawed limb tore into his shoulder. Kit whirled to face the battling pair and loosed an arrow skimming past the apprentice's ear, nicking the flesh, into the huge stalchild's (more like a stal-adolescent, if you think about it) eye socket. The scribe's assistant was given a precious few seconds to recover as the undead foe reared its head back and let out a mournful scream, a deathly howl that pierced Skim's bones with a chill colder than ice.
A sudden idea slammed itself into the apprentice's head along with the flailing stal-adolescent's torso, and he gave a mighty tug on his whip arm, propelling himself through the air above the skeleton's head. He spun and landed with his legs around the stal-adolescent's neck, and the pair looked for all the world like a Termina man holding up his young son to see the Festival of Time's fireworks.
Of course, this son was viciously stabbing his father in the head with a huge sword in place of his arm, while yelling swearwords as he dodged his father's frantic blows. After the fifth or sixth stab, Skim called out: "Rej! How sharp are these things?" The apprentice held out his blade arm.
"Sharper than a goron's fingernail!" Yelled the poe, and launched another fireball at his stalchild.
Skim dodged another un-aimed blow from his enemy and, hoping that goron fingernails were rather sharp, ripped his whip hand from the bony grasp of the stal-adolescent and lashed it around the beast's neck. The fleshless digits clattered to the ground as the assistant flipped off backwards and stabbed his blade into the skeleton's spine, his weight dragging it down as he fell. The head popped off and the whip came free as Skim completed his descent, effectively cutting the undead menace into three neat pieces.
Rej dispatched his enemy with a concentrated hail of earthen spires and the cucco farmer finished the headless stalchild that was wandering around, bumping into boulders and trees. Several crystalline rupees were scattered about the battlefield, winking quietly in the light of the poe's lantern, and the three split up and began retrieving them. With a wink and a half, they had collected a total of about three-dozen's worth, a heap of greens with a smattering of blues.
"Not bad," Skim examined the pile of greens and blues, "Almost a full month's pay."
"Why would 'stals' be carrying around rupees?" Rej mused quietly.
Kitana shrugged, "Maybe they're acting as mercenaries?"
The poe shook back and forth, waving the index finger of his unoccupied hand. "No, they're too dumb. Someone must have been giving them rupees, and directing that attack we just suffered. Maybe to bait greedy merchants into attacking them?"
A nod from the scribe's assistant, "Yes, since they can use the Underneath, they could easily overwhelm just one person."
Kit had divided the money into piles, "Right, Rej gets fifteen, because he took two smalls and a medium. I get twelve and you get nine."
"What?! He's dead, he doesn't need
rupees!" The lantern-ghost bobbed in
agreement, and the archer gave an indifferent shrug.
"Alright, we'll each get eighteen."
She passed two blues and some greens over to the eager scribe's assistant, who snatched them up, and put her own in her pouch. Kitana glanced up and, seeing a dark stain on Skim's shoulder, looked more closely. His shirt was torn and he winced as he put his share of the profits in a small hip bag.
"Skim, are you alright?" The apprentice seemed to notice the look of sincere concern on the archer's face for the first time.
"Yes, I just hurt my shoulder a bit," he removed his hand (both had returned to their normal state when the danger had gone, hence they knew there were no more skeletons in the Underneath) from his shoulder. It was soaked in glistening blood, and a small dark stain was slowly spreading underneath the surrounding shirt, but the torn part revealed a deep gash and torn flesh. Kitana's sharp intake of breath alerted Rej (who had been occupied with getting pieces of bone out of his lantern) of the problem.
"Does it hurt?" She asked, taking her hand from her mouth for a moment.
The apprentice nodded and gave a brief, unexpected laugh. "Tis' not so deep as a well, nor wide as a church door, but twill' suffice."
Kit rolled her bright eyes, "Alright Mister Dramatic, lay down and we'll get you patch up."
(Fun Fact: That was a quote from Romeo and Juliet, if you were curious. Mercrutio says it just before he dies after the fight with Tybalt, and… Ah, forget it. It's a complicated scene.)
They located a large boulder to the northwest and leaned the wounded assistant against it. Rej began putting fallen branches in a pile until he had enough for fuel for a small fire, then ignited it with a small blast from his lantern. Kitana wrapped the apprentice in a woolen blanket with a marching deku scrub pattern around the border, and took bread and octopod steaks from the packs. Soon a number of scrumptious octopod sandwiches had been prepared, and the cucco farmer approached Skim with a sandwich and bottle of murky red fluid.
As the assistand accepted the meat sandwich, a flurry of movement beyond Kitana's shoulder caught his eye. It was Rej, his face twisted into a gruesome expression as he pointed to Skim's sandwich. The poe took the pantomime a step further and clasped his gloves (the lantern-ghost's lantern was resting on the ground, near the fire) around where his neck would be, staggering around behind Kit.
The cucco farmer failed to notice any of this as she bandaged Skims shoulder, who was having great difficulty keeping himself from bursting into helpless laughter. Once, Kitana glanced oddly at him as he released a quiet giggle, but the apprentice quickly turned into a cough. The assistant was holding his sandwich in one hand, the bottle on the ground nearby. Once he had the poe's attention, Skim took an overly-dramatic bite of his octopod sandwich.
Rej's response was a horrified expression, (not easy to do when you have no facial features besides eyes) followed by his grand finale, which consisted of pretending to puke his guts out into the fire. He noticed near the end of his performance that Kitana was watching disapprovingly, hands on her hips.
"I tried to warn you," Skim said around a mouthful of octopod. He took another sip of the red potion to wash it down, and felt the healing effects soothe the icy fire creeping along his shoulder. The drink had a sickly-sweet taste to it, like fruit that had been left to ripen on the tree for too long.
"Oh, shut up," pouted Rej. Kit had forced him to try a sandwich as punishment for his 'childish antics', and most of it still sat unabsorbed (poes don't really eat, but they can absorb matter and convert it into small amounts of shade oil) in front of the sulking lantern-ghost. The poe took another miserable bite of the sandwich and puckered his face up in disgust.
"Oh come now," Skim shoved the poe with his sandwich hand, (yes you can shove poes, how do you think Link whacked em' with his sword?) "octopod isn't that bad."
"Blech, I hate it."
Kit was poking at the fire with a long, sturdy branch, when her poker exploded into flames and immediately caught the other's attention. She screamed and flung the burning tree limb into the small river that flowed nearby, where it created a small cloud of steam and disintegrated. The archer grinned sheepishly at the dumbfounded, awestricken looks she got from the two. "Sorry, a bit of a pyromaniac."
"I'll say," scoffed the apprentice. He was rewarded with a cucco down pillow in the face, and Kitana crawled into her sleeping bag as the poe floated nearer to the fire (as much to warm himself as to dispose of the sandwich). Skim glanced up at the night sky, where the moon had already begun its descent.
"There's still a couple lapses until dawn, at least," he observed, glancing over at the cucco farmer. "Tell me a story."
The farmer laughed, shrugging helplessly. "I don't know any good ones."
"I do," said the poe, "anything to get my mind off that sandwich." Both Hylians turned their attention towards the lantern-ghost, who began:
"It was a long time ago, when the emerald warrior still walked Hyrule. The Gorons and Zora thrived, and the land was relatively peaceful. The ancient tribe of Gerudo ruled the desert; the Zora controlled the waterways, rivers, and lakes, and the Gorons tended to Death Mountain. The Gerudo didn't bother much of anyone and mostly kept to themselves, hidden away in their desert fortress. Some thought they were guarding a great treasure or keeping some amazing secret, but they were just whispers and rumors.
Occasionally, they would come into the main parts of Hyrule to barter weapons with the Gorons or trade with the Hylians, but they mostly kept to themselves. But it was within this seemingly harmless tribe a monster was created. Gerudo males are only born every two hundred years or so, making them a very rare commodity indeed. He was raised in luxury and wealth, and trained in the combat the finest teachers in the land. This is his story. His name was Ganon."
Rej continued his story until the sun began creeping over the horizon behind them, and then decided to continue it another time. (Author's Note: I'll be writing a story called Terror's Legacy very soon, which of course, is Rej's tale. Look for the first chapter within the week.)
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Anyala caught up with Razor rather quickly and grabbed him by the shoulder pads, when the large warrior looked up at her.
"Oh, hello Anyala. I was just about to grab my sword," he pointed to the shining two-handed greatsword.
"You were about to plummet into the moat, or worse, the ground," she corrected him primly. The griffon dropped under Razor, caught him on her back, and grabbed the greatsword in her claws. Handing the weapon up to the now battle-ready fighter, Anyala wheeled around to face the two remaining drakes, who were now a bit more reluctant in their charges. One emitted a vicious scream nonetheless, and its rider launched an arrow in a high arc at the griffon.
By the time the missile reached the lion-eagle crossbreed, Razor had lined it up for a baseball swing and sent it rocketing back through the air twice as fast as it had come. There was a dull 'clank' as it bounced off the lizafo's armor, leaving the reptile unhurt. The creature was preparing another arrow when it realized something was missing. Its quiver and bow were both there, as was its small dagger. The lizafo didn't ever find what it was looking for, but from the smatter of guts on his drake's head, his companion could guess it was its torso.
Anyala had followed the arrow at almost the same speed Razor had hit it back, and clipped the reptile in the chest with a heavy paw, effectively blasting it apart. The remaining lizafo with the blinded mount watched the body plummet to the soil below, its lower lip quivering fearfully. The creature promptly turned and sped off back the way it came, while the remaining drake was dispatched with a few cuts from Razor's sword, the warrior narrating with "Chop, slash, attack!" the entire time.
Well, I hope that nice, long chapter satiated you for a little while! Finally, things are heating up and we can get into the plot! Yippee! Uh, I'll try to upload Terror's Legacy once I get it all nice and error-free, so you can probably find it within a few days. I have a new policy for reviews, and I'd really appreciate it if you can try it out:
A-hem, I do NOT want any sugar-coated reviews. IF you do want to tell me what you think of this story, as with all my other stories, puh-leese tell me one or two or twelve things wrong with my writing. I want to know how I can improve. Flame away, if you wish, but make it comprehensible.
Thanks for reading, and remember! Three flaws! Even spelang erors are fine, just find some stuff wrong with it! Peace out!
-Fog.