A note from the Hime no Argh herself—

So I managed to get through finals week all in one piece, and now I'm home, dutifully chugging along through Fallen Prophecy. Actually I'm at a good point right now, lots of fun stuff coming up that I'm looking forward to writing. Thanks as always for the reviews, they are much appreciated. On with the show.

Chapter 8
Border

Once Zelda had fully recovered from the fever, she began to visit her mother every day in the royal chambers she shared with the king. The healers had prescribed bed rest for Leona, who had yet to fully recover from her bout of illness. Though Leona appeared well enough when she greeted her daughter in her chambers, it worried Zelda to see her lose strength quickly when she made public appearances. She would have insisted that her mother stay in bed had she not known how important it was to make sure the public saw their queen was recovering. With the war weighing heavily on everyone's minds, the Hylian Kingdom needed to know their sovereigns remained unthreatened.

Harkinian met weekly with his councilors to discuss the war's progress. General Alaster was at the border with the rest of his army, but his thorough reports were conveyed by couriers and through magical means. Zelda knew better than to ask her father for permission to attend the meetings, but that hardly mattered. With Sheik she knew every word her father and his councilors spoke.

She began to sneak out of the palace once or twice a week, with Sheik's help, to walk cloaked and disguised through the streets of Castletown, listening to what the people of the city had to say. The war was on everyone's mind and tongue; many had relatives serving as soldiers and were desperately waiting to hear word from battlefront. Others feared the king was using the war as an excuse to press their sons into service.

She went into the Lower City several times, sitting in the worst bars and taverns she could find to listen to their patrons swap gossip and rumors. If her father had known where she went, undoubtedly he would have chained her inside the palace, but Zelda never feared for her safety. Few paid any mind to her; no one realized that the cloaked figure often seated at the bar was the daughter of the Royal King. Anyone who Zelda did notice eyeing her in a way that was not to her comfort soon disappeared unnoticed, and did not return. She decided this was one of Sheik's many talents that she preferred to remain ignorant of, and asked no questions.

She had plenty else to worry about. Zelda prayed every day for Link and Ganondorf's safe return, her mother's full recovery, her father's strength and fortitude throughout the war. She prayed the army, too, that its losses might not be too great. Only when she gathered her courage did she pray to Din for victory. The war-goddess had always made her uneasy; she thought it best not to pray too often to a goddess whose base nature was violence.

There was little news from the battlefront. The Gerudo were biding their time, undoubtedly gathering the measure of the Hylian army before they attacked. Several of Harkinian's councilors, including General Alaster, wanted to allow the army to advance into the Gerudo desert, but the king demurred, saying that he would not invade their nation.

Zelda thought this a mistake. The Gerudo had spat on their hospitality and offers of peace and ignored the code of honor and chivalry in everything they did. Shrinking the border as much as possible would be a nice lesson for them. If she were queen, she might even have ordered the entire desert conquered in the name of the Hylian Kingdom, had they the numbers. It was as Ganondorf had said—they weren't worth sparing. None in Hyrule would stand with them, not when everyone could see they were responsible for the peace talks' failure.

There was one good result of those tense weeks—no one, not even her father, concerned themselves with Zelda's marriage prospects anymore.

Even in the middle of autumn, the sun was still strong enough to cook him where he sat, Link thought ruefully as he pulled off his cap to wipe his sweating brow. Replacing the cap, he settled back against the gnarled, sturdy tree that served as his lookout post and surveyed the dusty savannah. It was his fourth watch this week and he'd barely spotted a rustle in the grasses, let alone any sign of attacking Gerudo. The forts spaced along the border reported only brief scuffles with small raiding parties by squads on patrol.

Throughout the month of October, Link was learning what the veteran knights already knew—war was boring. The Silver Knights built double walls and dug trenches to protect their camp, and kept their skills sharp in daily training and mock combat. They rode patrol, and every two weeks a squad was dispatched to Fort Kingshold to report to General Alaster and receive news and messages from the forts and from the palace back home. They also played games and held tournaments in archery, wrestling, riding, and the like. Link missed his closest friends, though he enjoyed the company of his squadmates.

He wondered what was happening with Ganondorf and Zelda right now. Ganondorf was far to the south—had he seen action? Was he all right? Link worried about the effects of fighting one's own people as much as he worried about his friend's safety. For all his bravado, it probably bothered him, though it was hard to tell for sure. Ganondorf didn't share his thoughts much, and he was difficult to read—it probably came from years of being treated as though his opinion was worthless because of his heritage.

And what of Zelda, Link wondered, alone in the north? What of her mother the queen? Had she recovered fully from the fever, or was her health frail still? Was the king still searching for a suitable husband for Zelda? Link wondered sometimes if he might not return north after the war and find her married off to some would-be king. Somehow, he couldn't imagine Zelda married, ruling dutifully alongside her husband as Queen Leona did alongside hers. The idea gnawed at him like an itch he couldn't scratch, though he had no idea why it should.

There—movement to the northwest. Link uncapped his spyglass and put the lens to his eye. On the distant horizon, a scarlet-and-gold blur was on the move, sunlight winking and shimmering on the silver of weapons. A raiding party? Link wondered. Or an army? And where were they heading? With the sun glaring harshly in his spyglass, it was difficult to tell their direction.

He folded the spyglass and tumbled from the tree to race back to the knights' camp. Up the incline past the trenches and sharpened logs, through the double gates—each wall had a set of gates, kept open during the day but always manned by knights ready to close them at the first hint of trouble. Captain Benek would be overseeing squad training at this hour. Link found him in the drill yard as expected, where knights practiced under their sergeants' watchful eyes.

Link saluted as the captain turned to him, slightly winded. "Movement in the northwest, sir," he panted. "A raiding party, or maybe something bigger. I couldn't count their numbers, nor tell their direction. The sun was in my eyes."

"Sandpit is northwest," the captain murmured, more to himself than to Link. He looked up sharply. "Lin, Masbolle, Dunevon, arm up! Send scouts ahead—if the enemy's numbers are too large for you to handle, do not attempt to engage them! Ride to Fort Sandpit and take your orders from the commanding officer, understood?" The three sergeants he'd named saluted as one and turned to their squads, echoing Benek's orders.

Action at last, Link thought in mixed apprehension and exhilaration as he raced to the stables with his squadmates to saddle their mounts. Feather fidgeted and tossed his head as Link readied him and led him out, catching the fervor that spread through the camp like wildfire. He checked and double checked the straps and made sure his bow and longsword were with him before mounting. Lin, seated in the saddle and ready to go, trotted up and down their line, inspecting her squad.

"You heard our orders!" she cried at last, when all of her squadmates were assembled. "Ride, boys, ride!"

The wooden gates moaned as they were opened wider, wide enough to allow two columns of riders to pass through. Masbolle's squad streamed through the gates and down the incline, followed by Lin's squad, then Dunevon's. They turned sharply northwest and rode hard for the scarlet and gold in the distance.

The Gerudo were not as far off as they'd looked. The wink and flash of sunlight off of metal and the clangs and cries of battle told them the enemy was already engaged—probably they had attacked or been attacked by a squad on patrol from Fort Sandpit. A full tribe was present in their scarlet uniforms, furiously sparring with a dozen or so armored soldiers.

The three knights' squads slammed the Gerudo like a hammer, splitting them away from the Hylian soldiers. Most of the Gerudo fought on foot with their dual scimitars, though a few were mounted on nimble desert horses, wielding scimitars in each hand with deadly precision as they guided their mounts with their knees. Link parried the downsweep of one mounted Gerudo's scimitar as Feather reared, forcing the enemy at his feet to move out of the way of his flailing hooves. The Gerudo struck at Feather's flank with her other blade; Link yanked his mount's reigns, wheeling him just in time. With a cry of frustration, the Gerudo threw herself from the saddle at Link, knocking him into the dirt.

Link barely had time to catch his breath before the Gerudo was on him; he blindly blocked her scimitars and kicked out at her midsection. The Gerudo rolled away, coughing and hacking as Link scrambled to his feet.

His enemy spat in the dirt and leapt for him again; Link ducked one scimitar, deflected the other to the side and reversed his grip to run the woman through. As she fell with a last strangled gasp, Link spun to block another pair of scimitars wielded by a grim-faced girl who looked barely his age, if not younger. He hacked into her defenses with all his strength, throwing her off balance; Lancen, still in the saddle, sliced her lengthwise and Link in turn cut down an enemy woman about to drag him from the saddle.

The battle was over in minutes; the remaining Gerudo, overwhelmed by the relief squads, turned and ran, and Sergeant Dunevon's archers took out the last of them with arrows. Their side had lost numbers as well, especially among the squad from Sandpit that had first engaged the enemy; Hylian bodies lay still in the dusty battleground. The sergeants dismounted to inspect their casualties, administering the mercy stroke to those too badly wounded to be healed. Some wounded Hylians were lifted onto horses to be brought back to Fort Sandpit for healing and rest.

"Dunevon's squad, build a funeral pyre," ordered Sergeant Masbolle, who commanded in the field when Benek wasn't present. "Lin's squad, escort the survivors back to Fort Sandpit. Return to the camp when you're done, both of you. My squad will ride a sweep around the area, make sure there are no more of these bitches waiting to ambush us."

"Mount up, boys," Lin ordered. "If you've lost your horse, ride with someone else."

Feather, sweat-streaked and trembling, had gotten away with just a shallow scratch on his shoulder; Link patted his neck reassuringly before mounting. Lin helped the gray-faced, swaying sergeant from Ford Sandpit, wrapped in a bandage for a long gash down the length of his arm, into the saddle of her own sturdy chestnut mare, then mounted in front of him and whistled to her squad. As one squad and survivors, some leading horses on which the wounded were carried, rode for Fort Sandpit.

Sandpit was better fortified than the knights' camp, with two double walls the height of fifteen men each, slippery boulders placed around the outer wall's base to deter climbers, and a heavily fortified gate. Sentries armed with bows patrolled the wall; a couple hailed Lin's squad as they caught sight of them, and listened as Lin communicated in a series of earsplitting whistles that they brought casualties. By the time the Hylians rode through the gate, healers were waiting; they carefully unloaded the wounded onto stretchers and carried them to the infirmary.

The injured among the knights would remain in the infirmary in Sandpit until it was safe to move them back to the camp. Lin tenderly pressed her hand against her corporal Thor's pale cheek, who had been scored from collarbone to navel, before allowing him to be carried to the infirmary.

"Mount up," she said quietly to her squad when the injured were seen to. "Let's get back to the camp."

The warm autumn months gave way to slightly cooler winter, bringing sparse, cool rain to the parched land. The recovered knights soon returned from Fort Sandpit, but there were other casualties as the Gerudo attacked squads on patrol or parties of couriers riding between the forts. General Alaster ordered the knights to ride sweeps with squads from nearby forts and escort messengers from settlement to settlement. Link fought in a dozen or so more skirmishes before Midwinter, short hit-and-run battles with tribes of fierce, swift Gerudo. They never attacked the forts, having neither the numbers nor the means to break through Hylian defenses, but caught squads and soldiers outside of their walls, on land unfamiliar to the Hylians.

Two squads traveling from forts Kingshold to Sandpit with messages were ambushed by a full three tribes of Gerudo and mercilessly slaughtered. Rillion of Lin's squad and Yenyth of Dunevon's, acting as scouts for patrol, misread trail signs and stumbled into an enemy war party. They were cut to pieces before Hylian knights could rescue them.

"Stupid," Lin growled at the funeral, holding back tears. "I told Benek Rillion was no good for scout work."

There were other such casualties in the weeks before Midwinter, but on the whole Hylian losses were not great. Instead of reassuring Link, the numbers only made him more edgy. He couldn't shake the feeling that the Gerudo were waiting for something, that there was a reason they had gone to war with a well-trained army that outnumbered them by a hundred soldiers. He didn't know what that reason was, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

On Midwinter Eve the knights kept vigil as was the custom in the Hylian Kingdom, greeting the rising sun at the end of the longest night of the year. Prayers and blessings followed; Link prayed mostly for his friends, and for the Hylian army's victory.

In early January, the Silver Knights received a dispatch from General Alaster. Their entire force was to pack up and prepare to ride to Fort Watersedge, far in the south. They would stop at Kingshold along the way to receive further orders from the general in person. "Must be something big," Wilhelm remarked to Link when Captain Benek relayed the orders.

"You think the Gerudo are finally making a significant move?" Link asked him.

Wilhelm shrugged. "If they are, I'm glad the waiting's over," he said frankly, and Link couldn't help but agree.

The Silver Knights took a day to prepare and left at dawn the next day, sending scouts ahead to make sure the road ahead was clear of nasty surprises. They reached Kingshold by sundown without any trouble; after a quick meal in the soldiers' mess, the knights were assembled before General Alaster.

The general was a short, compact man in his early forties who paced as he spoke, pale gray eyes flicking restlessly over the knights. "Reports have come from the south—movement across the border, heightened activity of the enemy. A scout from Watersedge crossed the border and reported a gathering of some hundred-odd Gerudo. Signs point toward a big attack, maybe a siege on one of our southern forts. I'm dispatching you knights south to strengthen our companies' numbers for the coming battle. Half your force will be stationed at Watersedge, the other half at Fort Rihani. You will remain at your posts until I send new orders. Be prepared to see heavy combat."

They remained at Kingshold overnight, then continued on the road south. The ride was uneventful—if the enemy was watching, they didn't show themselves. The forts and camps along the border provided them with food and shelter at night.

After four days of riding, the fort of Watersedge, its Hylian banner snapping briskly in the wind, came into view across the long, dusty plains. The Silver Knights picked up their pace to reach the fort before dusk. At dawn the next day, half their forces would head out again, further south to Rihani. The other half would remain at Watersedge until further notice.

Heading up the incline toward Watersedge's thick wooden gates, Link heard someone hail him from the wall and looked up. Ganondorf lounged against the ramparts, saluting him ironically.

Link grinned impetuously and nudged Feather into a trot.

To be continued.