They swing round to meet the great road as it emerges through the Duelling Peaks, and head west like an arrow from there. There had been disagreement about the route, while they'd sat planning - Dorian and Impa keen to stick to lesser roads, Paya and Link pointing out that the Yiga will either spot them or not as they pass through Koukot canyon, so why spend the extra time trudging through the back country? They'll shave at least two days off the journey that way, hugging the edge of the Plateau until they can break south for the canyon entrance. In the end, speed had won out over caution.
Link feels himself slipping back into solider mode with every minute they spend on the road; alternating who rides up front and who covers their back, rotating watches to ensure his troops are well-rested, assigning duties when they stop to make camp. Before he'd become Link the Hylian Champion - back when he was merely Link, the Prodigiously Talented Son of Commander Arn - Link had been part of mixed units with Sheikah fairly often, on scouting missions, monster hunts, guarding the excavation sites and so forth. He'd always enjoyed it. The Sheikah packed light, moved fast, never complained about the conditions, and they cooked better food than the Hylian troops. He's pleased to find the experience of riding with this little squad to be much the same. Granté falls back easily into habits from their first trip together. Dorian is an old hand, and Link isn't concerned about him at all for the journey. Once they get to the desert, and he's forced to confront his one-time compatriots, on whom he seeks revenge... Link has plenty of worry to spare for that part of the mission.
Paya is clearly unused to life on the road, but she takes it in stride with a determined expression on her face. He suspects she's pushing herself hard not to be a burden on the more seasoned travellers in the group. She reminds him so strongly of Impa in many ways, yet is so different in others. He'd spent a great many hours in Impa's steadfast company, before being assigned to Princess Zelda. And for all that Zelda had apparently resented him for the apparent ease of his role, Impa truly was the platonic ideal of a warrior; competent, level-headed, and quick-witted. The two of them had shared a bond as strong as sinew; soldiers surrounded by twittering nobles and scatterbrained scientists. The awkwardness of their current relationship is less the sudden age gap between them, and more Impa's transition to wise leader. It feels silly to mourn that loss, when there are so many people gone from his new life entirely, but his heart refuses to listen to his head on the matter.
Several days in - when they're almost to the fork where the road splits around the ruins of the Coliseum - Link rides ahead to scout a bit while the others stop to make camp. He's not intending to go very far; just a quick loop around the hills to see if there's any significant monster activity. He finds it in spades. At the edge of his sweep there's the hulking form of a lynel prowling through the long grass, swiping its cleaver through the air idly. It's the first one Link's seen in the future, and it's worryingly close to the road. He's about to turn and inform the others when some sixth sense has it whipping round to stare straight at him. It grins, vicious teeth bared, and charges. Link digs his heels into Epona's sides and swings her round, urging her into a gallop down the other side of the ridge. This is incredibly bad, he's alone and too far to call for help, and he's lost the element of surprise already. Of all the bad luck...
The lynel comes leaping over the crest, ploughing huge furrows into the muddy earth as it lands on the other side. Its eyes are fixed right on him, its hooves kicking up great tufts of earth as it closes the distance. It swings again, and Link veers Epona sideways. Then he turns in the saddle and nocks an explosive arrow from his quiver by feet, raising himself up in the stirrups to draw. Epona, who is surely a gift from the goddesses themselves, keeps to a steady, straight course. The lynel ducks as Link's arrow flies past, and he quickly looses another at its feet. This one has it rearing up, and it falls to the ground. He swings Epona back round again and leaps off as she passes the downed monster - as helpful as her speed is he wants manoeuvrability more, and he won't risk getting her killed. She stops just within sight.
The lynel staggers to its feet, giant hooves stamping great divots in the turf. It lashes out at him, and he jumps back; it seamlessly twists the cleaver into a backswing, and Link has to leap clear over the blade to avoid being cut off at the knees. This isn't sustainable. Time to put Purah's claims to the test. After the next desperate roll out of range of that terrifying swing, he unhooks the slate and drags his finger against the screen in the swirl that means cryonis. The lynel is hit with an arctic blast of air that leaves ice crystals shimmering in its fur. It roars in confusion, staggering as its muscles seize. Link hits it again, and the great cleaver slips from its numb fingers. Link rushes in, slashing at its legs as he passes, and it thumps down onto its knees. He grabs a handful of mane, swinging up onto its back as it lurches back to its feet. It reaches around to try grab him, and he clings tightly with one arm and both legs, avoiding its flailing hands.
He pulls the dagger from his boot with his free hand, and jams it straight into the jugular. Great spurts of hot blood splatter across his face and neck, gushing over his hand and arm with every pump of its heart. The lynel flails around, twisting to finally throw him off. He rolls with the landing, already up and running as it tries to charge him. Between the hamstring and the severed throat it never makes it; the lynel thumps heavily to the floor and lies splayed on its side, rear legs kicking weakly as the fire dies in its eyes and its blood soaks the dirt around deep red-brown. Link keeps one hand on his pommel, but eventually it stills. He stands for a few moments more, pulse still racing, watching to make sure it's definitely dead.
Epona's nostrils flare at the earthy-copper smell of the blood soaking into his sleeves and trousers, and she refuses to let him mount up. After a few fruitless minutes trying to coax her, he grabs the reins and walks back to the others.
Dorian surges to his feet at Link's blood-soaked entrance, looking alarmed. Paya gasps.
"That is - wow." Granté says, eyes wide. "That is really a lot of blood. Another hinox?"
"Lynel," Link grunts as he wipes his face arms ineffectively with a cloth. All it's doing is smearing the blood around. Paya digs in the packs for a change of clothes to throw at him, and he catches them with his clean(er) hand. "None of it's mine. I'm just going to go - dunk in that pond we saw. Maybe... burn these clothes. Ugh."
He does the best he can with the cold water, but the Sheikah still sit upwind of him for dinner - a stew topped up with chunks of a rabbit that Dorian hunted while Link was busy avoiding being chopped into small pieces by homicidal centaurs.
As they eat Dorian regales them with stories from his early days in Kakariko, tales that have Paya giggling and asking more questions. Link aches for the sort of camaraderie and community spirit the Sheikah have; the sort he once shared with his fellow knights and then, fleetingly, with the other Champions. Later still, Dorian sits at the edge of camp, ready to take first watch. Paya and Granté are quiet, sitting together with their heads held close together in conversation. Link's pleased to see Paya coming out of her shell; she seems to have more or less gotten over her crush on him. Perhaps meeting the real him put her off; what person can ever match up to their legend even before any issues with memory? But he suspects Granté has something to do with it too. Paya is leaning towards the younger Sheikah like a flower to the sun, and in return he's looking at her with soft warmth.
"You reckon there's something building there?" he asks Dorian, nodding his head back towards the pair as he plonks down on the grass next to him.
Dorian smiles wistfully. "If there is, I wish them all the blessings of the Goddess. Our time with those we love can be cut so cruelly short; let them have their comfort while they can."
A little further down the road the next morning, close to the bridge crossing the Hylia, they come across a pair of travellers huddled under a tree near a broken cart. One of the wheels is knocked clean off the axle, and what's left of the harnesses hangs loose in the mud. From the tracks, their bolted horses seem long gone.
"Ho, friends," Dorian calls to them. "You seem to be in quite some trouble, can we be of any assistance?"
One of the two - the man, with a mop of shaggy brown hair and an outfit muddied from the crash - waves in welcome. "We'd be very grateful for your help."
Link hops lightly down from the saddle, and he and Granté inspect the cart. Other than the missing wheel everything seems in reasonably good order.
"We should be able to get this back on between us," Granté pronounces. "The wheel itself seems in good enough shape. Did you hit a pothole?"
The woman nods. Her black hair hangs in two long braids down over her shoulders, and a severe fringe frames her forehead. "Horses got spooked by a lynel, and we hit a hole as they bolted."
"Assuming there was only one in the area, the lynel has been taken care of," Link says. He looks to Dorian. "If you two want to help with the wheel, Paya and I can go try find the horses?" The Sheikah nods, and Link leads Paya along the trail of hoof prints and trampled grass. It doesn't take them very long to track down the missing animals; they haven't fled very far, and are nibbling at a patch of meadowsweet with the remains of their harnesses trailing in the mud behind them. Paya dismounts to cautiously approach the closest, a chestnut brown with three white socks. It lets her close enough to stroke its nose and neck, and she leads it back to her own horse. Link walks Epona over to the other horse, a piebald, that is eyeing him warily.
As he gets close the horse's nostrils flare - it must have picked up the lingering copper tang from Link's clothes, because it turns and gallops away. Link sighs and spurs Epona into a run to chase it down. They pull even quickly - Epona really is the swiftest horse Link has ever owned - and he makes a grab for the dangling rein. The horse shakes its head to snap the leather out of his grasp, and peels off to the right. This time, Link gets his feet under him on the saddle as they pull level. He waits a beat to gauge the distance and the rhythm of its motion, unconsciously adjusting for Epona's own rise and fall with each stride. At the - there! - right moment he leaps, coiled-spring-tension unwinding. He slams over the horse's back, and it's harder than he thought it would be to hold on, with no saddle, but he manages to swing his legs around to sit astride the panicked beast.
With the reins in his hands and his thighs clamped tight he slowly works against its movements, until it's only sluggishly trying to dislodge him, and then not at all. It slows to a walk, and then stops. He strokes along its neck for a few minutes longer until he's sure it's calm, and then slides off to walk it back over to Epona.
Back at the cart Dorian and Granté have managed to get the wheel back on between them, and Dorian is hammering the peg back through the hub with a rock. Granté is helping the pair get their scattered belongings back into the cart. Link and Paya get the horses hooked back up, tying the severed reins back together. The end is cut clean through, Link notices - how had that happened, if the horses had simply torn away in their panic?
"Much obliged t'ya," the woman says. "I'm Wanda, that there's Ram, who's well named on account of he's as stubborn as one."
Ram rolls his eyes at her. "Pfft, woman, you're twice as stubborn and you know it. Y'all from Kakariko, friends?"
There hadn't been much point trying to pass the three Sheikah off as anything else, with their distinctive looks, but Link's a little uneasy at the question all the same. Prejudice can run deep, after all. The others nod, looking a little uncomfortable too. Thankfully these travellers are either more enlightened than most or grateful enough to set aside their preconceptions, because Ram shakes them all by the hand. He bends to kiss Paya's instead, and she pulls it back quickly when he lets go.
"What you all doing out this way?" he asks.
"We're traders," Granté says, giving their agreed-on cover story. "I'm Clint, and these are Riordan, Anya, and Ravio over there is the Hylian. We're headed for the Gerudo region, to see if there's a market for traditional Sheikah remedies and crafts there."
"That's where we're headed too!" Wanda exclaims. "Why don't we all go together a ways?"
Ram nods sagely at this. "Strength in numbers, y'know, what with all the monsters about these days."
Wanda and Ram are genial companions, chatting constantly about everything and nothing to whichever of the group is currently riding alongside the cart. Link largely takes point, wary for more lynels - especially as they pass under the shadow of the Coliseum. The hulking building looms high above the road, and Link can see familiar dark ichor creeping up its crumbling walls. He's sure there must be a nest of monsters in there. Behind him, the conversation flows on unaffected by the gloomy atmosphere of their surroundings.
"What's his deal?" Wanda asks. "Quiet fella ain't he? He mute or somethin'?"
"Who, L-Ravio? He talks, just not much," Paya says, stumbling slightly over Link's assumed name. Ravio had been a page a year or two below Link, with an uncanny resemblance to him - so strong, in fact, that more than one person had made jokes about Arn straying (though no one made the mistake of joking about it twice, at least in Link's hearing). As far as Link's aware, it was just a coincidence - the two of them had compared their family trees back to great-great-grandparents and found nothing linking them by blood.
He turns to look over his shoulder at the women, the dark flash of his dyed hair in his peripheral vision still startling. Paya gives a half-shrug and a grimace.
"Odd to see a Hylian travelling with Sheikah," Ram comments. "Thought y'all kept t' yourselves mostly."
Dorian makes a hmm sound. "Ravio is along partly for extra protection, and partly in case we run into people who won't deal directly with our kind."
"I see," Ram says. "Well ain't it just sad, that you need to be ready for that sort o' thing."
They stop for the night still uncomfortably close to the Coliseum for Link's liking, but there's not much for it. The horses are tired, and there won't be enough light left to make camp if they carry on much longer. There's a traveller's shelter by the roadside, where Ram and Wanda lay their bedrolls. The two of them make dinner from their supplies; a warming risotto that they augment with meat from the pigeon that Link shot down earlier.
"Where do you hail from then, Rav?" Ram asks, sitting down next to Link. "Ain't no Hylians from Kakariko that I ever heard of."
"Hateno," Link replies, shovelling more rice into his mouth. It's the closest to the truth he can manage these days, and he's familiar enough with the current layout that he won't be tripped up if he meets anyone who knows it well.
"I've never been. Me, I'm from Deya Village, over Faron way," he says. "You know it?"
Link nods. Deya was Pipit's home town, and he'd been there with his friend several times to visit, or on patrols. He and Zelda had stopped there briefly too, during her search for ancient artefacts. "I know it well," he says. "Nice place. Do they still do that casserole at the inn, with the duck and pork and the white beans?"
"Sure do," Ram says, and leans back against the shelter with his arms resting on his belly. "They sure do."
Link wakes in the quiet hours of the morning, with the sky a deep black and mostly covered by clouds. The fire is burned low a little distance away, throwing only a small amount of heat and light over the campsite. He lies still for a moment, listening and trying to work out what woke him. He filters out the lazy crackle of the fire, the rustle of the grass in the light breeze, the faint chirrup of insects. There's a soft sliding sound, and a muffled jingle, followed by a rummaging sort of noise - someone going through a pack? He cracks his eyes just enough to see a figure in the dim firelight, hunched over Link's own pack. Whoever it is pulls out the Sheikah slate, holding it up - so someone else can see?
Link subtly shifts so his gaze takes in the other side of the camp, where another figure nods their head. He inches his fingers towards his pommel, movement slow as molasses and breathing kept carefully even, eyes mostly closed. Once his fingers are wrapped around it he shifts his weight, ready to leap up at a moment's notice. The second of the figures is creeping towards him now, a curved sickle drawn and glinting in the firelight. A flash of it reflects onto their face, and he realises with a jolt that it's Wanda. As she reaches striking distance he surges upwards, drawing his sword and slashing out in one movement that scores a deep cut across her forearm, and absolute chaos descends.
The screech of shock and pain that Wanda lets out wakes the others and pulls Paya back where she'd been sitting at the edge of the camp, looking outward on watch. Dorian takes in the scene with a roar of rage and launches himself at Ram, who blinks out in surprise. Granté has grabbed his bow and sends an arrow after him, but in the dark of the trees it's impossible to tell if it hit or not. Wanda has switched the sickle to her other hand, and is clutching the injured one against her chest, blood rapidly soaking into her outfit. Link waits for her to come at him, but at the last minute he sees a flash reflected in her blade. He drops and rolls instead, and Ram's swing connects with empty air. As he gets up, Link kicks hot embers from the fire towards the man, making him cringe backwards.
Granté has swapped to his dagger, and he and Dorian close in on Ram together. Link looks around to see where Wanda has gone, and ducks sideways instinctively as he hears a pop behind him, where she must have jumped in. He turns, just in time to see Paya grab her by the neck and stab her in the side. She blinks again, but drops to her knees as she reappears, braced on her one good hand. Link kicks it out from under her, sending her sprawling to the floor. Then he puts one knee on her back and grabs her by the hair. She glares furiously at him as well as she's able from the angle, and then turns to spit on the floor.
"Your days are numbered, Champion. You will not stop His return."
Dorian has come over. "You will tell us where we can find an entrance to the stronghold," he commands her.
She laughs, slurring slightly as she replies. "I will tell you nothing, traitor. Your days are also numbered."
Between the two wounds she'd suffered, the blood loss catches up with her, and she slumps in Link's grasp. He lets go of her hair and sits back on his heels.
Dorian curses. "The other fought to the last also. And we are no closer to tracking this den of filth down than before."
Link sighs. "We don't know whether they managed to send any kind of message. We have to assume the Yiga know we're coming."
Dorian nods solemnly. Paya and Granté hover behind him nervously. Link suspects the reality of their mission is finally sinking in, but it's too late to back out now. He'll have to keep an eye on both of them.
"I'll take the rest of the night," he says. "Let's get these bodies out of the way, and then you should all try get some more rest."
The morning dawns grey and drizzling, and they pack up in gloomy silence. Paya is especially quiet; Link is wondering whether he should go try talk to her when Granté goes over. He rides with Dorian instead, a thoughtful silence stretching between them.
Notes: I've stolen functionality from stasis here and given it to cryonis, because it felt marginally less immersion-breaking to freeze something to a halt than to have a magic time-stopping device xD