After our raid, we began to see small groups of the enemy periodically leave the western valley and move around the plains. I guessed that our lightning attack had shown Ganon just what he was up against; those small bands of fell creatures were likely patrols, set to scout out our positions. Practically every day, small parties of horse archers would leave the ranch as counter-patrols, to ensure the enemy didn't get near our own fortress, and if they did, that they wouldn't return to Ganon's to tell of it. Sometimes it wouldn't be the horse archers, but small parties of Hylian knights that went out. Either way, we seemed to be having no problem dispatching enemy patrols when they came.
As that first week dragged on, I began to worry, though. Particularly about the Darknuts, those intimidating steel behemoths we had encountered in the raid. Our arrows hadn't penetrated their thick armor plates, and I had a hard time believing that our broadswords, spears, or even our crossbow bolts would do the trick either. The Hylian army lacked any real armor-piercing weaponry.
Once, while I was sparring with Link, I asked him, "Do you know of any weapons that could bring down those steel monsters?"
My green-clad friend shrugged. "There wouldn't be many," he responded. "If you had something big like a battle axe, maybe. Or a large two-handed sword."
His second suggestion made me skeptical. "How would a large sword go through if a normally-sized one couldn't?"
Parrying one of my practice strokes, he answered. "I wouldn't know that. But the last time Ganon was a threat, I had a big two-hander given to me by the Great Goron. I was able to defeat a Gerudo in an Iron Knuckle suit once with it."
Once again, Link had used a term which baffled me (though I was beginning to grow accustomed to it). So I asked back, "What's an Iron Knuckle?"
"It's a heavy suit of iron plate armor the Gerudo sometimes wear," he told me as a quick thrust to my gut ended our sparring session. "The Gerudo usually use a heavy two-headed battle axe with it."
A heavy suit of plate armor? Worn in conjunction with a heavy battle axe? It would take a strong Gerudo indeed to use such an array, but it sounded like just the thing we would need to counter the Darknuts. Immediately I thanked a rather confused Link and ran to the command building.
When I arrived, I found Rauru, Darunia, Impa, and Azeru in conference around a map. All four of them looked up, startled, as I burst in. I looked first to Azeru. "What can you tell me about an Iron Knuckle?" I asked straightaway.
She blinked once with the forwardness of my inquiry, then recovered. "It's a thick plate-iron suit some of us wear into battle. We usually carry heavy axes with it. Is there something significant about that?"
Excited, I nodded. "We encountered heavily-armored monsters during the raid. Darknuts, Link called them. I've been trying to think of a way to break through their armor. Could someone in an Iron Knuckle suit bring them down?"
Azeru replied in the affirmative, causing me to crack a grin. "Would there be a way to have some suits made?" I inquired, to which Azeru nodded, cracking a grin of her own as she began to see where I was going. The other three just stared, Rauru lifting one of his bushy eyebrows.
…
It took a few days for the first of the Iron Knuckle suits to be made to Azeru and Nabooru's design, but when it was completed and I saw it, I was awed. It consisted of a panoply of thick iron and bronze plates, with large pyramidal studs protruding from them. The heavy shoulder pieces rose to head level and extended halfway down a theoretical wearer's upper arm. The helm was a simple, but thick, cask of iron, adorned with a pair of twisting, decorative horns, and covered the full face with an oblong visor with five large vision holes, arranged in a pentagon pattern. The huge, double-bladed axe that was made alongside the suit would be held by thick bronze gauntlets that covered not only the hands of a wearer, but also most of the forearm. When I convinced Nabooru to model it, the result looked terrifying.
Despite the apparent bulk of the array, she actually walked outside the smithy in it, right up to a training post, and, gripping the axe in both hands, proceeded to savagely attack the post. I could tell that she had worn this form of armor and wielded a similar axe before, from the expert manner in which she hewed the thick wooden post in half. Easily a score of Hylian soldiers watched, incredulous, as Nabooru took a step into the post and delivered her final stroke, which separated the top of the post from the bottom. Link was there as well, calmly looking on with no hint of surprise. He walked up to the faceless, fearsome axe-wielder and clapped her on the back. "That was just as amazing as it was when I first saw you do that, Nabooru," he told her as she took off her helm, smiling broadly.
"If I remember," she replied, "you managed to cut through the armor with that big sword of yours."
My eyebrows went up. This sounded like a story worth hearing. Perhaps I would ask one of them to recount it later, I told myself. But instead, without a word, I whipped out my phone and discreetly snapped a picture of the two of them. It made for an interesting image: Link, short and slight, in his sleek green outfit, and Nabooru, encased in bulky plate armor that, despite her lean build, she wore with relative ease.
Link then walked over to me. "So this is how you're planning to counter the Darknuts," he mused, to my nod. He looked back at Nabooru for few seconds, then continued, "I like it."
He and I went over to Nabooru, where I shook her hand, impressed by her skill with the cumbersome equipment. "If we can outfit ten soldiers with these, we could give those Darknuts a run for their money."
I'm sure the blacksmith heard my comment; I recall at that moment hearing a distant, drawn-out groan, accompanied by what could've been the words: "Not again!"
