This chapter is looooong, hope you like it. The muse and I are taking a break from writing right now, but I suppose I'll get going again sooner or later. This week is insanely busy for me, mostly with various fraternity functions to attend. The best part is, this Friday I'm going home for the weekend. As it will be the weekend before my birthday (actual date is April 15th) I'll be celebrating with my family and best of all, going to a spa on Saturday. I desperately need the relaxation.
***
Chapter 37
The Call to War
She was sure she was dreaming, yet knew also that what she dreamed was entirely real. Zelda stood in the square in the middle of Kakariko Town and all around her, everything burned. Fire climbed the walls of shops and homes, leapt from building to building to consume everything in its path. She felt the burning, dry heat raw on her skin, the sting of fiery embers. Screams and cries of terror and agony reached her ears. The sky overhead was blackened with smoke.
The scene changed. Now she stood in the foyer a house she recognized. A man was nailing planks of wood across the door, barricading himself inside. In the corner a woman crouched over an infant's bassinet.
"What are you doing, Bower?" Rowen yelled over the baby's screaming, her face bloodless and her eyes wide with fright. "If the fire reaches us we'll be trapped inside!"
Bower whirled around, shaking damp hair out of his eyes. "The fire's on the other side of town." His face, too, was pallid, but his voice was quite steady. He strode across the foyer, scooped the screaming infant out of its bassinet, and handed it to Rowen. "Take Rowena down to the cellar and barricade yourselves in the weapon storage. Don't come out unless everything is quiet, you understand?"
Rowen shook her head, clutching her daughter close as she gazed, wide-eyed, at her husband. "I won't leave you! If he comes–"
"Go!" Bower shouted, his calm demeanor evaporating. "He'll murder you both, don't you see?! I'll hold him off, so get downstairs, now!"
Rowen shuddered, then turned and walked into the next room without a backwards glance.
The foyer evaporated, and the scene changed once again. Now Rowen crouched in a corner of the empty weapon storage facing the bolted door, holding her whimpering infant in her arms. It was unnervingly silent, all outside sounds muffled, except for an occasional shriek or a far-off, distant boom like the explosion of a firecracker.
Suddenly from upstairs came several loud, booming raps. Rowen tensed, clutching her daughter closer. There was silence for a few seconds, then a loud crash like an explosion that shuddered through the house. Dust fell from the ceiling. A man's yell, abruptly caught off, then a thud like a body hitting the floor. Rowen gave a sob and a shudder, tears streaming from her eyes. All was silent once again.
Then there was more thudding, slow deliberate footsteps. Rowen went rigid, face bloodless, trembling all over. A door creaked open above them, and the footsteps thudded down the stairs to the cellar. Rowen bit her lip, utterly silent, as if she dared not even breathe. Even the infant was silent, as if she too sensed the immense danger just beyond the bolted door.
The door crashed open, striking the wall, and a shadowed body fell across the threshold. Rowen screamed and leapt to her feet at the sight of her husband, bloodied and dead, sprawled across the cellar floor. Her scream turned into a high-pitched, animalistic shriek of terror as Ganondorf stepped carelessly over Bower's limp body, stooping slightly beneath the low ceiling. Little Rowena began to wail at the top of her lungs.
Ganondorf struck Rowen across the face with the back of his hand, abruptly cutting her off. The woman slid silently to the floor as though her legs could no longer support her weight, gazing rigidly up at the Black King. The infant continued to scream, refusing to be silenced.
"You are not who I hoped to find here," Ganondorf remarked to Rowen, his deep voice audible even through Rowena's wails. "But I know that they have been here. I can smell them," he added with a terrible grin. Rowen made a small, choked sound.
The Black King reached down and wrenched the infant from Rowen's arms; she immediately began to scream louder than ever. Rowen leapt instinctively for her child, but Ganondorf struck her again in the ribs, knocking her off her feet with a stifled cry of pain. She raised herself shakily onto her elbows, spitting blood onto the floor.
Cradling Rowena gently in one arm, Ganondorf reached for a long, slender dagger at his belt. Rowen shrieked and struggled to stand again, but Ganondorf kicked her once more in the ribs and she fell back to the floor, coughing up more blood.
"There is something I want," Ganondorf said calmly, pressing the dagger against the infant's throat.
* * *
"NOOOOOOOO!"
Zelda flew into wakefulness, shaking and sweating, Rowen's anguished scream ringing through her ears. Link bolted upright beside her with a strangled cry, his face bloodless and shining with sweat. Throwing the covers aside, he crawled to the edge of the canvas and vomited into the grass.
Zelda pressed her hand to her mouth, suppressing a surge of bile as her stomach fought to expel the contents of her dinner. She could not get the dream out of her head–the infant cradled in Ganondorf's arms, Rowen's terrible scream, the blank look on her face as her daughter's corpse was thrown to the ground before her. Her stomach surged again, and she fought against it with severe effort.
Link fumbled for the water canteen, took a large mouthful, and spat it out into the grass. He swallowed the next mouthful and looked up at the sky. "Why?" he demanded in a weak, shaky voice, his face ghost-white. "Why did you show us that?!"
The camp around them froze. No one's chest rose and fell in sleep; no peaceful snores could be heard. Even the clouds drifting eerily across the moon had hung motionless in the sky. Then out of the stillness, two young girls–no more than sixteen each–rose from a camp on their right and walked toward them. Their faces were slack and expressionless, their eyes blank as they halted and looked down upon Link and Zelda.
"At this very moment, Rowen is making her way across Hyrule Field to this place," one girl spoke in Nayru's terrible, thunderous voice. "Ganondorf placed a ward on her so that none of the monsters roaming the plains can touch her. He wants her to reach you. He wants you to know what he has done."
"He means to lure you out," Farore added quietly, speaking through the second girl. "However, he knows not of the numbers you have amassed in your support nor what you intend to do. Now is the time, before he commits any more evil deeds."
"Ganondorf is an abomination," Nayru said flatly. "You have seen the repercussions of his actions. He will be stopped. This is your task, and you have waited too long. You will do your duty."
They knew the goddesses had fled their mortal vessels when the two girls slumped gently to the ground, deep in sleep. Time moved around them once more, evident in the stirring of the wind and the snores of sleeping soldiers.
Link and Zelda stared at one another, speechless.
* * *
Neither one of them slept that night. Link and Zelda went out in the field to search for Rowen, armed with all the weapons they could carry and accompanied by Impa. She absolutely refused to let them stray beyond the realm of the Great Fairy's protection.
"If Ganondorf has indeed sent Rowen to us, he'll want her to reach us in one piece," Impa said firmly. "The goddesses told you he placed a ward on her, correct? She'll reach us safely."
"How can you be so cold-hearted?" Zelda argued furiously.
Lightning sparked in Impa's eyes. "You chose to wait this long," she said coldly. Zelda bit her lip until it bled, looking away.
It was in a terse silence that the three waited, beneath a cold, clear night sky. The only source of light was the moon and stars, as well as Link's white fairy, who hovered nervously over Link's head. Zelda waited, eyes cast forward into the gloom of Hyrule Field, stomach rolling each time she thought of the Kakariko nightmare. All the while her heart thudded in her ears, her blood ran cold, and a voice screamed over and over inside her head, your fault! Your fault! She had caused this. Her stupidity, her hesitation, her cowardice, had killed Rowen's husband and infant child. She couldn't believe how stupid she'd been, to not even think of the possibility that Ganondorf might go after Kakariko again.
How could she face Rowen ever again? How could she face herself?
When Rowen at last appeared out of the gloom, she looked as though a part of her had died. Her gait was slow, staggering, and halted, and there was a terrible emptiness to her dark eyes–where once they had sparked with energy and wicked humor, they were now dull and blank. She reminded Zelda of a porcelain doll.
Rowen looked at the three of them as they looked back at her, stunned into silence at her appearance. Her knees buckled violently, and she slumped toward the muddy ground, but Link was abruptly at her side, catching her in his arms and lifting her off her feet with infinite tenderness and care. Impa hurried forward to check the woman's breathing and vitals.
"She's fine," Impa said after a few tense moments. "She's just fainted, I think."
Somehow Zelda found her voice. "Let's get her back to the ranch."
They took her into the ranchers' house and tucked her gently into one of the beds. Rowen's eyes flew open, and she grasped Zelda's wrist, fingers tightening painfully. "I've got to tell you–" she gasped.
"I know," Zelda said as gently as she knew how. "You don't have to say anything."
Rowen's dark eyes searched her face. Then the woman nodded; her eyes fluttered shut, and she dropped back to sleep.
A soft knock on the door made them all jump. Saria entered, staggering under the weight of the clay bowl that housed the Great Fairy, five red fairies trailing in her wake. As Impa took the clay bowl from her and set it on the floor, Saria glanced up and met Zelda's questioning gaze.
"Healing fairies," she said, gesturing to the red fairies. "They and the Great Fairy will ease her pain, as best they can."
Zelda knew she didn't mean external pain. As the red fairies drifted over Rowen's sleeping form, Zelda found that she needed to get out of there. She fled the room and the house, out into the dim, foggy morning.
It was an hour or so till dawn, and nearly everyone was still sleeping. Zelda picked her way carefully through tents and bedrolls to an uncluttered sector of the horse pitch, where the archery targets were set. She picked one, strung her longbow with practiced ease, and sat a quiver brimming with arrows at her feet. She set an arrow to nock and fired almost blindly, grimacing as it struck well outside the bull's eye.
"Something ruffling your nerves?" a voice intruded. Zelda glanced to her right to see Rauru leaning against the wrought-iron fence ringing the horse pitch. Something about his bearing and the gleam in his sharp blue eyes told her he knew exactly what was on her mind.
"You've heard already?" Zelda fired another arrow with shaking hands, which missed the target altogether.
"Hard to miss it when you've got a swarm of fairies flying around, spreading the word. Ganondorf attacked Kakariko, did he?"
Zelda's hands shook so badly that she couldn't nock the next arrow. Stuffing it angrily back into the quiver, she turned toward Rauru. "Yes, Ganondorf attacked Kakariko. And I don't need you to tell me whose fault that is, because believe me, I know."
Rauru raised his eyebrows. "Why would I blame you?"
"Spare me," she snapped. "Ganondorf attacked that town to draw me out. If we were already at war with him he wouldn't have done it. People are dead because of me."
Rauru sighed. "You know, in the first year of her official reign, your mother had to deal with an uprising of Gerudo who were still loyal to Ganondorf," he remarked. "They wanted revenge for the defeat of their king. There were too few of them to attack the Hylian Kingdom outright, so your mother failed to heed their threats. But the Gerudo came north anyway, and slipped into the castle town under the cover of dark. They broke into people's homes and murdered them in their beds.
"Your mother was criticized harshly for not heeding the warning signs. People were upset, naturally; they'd lost family and friends in the Gerudos' cowardly attack. Some even went as far as to say that she was unfit for rule."
"What did she do?" Zelda asked, engrossed despite herself.
Rauru shrugged. "The only thing she could do. Sent a squad after the Gerudo. Caught 'em about halfway across Hyrule Field. Killed those who resisted and brought the survivors back north for justice. Not everyone was appeased, of course, but your mother learned to live with that. There was always someone around to criticize.
"We like to think our monarchs are perfect, you know. It isn't comforting to think anything else when our lives are in their hands much of the time. But you're human, Zelda. So was your mother. And humans make mistakes."
"My mistake cost dozens of lives," Zelda said quietly. "Not to mention an innocent baby's."
"You couldn't have known that Ganondorf would go after Kakariko just to draw us out."
"I should have known," she insisted stubbornly.
Rauru sighed. "All right, you should have known. Next time you will. No one can change the past, Zelda. All we can do is move forward." He watched her, sharp eyes fixed on her face. "So what are you going to do?"
"The only thing I can do." A strange, icy calmness was settling over her mind. She was seeing the world in black and white; seeing the difference between what she wanted to be done and what had to be done. She supposed this was how a queen always saw the world, or needed to. "We'll have three days to rest and prepare. Then we go to war."
* * *
Although not unexpected, the call to war was still a shock to those who had grown adjusted and almost comfortable to life in the ranch. For Link, the shock came twofold. He'd known it was coming, known especially after the attack on Kakariko. But when Navi the fairy found him the morning after Rowen's arrival, and relayed Zelda's order, his heart momentarily stopped beating.
It was time to go to war. It was time for him to face Ganondorf.
Like most others, he accepted the news quietly. He was a soldier now. His life no longer belonged to him; it belonged to the queen he served and the land he fought for. He would fight in service to Hyrule, face Ganondorf in service to Hyrule. That was his ultimate task.
Mandatory training was halted. The brief respite felt like the calm before the storm. Most continued to practice with their weapons under their own discretion, Link included. It helped to keep busy, because every time he thought about the coming battle, he had the sensation that something very large was trying to fight its way out of his stomach.
Over the next three days, he didn't see Zelda once. He suspected she had secluded herself away from everyone, waiting for the battle on her own terms. Although he wondered if his presence would be any comfort, he wanted to be at her side.
He too, experienced a sort of seclusion. Soldiers who had once scornfully labeled him a scrawny, green boy incapable of harming a fly suddenly ghosted around him as though he were someone to be awed and revered. Link knew what that was about. It was bad luck to wish either blessings or curses upon the one in whose hands your life rested.
The day before the army's march north to Ganondorf's castle, Valan summoned Link to the ranch house. Navi accompanied him, as she always did these days. All of the sages were there, excepting Zelda, seated around a table in the main room. Valan gestured for Link to take a seat and sank in the one across from him with a sigh. "Nayru defend me," the grizzled general muttered, cricking his neck from side to side. "I told her I was too old for this."
Darunia clapped Valan on the back. "One more battle, old man, then you can retire."
"In a grave, likely," Valan retorted dryly. His good eye, sharp as ever, scrutinized Link from head to toe. "I know it's too late to back out now, but I want to hear it from your own lips—are you ready to take on Ganondorf?"
Link nodded, licking dry lips. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"The burden of this entire war falls primarily on your shoulders," Saria said quietly. "It is likely that without Ganondorf, a number of the enemy troops—the monsters and spirits among them—will fall. They must fall. Our army, as you know, is outnumbered three to one."
"And if Ganondorf isn't destroyed, we'll all be slaughtered like spring lambs," Rauru said bluntly.
"The plan is this," Valan began. "We know that Ganondorf's northern fortress is walled in, with a single gate. This is an advantage to us because it limits the number of enemy soldiers who can attack us at once. We don't intend to siege the castle, but rather to draw them out to us."
"Ganondorf will accept the challenge," Impa said quietly. "His recent attack on Kakariko shows that he is just as eager as we to be finished with this rebellion."
"We need every man and woman that we have against them," Valan said, his eye sharp on Link's face. "When a lull in the fighting comes, you must make your move. You'll be on your own; I can't spare a single soldier."
"How am I going to get in if the gate is blocked by soldiers on both sides?" Link demanded.
Valan shook his head. "You expect me to know? You'll have to figure it out on your own."
"Navi will help!" the little fairy piped up excitedly. "Fairies are great at finding small places to squeeze through!"
Impa's lips twitched. "There you go. Navi will save the day."
Saria smiled serenely. "Are you fighting?" Link asked her, concerned for the childlike sage.
"In my own way, yes. We'll all be lending a hand."
"Aren't you a little too young to be fighting a war?"
Saria tittered with laughter. "I'm older than you!"
Valan shrugged. "I don't like it any more than you do," he assured Link. "Rotten, dirty thing, forcing women into war—"
"You're not forcing any of us," Impa said tartly. "We're fighting because we want to, and because you need us. Don't cast us off as the weaker sex when your own queen is very much a woman."
"I didn't mean it that way," Valan protested, but Link had another worry.
"What about Zelda?"
The sages exchanged significant glances. "We've come to the agreement that it'd be best if Her Majesty stayed out of the fighting," Ruto said delicately at last.
"Only no one's told her yet," Nabooru added dryly.
Link groaned. "She's not going to be happy about that."
"Too bad for her," Impa said brusquely. "We can't afford the risk when she's the sole living heir to the Hylian Kingdom. Hyrule will be no better off without her than it was with Ganondorf. If she dies, everything that we've done will be in vain. She will absolutely not be allowed to fight."
"And if she doesn't like it, I'll chain her to the nearest tree," Valan growled.
* * *
Night blanketed Hyrule Field, and the stars came out, glinting coldly in a velvety sky. A great silence fell over the ranch, as though everyone were afraid to speak in tones above a whisper. Passing many camps on the way to his own after a long, tiring bout of sword combat, Link heard many muttered prayers to the goddesses. He hoped that the mutterers found comfort in their appeals.
He himself could not pray; would not pray. He didn't see what good it would do. What came tomorrow would come, no matter how he beseeched the goddesses. The goddesses were mere spectators now; the fate of Hyrule was in the hands of the mortals who inhabited it.
He stretched out on his canvas in the grass and counted the stars overhead, waiting for sleep to come. Navi hovered protectively nearby, and he found her light comforting. So, he thought, was her company. Any company was welcome the evening before a war.
A hand suddenly gripped his wrist; Link bolted upright before his eyes found Zelda's in the darkness. She placed a finger to her lips, a mute plea for silence. Wordlessly he drew her into his arms, kissed her everywhere, and made love to her with a passion he knew would never die, no matter how many years he lived, no matter how long he was apart from her.
He held her mutely, without sleeping, without speaking, in the long hours of their last night together.
* * *
To be continued.