The next week was spent in apprehensive preparation for Ganon to launch an attack. The plateau that lined the eastern valley was made accessible by a series of stone ramps, constructed by the Gorons of Death Mountain. Just like Darunia, their chieftain, the Gorons were physically impressive specimens. Massive, rock-hard, and almost infinitely tough, they seemed the perfect builders. I hoped they were just as good in battle.
Those of us who weren't constructing anything were engaged in near-constant weapons practice. This included myself, Link, Zelda, Impa, our horse archers, the Gerudo, and even young Mido. The lad had little skill with a blade to start with, but he was an eager - perhaps overly eager - learner. It was just as well he could fire his slingshot with pinpoint precision, as Link and I were going to ensure that he never had occasion to use the tiny sword he carried.
I did show the young Kokiri one thing, though. On day two of our stay in Kakariko, I made a sling out of a few pieces of leather and gave it to him to use in place of the slingshot. My reasoning was simple: a slingshot, even a human-sized one, could never bring down an enemy in a fight, much less if they had a good, solid helmet. Mido's piece was even smaller than the slingshots I used to fire as a child, eliminating any hope of him being any more than a nuisance in battle. A sling, on the other hand, was a deceptively effective weapon, to which it owed its widespread use in warfare in my own world's more ancient times. The boy accepted my gift, though, admittedly, his enthusiasm lay mostly with swordsmanship.
I practiced too, focusing mainly on handling the massive two-hander that Link had given me. Many times over that week, I found myself wondering at how quickly I'd learned weapons techniques at all during my time in Hyrule; the longsword was no exception. I had noticed often that the Triforce mark on my hand tended to glow when I practiced my weapons techniques. Perhaps my rapidly-increasing abilities had something to do with that. Not for the first time, I realized that having the Triforce of Courage accidentally passed to me had not been all bad.
All around me, preparations were going smoothly. The ramp to the plateaus was quickly finished, allowing crossbowmen to fire into the valley without the threat of the enemy closing in on them (for this reason, I planned on stationing Mido up there with his sling). A few smithies had collaborated to finish the ten suits of Iron Knuckle armor, and these were given to Gerudo fighters to acclimate to; they managed it rather well, to be truthful, and required very little practice with. Having finished those ten panoplies, the smithies switched to making long pikes, and idea I had come up with to more easily hold the narrow valley; constructing each of those was, in comparison, a piece of cake.
There was one rocky spot in the preparation. Many of the Hylian soldiers had not been stationed at the Ranch over the last couple months, and so weren't used to having the Gerudo as comrades. A few times, I had to break up altercations between Hylian and Gerudo warriors. Sometimes these were verbal spats, sometimes they were physical brawls.
One of these occasions occurred on day four of our stay, as I was, as usual, practicing with the longsword. I heard voices raised behind me, and paused mid-swing to look back. When I did, what I saw broke my poor little heart. The young Hylian horse archer was seated on a bench, his arm around the waist of his Gerudo trainer. But a threesome of Hylian knights were standing around them, looking quite displeased indeed.
I managed to catch some of their words. The tall, dark-haired knight who appeared to be the ringleader growled at the boy, "Look at you, all sweet on one of those thieves."
One of his companions, a lighter-haired fellow, chimed in immediately, "To think that good young Hylian men could fall for a Gerudo...do you know how much shame that brings us, boy?"
The lad had no chance to answer, for the third, an older knight with auburn hair and a mustache of the same color, grabbed the young horse archer forcefully by the shoulder. "If I could," he snarled, "I'd haul you off to wherever your father lives and tell him you've fallen in with these desert rats." He spat those last two words out so spitefully that the Gerudo shuddered.
That was when I decided I'd seen enough. I sheathed the longsword across my back and strode briskly up to the gang of knights. I grabbed the blond one by the shoulder and shoved him back. "What in the name of all that's good in the world do you think you're doing?" I growled at the knight. I turned to the other two and continued, "What are any of you doing? If you've got anything against the Gerudo, you'd better get rid of it fast, because we're not going to be beating Ganon with that kind of attitude. If it weren't for them, we'd have a lot fewer soldiers. They trained the horse archers, they chose to become our allies, so if you're going to continue to treat them like crap, then I don't know what's wrong with your thick wooden heads."
I could see that I'd angered the three knights, so I prepared the statement I knew would make them back off. "But if you insist, go ahead and protest to Queen Zelda," I said in a more reasonable tone, before switching suddenly to a drily sarcastic tone by saying, "I'm sure she'd absolutely love to hear your concerns."
That shut the three of them up, and they walked away, grumbling about "Queen Zelda's boyfriend."
As they left, I looked at the young couple still seated on the bench, who were still looking more than a little frightened. I smiled at the two of them and told them, "Don't let those meatheads bother you," before walking off and resuming my longsword practice.
