Granté picks his way through the rocky bluffs shielding Castle Town to the southwest, reins in one hand and one hand on his weapon. He's dispatched a pair of lizalfos with the energy blade already, but the path is otherwise clear. Storm and Epona clop quietly behind him, ears pricked but not yet pulling at their halters.
There's a whirring noise, directly above. A guardian scout has wandered over them. Granté curses and switches to his bow. He has a single experimental arrowhead in his quiver, the first to come out of the ancient oven. He puts it to the string, pulling back and aiming as swiftly as he can. The scout has spotted him, and its red laser point rests on his chest.
He lets go of the string, and the glowing blue arrow smashes through the lens of its eye, sending sparks crawling. It lists over, then starts to drop. He leaps over a boulder, covering his head with his arms as the scout explodes in a ball of flame on the other side. The heat sears the hairs on his forearms.
When the smoke has cleared, he climbs cautiously to his feet and goes to look for the horses with shaking limbs.
Gabro eyes the distance to the line of hinox lumbering towards him. To either side, his crew have their canons ready, waiting for his order. He can feel their anticipation, thrumming in the air, but they hold. Anyone who can't follow clear orders has no place near mining explosives.
"Now!"
The synchronised firing is a thing of beauty. Cannonballs smash into the hinox like so much shale. Two go down and don't get back up. The last one shrugs off the hit, tilting its shoulders down into a charge that sends the cannoneers rolling out of the way.
Gabro swings his sledgehammer at it. The blow smashes into the side of its knee, and it crumples like paper. He shouts in triumph, raising the crusher over his head. Around him, his crew are picking themselves up.
Bokoblins spill out of the nearby trees in a jibbering, howling mass. They're too small and fast for the cannons; his gorons heft their hammers and brace for impact. The mob hits them like a wave and breaks around them. Gabro spins around, digging his heels into the mud. Bokoblins go flying with the crunch of breaking bones, as the hammer head connects. There's an admiring whistle.
"Now that's a hammer!"
There's a young Hylian with short-cropped dark hair at the head of a small group. Another Hylian, with the weird face fur some of them have. A Gerudo, and a goron Gabro doesn't know; brother must be from South Mine. The smaller Hylian has a Hylian-sized sledgehammer resting over his shoulder. Gabro grins at them, and slaps the haft of his hammer against his palm.
"Hey, brothers. We're gonna go give those moblins over there a demonstration of Goron engineering. Wanna tag along?"
"Hell yeah! Beasts of destruction, go!"
Cado shoulder-barges the bokoblin impaled on his sword, sending it sprawling to the floor. Three more instantly rush to replace it, baying and jostling with one another. He swipes at them, trying to keep the space around him open. Dorian was fighting alongside him earlier, but he's gone now, lost in the seething mass of claws and fur. If only one of them can make it home today, Cado hopes it's Dorian. He hopes someone will look after his cuccos, should he fall. Hopes he will be mourned.
A silver bokoblin lunges out of the crowd, all scars and teeth. Cado parries the vicious slash of its sword. It growls at him, yellow eye flashing with hatred, and lets out a battlecry that brings more of its kin rushing in. Cado whirls, steel flashing around him. The silver's strength is brutal. Every clash of their weapons jolts down his arm. One of the others takes advantage of the opening, catching him in the ribs. He stumbles, gasping, one hand clasped to his side.
The savage blow he expects never comes. The silver falls backwards with a grunt, fletching sprouting from its one good eye. The others fall, one-two-three, arrows in their throats. Rola steps over one. She stretches out a hand to help him up and he grasps it; presses his cheek to her knuckles like benediction. A fond smile shines through the grime streaked on her face. She has never been more beautiful to him.
She heaves him out of the frosty mud. Side by side, they wade into the fray once more.
Botrick presses his back further into the tree trunk. His arms are held tight to his chest, clutching his sword. His breath comes quick.
When he'd seen the monsters massing in Hyrule Field on his patrols, he'd known something big must be going on. He could never have predicted that thing would be quite as big as Divine Beast Vah Naboris, cresting the ridge with dawn light glinting off its sides. Its hooves alone had to be the size of his entire house.
He'd tried to follow. If the Gerudo forces were leading an attack on Ganon's army, the least he could do was lend his sword on behalf of the battered, broken Hylians. Several bokoblins had met their end on its edge so far. Then the lynel turned up. He made it into the thicket just ahead of its rampage. He can hear it snorting, somewhere nearby. He stifles the whimper that rises in his chest; tries to still the trembling of his hands. The inside leg of his trousers is damp.
There's an almighty rustling. For a moment he thinks it's found him. Then there's a cut-off, gurgling, thumping sound. He peers around the tree and gasps. Thick roots are creeping over the leaf litter. In the centre of the clearing, the lynel is on its knees, straining against the roots wrapping over its body and limbs. One curls around its throat, tightening. Another root snakes up, winding around its head and plunging down into its throat. The lynel starts to convulse, froth spluttering from its mouth. What the fuck.
A flash of green in the shadows catches his eye. There's a... woman...? lurking in the trees, watching the lynel intently as it dies. The closer he looks, the more wrong she seems. Her clothes look like they're made of leaves, and what he'd taken for a headpiece is actually branches coming out of her head. The lynel has stilled now, and the woman glances over towards him. She winks, blows him a kiss, and disappears back into the shadows.
Botrick takes a moment to compose himself before he heads out of the thicket.
Lasli ducks as an explosion shakes the rocky outcropping she's been sheltering behind. Claree flinches too, then swears and sticks her finger in her mouth.
"Jabbed myself," she mumbles around her fingers.
Lasli picks up the needle she'd dropped in the mud and runs it through a flame, re-threading it before handing it back. Claree nods gratefully to her, and bends back over her work, sewing shut a gash on a Zora's flank. The grey skin is clammy, but Lasli's not sure if that's normal. She re-wets her cloth from her canteen and carries on cleaning out some of his other wounds, ready for stitching.
"I know this is important, but I wish we could see Master Link fight," she sighs. "To tell Impa talk about him, it must be like watching a force of nature itself."
Claree looks sharply up at her.
"Master Link is going straight for the Calamity. We should count ourselves lucky if we don't see him."
A blush spreads over her cheeks, and she ducks her head. Claree's right, but when she tells this tale to her grandchildren, she hopes she can relay a more exciting anecdote than this.
Lukan lifts her shield to block the acid-spit spray of a lizalfos. Leena and Liana are back-to-back nearby, surrounded by a crowd of their own. A pile of scaly bodies already lies around their feet, but more keep coming.
A blast of icy breath hits her elbow and she hisses in surprise. Already her fingers are going numb. Before the lizard can follow up with its claws, a spear head sprouts through its throat. Barta kicks it to the floor. Lukan nods her thanks, flexing her hand to get the blood flowing back.
There's a sudden chorus of yells, and she looks up to see a lynel charging their way. Its striped, tawny side is already streaked with blood and soot. Its eyes burn like coals in its face.
The Gerudo soldiers scatter out of its path. It turns, snarling. But as it rears up to charge back their way again, its hooves sink into suddenly-soft ground. Lukan hears a laugh, high and lilting, and turns to see a woman suddenly next to her. She has blonde, bouffant hair and dragonfly wings fluttering behind her ears. Her eyes are solid green.
The lynel struggles, but that only hastens its descent into the quicksand. With its lower body trapped, it's easy work for them to finish off.
When Lukan looks back, the woman is gone.
"Hurry up!"
Robbie glances up at Purah, who's waiting on top of a boulder just ahead, poised like a hare primed to spring in her stealth gear. He's glad Paya has been deployed elsewhere; the sense of déja vu would be even worse with a copy of a younger Impa hanging around too.
"If you want to get there faster you could always help to carry some of this stuff."
"Hm, but then who would protect us from ambushes?"
He huffs in amusement. "Less whining, more scouting."
"There's one over there with all its legs still, and the base looks accessible."
He hefts the tool bag back up onto his shoulder and follows her through the trail of corpses - ally and monster alike - to the Guardian lying dormant and half-overturned on the scorched grass. He flips down his visor, firing up a handheld blowtorch to open up the access panel. A little way away, Jerrin and Symin approach another.
"Any time today, grandpa."
He tunes Purah out, hooking his slate up to the internals. She's right to be nervous; the Guardians have been disabled thanks to Paya, but there's plenty of flesh and blood monsters still roaming the battlefield. Purah dispatches the few which roam too close with the same brutal efficiency she'd shown a century past.
After a few minutes of fiddling and reprogramming, the lights come back up in reassuring blue. He hurries out of range, and the Guardian lurches back to its metal feet. Its head swivels, scanning its surroundings. He holds his breath.
The Guardian focuses on a group of moblins and powers up its laser. The blast sends them flying, and the stink of charred fur drifts on the breeze.
Purah smiles. "Well alright then. Let's go find another."
Mazli glides over the battlefield, keen eyes taking in the chaos. He's been dipping in to lend his spear where allied troops are under pressure, like many of the Rito warriors. He's even seen the bard around, airlifting the injured out of harm's way. From this height, he can see all the fighters who hadn't received that assistance in time. Charred or savaged bodies lie everywhere.
Below him, red laser light flashes through the air, aimed at the castle. There's a ear-destroying noise, and then another, and the whole thing collapses inward like a redwood struck by lightning. He cycles his wings, transfixed in place. The tower falls under its own weight, sending a dust cloud outward. Then the light grey masonry dust is subsumed by smoke as black as night, and the clouds draw in across a blood-red moon.
Screams and shouts float up to him from below, and he wrenches his gaze away from the nightmare boar coalescing in front of the castle. All around, corpses of felled monsters are lurching up on shattered legs. A lynel with one arm barely hanging on by a thread of sinew kicks out, smashing a Zora's ribcage in. Mazli adjusts his grip on his spear and dives down to help.
Rivan can't tear his eyes away from the sight of Bazz choking on his own blood. It seems unreal. How can Bazz be dying? They've known one another since the nursery pools.
Gaddison is shoving at him, trying to get him to move. His feet stumble of their own accord. A Rito has dropped out of the sky to help distract it, and he forces himself to get with the program. He shoves his own spear in between its ribs with a crunch. Gadds has managed to pole-vault onto its back, and rams hers into its neck. Her face is streaked with tears. Eventually, the combined effect of their blows takes it down once more, and it kicks out weakly but doesn't rise again.
The Rito nods at them, looking exhausted.
"You guys alright?"
Rivan nods, unable to force any words past the lump in his throat. Gadds has slumped to the floor, one hand on Bazz's forehead. He doesn't know what else to do, so he lifts his spear back up and keeps watch.
"I told you not to jinx things!"
Lasli doesn't waste any breath on a reply; she strongly suspects the only sound she could make right now would be a terrified scream, anyway. All around them, reanimated monsters groan and roar as they lash out. Dorian, who found them a few minutes ago, keeps as much at bay with his bow as he can while they make their retreat.
Then there's an earth-shaking noise as the Calamity swings around towards them. There are figures on horseback in front of the monstrous boar, two of them racing flat out across the grass. She never met Zelda, as Impa did; for Lasli, the last Princess of Hyrule has always been a semi-mythical figure. She's still unprepared for the searing power of her radiance. It leaves her breathless in its wake. When she tells this tale to her grandchildren, they will not believe that Lasli saw the Goddess Incarnate. But she will know; will never forget how this moment felt.
Then Link gallops past, and he is just as much a stranger. This is the Hero, the Hylian Champion, resplendent in blue with fierce determination writ across his face. He turns in the saddle to send a golden arrow at the boar. It slows it down only by a heartbeat, but that's enough for Link to be gone. The Calamity chases after him, drawn away from the rest of the fighting.
Lasli breathes in, and out, and then follows Dorian and Claree. While Link and Zelda go make history, there is still plenty of work to be done by the people whose names will not go down in song today.