A note from the Hime no Argh herself—
Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the action and fight scenes. I've been having a lot of fun writing chapters lately and I'm looking forward to posting them and hearing your reactions. Don't forget to check back every week, Thursday or Friday, for the latest update.
Chapter 10
Battle
Zelda woke abruptly in her bedroom on a cold winter's night, staring wide-eyed into the darkness. Her breath steamed in the chill room—the fire in her hearth had gone out during the night—and tried to remember her dream. She had seen blood, the glow of orange like the heart of a forge, and—a sword? There was something special about it, but she couldn't quite remember…
This time, when she caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, she did not lose her temper, but sat up and peered through the gloom. "What do you want, Sheik?"
"It's your mother," his voice issued out of the shadows. "She is dying. The healers don't expect her to live through the night."
Zelda threw off her covers and struggled out of bed, stiff-legged from the cold, bile rising in her throat like she was about to vomit. "Are you sure?" she whispered, the icy wooden floor freezing her bare feet.
"Yes. I listened as the healers told your father."
Zelda pulled a robe and slippers on, struggling not to cry. She had known this was coming, ever since Leona took deathly ill with pneumonia. They had all known. "Go," she whispered to Sheik. "Come back in the morning."
He disappeared out her balcony doors just as a loud knock sounded on her doors. Zelda hurried across the room to pull one open; Impa stood there, white as a sheet, hand poised to knock again.
"Your Highness—"
"I know," the princess whispered. "Take me to her."
The hall outside her parents' chambers was teeming with healers, maids, and footmen, all speaking in low, hushed voices. They cleared a path as Zelda and Impa approached, bowing or curtsying respectfully. The door opened, and Harkinian emerged, looking terribly weary.
"There you are," he said heavily when he saw Zelda. "Go in, Zelda, your mother wants to speak with you." He held the door open for it and Zelda steeled herself, entering the chamber.
Queen Leona lay dozing on the bed, and for a moment Zelda was sure the healers had been mistaken—she was merely resting, she didn't look so bad off. Then she heard the rattling of the breaths her mother fought to pull in, saw the icy pallor of her cheek.
Leona opened her eyes as Zelda approached her bed and smiled. "There you are, daughter. Sit." She waved a hand toward a chair at her bedside. Her voice was faint but clear, her violet eyes sharp as ever, but Zelda did not miss the trembling of her hand. She sat and took her mother's hand.
"How do you feel, Mother?"
Leona smiled wryly. "Must I answer? Never mind, dear—listen, there is something important I must tell you.
"Your father—you know he is not as young as he once was. He will take this—my death—he will take it hard. When I—after I'm gone, you must be strong, for both your sakes and for the kingdom's. You may even be called upon to rule in your father's place before you come of age."
Zelda felt a flare of panic. "Mother, you mustn't die, I can't rule the kingdom, I'm not even eighteen!"
"What difference does a few months make?" Leona asked practically. "No, my daughter, you were ready for this from the cradle. Your time is coming soon, very soon. You must—be strong."
Zelda leaned close, wondering if this was what the healers called a deathbed prophecy, but her mother began to cough, and Zelda helped her to sit up and take a drink of water. "Thank you," Leona murmured, sinking back on the pillows. "I feel so weary."
"Sleep, Mother," Zelda whispered, tears blurring her vision. Leona closed her eyes, but a moment later opened them and smiled faintly.
"Daughter, do you remember when that woman, the prophet—Fallen, is that what she called herself?—do you remember when she told our fortunes at the banquet that night?"
"Yes, Mother, I remember."
"She said I knew my fate already," Leona whispered. "Well, this—this I know. I have given birth to, and now die beside, the queen who will reign for eternity in these lands."
Zelda's spine prickled. "What do you mean, Mother?"
But Leona was beyond answering. Her eyes traveled slowly around the room, then came to rest on a point somewhere behind Zelda. She blinked and struggled to sit up.
"Who are you?" Leona asked in a clear, strong voice.
Zelda turned quickly, and for an instant she had the oddest fancy someone was standing in the corner behind her—but there was no one there.
She turned back. Leona lay still against the pillows, eyes glassy and blank.
"Mother?" Zelda whispered. "Mother?"
There was no response.
All that day, bells tolled throughout the Hylian Kingdom, in mourning for the death of the queen.
Benek raced down the ramparts as Captain Pavel continued to shout orders from the walkway. "Archers to the south wall! Be ready to fire on my command! Do not waste arrows! Sentries, keep to your posts!" he snarled, shoving several onlookers who had come to gape at the attacking Gerudo back to their places. "You want the enemy to come at our walls while you're not watching, idiots!"
He turned back toward the fort. "I want six squads armed up and ready to go into the field on my command! Now, soldiers, now!"
"Silver Knights, get yourselves armed and mounted!" Benek ordered. "Be ready to ride with Watersedge's soldiers into the field!"
Ganondorf thumped Link on the shoulder. "Good luck," he said breathlessly, eyes gleaming with battle lust, before racing for the fort's armory.
As one, the Silver Knights ran for the stables, only to find their work was already done—hostlers had saddled and led out most of the knights' mounts. Link took Feather's reins, patting the fidgety gelding absently to reassure him as he and his squadmates waited for orders.
"Archers on the south wall, take aim!" Pavel's battlefield roar pitched easily over the length of the fort. "And fire!"
The soft twangs of bowstrings releasing filled the air as Hylian arrows whistled toward their targets; stuck behind the fort's closed gate, Link had no way of knowing which arrows hit and where the Gerudo were now. Pavel's squads gathered around the knights; Link looked for Ganondorf, but didn't spot him among all the uniformed soldiers. The Hylian soldiers waited on foot, their faces tense, weapons gripped in white-knuckled hands. Only the officers had horses.
Pavel shouted an order, and the gate creaked and groaned as it slowly began to open; the Silver Knights swiftly mounted. "Take your orders from Captain Benek in the field!" Pavel ordered knights and soldiers alike. "Don't let those Gerudo bitches near our fort!"
As one, knights and soldiers raised their weapons in a roar of agreement. Link licked dry lips and swung onto Feather's back, nudging the gelding toward the open gate.
Watersedge's gate was set on the west wall, facing the close Mahala Gorge. It was a good placement, sandwiching any attacks on the gate between the fort's walls and the nearby cliff edge, but it made for tight maneuvering as knights and soldiers streamed from the gate and turned south. The dusty field before the south wall was strewn with arrow-riddled Gerudo bodies; the enemy had retreated out of the archers' range.
The enemy spotted Watersedge's defenders. A mounted Gerudo raised her scimitar into the air with a shrieking war cry, to be joined by a hundred female voices; as one, the red and gold force surged across the field as the Hylians moved to face them. The moment the Gerudo were in range again Pavel's archers sent a deadly hail of arrows into the field, over the heads of the charging Hylians.
Link saw the flashing of deadly silver and the glittering eyes of grim-faced women before the two parties slammed together, red-clad Gerudo warriors and blue-uniformed soldiers entwining like currents in an angry sea. Feather reared, warding off an enemy pair with sharp hooves as the two tried to surround him; Link waited until he landed on all fours before he struck, chopping down hard on one Gerudo's locked scimitars and knocking her to the ground before turning in the saddle to stop the other from slicing Feather's flank. A Hylian cut her down before she could free her blades, and Link wheeled Feather to face a tattooed Gerudo mounted on a gray pony.
The tattooed Gerudo barely blinked as her pony kicked out to send a Hylian soldier flying; she spurred her mount forward to meet Link with her knees, wielding her dual scimitars in both hands. Link waited until she was almost on him before swinging Feather to the side; the Gerudo snarled as her pony's shoulder brushed against Feather's and barely managed to deflect Link's sword as he tried to run her through. One scimitar locked with his sword and Link shoved all his weight to the side before she could bring the other down, throwing her off balance and nearly toppling her from the saddle. Her pony turned to save her from that fate and cantered a few paces away before the Gerudo turned it to face Link again.
Hands clutched his leg, trying to drag him from the saddle; Feather reared and Link cut down his attacker. The tattooed Gerudo shrieked her peoples' eerie war cry and galloped toward him again, raising a scimitar to meet his sword. When the two weapons crashed together pain flared like lightning up his arm; Link yelled and dropped his sword as Feather shied away, but the pain continued, like knives driving into his flesh. Clutching his shoulder, Link faced the grinning Gerudo. So she was a witchsister; he'd forgotten that her tattoos marked her as one.
She kicked her pony into a gallop and Link, sweating from the pain lancing through his arm and shoulder, knew he was not going to stop her attack again. An arrow sprouted suddenly in the witch's chest; her pony slowed as she swayed, jaw dropping in shock. The Gerudo toppled from the saddle to smack into the dirt.
With her death the pain in Link's arm disappeared; he grabbed Feather's reins to turn him away as a Gerudo attacked on foot, but the woman snarled in frustration and threw her scimitar. The curved weapon sliced through the air to bite deep into Feather's thick neck; blood spurted down the gelding's front and he collapsed immediately.
Link lurched from the saddle, scooped up one of the dead witchsister's scimitars and turned on his knees to hack blindly at the charging Gerudo. The scimitar sliced deep into her thigh and the woman went down; Link freed the blade and cut her throat.
He stumbled to Feather's side to check him, even with the sickening knowledge that he was too late. The big gelding was covered in dark blood; within moments he was dead. Briefly Link laid a hand on his neck—he had liked the skittish horse—before turning away to search for his longsword, fending off new attackers with the witchsister's scimitar.
The sparse grass underfoot was churned and bloody and strewn with bodies by now, Hylian and Gerudo. Link was not sure how his side fared, but he knew that they were still far from the fort's walls and that arrows continued to rain onto the field in sparse numbers, careful of striking friend rather than foe. Knights and soldiers had driven the enemy back toward the edge of the gorge, sandwiching Gerudo and Hylian alike on the cliff's edge and forcing them to fight in a close-knit group.
Link spotted his sword in the dirt and dove for it, but a the pointed toe of a Gerudo slipper stepped on the blade before he could touch it. He looked up into the angry face of a Gerudo warrior and his heart thudded in his ears; she was a girl barely in adolescence, at least three years younger than him.
The girl gave a high pitched cry as she leapt for him and Link barely blocked with the scimitar; she drove him back with a flurry of hacks and chops which he managed to dodge or block with only inches to spare, clumsy with the unfamiliar weapon. As he swerved and backed away automatically to avoid her attacks, his mind screamed at him to fight back, to do something to keep himself from getting killed—but the girl's face had him paralyzed. Up until now he'd only fought women who were his age and older, but even though his officers had warned against exactly this kind of trap, he could not bring himself to raise his weapon. He couldn't cut down a young girl in cold blood.
It isn't cold blood, the cool, sensible part of his mind observed. It's survival.
The young Gerudo's right scimitar bit into his bicep as Link swerved away, opening a stinging gash that sent blood streaming down his arm. Wincing, Link stepped back as the girl leapt for him again, raising his stolen scimitar to deflect her next strike. The girl stumbled and Link reacted mindlessly, chopping into her defenses and sending her tumbling into the dirt. She swung at him from her knees just as he had done; Link leapt back just in time and kept backing away as the girl jumped to her feet and pursued him doggedly, pushing him toward the gorge.
Part of him knew that they were fighting on the outskirts of the sea of mingled Hylians and Gerudo, dangerously close to the cliff edge. Link deflected each strike the girl swung, knowing that he was being an idiot, that any moment some other Gerudo was going to catch him in the back while he danced with this one and the fight would be over. He heard screams and shouts of warning, and out of the corner of his eye saw fire flare up in the middle of the battlefield—the witchsisters at work.
Gasping, he turned toward the inferno and the Gerudo uttered a cry of triumph. Link saw the curved blade thrusting toward his chest on the edges of his vision as though in slow motion and his body reacted, leaping back to save his life within a hairline; the scimitar sliced a neat line through his tunic. The girl's momentum carried her forward and she knocked into him.
Link felt ground give way beneath his heel and immediately knew his mistake. Dirt slid from the cliff edge and the Gerudo girl gave a high-pitched scream as she and Link tumbled into the gorge.
To be continued.