Chapter Seven
King Harkinian and Impa sat with grim faces as their carriage flew across Hyrule Field as fast as the horses drawing it could gallop. Leading the carriage on horseback was the soldier who had reported to them not long ago of loud explosions coming from the Gerudo Valley. Lorah had not returned after entering the fortress several hours ago. Fearing the worst, but no wanting to endanger their princess, the soldiers had decided to alert the king. Without hesitating for a moment, Harkinian had decided to go to the Gerudo's Fortress. The diplomat inside him had taken the three million rupees as a means of bargaining in case Zelda was still all right and Zanei saw this visit as a threat to her. Ahead, the entrance to Gerudo Valley and the desert loomed.
Link was holding his sword in his left hand as he ran towards the bridge, and his right hand was firmly joined to Zelda's left as he pulled her along behind him.
"STOP THIS INSTANT!" a voice from behind them screamed.
"Don't stop," Link urged Zelda, increasing their pace.
An arrow whistled through the air, passing so close to Link's ear that he felt it fly past. He stopped and turned, positioning himself in front of Zelda as a kind of human shield. He saw Zanei loading a new arrow into her bow as she ran towards them. She stopped, took aim and fired, rapidly fast. Her aim was good but not accurate. The arrow flew about a foot too high over Link's head.
"Link?" Zelda tapped him on the shoulder.
Link turned to face her and saw several Gerudo guards approaching from the direction of the bridge behind them. Zanei readied a new arrow as she neared. With sheer rock walls to their right and left, Link and Zelda were trapped.
"Grab them!" Zanei ordered, almost hysterically "Don't let them ruin our plans!" Several guards rushed forwards and grabbed Link and Zelda, while most of them stood back and wondered what Zanei meant. Zanei walked closer until she was standing only a few feet away from them. "For a future leader of this country, you certainly are foolish," she said to Zelda, and then turned to Link, "I expected that from you. You men are all the same. Always acting and never thinking of the consequences. This would have been a perfect plan, but you ruined it. And now it is too late for you both. Let me show you, silly man, what the consequences of your actions shall be. Then you will get to experience them for yourself." Zanei raised her loaded bow and aimed it directly at Zelda's heart. She released the arrow.
"ZANEI YOU TRAITOR, LOWER YOUR BOW IMMEDIATELY!" came a loud shout from behind them. Link and Zelda looked up to see Nabooru approaching from the direction of the desert, followed by another Gerudo woman. "Zanei, I order you to stop this instant! Let those two go."
Nabooru's cry had startled Zanei, and her arrow flew into the sky. She turned around, and when she saw Lorah, her expression darkened. "You!" she yelled, "I heard rumors that you were here at the fortress. You chose to deny your people, but how dare you have the nerve to come here and work against me, the leader!"
"I am the true Gerudo leader," Nabooru announced. "Lorah certainly did not work against me. In fact, she found me tied up in the Spirit Temple and set me free. It was you, Zanei, who defied me by knocking me unconscious and leaving me tied up that way. If not for Lorah, I probably would have died of dehydration."
The Gerudo holding onto Link and Zelda, Zanei's supporters, stepped forward, weapons drawn, preparing to attack Nabooru on Zanei's order. There were about ten in total. The rest of the Gerudo population had their mouths open in shock after hearing what Zanei had done to their leader.
"How dare you, filthy man-lover," Zanei spat at Lorah. "How could you even know what I was doing?"
"She was sent by me!" a loud voice announced. Several horses charged into the crowd, sending Gerudo scrambling to get out of the way. Hylian soldiers dismounted, each carrying swords and shields. They ran for Link and Zelda, or more specifically, Zelda, and drove the guards away from them. A carriage followed the horses, and King Harkinian and Impa alighted from it.
"Daddy!" Zelda cried. Impa rushed to her, as Harkinian addressed Zanei. "Drop your weapon. All of you! My men have orders to kill anyone who endangers the princess or Nabooru for a moment longer."
"The princess?!" murmured several Gerudo in surprised. So this was their prisoner! Not only had Zanei rebelled against their leader, she had kidnapped the princess of their country.
""Take them now! Kill the ones who are trying to destroy the Gerudo way of life by marrying men or aligning themselves with them," cried Zanei in desperation. "Help me!" Her rebels rushed towards Nabooru and Lorah. They were vastly outnumbered by the Hylian soldiers and the rest of the Gerudo, who rushed in to fight for their leader. The battle was over quickly. Several of the rebels had been killed, and those surviving were rounded up by the soldiers and tied up. Zanei was screaming and swearing, cursing Nabooru and Lorah, and raving about foolish men.
"Take these traitors away," Harkinian ordered his soldiers. "If I have to look at them for a moment longer I might kill them myself." In much the same way that Zanei had captured Zelda the night before, the soldiers hoisted the rebels onto their horses and rode off in the direction of Hyrule Castle.
"Lorah, I want to thank you," began King Harkinian, "If it were not for you, my daughter may not be safe as she is now. Nor would Nabooru."
"Yes," Nabooru added, "I know that most of my people have not given you a fair go, Lorah, but tonight the Gerudo thank you. I knew that there were a few who did not support my idea of a treaty between the Gerudo and the rest of Hyrule, but I never imagined that Zanei was one of them, or that she would do such a thing against not only me, but her country. I trusted her."
Link remembered how Ganondorf had appointed Nabooru as his own second-in-command. In much the same way that Ganondorf had trusted Nabooru not to turn good against him, Nabooru had not expected Zanei to break her own trust.
Harkinian turned to look at Zelda, for the first time noticing Link. "Link? What are you doing here? Were you held prisoner too?" Earlier he had been wondering what had happened to Link, after recalling that Zelda had left the castle with him.
"Link rescued me!" Zelda said, giving Link a big smile. "He broke in twice and the second time he got him out of my cell."
Harkinian noted Link's dishevelled appearance, although he said nothing about it. "Well many thanks to you also," he said.
A Gerudo woman pushed through the crowd. It was Chalira. "I have something to say," she said, "And I would like to say it in public. Your majesty and Nabooru, may I have permission to speak now?"
"Certainly," Harkinian replied. Nabooru nodded.
Chalira turned to Lorah. "I was to apologize to you," she said. "I feel terrible about slagging you off earlier. I said that you weren't Gerudo. But after witnessing all of this I see that you have proven yourself to still be loyal to this tribe. Zanei is the one who has shown that she is no Gerudo by rebelling against Nabooru. And that is far worse than getting married to a man."
To her surprise, Lorah saw most of the Gerudo nodding their heads in agreement.
"Three cheers to Lorah for rescuing Nabooru," said Harkinian. "And three cheers also to Link for rescuing Zelda."