A/N: As of today, I am a grad student with a full time job. Updates are going to slow down. Sorry. :(
Chapter 21
They marched until nightfall. Link's northern adventures had prepared him somewhat for the ordeal, but the unending miles with no breaks wore him down. Sweat oozed from his body, cooling him, but it also trapped kicked-up sand against his calves, scraping at every step.
As the scarlet sky faded to black, they stopped at the far side of a dune. Their captors relaxed onto the ground in an almost protective circle, breaking the gloomy silence with dampened whispers.
Nabooru motioned Link, Aghreal, and Irene to sit, and tied them back-to-back, their legs extending in a crude spoked circle.
"You may speak to each other," she said. "Get what sleep you can. We arrive in Kasuto tomorrow."
Link spent the night silently uncomfortable. He could scarce go five minutes before someone had to adjust, jostling the other two. Every few hours, Irene would break the night's stillness with a stream of whispered curses.
To his other side, Aghreal wore the mask of serenity she used to veil her distress. He wished he had some knowledge of medicine. The Hero had given him the motions for the tourniquet, but no understanding. Even so, he could tell that his impromptu aide was no permanent solution.
Eventually, the sun rose. Link thought he remembered snatches of sleep at a couple points in the cold night.
Nabooru gave them another round of water, as well as scraps of jerky and dried dates. After undoing the rope, she allowed them a couple minutes to stretch.
They arrived in Kasuto a few hours before noon. Large mounds of sand lined the border, obscuring all but the tallest buildings from view. The sand-wall had a single opening, just large enough for foot-traffic. Gerudo patrolled along the top, visible only as knots of red hair, or flashes from the metal tips of naginatas.
They passed through the makeshift gate. On the wall's inner perimeter, Hyrulean women laid brick alongside Gerudo warriors. Children scampered between the construction and the town's interior, bearing plastic jugs of water, satchels of slightly-black potatoes, and other containers.
Nabooru steered them away from the rest of the party, into what had once been a hotel. She exchanged words in Gerudo with the woman at the front desk, then prodded the group up four flights of stairs, unbound their hands, and locked them in a room.
It had been stripped bare: no mirrors, no loose objects, no paintings. Even the bed frame was gone, leaving only two mattresses and a few pillows.
"Dibs on shower," Irene grumbled, staggering into the bathroom. "'Sgonna be hours." The door slammed behind her.
Aghreal sank onto a mattress, letting out a long, wavering sigh.
"How's the arm?" Link said. He found a seat against the wall, threw off his shoes and socks, and began rubbing the sand out from between his toes.
"Not bleeding." She shrugged. "Thank you. Or the Hero. Whomever." A pause. "It's stopped hurting. The cut, at least. Everything above…" she closed her eyes and grimaced. "I'm not getting it back, correct?"
"I don't know. The Hero, he helps me do things. Sometimes he takes over. I don't get to go inside his head."
She reached across her body with her good hand; it hovered over the tourniquet. She growled, made a fist, and yanked it away.
"I can never not mess with Band-Aides and scrapes," Link said, impressed. Aghreal grunted.
"The shower will undo this," she said. "I shall make Irene give me a sponge bath."
Her gaze turned to the bathroom, and they shared a silence filled only by the trickle of water. It felt so good to simply sit-to stretch out his toes and let his body droop like a beanbag-he almost let himself forget he was at war.
"Why are we here, Link?," Aghreal said. "You're the one with the Hero in his head. I can barely fight for sport. Our soldiers are crippled. Irene's a flaming asshole. What are we, against the Great Enemy who wields the Triforce of Power?"
Link shook his head. "I can only tell you what the Goddesses told me. I'll need your strength to contain Ganon."
She did not respond.
"Why are you here, actually?" Link said. When she did not respond, he kept talking. "I don't see you risking so much just because someone says you're a Sage."
"A Gerudo must be seen to stand against Ganon."
At nightfall, the door opened just enough for a hand to shove in a small tray of stale biscuits and apples.
"One-handed food. Such consideration," Aghreal remarked. They devoured it in minutes, then took turns sipping from the bathroom tap and settled in for the night.
It passed slowly. Aghreal lay pale-faced on her mattress, thrashing
intermittently. By midnight, the pool of sweat beneath her was visible even by the moon's light. Irene alternated between squirming atop the second mattress, and pacing across the bare room. She at least had the grace to be mostly silent about it.
Link stood at the door. He had read, once, that it was possible to wriggle a deadbolt open, through a crack between the door and the frame. If true, he was having no success with the broken paperclip he'd found in the carpet.
He had similar success with the window. Even if he had somehow managed to pry it open, he had no plan to descend to the ground.
It was said the Hero had power over fire. He placed a hand on the door, closed his eyes, and tried to draw on the Triforce of Courage. Nothing.
He had to keep trying, even though he did not expect success. Ganon had him. He almost certainly had Zelda, too. He would not wait much past morning to complete the Triforce and storm Hyrule.
At dawn, he awoke-huddled in a corner-to the sound of the door lurched to his feet, his adrenaline warring with his drowsiness. Nabooru entered. Link flung himself at her, hoping to catch her off guard.
She stepped aside and struck the back of his neck as he passed. He stumbled to his knees, dazed.
"Consider your friends hostage against your continuing good behavior," Nabooru said. "You are the only one required alive."
"Aghreal needs a doctor," he said.
"An amputation is scheduled. Come."
Nabooru led him out the hotel, and across the city. The early-winter gusts flared around him, bearing with them sharp granules of sand. He wished she would walk faster, to fight the chill, but she maintained a leisurely gait.
They turned onto North Main Street. Hylians and Gerudo alike walked along the sidewalks in sparse groups. On either side of the street, Open signs hung in windows of novelty shops and bars.
It had taken at least two hours, but at last they arrived in the vacant parking lot of an open-air sporting arena. Nabooru led him up unstable bleachers circling the playing field. Inside, a pair of Hylians pushed mowers over the grass, and children swept off the long, narrow platform in the center. The workers kept their heads bowed over their tasks.
They climbed to the box-seating at the top, jutting out over the field.
"Your hands," Nabooru commanded, unhooking handcuffs from the sash at her waist.
"You know I won't risk my friends."
She growled and seized his wrists, chaining him to the metal bar atop the wall before them.
He stared at the metal bindings, puzzled, until the Hero's insight graced him. After letting him walk freely across town, she would not chain him like this unless he were about to witness something so jarring she expected him to lose perspective.
"Don't make a scene," Nabooru said. Her footsteps diminished behind him as she walked down the steps.
He closed his eyes and tried to still the tremor that had begun in his knee. The handcuffs were as unyielding as the door, and he cut off his attempts at breaking them before his thrashings became a childish tantrum.
In the distance, he heard muffled bursts of machine gun fire.
He froze. The Hylians. He breathed deeply, until he was calm enough to feel the Sages in his mind. Kafei and Rusl were still some miles distant, far from the conflict. But Flueckli would surely be trying to find him. There. He felt her flickering toward the conquered city.
She screamed. So loud, so harsh, it tore at his ears. He cried out, drowning in a panic that was not his own. Then, she fell still. Alive, but still.
The shooting continued sporadically for nearly an hour, perhaps more. By the end, he heard but a burst or two, every few minutes. Through it all, the workers below continued in their tasks. The children had finished the stage and had taken their brooms to the bleachers. One of them-a short boy with tangled blond hair-worked his way up Link's set, climbing with high, exaggerated steps.
"What's happening?" Link asked him.
The boy glanced up, then continued sweeping.
"Please, if you know anything," Link tried again.
The boy swept up to the entrance to the box, then continued past.
He was about to speak a third time, when a familiar presence touched his mind. He straightened and craned his neck around, looking for Zelda. She stepped into view through the gap in the seats, chained to Nabooru. She looked up, and her lips curled in a smile so pained it was almost a sneer.
Nabooru locked her beside Link.
"Thank you for coming," she said, her voice somber and deliberate. Though a prisoner, she seemed more a princess than he'd ever seen her at school. She walked with surety, as if each step brought her nearer a liberated Kasuto.
"I heard a battle, earlier," Link said. "The rest of the Sages are coming."
Zelda shook her head. "The Triforce of Power protects Ganon's forces. The attempt was doomed. Or a feint."
"Then how-" He cut himself off. It would be foolish to discuss how to overcome the Triforce of Power with Nabooru looming behind them. If only he could get her alone! She'd been the plotter from the beginning. Without her guidance, he had stumbled from one event to the next, balanced like a cat on an exercise ball.
As the sun rose higher, the stands began to fill. By noon, every seat-save the rest of the box-was occupied, with a double-ring of people around the floor.
"Pay attention," Nabooru said, "And think on your ancestors."
The people sitting in the lower seats turned to the far edge of the stadium. Link followed their gaze, and saw Kafei limping onto the playing field. Thick rope bound his hands, and ran between his legs to tie to Rusl. Behind him, Aghreal and Irene.
Two Gerudo flanked the procession. Unlike those he had fought, and the Hyrulian Gerudo, these had hair cropped short at the nape of their necks. They dressed plainly, in a white vest and pants, and wore no weapons that Link could see.
They stopped on the stage, centered. The Gerudo faced the crowd.
Link glanced at Zelda. She gripped the rail of the box and stared down at the scene. Her face bones jutted out as her jaws clenched.
"And under the sign of the Sheikah gathered the great Sages of Hyrule." The deep, resonant voice seemed to emanate from just behind Link's ear, and projected to fill the entire stadium. There was no trace of accent. Each word came as cleanly as if spoken by a choir-master.
"Touched by the Goddesses, and joined with the Hero of Time, they did purpose to make war upon the King of Thieves, yea even against the Triforce of Power.
"And on the eve of the eighth year of the Great Darkness, they joined together their hearts; and from their union sprang a bridge of light, leading from shadow to shadow.
"Thus did the Hero ascend to Ganon's fortress. On his back, the Blade of Evil's Bane; on his hand, Farore's Courage; in his heart, the fury of righteousness and the promise of the Sages.
"For three days and three nights did the Hero battle against the Destroyer. Only then, when Ganon's strength had faded beyond the reach of Power, could the Sages bind together and cast him into the abyss."
Ganon stepped onto the field. A heavy black cape billowed over blacker armor. Hair as ferocious as fire blazed from his scalp in a fierce mane. His hand rested on the hilt of his broadsword, his Triforce resonating with Link's and Zelda's. He laughed.
"So much for that."
