A note from the Hime no Argh herself—

This has been a good week for Fallen Prophecy, as I managed to write quite a bit over the last couple of days. Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful reviews, it's always nice to see readers' thoughts on the chapters. As always, feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them. In response to Mudora's review—I agree, and war is surprisingly fun to write, too. I guess that's why it keeps turning up in my fics.

Chapter 9
Watersedge

Ganondorf strode down to meet him, taking Feather's reins as Link dismounted. "Well met," the Gerudo said, clapping Link on the shoulder. "I knew you couldn't keep away from me for long."

Link grinned at his friend. "How have you been, old man?"

"Well enough," Ganondorf said dryly. "Had a neat couple of skirmishes just this week. Stick around and I'll tell you about it. 'Scuse me." He turned to face Captain Benek, a definite note of coolness entering his voice. "In Captain Pavel's name, welcome to Fort Watersedge. I'm to take you and your sergeants to headquarters. Your men can eat in the soldiers' mess." He pointed out a long, squat building from which smoke drifted, carrying the enticing aroma of roasting meat.

Benek waved the Silver Knights on. "Have fun, boys."

"Don't gorge yourselves," Lin added with mock sternness.

"But Mother, I smell fresh pies on the windowsill," someone joked. Ganondorf waved to Link as he led the officers toward headquarters. Link nodded; they would see each other again soon.

"Your friend seems all right," Thor commented at Link's elbow. The corporal had long since recovered from his wound in that first skirmish, though the scar would never heal completely. "Doesn't he get depressed, fighting his own people?"

"He doesn't consider them his people," Link said, aware that several of his squadmates were listening closely. "When we rode to the border, he told me he was looking forward to pounding them. He—well, they have a weird history."

Thor nodded, but Link could see there were more questions in his eyes. He refrained from asking, however, as the Silver Knights entered the mess.

Link was halfway through a bowl of stew filled with beef and vegetables before Ganondorf turned up. The Gerudo set down his own bowl and slid onto the seat across from him, retrieving a piece of parchment from his pocket.

"This arrived a day ahead of you," he said, pushing the parchment across the table toward Link. "It's from Zelda. Thought you might want to see it."

Link took it enthusiastically—mail from the north was rare, and it was good to hear from Zelda, even if the letter was addressed to Ganondorf—and read it on the spot.

Dear Ganondorf, and Link if you're there,

I hope you'll both get a chance to read this letter. We received word from General Alaster that the Silver Knights were being transferred to Fort Watersedge to prepare for a possible attack. I was happy to hear that—I worry less when I know you two can watch over one another.

Things are quiet here. Mother is not doing very well. She caught a cold and is very weak—you know she never fully recovered from the fever. Father worries about her and would like to stay by her side, but he must keep up business as usual; with the war on everyone's mind, our people might panic if they thought something was amiss at the palace. I worry for both of my parents. Poor Father never gets a moment's peace, and Mother…well, pray for her health, as I am doing. With any hope, Farore will hear us.

I know you two are safe, because I do check the rosters; those at least are timely and accurate. It is lonely here without you both. My father has stopped assigning me dinner partners, mostly because he has no time to think about such things, I believe, but wouldn't you know, I almost miss having a suitor to chat with over dinner! The palace seems so very empty without our soldiers and knights. I had hoped to have you all home by Midwinter, but it seems things haven't moved much on the border. General Alaster thinks we should advance into the desert and overrun the Gerudo, but Father is not sure. If it were me I'd have already had it done, and perhaps you would be home now.

Please take care of yourselves, and each other. You are both in my prayers.

With love,
Zelda

"I didn't realize Zelda knows so much about what's going on here at the border," Link remarked when he was done, folding the parchment. "Her father really changed his mind on letting her in on things, didn't he?"

"So it seems," Ganondorf said with a slight frown, but then he shrugged. "Good for her to have a handle on things. I hope her mother gets better soon."

Link nodded soberly. "She'll be all right," he said, aware that his friend could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

Ganondorf smiled crookedly. "If she does recover, do you suppose the king will start thinking about marrying Zelda off again?"

Link looked at him, surprised. "Why do you ask?"

The Gerudo shrugged. "Well, it would be strange, wouldn't it? We three have been friends for years, and suddenly there'd be someone else in the picture. Wouldn't it throw off our relationship a little?"

"I suppose," Link said, aware that he'd thought about the same thing every once and a while over the past few months. Changing the subject, he asked his friend, "So how are things around here, anyway? Are you okay?"

Ganondorf looked at him coolly. "You mean am I okay with killing my sisters."

"Not just that," Link said sheepishly.

"Do you want to know what I'm not okay with, Link? I'm not okay with being watched every moment of every day in case I 'come to my senses' and desert to the Gerudo side. I'm not okay with people acting as though I betrayed the Gerudo and that's proof enough that I'm sure to betray the Hylians next. Those who think I'll desert watch me take down enemy Gerudo on the battlefield, and call me a traitor and a kinslayer all in the same breath!"

Link stared at him, appalled. "Do they really say that, Ganondorf?"

"They don't have to. It's clear enough in their eyes when they look at me." The Gerudo shook his head. "That's all this job is, Link. Captain Pavel and some of the sergeants do all right by me, but I'm fighting alongside soldiers who think I'm desert scum and for monarchs who don't give a damn."

"Zelda does," Link protested.

"But Zelda's not the queen. Not yet, anyway."

"Someday, she will be," Link said, and he almost hoped that day would come soon, even though it would mean the death of her father first.

"And where we three will stand then, who knows," Ganondorf said cryptically.

"You worry too much," Link said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. "Of course we'll all still be friends when Zelda's the queen. Who else is going to keep her off her high horse when she rules the entire kingdom? Someone needs to remind her that she's human."

Ganondorf smiled, but it was a cynical, bitter smile. "Maybe you'll be of use to her when she's the queen, Link. Me? I'll probably be a liability."

His words left Link troubled that night when he tried to sleep, but he banished them from his mind. It was just the war that left Ganondorf feeling so pessimistic. Zelda wouldn't forget her old friends so easily when she succeeded the throne.

It was quiet at Fort Watersedge the next few days, the weather humid and rainy. The time passed much as it did at the knights' camp, in practice, patrols, and games with the Hylian soldiers. Link had Feather fitted for a new shoe and his weapons checked and sharpened at the makeshift forge within Watersedge's walls. He and Ganondorf wrote back to Zelda, telling her of theirfights with the enemy Gerudo and life at the forts. Link also sparred with his friend daily with swords, and usually lost. He was quick, with good reflexes, but Ganondorf was twice as strong and had a sharp eye for his foe's movements. Link won one spar out of three, which was something, at least.

"You keep me humble," he sighed once after a duel he'd lost as he and Ganondorf put their weapons away. His friend laughed and slapped him on the back, knocking the wind out of him.

One night, four days after the knights' arrival at Watersedge, Link was jarred from a sound sleep by the crunching of the gates as they slid open. He sat up in his bunk in the barracks provided for the knights and saw that some of his squadmates were awake, as well—some rubbed sleep from their eyes as others stared around in bewilderment. Wilhelm met Link's gaze. "What's this about?"

Link shrugged, but dread gnawed at his insides. The gates were to remain shut after the last patrol came in for the night, until the first patrol was ready to leave the next morning. That someone had come calling at this hour meant something was wrong, very wrong.

He threw off his blanket and stuffed his feet into his boots, intending to go find out what was going on. Some of his squadmates followed suit, and they left the barracks together.

Hylian soldiers were milling outside in the practice yards. The sky was just touched with a pearly gray light; dawn was not far. Ganondorf hailed Link, looking barely awake. "What's the story?" Link asked as he approached.

"Dunno." The Gerudo yawned. "Somebody came galloping in on horseback, I heard. Captain Pavel called all the officers to headquarters."

"Benek and the sergeants went, too," said Thor. He and Wilhelm had followed Link. "Lin told the corporals to keep an eye on things. We're to wait for her in the mess hall."

"Come wait with us," Link offered to Ganondorf. "Lin will tell us what's going on."

In the mess, sleepy cooks set out pitchers of water and juice and steaming pots of strong, stimulating tea and began to cook breakfast. Link, Ganondorf, and Link's two squadmates nursed cups of tea as they waited, too weary to talk. All four were just starting to wake when a few of the officers, including Sergeant Lin, entered the mess.

Lin came straight to their table, looking somber and worn. Thor poured a cup of tea and set it in front of her as she sat. She stared at the tea as though she didn't quite know what to do with it, then picked it up and took a small sip, swallowed, and placed it down again.

"Sandpit fell," she said quietly.

The three knights and Ganondorf stared at her in shock. "What?"

Lin took another sip of her tea. "The Gerudo hit at dusk two days ago, eight tribes of them. They burned the walls and slaughtered nearly everyone inside. A few people escaped—message boys and hostlers, mostly. They rode for Kingshold, but it was besieged too."

"Farore's mercy," Wilhelm whispered, his boyish face drained of blood.

"So they split up," Lin continued soberly. "One of them probably went back north, and the others to get the word to the other forts…our courier rode hard day and night to get here. Nearly killed his mount."

Thor rose abruptly, gripping the edges of the table in white-knuckled fists. "They planned this," he said tightly. "They turned our attention to the south and then they hit the north. And if we hadn't left—"

Link knew what he was thinking. If the Silver Knights had stayed near Fort Sandpit, it might have survived the siege.

"The Gerudo aren't stupid," Ganondorf said, his face quite expressionless. "The king acts like it's a few raiding parties we're up against, yet two nights ago eight tribes amassed in a planned attack. We underestimated them."

"Are you saying this is our fault?" Thor demanded angrily.

"Now hold on a minute," Lin said sharply, gripping her corporal's arm. "Nobody's saying this was one side's fault or the other. We had no idea this was going to happen. The last thing we need is to start blaming each other."

"What's going to happen now?" Link asked as evenly as possible, clenching his hands in his lap to stop them from shaking. His gut twisted as he thought of the inhabitants of Sandpit, who had cared for the injured Silver Knights like their own, cut to pieces in the Gerudo's vicious attack. "What about Kingshold?"

"The White Knights are riding hard to reach them now," Lin replied. "We're to stay where we've been assigned until we hear from the general. It'd be a bad time to start thinking the Gerudo won't try to catch another big fish while our attention is divided." She sighed and shook her head. "Go back to bed, boys. This will be a day of mourning—no practice, no patrols, just the regular sentry shifts."

Link knew, though, there was no getting back to sleep now. He and his friends ate as much breakfast as they could on stomachs leaden with guilt, then he and Ganondorf went to collect their swords, agreeing to meet in the practice yard. Just because there would be no official training was no reason he couldn't work until his mind was too exhausted to think, Link had decided. Images of the soldiers he'd seen at Sandpit kept flashing through his head, until he wanted to take a pickaxe to his own skull to be rid of them.

The practice yard was completely deserted, except for a lone soldier practicing archery on the far end of the field. Link pulled his hair into a short ponytail before unsheathing his sword; Ganondorf was ready for him, naked sword in hand. The two crossed swords in traditional Hylian fashion, then slid into fighter's crouches. Link kept his eyes on his friend's chest rather than his face, letting the knowledge of a fight clear his mind and send adrenaline coursing through his weary body.

Ganondorf took a step forward; the muscles at his shoulder flexed, making Link think he'd try an overhead chop. Instead he jabbed forward with his sword, forcing Link to skip away, the tip of Ganondorf's blade barely glancing off his sword. He circled, searching for an opening in his friend's defense. Ganondorf feinted at him several times, trying to force his offense, but Link wasn't biting just yet.

Ganondorf growled and advanced, swinging in earnest to break through Link's defenses. Link blocked each strike and followed up with his own, which his friend blocked easily; it was almost as though they moved through a rehearsed drill, except the swords were real and each swerve and block was not just for show. Ganondorf swung hard as Link ducked, missing the top of his head by inches; Link swept his sword up, and only a quick leap back saved Ganondorf from a gash from navel to collarbone.

Lightning-quick, he brought his blade down like an axe; Link blocked and winced at the battering impact on his sword arm. The swords slid together with a screech of metal on metal and locked at the hilt; Ganondorf strained downwards, using the advantage of his superior height and strength to deadly effect. Link dropped and rolled away just as Ganondorf's blade struck the dirt; he jumped to his feet and circled again, eyes intent.

A shrill whistle split the air and the two fighters paused, looking automatically toward the ramparts. All through the fort, knights and soldiers froze, looking up at the wall where sentries and archers were amassing on the southern walkway. Out of the corner of his eye Link saw Captain Pavel, followed closely by Captain Benek, race up the ramp to the walkway on the ramparts high above.

The fort's captain took one look at the situation before turning back.

"Men of Watersedge, arm yourselves!" he shouted in a battlefield roar that carried easily across the fort. "It's an attack!"

To be continued.