A/N - I HIGHLY RECOMMEND listening to Night of the Werewolves by Powerwolf because it was a big inspiration for Night of Terrors Part 1.

Night of Terrors

As the light vanished silently, the temperature around Zelda plummeted. The next thing she noticed was that it was dark; oppressively dark. Outside of the dim yellow light emanating from the pedestal, pitch blackness reigned. Instinctively, she called out to the one she trusted whom she knew had come through already. "Link?"

"Shh," the sailor responded in a clipped, hurried fashion. "Right here," he whispered quickly. For an instant, Zelda's royal instincts kicked in and she grew angry that he would shush her, but before she could rebuke him, she came to her senses, having heard the tone of his whisper that left nothing in question; he was listening for something else. Intrinsically cowed, the princess stepped off of the pedestal in the direction of Link's voice, and immediately something wet grazed her ankle beneath her dress. After the briefest moment of fear, she realized it was a plant. She stepped slowly and tentatively, her hands held out in front of her, as one does when they cannot see the way forward.

"Right here," came Link's whisper again. This time, he sounded to be right next to her, so she reached a hand toward his voice, further into the darkness. For a second she groped thin air, feeling completely lost, and then someone else came through the warp and the pillar of light that the pedestal gave off allowed her to see for a moment. In the instant of light, their surroundings were revealed to her as a forest with dense undergrowth and foliage. Bargoh stood off to her left with Viscen next to him while Link was immediately on her right. After the light vanished again her hand found his shoulder where her eyes had locked onto it.

"Farore's Wind, it's dark here," Telma said quietly, taking a careful step off of the pedestal.

"Shhh!" Link shushed desperately again, this time joined simultaneously by Bargoh's deep goron voice.

"What is it?" Zelda breathed. Link's extreme alertness was causing her to grow nervous.

"We—" as Link began to whisper, something large rustled the undergrowth of the forest a short distance off in the blackness. He cut off immediately when the sound began, but it ended just as quickly as it had begun and again there was silence. Telma had made no more sound once she had been shushed and was now fully aware of the reason for their restraint. As a tense anxiety rose in Zelda's heart, goosebumps formed on her pale skin.

"Why don't we warp back?" Zelda asked quietly, hoping Bargoh heard her.

"When a pedestal has been used to receive travelers," the goron replied quietly, "it cannot be used to send travelers for another hour or so. The other way around is true as well."

"If only we had a torch," Link whispered, changing the subject. His words triggered a memory in Zelda's mind. In her childhood, her mother taught her the ways of the four magics; Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, Din's Fire, and Hylia's Light. She had tried an incantation of Nayru's magic in Dangoro Pass to heal Zeric but had failed. She had forgone any attempts at magic since her mother died, and so her skills were almost nonexistent. Even back when her mother was alive and was teaching her in private, Zelda had always been best at Hylia's magic. If there was any reason for that, she knew it not; she simply had a knack for the goddess's light. Because magic was not believed in these days and was spoken of as a past evil entity, she didn't want others to know that she knew or had practiced magic herself, but if there was ever a time to use it, that time was now.

Another rustling of brush could be heard some meters behind them and as they whirled in the direction of the sound, a column of light blasted their retinas from the Warp Pedestal, and Zeric appeared. Before he could say a word, Telma shushed urgently. To his credit, the prince caught on immediately that something was amiss and was silent as he stepped off the pedestal. Removing her hand from Link's shoulder, Zelda cupped her hands together and shut her eyes tightly, focusing on her memory of creating the little light. Silently, she breathed Hylia's incantation, and to her surprise, a diminutive orb of pure white light fluttered into existence in her hands. She opened her eyes to the new light, and the first things she noticed in her peripheral vision were Link's wide eyes, staring in utter amazement at her newly revealed ability. Without thinking, she looked up and met his eyes and her focus broke, causing the light to flicker. Fearing the return of the oppressive blackness, she focused all the more, putting her eyes back on the wee shining thing. She noticed vaguely that her hand was not only warm but seemed to vibrate with her concentration, but she continued to pour her effort into keeping her light going.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a ripping sound greeted her ears. Her light flickered out. At the grating sound and the abrupt return of darkness, Zelda heard a nervous intake of breath come from her left. Her heart pounding, she shut her eyes again and pictured the orb in her palms. The light returned faintly and she saw that the sound was coming from Link. She glanced over to see him tearing a long strip of canvas off the bottom of his pants where he had left off with Zeric's bandage. When he stopped and stood back up, he wrapped the strip of cloth around his head diagonally so that it covered one eye. Then, despite being armed with naught but a dagger and a bow which he had slung diagonally across his body - and yet still no arrows - he struck a stance with his arms spread protectively out to either side, dagger gripped in his left hand, taking up as much space between her and the darkness as he could. She had no idea what he would do if a monster suddenly pounced out at him from the void. Still, his confident and defensive presence was somehow reassuring to her. She noticed her hand felt very warm and her diminutive light grew in strength. It seemed to be instinctual to her. Hearing another ominous rustling of leaves coming from the bowels of the forest, she allowed her eyes to stray up from her light and into the dense undergrowth in the direction from which the sound had come. She scanned the greenery for a moment before she saw them. Two eerie, pale green eyes reflected her light back at them. The eyes' owner was far enough out of the light that it was completely invisible; its horrifying eyes hovering in the blackness at least two meters off the ground. Zelda's already tense heart lurched into her throat at the sudden sight and she uttered a strangled gasp of terror, her light again flickering out. Fear gripped her savagely in the darkness as she tried desperately to revive Hylia's Light but to no avail.

The light of the pedestal reappeared and the eyes were gone, causing Zelda's stomach to twist into a knot. "Din's Fire, it's dark here," came Pipit's confident voice. "Link? You—"

"Shhh," came the desperate plea of at least three of the other people present.

"What? What's going on?" The dark-haired sailor asked, still loudly.

"We're not alone," Bargoh said quietly. Zelda then heard the unmistakable hiss of a blade, assumably Pipit's, flying free of its scabbard.

"I can't see a damn thing," Pipit whispered angrily.

"I wish I had brought my sword to the trial," Zeric whispered, feeling a strong desire to be armed.

"I wish mine hadn't been taken from me," Link quipped quietly. For a moment, they all listened, their ears ringing with the stillness of the forest. The chill in the air nipped at Zelda's bare arms and her heart beat heavily in her ears.

Then, light plunged into the woods from the Warp Pedestal again, bringing Darbus into existence. In the flash of light, Telma screamed.

"There's something right there!" she cried, raising her arm to point as the light vanished. Meanwhile, Zelda was still trying to focus on reproducing Hylia's Light.

"Whatever it is, it knows that we are here," Zeric said calmly at a regular volume level. This isn't a good place to get ourselves into a fight, so we need to get moving. Bargoh, you lead the way. Link, Pipit, Viscen, we will box the ladies in the middle and Darbus, you follow."
"I know what it is," Bargoh said.

"Well what is it?" Pipit wanted to know.

"Wolfos," Bargoh stated darkly. Darunia received word that there have been wolfos roaming the Eastern Woods, but I didn't think we'd face them this soon. You're right though, we can't warp back, so we should get a move on. There is a place between here and the Great Deku Tree's glade where we can stop until daylight."

"This Warp Pedestal didn't take us to the Great Deku Tree's glade?" Zeric asked.

"No," Darbus cut in, taking things in stride, "this Warp Pedestal is some five miles south of the Great Deku Tree's glade."

"What the devil is a wolfos?" Pipit asked.

"Wolves," Darbus responded, "that have been twisted, transformed, and completely controlled by a dark brand of magic."

"Everyone get close," Bargoh instructed, "they won't attack if we're all in a tight group." Then, dismally, he added, "I hope."

"Can't see," Link said quietly. Finally, Zelda managed to produce another small orb of light cupped in both of her palms. The wee ball gave enough white light for the party to see by and they grouped up as Zeric had ordered, with even Viscen obeying without complaint.

"We must move north," Bargoh instructed as he took the head of their formation. Behind him Telma walked, flanked by Pipit on her left and Viscen on her right. Zelda followed Telma closely, straddled by Link and Zeric on her left and right, respectively. Immediately behind Zelda strode the massive Darbus. It was in this tight formation that the eight of them began to make their way north with Zelda's meager Hylia magic illuminating their nearest surroundings.

As they began to move, Zelda realized that they were on a path just barely wide enough for all three of them to walk abreast, but wide enough nonetheless, and she was thankful. When they had first arrived, she was beginning to think that they would be having to blaze their own trail through the dense ground cover. The ground and foliage around them was wet, and she could tell that it had rained recently.

As they made headway, at times they could hear the evil wolfos making pace with them somewhere in the darkness to either side, and at times all was quiet aside from their footsteps and labored breathing. In a way, the times when they couldn't hear the monsters were more nerve-racking than the times when they could. In the edges of her light, Zelda could just barely make out the massive trunks of pines and the innumerable ferns that carpeted the forest floor. Amongst the greenery somewhere were twisted monsters that thirsted for their blood, and no one knew when they might attack.

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They had been hiking through the woods for hours. To Zelda, trudging along the muddy path had become her life. With no conversation and the constant fear of being attacked, the trek through the forest felt eternal. Trying to distract herself from worrying about the wolfos, she thought back to Goron City, and it seemed a distant memory. Strange, she thought, how such a short period of time can feel so long when the right, or wrong, she amended, circumstances stack together. She had considered asking "how much longer" many times, but feared that she didn't want to know the answer. She had no concept of how long it took to walk five miles, and in the deep wood which they traversed, it was impossible to know how far they had come. Additionally, the path bent this way and that, uphill and downhill, and so those five miles, if they were as the crow flew, would be more like eight to ten miles along the trail. All in all, her existence had been dumbed down to this: trodding forward one foot after the other in a diminutive circle of pathetic light, brushing by wet foliage here and stepping in a muddy puddle there.

For a moment, she wondered what time it was. When they had left the Dangoro Pass, it was evening. She figured the sun had set by the time they had reached Goron City. They had only been in Goron City for an hour or so, but when they arrived in the forest, it had been pitch black. How could that have been? And now that they had been hiking for hours, it had to have been deep night.

The sibilance of brush rustling terrifyingly close on their right scared Zelda out of her thoughts and back into the real, cold world. At the exact same time, a bizarre howl split the night somewhere to their left. Zelda's skin crawled, and distracted and afraid, Zelda's light flickered and threatened to leave them stranded in the encroaching darkness. She took a deep breath and blocked out the anxiousness, bringing the fragile orb back to strength. She still did not understand how she was able to do it so easily.

They were cresting a hill and as they began to descend, the trees around them grew less densely. The downhill slope of the hill was nevertheless covered in shrubs and ferns and the trail was abnormally rocky and uneven. With the unseen beasts audibly near and their descent underway, Telma cried out in pain. The barkeep tumbled forward, slowing her fall by grabbing Bargoh's shoulder. Zelda's light blinked out of existence as she stopped in her tracks to avoid tripping over the barkeep.

"Telma! What happened?" Zeric asked. "Are you alright?"

"Rolled my ankle somethin' awful," Telma moaned as Link and Viscen scanned the woods uneasily.

"Can you walk?" Pipit asked desperately. "Now isn't a good time for us to stop moving…" As if on queue, the menacing rumble of a low growl emanated from the darkness alarmingly close. With palpable fear rising in the small group, Bargoh made a snap decision. The massive goron scooped Telma off the ground with little effort, causing the woman to yelp in surprise.

"Keep going! We are very close to safety," he said as he turned and began down the hill again in the darkness. It was not pitch black anymore, Zelda realized. Compared to her bright white light, it had seemed so before, but there were now enough gaps in the canopy to let some moonlight down to the ground. On her left, Link quickly wrenched the strip of canvas off his head and discarded it. The group broke formation now and began to flow down the slope. As Bargoh had said, Zelda could now see that the forest petered out at the bottom of this hill. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she heard the growl turn to a roar somewhere behind them now. The tyrannous vice of panic seized her heart and picking up her skirts, she desperately followed the person in front of her. By the grace of the goddesses, no one else lost their footing on the uneven downhill path and before she realized it, they were on flat ground and the forest had ended. They were in a wide, circular clearing.

They streamed toward a structure she now saw and could tell it had once been some sort of outpost. Though it was small, battlements lined its roof. Its thick wooden door was augmented with an iron gate on the outer side of it. The meadow they crossed was bathed in pale moonlight through a generous break in the eerily cloudy sky.

Bargoh was reaching the door of the outpost now with Viscen a few strides behind him followed by Pipit and then Zeric. Zelda itched with the acute anxiety that at any moment an unseen attacker would pounce on her vulnerable back. She felt as though it would happen at any second. Finally, unable to resist the temptation, the princess glanced back as she ran. Two immense wolfos burst through the tree line with their sickly glowing eyes. Seeing their bodies' shapes for the first time now, her heart lurched in terror and suddenly she was falling. Her foot had caught a stray rock. Now she was rolling in the grass. She tried to scream, but in her fear-stricken state, no sound came. Her panic reached a point of horrified hopelessness as she struggled to regain her feet. The bloodthirsty beasts would be upon her any second. She had never known fear this intense, and it overwhelmed her balance and in the heat of the moment she tripped over herself in trying to get to her feet and ended up on her side. The dewey grass saturated her once-pink dress.

Darbus, who had been on her right, didn't notice her fall and had kept running. Link, however, had noticed and skidded in the wet grass to a halt. Zelda looked up from the ground and saw him look back at her and then up at the charging monsters, concern and fear written on his face. He was halfway between her and the gate.

"Go! Leave me!" Zelda cried with tears of overwhelming helplessness springing to her eyes. She didn't want to die. "I'll be right behind you!" she shouted, though she knew she could not possibly outrun the wolfos. Link was practically unarmed. He looked back at the safety of the outpost where Pipit was standing at the open door, ready to close the gate as soon as everyone was inside. Then he turned back to her, his eyes two moons under the gravity of the moment.

"Never," he whispered. He rushed back to her as the savage beasts closed more ground. He reached his hand out to her and she took it. He hauled her up to her feet and then shoved her forcefully toward the outpost. Zelda could hear the wolfos' paws pounding the earth now and knew they wouldn't make it to the stone shelter in time. The doorway was only fifteen meters away now and Zelda glanced back to see how close Link was, but her heart skipped a beat when she saw that he wasn't following her. The blonde sailor had stopped to hold the beasts back, his dagger gripped in his left hand. He stood firm and as the two wolfos approached him they balked, seeming to be surprised at their prey's behavior. They stopped shortly in front of him, growling menacingly. Zelda watched in disbelief as the hylian stood his ground before the two freakish nightmares in front of him. He calmly removed the bow from his shoulder and dropped it on the ground, then, adding to her astonishment, he went on the attack. He suddenly took a quick and aggressive step toward the wolfos on his right, winding up for a thrust with the knife, but as that monster retreated a pace, he pivoted on his foot and his thrust went instead toward the wolfos on his left. The beast's reflexes were like lightning, however, and it leapt clear of the razor-sharp steel point.

"Your Highness!" The shout came from Pipit and was directed at Zelda. She wrenched her eyes away from Link and realized that she had stopped moving toward the outpost. "Come to safety!" the sailor continued. Tortured in her heart, she turned her distraught gaze back to see Link somersault to the side of a savage swipe of a wolfos' claws. One of the tears that had previously formed in her eyes rolled down her cheek, clearing a path through the dirt there.

"ZELDA!" Zeric shouted from the gate. Although she was torn between watching Link and getting to safety, she reluctantly obeyed and continued toward the stone walls, but not without looking back to watch the young man fight. As she looked again, things went from bad to worse. Another wolfos emerged from the forest at a dead run and a howl erupted from the opposite direction, signifying the coming of a fourth. "Get inside!" her brother called as she drew near. She reached the gate, but Pipit hesitated in closing it. Link fought valiantly, but with one step here and another step there, he was slowly losing ground and retreating. Shutting the gate felt to the dark-haired sailor like sealing his friend's fate. Not only that, but Link had saved his life. As he hesitated, Viscen made the decision for him. The soldier yanked Pipit's shoulder to get him away from the gate and then shut it forcefully.

Pipit and Zelda watched Link helplessly from inside the gate now. As the blonde sailor slashed at one wolfos to force it to retreat, the other was too fast for him and lunged, latching its huge jaws onto his thigh. His other leg buckling to a knee, he cried out in pain. From behind the gate, Pipit winced and Zelda cried out as the massive maw closed around the sailor's leg. They watched as Link turned the dagger over in his grip and plunged it down into the wolfos' back, then pulled it out and plunged it down in again. The monster released his leg and howled pitifully, thrashing its body free of the steel. It rolled erratically away from Link even as the other wolfos attacked. They saw Link attempt to rise to his feet just as the beast's clawed paw struck his chest with a powerful blow, sending him reeling backward. His feet kept up with his momentum for three off-balance strides before they gave way and he fell violently onto his back. He was stunned, but began to roll over slowly in order to get onto his hands and knees, and Pipit had had enough of watching helplessly.

Gasping ineffectually for breath, Link tried rolling over to get to his feet, but he could barely move. Between the wolfos' strike to his chest and the hard landing on his back, the wind had been thoroughly driven from his lungs. Fiery pain in his chest ignited as his diaphragm finally hiccuped back to functionality, and wincing, he glanced in the direction of the wolfos. He saw that the one which he had stabbed was trying weakly to make its way back to the woods but would die shortly. The other, however, was advancing on him slowly and menacingly, reveling in the moment as it prepared to finish its kill. Its pale green eyes shone with an otherworldly light as it strode up to him. Its breathing was ragged and spittle came from its lolling tongue. Link noticed vaguely that its breath reeked of death. Laying on his side after failing to get to his hands and knees, Link spied Auru's dagger. Apparently he had dropped it when he fell, though he didn't rightly recall. It was just out of his reach. He knew in a couple more steps the beast would be close enough to lunge in and tear out his throat with its yellowed teeth. He reached for the little weapon, but it was just too far for his hand to grasp it.

"HEY!" the shout came from the direction of the gate, but to Link it sounded muffled and distant. The wolfos' head whipped toward the sound. This was his chance, he realized groggily. He scrabbled at the handle of the knife to get it close enough to wrap his fingers around it. He took hold of it, and the wolfos, seeing that a third member of its kind was going to take care of the newcomer, turned back to finish off its prey. Its head plunged toward Link's unprotected throat and the sailor desperately maneuvered the dagger to stop it. The point of the knife entered the wolfos' mouth and drove up into its brain. Its jaws, instead of closing around Link's throat, simply went limp around his hands as the dead monster lost control of its body. The beast's carcass then crashed down on top of Link.

Princess Zelda watched in horror as the wolfish monster had decided against pursuing Pipit. She was frozen in place and couldn't wrench her eyes away from the sight as it had bared down on Link and prepared to kill him. It had then lunged to finish him but he drove his hands and the dagger in them up into its maw. It was dead. Bargoh had gone out to help Pipit as the third beast had arrived and the two of them had dispatched it together, and now they were rushing to Link's aid.

Zelda wiped the tear off her cheek, smudging the salty liquid into the dirt on her face. She was exhausted. On top of that, in the face of near-certain death, Link had come back for her. He had saved her life and had been willing to sacrifice his own to do so. Pipit and Bargoh were heaving the massive wolfos' body off of Link now. Her heart quivered as the young man groaned pitifully. Pipit offered him a hand and he took it, standing up. As soon as he took a step forward, however, the leg that the wolfos had savaged gave out and he toppled slowly back to the ground.

"He's hurt bad," Pipit said as Bargoh approached.

"I'm okay," Link said weakly from the ground.

Pipit shook his head and looked up at the goron. "Can you carry him inside?"

"Of co—"

"No," Link objected, "help me up." Pipit stooped to get a closer look at his friend, but another howl split the night, causing the brown-haired sailor to whip his head up in the direction from whence it came. He could just make out the fourth wolfos stalking along the tree line, its eyes standing out in the darkness. Zeric appeared by their side wielding a spear. The wolfish monster seemed to be intimidated by their superior numbers as well as the fate of its brethren, because it turned and vanished into the woods.

"I fear they'll be back before morning," Bargoh said quietly, so only the men beside him could hear.

"We will set a watch," Zeric stated.

"I'll go first," Bargoh volunteered, then moved off to retrieve the bow Link had discarded earlier.

Then Link was trying to get up on his own strength. Quickly, Pipit sheathed his cutlass and reached for his arm to help him. When the blonde sailor was on his feet, Pipit put one of Link's arms across his shoulders to support some of his weight and as he did so Link grunted in surprise. The act of his arm moving up to Pipit's shoulder had lit a fire in the wound on his chest. His arm instinctively recoiled back to his side, and Pipit simply gripped his bicep, holding him up. Together, they headed back to the open doorway of the outpost. Bargoh and Zeric followed behind.

\-][- /...to be continued...\ -][-/

A/N - Thanks so much for reading! If you are enjoying this story, please let me know in a review!