Even with the sun hovering straight above the city, only slivers of light could make it past the poorly constructed shacks of the South Bowels. And standing in the natural spotlight was Sir Rhychester, who was rumored to have slayed over a thousand men under the banner of Din's Shield. Some soldiers said that the color of the knight's dark crimson armor came from the dried, caked blood of his enemies. The color of his armor helped verify the vicious rumor that he derived endless pleasure from cutting men open, and according to many who had fought alongside him, it was difficult to avoid the lethal pathway of his blade for friend and foe equally.
Huddled in the shade between a score of House Praetenmore's bannermen and captivity were an impoverished mother and her child, a girl who looked like a brown haired boy wearing clothes that looked like they were fished from a rubbish dump. The older woman wore a messy apron over her tattered dress as if she were in the middle of her chores and a cap to hide her graying hair, but the intrusion of these men upon her otherwise routine life awoke primal ferocity. Two house guards, one wearing a leather right pauldron, and leather pads underneath his surcoat and the other a mixed up combination of steel and leather, held individually sized spears crossed in front of the two captives.
The reason for the mismatch in armor across every personal army belonging to Hyborns such as the Praetonmores was because every soldier was responsible for his own equipment. Unlike Her Majesty's army, which issued to each soldier a uniform length spear, a uniform set of armor, and a uniform reinforced left vambrace, commonly called the buckler, Her vassals controlled armies lacked anything resembling a structure. Their house guards from as young as eight to as old as thirty were used for either personal protection or as pawns for The Coliseum, a patch of bloodied dirt, broken armor, and forgotten corpses in the center of a massive, stone stadium where every city dweller rich and poor congregated to spectate two teams of well armed pawns charge at, fight, and kill each other. By the time the carnage was over, there was always plenty of leftover weapons and arms for the pickings. This was evidenced by the fact that not a single man-at-arm under gainful employment wore a piece of armor without a stain of blood somewhere.
To lead the undisciplined lot, a noble simply had to select a leader from his hardened conscripts, or in Sir Rhychester's case, hire the largest mercenary on the market, and give him a title and ownership of property within the city, for there was little a man would not sacrifice for the bare minimum requirement to escape the caste of peasants.
The fearless mercenary-turned-knight screamed into the face of his second in charge, "Bring the girl to me!", who then relayed the order to the nearest grunt, who then obeyed his command and yanked the very girl from her mother.
"No! You can't hurt us! We have names!" the mother squealed ferociously as she clawed onto her screaming daughter. Though she was threatening Sir Rhychester with repercussions should he break the Queen's laws, any royal sentencing rested solely on the testimony of the witnesses, and if every witness not wearing a Praetenmore insignia died, then justice was meaningless. "She has a name! She has a birth document! You can't hurt her!" Rowark's survival became that much more crucial.
"Shut up!" Sir Rhychester fired at her, waiting for her to calm down, "I won't do nothing to her. I'm not a lawbreaker, unlike you." He knelt down to the trembling girl and spoke softly, "What's your name, girl?"
She avoided his eyesight as much as she wanted to avoid answering him, but his persistent glare finally found its way into her fearful heart. "Woaphelia," she squeaked out like a cornered mouse.
Sir Rhychester cranked his lips into a sinister grin, "Woaphelia. All right, listen here. Your mother's right, I can't hurt you." Placing a his metal hand on her shoulder to comfort her, he inadvertently made her tremble and cry instead, "Hey! Shh! It's okay! Everything's going to be okay! And here is what I can do it all better." Her sobs failed to desist, so the bald man continued, "According to word around town, your mother decided to harbor a fugitive. Now, that is very unlawful, which means that I can take your mother to court for abetting a fugitive that has grievanced my liege personally. But here's where you come in. You had a good look at the Link's face, so you're going to tell me which one of these little Links is the one you sheltered. If you do, I promise I won't speak a word of your mother's crime to a soul.
"If you don't," he changed his tactic from comfort to intimidation and towered over the poor girl, "you and your mum will be in worse trouble than you can imagine."
Wailing even harder in response to his threat, Woaphelia ran for her restrained mother, but a gauntlet shot out and grabbed the girl's wrist before she got too far, "Mommy! He's hurting me!"
It took three men to hold the protective mother, and one had even lost his grip when she launched herself forth, "No! My baby! Don't hurt her, you monster!"
With Woaphie's arm lifted the air, Sir Rhychester dangled the girl trying to break free, "You talk to her then. Tell your girl to do what I say, and I leave with my men." He placed his right hand over his heart, "I swear to the Goddesses."
The girl turned to her mother for an answer, "Mommy?"
"It's okay sweetie, Mommy's here," her mother responded tearfully, "Just do as he tells you, okay? Everything's going to be okay."
Woaphelia nodded and submitted to the big knight. Gently, he placed the girl back onto the ground and grunted, "That wasn't so hard was it, now?" The knight led the girl to a group of five boys standing in a horizontal line, each looking as different as the next, but each had a very defining scar visible on their body. A single man-at-arms wearing thin metal plates stitched onto a leather coat and a metal helmet with a thick-wire grate to protect his face kept the children afraid and behaved.
"You stand there," Sir Rhychester ordered the girl to stand in front of the accused as he walked over to the child furthest to his left. He drew his sword and aimed the sharp point at the boy's chest.
With a mean glare, he asked the girl, "Is he the one?" placing the boy's fate in her hands.
Woaphelia stared at the boy, who desperately shook his head to deny the accusation, and then she shook her head. Sir Rhychester nodded at her answer and, just as everyone was comfortable with the boy's innocence, plunged the blade into the boy's chest. With shock planted on his face, the limp body slid off the blade and fell lifeless to the ground.
"NOOO!" screamed the young girl, "No! I didn't want him to die! Why did you kill him!? He didn't have to die!"
Sir Rhychester barked back at her protests, "Because he's useless to me! Just like you will be if you don't identify my fugitive!" The man pointed his sword straight at the next boy's heart, "Is it this one?"
"I'm not doing this anymore! Not if you're going to kill them anyway!" Woaphelia refused as viciously.
"SHUT UP! They're Links! No one will care if they die!" roared Sir Rhychester back at her defiant tears, "Now tell me! Is it this one!?"
Anger surged through Rowark's body as he stormed in and made his presence known, "Halt! In the name of the Queen, stop this madness at once!" His fury replaced any need to muster courage to run past the encircling soldiers and confront the bald brute responsible for organizing the charade.
When everybody turned their eyes to Rowark, he almost recalled his very experience from being the subject of a Trial. Once again, he was the center of attention; only this time, there was a woman, her daughter, and four other boys looking to him to save their lives. Though the musty air was silent, the murderous intentions of Sir Rhychester, glaring at Rowark with a ravishing thirst for blood, and every man-at-arms were loud and clear between the walls of the shadowed alleyway.
A thin ray of sunlight managed to poke through the roofs and wet clothing, gleam off of the fresh blood on Sir Rhychester's blade, and reflect the bright red all over the dark bowels of the city. From neck to sole, Sir Rhychester was covered in blood red metal; each pauldron sitting on his shoulders could easily fit man's head inside; the great insignia of the Praetenmores seemed to magnify his broad breast; the only vulnerable chinks in Sir Rhychester's armor, which only meant it was slightly less protected, were his armpits, elbows, and knees. Two nights ago, it was hard to see the details of mail plate against the light of the blazing fire. Underneath the daylit sky, the masterwork of the Zawk brothers craft was about as expressive as it was obvious and expensive. Polished to reduce the friction of blades, thickened to reduce the blunt force of maces, and reinforced to reduce the piercing of arrows, the knight's full mail could only come from the workmanship of a Goron smith.
"In the name of the Queen, you say? Ha!" mocked Sir Rhychester, unamused by Rowark's inconsequential claim to authority. Sir Rhychester, like a knights of his tradition, pledged their swords to a landed noble, who then pledged his sword to a count or a duke, who then made the ultimate pledge to the Queen. Though each knight was technically sworn to the Queen's service indirectly, a great resistance to the Crown's authority was due to the lack of a direct pledge between knight and Queen. To complicate matters further, the Queen had her own contingency of knights who did serve the Queen directly in her own personal army. Hence, the knights of the old tradition like Sir Rhychester commonly referred to the Queen's own knights as "sergeants", the old term for promoted soldiers whose main role in the army was to administer orders from the capitans and provide tactical support for their companies. "Amuse me, what authority Queen allows you to break the fifteenth article of the Hylian Government Treatise?"
Rowark's blood froze. The most recent, great event in Hyrule's history was not the Legend of Queen Zelda and the Hero of Time, but rather the end of the Great Civil War and the treaty signed afterward. Countless lives were sacrificed so that the Eight Great Houses could have greater representation in parliament than Queen Zelda the First initially drafted. The resulting treaty gave the members of the Eight Great Houses greater autonomy, damn near legal immunity for everything, and more lawmaking powers. Rowark was unsure of the specifics of the article that Sir Rhychester was referring to, but all knew that the Queen's men were expressly prohibited from interfering with any landed Hyborn family's "right to justice", a Goddess given right for Hyborns to kill whomever they pleased. As much as Rowark wished to discount this farce as justice, there was no way a legal court would see it from Rowark's perspective.
Finding an immediate answer to challenge the legality of Sir Rhychester's mock trial was impossible. From the court's point of view, Rowark was wrong. Right or wrong, however, he felt the need to challenge the killing of innocent children, "Treaty or not, you just killed an innocent protected under the law!"
"Like it or not, our last queen decided that persons with no birth papers were not protected under the law," Sir Rhychester responded coldly, "These children are not people, and there is evidence that one of them burned down my liege's blacksmith two nights ago, justifying my cause for investigation. Therefore my liege does not require your throne's permission to search his estate to investigate his grievance."
"You killed a boy for being innocent of a crime!"
Sir Rhychester shrugged off the life of the dead boy on the ground, "He was going to be guilty of something sooner or later. Maybe he's already guilty of something. Tell me, are you willing to defend every single piece of rubbish you find on the street to your very last breath?"
Rowark drew Kinja's scimitar, "I am ready to protect ALL of Hyrule's people unto my dying breath!" Rowark's sword felt light in his hand, but the balance of the sword was centered in the most unnatural spot for a blade, at least for someone unfamiliar with the fighting styles of the Gerudo. Shorter and slimmer than Sir Rhychester's broadsword, the scimitar only had the reputation of Gerudo metalworking to withstand the coming battle.
However, the drawing of his scimitar drew a laugh from his opponent, "With what, that Gerudo sword of yours? Who are you really protecting? Hylia's chosen people, or witches?"
Rowark wanted to make a snappy comeback, but his foe initiated his offense with a quick flick of the blade. As soon as Rowark lifted his own weapon to parry the attack and counter, his sloppy overhand swing made him realize just how unprepared he was to fight in such close proximity. His scimitar felt significantly shorter than Sir Rhychester's broadsword. In all his experience in armed conflict, he had never utilized a weapon shorter than his opponent's and had only drawn his short sword, built to stab rather than to cut, only on three occasions outside of drilling. Even worse than wielding a one handed weapon was trying to find some usage for his free, empty hand. Swinging the sword, let alone parrying or thrusting, felt about as unnatural as writing with his left hand.
Even with thick, constricting plates covering his limbs, the veteran knight attacked with a quickness as fast as the naked Gerudo demon Rowark had fought only yesterday. Had Rowark not leaned back in time, his face would have been sliced open, but with the center of his weight hanging over his heels, he was in no position to counter, or move out of the way for that matter. Sir Rhychester understood Rowark's predicament by extending his wrist to thrust the tip of his broadsword into Rowark's solar plexus.
Only a last minute parry could save Rowark from death, but the life saving maneuver cost him his balance. Falling backward as the sheer force of Sir Rhychester's follow through knocked him off his feet, he landed hard on his shoulder against the stony pavement. There was no time to feel pain, though. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could to avoid another life-ending attack aimed at his throat on his way up. Once Rowark had regained his composure, his lungs began to beg for more air to replenish his stressed body. After only three, relaxed attacks from Sir Rhychester, Rowark was already starting to see an end to his stamina.
"Come on! Is that all Her Majesty's finest has to offer?" Sir Rhychester taunted with his arms spread open to expose his plated chest. "Since you didn't seem to be prepared, allow me to even it up a bit by giving you three tries to hack my head off."
A growl escaped from Rowark as the his opponent's words twisted the emotions stirring inside his chest. He had seen men with fragile egos fall into the trap of the taunt, compelled to lash out with animal rage, only to be bested every time by the taunter. His head screamed out loud not to cave into his emotions, but his pride as a knight of the Queen's army had an obstinate way of tuning out reason. He dashed into Sir Rhychester's strike zone to take advantage of the rare opportunity presented before him.
Rowark flicked his wrist to a snap a cross cut upward into Sir Rhychester's chin, but the veteran knight calmly backstepped out of harm's way. Next, Rowark attempted to utilize his follow through from his first swing to unleash a high forehand, mustering as much explosive power behind the swift stroke aimed at Sir Rhychester's neck. His blade struck nothing but air again when the big knight merely ducked and sidestepped underneath the wild swing. Following the relentless example of Sir Rhychester's offense, Rowark attempted another backhanded slice diagonally downward across his foe's chest.
Shortly after Rowark felt the resistance from the block, Sir Rhychester's gauntlet shot forth and struck squarely on Rowark's right cheek.
The punch had nearly knocked Rowark off his feet and almost the consciousness from right between his eyes. All Rowark could feel at first were the impact and the massive ache pressing against his face afterward. The only option running through his mind was escape. But if he were to run, who was to going to fight for justice and protect the defenseless? Rowark planted his feet and shook off his lingering headache.
"What's wrong?" teased Sir Rhychester as he exposed himself openly for attack, "Don't tell me you're quitting after three free strikes! How about another freebie?" Setting Rowark further on edge, the veteran knight boldly crept into Rowark's personal space. Rowark lashed out instinctively to keep Sir Rhychester at bay, but the knight parried the swipe safely away to the outside and then delivered another devastating punch to Rowark's face, this time landing cleanly on his right eye.
"Gah!" Rowark groaned in agony as he hastily reoriented his vision and let his bloodrush take over. Beginning with a downward cut, his opponent initiated a flurry of swings like furious artist stroking his brush with precise calculation onto a bloody canvas. Each time Rowark lifted his sword to retaliate, a metal fist would land on his exposed face. Each time Rowark lifted his sword to block one attack, he left himself open for a painful follow up. The first cut was a shallow wound on his left thigh, but the second wound was a deep gash just above his hip, and the rest that landed all happened to painfully avoid Rowark's vitals. There was no doubt Sir Rhychester was toying with him.
An icy cold cut seared across Rowark's forearm. Sir Rhychester's swordsmanship was so quick that Rowark had no time to see the incoming blade aimed at his wrist. He reeled away and withdrew immediately, but his opponent gave Rowark no time to recover. First, the young squire had to block a downward swing, then a cross cut, then another moulinet, and finally a low leg slice, but it was a setup for Sir Rhychester to shoot his bare gauntlet into Rowark's exposed neck.
Expecting a punch in the throat, he felt an iron grip tighten around his neck instead. Lifting Rowark high off the ground and cutting off his air supply, Sir Rhychester growled and pointed his sword at Rowark's face, "Yield to me so I can end your worthless life quickly!" Rowark struggled to squeeze air through his restrained throat, but he could still freely move about.
Warmth emanated from his right wrist. It sent a soothing, but urgent message up his arm and to his head: don't yield. Easier said than done, Rowark merely had to precisely time the incoming stab and guess its precise location, all while being strangled. Each heartbeat shooting blood through his constricted neck felt as if it were his last.
Then Sir Rhychester struck. And somehow, Rowark knew exactly when and where to move his blade and parry the life-threatening stab out of the way. Had a gauntlet not been there choking him, he would have felt the relief, but his fight for survival was not over yet. Rowark switched his scimitar from his right hand to his left, just in time to deflect another incoming attack away from his face. Again and again, Rowark parried stab after stab, as if the warmth from his curse mark was almost telling him when and where Sir Rhychester intended each life ending strike. However, with each refusal to accept his final fate, his foe grew more and more frustrated, causing him to squeeze his windpipe even tighter.
Another sudden flash of heat coursed through his body, sank into his bones, and escaped through his skin. Something was coming.
Rowark's eyes darted to his left after Sir Rhychester's did. Somehow, the big man could feel an incoming attack before Rowark could and lifted his sword to block.
CLANG!
The clash of steel felt like the longest heartbeat of anybody's life. When Rowark saw who was wielding the blade, what he saw felt like something straight out of a fairy tale. It was a boy, no older than eleven, with scars matching the bounty's descriptors perfectly. His face was so mangled, disfigured, and scarred that it looked like his skin had been ripped apart and then sown back together. It was obvious that the buildup of grime and muck had colored his hair unnaturally, but still his each strand of hair looked like it was black with specks of blonde. Suspended in the air and balanced perfectly by the resistance of Sir Rhychester's sword, the boy had also aimed the impact of his blade and balanced himself on the point of his sword where it received the least stress, called the sweet spot in the military. Was this child, the center of all the crazy events that had been happening, him?
Sir Rhychester threw Rowark aside so he could aside so he could focus his superior strength on swinging his blade against the resistance and pushing the boy away. Instead, the boy redirected the momentum downward and flipped over the knight, landing only palms away from Rowark's face.
Standing tall with nothing but a bloodied longsword in his two hands, the boy held himself up with a frightening confidence. His curse mark was sending hot signals from his hand, telling him that suggested the boy harbored very ill intentions. Wearing rags stitched onto a ripped up tunic, a cloth sack on his back, and no shoes, the boy scanned left and right, his cold, green eyes were studying each soldiers' face. No way, were his first shocked thoughts, he's going to kill every single one of them.
"Oy," the boy called out to Sir Rhychester with a frightening, dried up voice that sounded like he had inhaled a cauldron of scalding water, "I heard you were looking for me."