Evil's Bane
Cock's Crow
Malina slowly opened the door, wincing as it rusty hinges creaked, and, step by step, stole into the bedroom. The wooden floorboards closest to the door had grown splinters in the past few months, turning into painful traps for bare feet. She carefully weaved around them, placing each grimy mud-covered foot delicately and deliberately, coming ever-closer to the bed with each step.
She was eleven years old (as she was ever proud to proclaim), with blue eyes and a long mess of red hair. Malina's father and older sister always said that she resembled her mother. She couldn't remember what her mother looked like, but her father wouldn't lie to her about something like that, would he?
Steady, now… in the dim light of the windowless room, there was the danger that she might trip, ruining all her effort and causing her embarrassment. But no, it was safe – she was within reaching distance of the bed, and she didn't dare take a step closer lest he woke up. It was a cheap bed: pinewood and chicken feathers and cotton, not necessarily in that order, nailed together firmly and adequately.
Now, to get into position: Malina edged towardss the head of the bed, shaking her head derisively at the boy's snoring. Malina didn't snore. When she was close enough to touch him, she leant over, bracing one hand against the wall to keep her balance.
Grinning maliciously, and silently drawing a lungful of air, she brought her mouth right up to his ear and paused. She ran through the words in her mind, fought her smile back, and…
"Wake up!" squealed Malina, in the loudest, shrillest voice she could muster.
With a startled yelp, the boy did exactly that. He opened his eyes, registering the red hair and instinctively swiped at her. She pushed off against the wall, bringing her head out of harm's way and hopped back as his outstretched hand missed her easily.
"What?" he said snappishly,
Malina struggled to hold back a smile. "Link! My dad wants you over in the barn right now. He's furious. Furious! He says if you don't…" – and she gave up and dissolved in a fit of giggles at the disbelieving look on his face.
With a groan, he whipped his pillow out from beneath his head and flung it across the room at her, hitting her hard in the chest. It hurt a bit, but she kept on laughing and tossed it back onto the bed.
"Is it even daybreak yet?" Link said, sitting up. When she snickered mischievously, he shook his head in annoyance. "Didn't think so. Malin… this is the third time this month–"
"It's Malina," she replied with a deceptively innocent smile, backtracking towards the door, "and it is a milk run day, so I thought you might want to get up extra early."
"Goddesses help me," muttered Link, and with a lightning-fast movement grabbed the pillow again. Malina pulled the door shut and smiled with satisfaction as the pillow thudded loudly against solid wood.
But that was what Link was like. He looked like a recruitment poster for the Hylian army, blond hair and blue eyes. He was thirteen or fourteen or maybe even fifteen, caught somewhere directly between child and adult, and he could go from boringly serious and righteous to stupidly playful in the space of seconds. Her father, Talon, said it was a 'growing up' thing. Her older sister, Nemia, said it didn't matter why since it wasn't a bad thing and would Malina mind shutting up once in a while? Malina preferred her father's answer.
Occasionally she felt sorry for Link; she knew what it was like to not have a mother, and she didn't mind much at all, but not having a father – that would be weird.
Malina slipped into the kitchen. Her father didn't look up from his breakfast. She reached the wood stove and sighed – the eggs had burnt themselves in her absence. Oops. Plenty more where they'd come from. She tossed them onto an empty plate, sunny-side down, where the yolks split and ran everywhere. She put the pan back onto the iron counter, where it added a new burn mark to the collection.
She climbed a stool and grabbed two more eggs from a high shelf, hopped down, and was about to crack them when Talon spoke.
"M'lina?" Her father sounded like he could have used another hour's sleep.
"Yes, dad?" said Malina, putting one egg down, and swivelling around to face him.
"Link awake?" He definitely sounded tired, which was funny because they'd all gone to bed early last night.
"Yep," she replied, and on impulse stretched out a fingertip, feeling for the hot edge of the frying pan. "I just checked on him; he was already up…" She touched the side of the pan and pulled away before it could burn.
It Talon wasn't as tired as he was, he would probably have realised that Link always woke up right on the cock's crow at dawn, and somebody must have woken him up, and that someone must have been her, and she would have gotten a very mild scolding. Instead, he said, "Oh, good. Fix something up for him, will you?"
"'Course," said Malina. When she'd turned five her father had taught her the bare basics of cooking, and since then she'd been the house cook, every day, except for the one or two times she'd had an accident with scalding water or a chopping knife.
"Are you going on a milk run today?" she added, not wanting to turn around and face the pan. She held the egg out behind her back and slowly started tapping it against the pan edge.
"I told you that before," said Talon, looking back down at his food again. "While we're out, you'll take care of things here. Milk, eggs, feeding… you know…"
"'Course I will," said Malina with the arrogance that children her age could get away with. "I'm a good girl." She tapped it and felt a shudder. With both hands behind her back now, she held the egg above the pan (at least, she hoped that was where it was), and cracked it open.
"Make your sister help, too," her father added. "If the farm ends up being her dowry, she'd better know the least thing about it." That was unlikely. With her plain looks and her unintentionally self-absorbed personality, Nemia was going to be a pain to marry off.
"Uh-huh… sure thing, dad," said Malina. As she said this, she groped around for the handle of the pan and found it; from there it was a simple process to swing it around and bring it over the stove. She set it down carefully on the iron stand, and let go gently so that it didn't fall off.
"What are you doing there?" said her father, who had finally noticed her awkward manoeuvrings.
"Nothing," she said, turning around to see how she'd done. To her delight, it was a near-perfect egg, the yolk right in the centre of the pan, and the white almost a perfect circle around it.
Malina didn't really believe in good omens, not really, but having pulled that off first try made her feel very confident. It was going to be a good day.
If you asked a servant in the royal castle, or any high-ranking military officer, or a foreign diplomat, they would all tell you that the King was a brilliant leader, easily one of the best Hyrule had ever had, good-natured to his subjects, a mastermind tactician, and a shrewd politician when need be.
If you asked that same person, except really late at night, perhaps while drunk, in a one-to-one talk, and swearing yourself to the utmost secrecy, they would all tell you that the King was a brilliant leader until that fever had taken his wife, ten years ago. Since then, he'd always been ever-so-slightly distanced from those around him, delegating all military decisions to his commanders and later to his son, worrying about immediate enemies more than long-term allies.
The last ten years had mainly been concerned with preparing his son Verdin to take his place, and with preparing his daughter Zelda for a government position or a diplomatically-stabilising marriage. The wounded messenger who barged into the castle late last night had destroyed his plans, and he was still struggling to come to terms with this development.
More than a week ago now, the King had dispatched his son along with some of his best commanders to the western desert to push the Gerudos back. By all rights it was their battle to win, and indeed the messenger reported that they'd encountered a small group of Gerudo women scavenging for food and killed them with minimal difficulty. But somehow when genuine battle begun, the desert rats had somehow gained the upper hand, and then… and then the messenger had somehow made it back, screaming of blood-stained sand, claiming that he was the only survivor and it was only by Farore's mercy that he'd made it back to Hyrule alive.
"Verdin…" he whispered, pacing back and forth in his private quarters, as if speaking his son's name would suddenly bring him back.
"Father," said Zelda very quietly, who was sitting in his chair, back stiff and head bowed slightly so as not to get in his way. She was here because he'd planned to continue last week's lesson on the politics foreign trade. He'd given up before they'd even begun; there was no way he could compartmentalise the loss of his son, not so soon. "We don't know he's dead…"
"Yes?" he said, waiting for his daughter to realise her faux pas.
"Well, they might have taken him… prisoner…" she said, trailing off.
"That," said the King gravely, "is as good as dead."
"I'm sorry, father." In a murmur, she added, "I suppose this doesn't bode well for Hyrule's future."
In a lighter mood, he might have congratulated her for a graceful, diplomatic segue. Instead, he let her words wash over him, deepening his brooding. "Yes," he said. "Verdin is my only heir."
"Your only male heir," said Zelda. He stared her in the eye and she stared right back at him. The girl certainly had cheek… his daughter, his successor? Not a desirable outcome, but it wouldn't be the first time in Hyrule's history.
"It's a possibility," the King conceded, "but people wouldn't like being ruled by a woman, especially in these difficult times."
"I know," said his daughter, "and I don't want the crown, but it's there as an option, if Verdin really is… just remember that all isn't lost, father."
The King nodded. "Yes. That's true. But Verdin is still prince, and whether or not he's a captive in some Gerudo prison, we have no choice but to assume he's dead." Better to believe his son was dead than to picture him rotting away in some boiling cell. Better to believe him dead than to kindle false hope.
He stopped his pacing, staring at a portrait of his son, made five years ago. Verdin was slightly shorter back then, but otherwise hadn't grown much. His face stared out of the portrait, expressionless but belied by his confident posture and the casual way he gripped the sword by his side.
"He was well-liked by the people," the King said, mostly to himself. "When they find out that we've lost Verdin…"
"…then they'll have another good reason to hate the Gerudos and enlist themselves, father," said Zelda, with a confidence he knew to be forced.
"If only things worked that way," he said bitterly. "His death will be a demoralising blow to our efforts in the west. And we've lost territory, on top of that. The Gerudos are almost into the mountain ranges now. Right now, our higher ground is the only thing keeping them from swarming into Hyrule."
He continued staring at that portrait, but with less grief and more frustration. The boy (well, he was only twenty-something, practically a boy) should have won that battle. The Hylian army had always relied on the strength of its sheer numbers, but it had never cost them much, at least not as much as they'd lost this time around. Why, a few hundred of the slaughtered men had been well-trained. Verdin had lost an easy battle, and the King of Hyrule was left mourning the dead and paying the price for his son's ineptitude. It was the prince's fault; how could he have lost so easily to those barbarian Gerudos?
"I taught him all there was to know," he said moodily, glaring at the portrait of his son.
Still sitting in his chair, his daughter inhaled. Cautiously, she said, "Father, there's no sense in blaming Verdin or yourself…"
"Verdin was my son, girl," said the King, voice rising, not taking his eyes off the painting, and picturing his son's dead body despite himself.
"Verdin is only human, father," said Zelda evenly. "Hylian royalty or not, nobody is without weakness."
He tore his eyes away from the portrait and turned his glare to his daughter. "He was my son. Who are you to speak of him like that?"
Zelda stiffly folded her hands on her lap. "If mother was still alive, she'd want you to–"
He must have struck her. He didn't remember making two long strides across the room, nor did he recall swinging his outstretched palm hard across her face, but that must have happened, because a moment later he was breathing heavily and she'd fallen off the chair but had caught herself against the oak desk, her other hand clutching a reddened cheek.
They stared at each other wordlessly for a moment, and he felt that flash of rage begin to die away, slowly giving way to a pang of guilt. For a split-second, his dearly-departed wife was standing over his daughter, a disappointed expression on her beautiful face. Then she was gone, and he was alone in the room with his daughter again.
Half a minute passed, both of them frozen where they were. Then Zelda stood up abruptly. Wordlessly, she strode to the door and swung it open.
"Wait…" he said, regaining his voice at last, and reaching a hand out for her. There was a mad sort of desperation in his voice, as if he was trying to undo the last two minutes. "My daughter… Zelda…"
"Don't follow me," she said emotionlessly, and she slammed the door shut her with a surprising violence for a lady.
The King didn't follow her; he walked to the chair she'd been sitting on and slumped into it.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there for, but it felt like an eternity. Enough time to calm himself; enough time to reflect on his thoughts; try as he might, though, he couldn't quite reclaim that emotionless state that he had begun the morning in. He would have to let his guilt and grief and all the other emotions dissipate of their own accord.
When he was ready, he straightened the chair back into its original position, and placed the half-open texts on his desk into a neat pile, where the servants could return them to the royal archives. It only took a minute, but when he was done the room looked undisturbed.
"Nothing happened in here," he said, knowing full well that he was talking to himself, but nobody would hear, so why not? "Everything's as it should be."
He laughed sadly.
One of the roosters was crowing, which meant it was officially day. The sun had been up for a minute or two already, though, so the rooster wasn't much use, was it?
Talon was loading the wagon with crates packed full with the farm's main export, milk. He'd been running this farm for years, and he reckoned it made more money than a lot of town folks could boast to. The special breed of cows they kept didn't hurt: on top of its nutritional properties, the milk was actually a brilliant general-purpose remedy (Talon himself swore it worked wonders on hangovers), and there were always more people willing to buy it.
He heard footsteps behind him and threw a glance over his shoulder. It was his elder daughter. "Mornin'," he grunted, and turned back to the task of loading crates onto the wagon.
Nemia was built like someone on Talon's side of the family: sixteen but not particularly tall, black eyes and black hair (which had been cut in a lazy, unconcerned manner that screamed introvert). Despite this, she reminded Talon strongly of his late wife, Emila.
Emila was the beautiful, tall red-haired woman who had happened into Talon's life a few years after his father's death. She was a self-taught mage, with a natural predisposition towards good-health spells, and she'd turned up at the ranch in answer to an open call for help, when a nasty infection had crippled half of Talon's livestock. Whether it was one of those 'divine pairings' that Malina so fervently believed in, or simply mutual loneliness, Talon and Emila had shared a real love. They'd married without fanfare and she stayed mostly housebound after that. When Malina was two and Nemia six, Emila had died in childbirth, the last of many failed births. It was a painful death, but not an unhappy one. Happiness was the word… when Talon thought of Emila, he liked to think that they'd been happy together.
"Morning. Dad, which towns exactly are you going to?" said Nemia, interrupting his pleasant reminiscence.
"Wha…?" He turned around, leaning against the side of the cart. "Oh, just Castle Town today." That was the biggest town in Hyrule, built around the royal castle. It was four hours north for a heavy, goods-laden cart and three hours back for an empty one.
Nemia definitely took after her mother, from the way she tilted her head slightly to the left whenever she started speaking, to her dreamy, unconcerned personality. Not to mention her smatterings of magical prowess: Emila had made an attempt of raising their firstborn in her image, and Nemia had taken to it quite readily, learning simple healing charms and even how to read, quickly and willingly. When Emila died, Nemia's interest in her mother's former trade hadn't waned.
"Could you please get a couple of herbs for me?" said Nemia, hands crossed.
Talon couldn't think of a good reason to decline; he was expecting a fair amount of money today. "Sure thing. What do you need, Nemia?"
"Well, if…" She stopped, frowned, and said, "Link will know. Just ask him."
Talon smiled, nodded, and turned back to the crates of milk, assuming the conversation was over.
Equally evocative of her mother was Nemia's irrational, romanticised fawning over Link, an affection which the silly kid seemed to return. Talon understood why the boy was deluded enough to like her – being cooped up on a farm with nobody but the owner's daughters for company would do that to someone. Talon had often warned them that the moment Link met another girl believably his age, the (admittedly cute) display of puppy love would end in a heartbeat, to which one of them invariably asked if Malina had put him up to this.
Talon loaded the last of the crates and brushed his hands together in satisfaction. Whenever Link managed to goad two decent horses out of the stable, they'd be off. It looked set to be a good day for travelling; the skyline didn't exactly scream 'thunderstorm', and the strange weather they'd had over the past couple of days seemed to have stopped.
Whenever Link came back with the horses… what was taking the boy so long? With a silent shrug, Talon turned from the milk cart and started walking to the stables. He whistled all the way.
"You're just trying to annoy me," said Ajula, trying to shake some sand from her left-hand sandal.
"No, I'm serious. Why would I want to be annoying to you, sister?" said Rougii. Unlike her companion, she completely ignored the sand grinding between her feet and footwear, because in the middle of the desert your feet never stayed clean for long.
"As I said, my friend, no amount of training could compensate for the burden of a shield in close combat," replied Ajula. "It is defensive in nature, it unbalances you, and it affords you less protection."
"And I say that in the hands of an expert, all weapons can be made effective," said Rougii, shifting the weight of the curved rod on her shoulders as it started to lean on one side. The rod was made of iron, with hooks on both sides that held together watertight boar-hide pouches. Originally these rods had been straight-shaped, but that invariably required a hunched back and damaged posture, so over time they had become curved so that their weight rested on the shoulders, not the back. Out here in the desert, little matters of practicality like this could magnify into life-or-death outcomes.
They were both carrying water back from one of many hidden waterholes to Fort Dragmire, the largest complex in the entire desert, where most of the People lived at any given time. Built into the natural curve of the land, it wasn't exactly paradise but it was certainly the best that their people had.
"You're mad, sister," said Ajula. "When we've put the water away safely, let's put your words to the test, yes, Rougii?"
"All right," said Rougii; this was exactly what she had wanted her friend to say all along.
Rougii and Ajula were similar: they were both red-haired, dark-skinned (sun exposure, no doubt) and thin (as one would expect from the inconsistent food supplies). They were considerably stronger and more resistant to pain than most Hylians of their age. At the age of six, both of them had begun their training in birsaif, the two-sword combat style for which their warriors were renowned. Both of them used the term 'sister' not in the usual, close-relation sense but as a term of casual familiarity. Neither of them had ever gone further from the desert than the border of the eastern mountain range that separated the desert from Hyrule. Both of them were female. In short, they were two typical Gerudos, returning home from water gathering.
Reaching the fort, Rougii spied three Gerudo girls loitering in the shade outside a side entrance, probably talking amongst themselves. Nobody seemed to be doing anything of any use this morning, not after last night's festivities. Two days before, their great leader Arado had returned from battle with a cohort of warriors and three prisoners in tow, and in celebration of this they had feasted last night.
Well, seeing as the girls weren't making themselves useful, Rougii thought that this would be a good opportunity to delegate.
"Hey! Girls!" said Rougii, as they came within shouting distance. She wasn't really much older than any of them; her coming-of-age was still a few months into the future. However, she had their respect – she was something of an 'elder sister' to most of the Gerudos around her age, with her quiet arrogance and her convenient-but-meaningless parentage.
The three girls in the shadow of the building looked up from whatever they were talking about. "Oh, Rougii – good morning, sister," said the one furthest on the right. There was a mild tone of apprehension in her voice; Rougii had a tendency to boss the girls around.
To her side, Rougii heard Ajula snort in annoyance. I'm here too, she might as well have said.
"You seem very relaxed, my friends," said Rougii. "If you're not too busy, could you all please do me a favour? Now?"
The same girl as before – Velli, that was her name – spoke: "Of course, Rougii, anything for you." While that could easily have been a sarcastic jab, she spoke sincerely; Rougii tried to avoid making enemies of her fellow Gerudos, even petty ones. She also tried to repay these little favours in kind, usually in extra rations that none of the other girls dared steal from the stores.
"Thank you," said Rougii, bowing her head customarily. "Ajula and I have just returned from a waterhole, as you can see. Please, take these waterbags to be stored."
The other three girls glanced among each other and shrugged. "Sure," said Velli, "anything else, sister?"
"No, thank you," said Rougii, kneeling down so that she could more easily remove the rod and waterbags from her shoulders. Ajula had already done the same.
The three other girls picked them up without much difficulty, holding them pointing forwards so that it was easier to manoeuvre indoors. Carefully, they began to squeeze inside.
"Wait," said Rougii, remembering something, and the last of the girls to go through the archway glanced back. "The spoils of war from the most recent battle – could you get a shield and leave it out here?"
The girl nodded and disappeared inside.
"A shield?" said Ajula, stretching her arms now that she had nothing to carry. "Still trying to prove that point of yours?"
"Exactly," said Rougii. "Come on, let's get some blunt-edges." She started towards the archway.
"As if I had a choice," said Ajula lightly, and she followed her in.
They made their way through the fort interior, past sparse living quarters and guarded storeroom archways, up a staircase into one of the training grounds, past plenty of young and old Gerudos who greeted them in passing, though to another storeroom entrance, covered by a tattered cotton veil. Rougii pushed it past without a second thought.
This storeroom was specifically for the training grounds. Stuffed effigies of Hylian soldiers were piled up against one wall, full of holes and slash marks that indicated how much use they got. In the middle of the room sat a pile of wooden bows and arrows that never got any use – desert winds tended to render these things pointless.
Ajula stood at the entrance to the room, leaning against a wall, while Rougii treaded around this collection of toys until she found what she was looking for – a collection of barrels filled with blunted metal weapons. Most of these were scimitars, and she pulled two of these from the barrel and tossed them across the room, where they landed right at Ajula's feet with a clatter.
Rougii then spent a couple of minutes looking to see if they had any practice swords in that ridiculous unbent shape which Hylian soldiers used. They did not, so she grabbed a scimitar for herself and crossed the room. She exited, followed by Ajula.
"So you think that a Hylian farmer could really best a Gerudo warrior in combat, sister?" said Ajula mockingly, running the side of her blades against her arm to confirm that they were indeed blunt.
"No, you're twisting my words, Ajula," said Rougii, navigating the way back to the side of the fort they had entered from. "All I'm saying is having a shield instead of a second sword is in no way a disadvantage."
"But it is," said Ajula, "everyone knows that it unbalances you. And your opponent will always know which side you're attacking with."
"You said that before," said Rougii. "I believe that any decent piece of metalwork can be made formidable in the hands of a capable warrior."
"And you are that capable warrior?" said Ajula, looking sceptical. After a moment, she added, "I suppose you'd have a better chance than most."
It was true. Since beginning her training at the customary age of six, Rougii had found she had a natural affinity for the martial arts, with many of the women who trained her commenting that she could become one of the People's best warriors one day. If she was still alive by the time Lord Arado (may-he-live-forever) fell, she would be prime material for leading the Gerudo warriors, by birthright if not by prowess.
Now and then, some of the more adventurous trainers let her experiment with some of the ancient, deprecated weapons left by generations-ago Gerudo warriors, weapons with prongs and chains and double-blades and even hinges. Through these lessons, Rougii had begun to see that all styles of close combat started from a few basic ideas – balance, control, momentum – and though she hadn't really thought it through yet, she was certain there was a way to apply these ideas to shields. Ajula was right, though, they were ridiculous things to be carrying around in battle, and if Rougii hadn't relished the challenge, she wouldn't have gone anywhere near broaching the subject.
When they returned to the exterior of the fort, a worn, blood-stained shield was lying in the sand, as she had requested. She picked it up, seeing the handle, and considered it for a moment.
"Having doubts?" said Ajula.
"Which side should I hold the shield with?" said Rougii.
"Hmm…" said Ajula, seriously considering the question. "Well, I think the Hylians carry them with their left arms."
"Left it is," said Rougii, working the leather bindings on the back of the shield around her left forearm and wrist. She gave the shield a few experimental swings, finding it slightly loose but still controllable.
Ajula watched her with bemusement. "Even if you did manage to hit me, it wouldn't prove your point."
"Really?" said Rougii. "Let's argue over that afterwards. Come at me."
Ajula stepped offline to stay in the shade, and then complied, half-running forwards, swinging her blunt scimitars in front of her in a criss-cross pattern. The criss-crossing was a standard tactic, done in the hope of disorienting or distracting an opponent, and making it difficult to be stabbed while approaching. Rougii waited as her friend approached, waving the shield from left to right to test its weight…
Ajula came into contact distance and did two things at once: she jabbed forward with her left scimitar and slashed left-to-right with her right one. Rougii blocked reflexively, the sword in her right hand deflecting the jab and the shield in her left hand colliding with Ajula's slash. She had to press awkwardly with her shield hand to keep it in position; contests of strength would be difficult when the shield's centre of gravity was on her wrist.
Their arms were both crossed and they pushed against each other for half a second before Rougii decided that she couldn't hold that position and leaped backwards out of the lock, shield raised to protect her against Ajula's follow-up swipes.
"What do you think?" said Ajula, taking a small step back so that there were two sword-lengths between them. "Too hard?"
"I can work with it, Ajula," said Rougii, sidestepping slowly so that she was again in the shade. "You're right; the shield is shorter and harder to push with, but it's wider than a blade, sister. That should compensate."
"If you say so," said Ajula, and she took the offensive again.
They went back and forth; mostly back. The lack of a second weapon kept Rougii on the defensive, and she kept retreating, sidestepping every time she came into the sun's reach. Ajula kept coming at her with different varied attacks and feints, and Rougii tried one after another unsuccessful counterattack. Every time they seemed to settle into a rhythm, one of them was quick to break it up with an extra stab. Whatever advantage the second sword might have given Ajula was completely nullified by Rougii's natural versatility.
After about two minutes of this, Rougii was so used to the shield's extra weight that she no longer had to consciously think about the imbalance when she moved, and Ajula seemed to be taking the fight slightly more seriously, choosing her actions to take advantage of the shield. Neither of them had broken eye contact; that much they'd both learnt years ago.
"Not bad," said Ajula. "So you might be able to hold off death using a shield. That makes sense. It is a very defensive instrument."
Rougii considered. "All right. Let me try something. I'll use this shield to deflect both your arms at once, and then cut off your head."
"So confident?" said Ajula sceptically. "You're not trying to trick me, are you, friend?"
"No trick," said Rougii.
She raised her shield to the side as if to use it as a club, and charged forward. At the last minute, she lowered the shield and brought her scimitar above her head. Ajula crossed her swords and raised them to meet the overhead blow; she'd been expecting it. Instead of following through, though, Rougii let her sword fall short and instead rammed her shield into Ajula's guard as she'd promised. The momentum of the shield – something that would be nigh-impossible to achieve with a thin sword – was enough to knock Ajula off-balance, and Rougii followed up immediately, hitting her friend in the neck with the flat of her sword.
Ajula laughed. "Nice."
"Point proven?" said Rougii, stepping back and dropping her sword. She started to remove the shield from her left arm–
"Very unorthodox, daughter," said someone older from the side, startling both of them. "Using non-Gerudo weaponry effectively is difficult… but pointless."
Still looking at the shield, it took Rougii a moment to identify the voice, deep, smooth and commanding. "Aunt Lamoora," she said – again, not to a close relation but to an elder. "I hope I haven't offended you, have I?"
Rougii looked up and yes, it was second-in-command Lamoora – with first-in-command Lord Arado standing by her side, wearing an intimidating black robe. Urk. She dropped to her knees quickly and bowed customarily as still-children-for-the-next-few-months were expected to. "Milord Arado. Forgive me, I didn't see you."
Lamoora started to say something chastising, but Lord Arado cut in. "You, with the shield. Why the shield?"
Rougii gaped, swallowed, and said, "We were arguing. I wanted to see if it was possible for a Hylian soldier to best a Gerudo warrior."
Lord Arado arched his eyebrows at this and exchanged glances with Lamoora. "A very understandable debate, I'm sure," he said, condescension dripping from his every syllable. "But that little play fight of yours proved nothing."
How much of that did they see?, wondered Rougii. "Yes, milord?" she said noncommittally, because arguing with the alpha male of the People was a ridiculously stupid idea.
"Yes," said Lord Arado. "You might have proven better than your friend, but you are a Gerudo, trained in birsaif and whatever else it is you're being taught. If any army aside from ours had such well-trained warriors, I have never heard of it."
"But what if the Hylians learnt how to fight properly?"
"The Hylian army has neither the patience nor the ability to train its hundreds of idiot farmers. Even if they–" Arado caught himself, seeming to realise he wasn't talking with one of his trusted warriors, and narrowed his eyes. "You're argumentative, aren't you, girl?"
"I apologise, milord," said Rougii, bowing her head.
Lord Arado seemed to be trying to remember something. "And your swordsmanship is better than most… are you one of mine?"
"Yes," said Lamoora, jumping in as if eager to contribute to the exchange. "Rougii is your eldest, in fact."
"Ah, yes, I remember now," said Lord Arado, recognition flaring in his eyes as he stared at Rougii. "Yes, her strong bloodline shows. Perhaps we have a first-class warrior in the making."
"Perhaps so, milord," said Rougii carefully (and she could have sworn she heard Lamoora muttering the same thing).
Arado seemed to be thinking about something else now. "You'd do… perhaps you could do me a favour, Rougii?"
Well, he'd asked nicely, he'd even used her name, and he could have her exiled on a whim… it was hard to refuse. "Of course, milord," said Rougii with the utmost sincerity.
"I need someone to deliver a message to the Hylians in the border," Lord Arado said. "As soon as possible."
"It would be an honour to do so for you," said Rougii, bowing her head again for good measure. "What message is that?"
"I was going to announce it during the executions tonight," said Lord Arado, "but seeing as you won't be there… I'm keeping one of the prisoners alive."
"What? Why?" said Rougii. "Milord," she added quickly.
"Well, I believe one of these prisoners is royalty," said he. "Isn't that wonderful? Wouldn't it be an honour to be in the presence of a prince of Hyrule?"
Rougii was amazed. "That's… why, he'd know everything about the…" She forced herself to internalise this train of thought. "So I'm delivering a ransom message, milord?"
"Ransom?" said Arado, as if this idea was entirely ridiculous. "No, just tell them that he's alive for now. See if it gets a reaction; their army is no threat to us right now." He smiled. "I'm not letting this brat go that easily."
Lamoora looked as if she wanted to say something but was restraining herself.
"I'll pass that message to them," said Rougii.
"You'll go within the hour, then," said Arado. "I'll give you something to show them."
When she bowed again, he added, "You're dismissed," in an impatient tone.
Rougii was quick to get the message.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed; it's really reassuring to know that someone out there took the time to look at my work.
If it's not pushing my luck, more "I read your story and I didn't hate it" reviews would be nice… Seriously, though, if you think I'm trying to cram too many original characters into the first two chapters (or if my weird incarnation of Link has just caused you to become physically ill), that's information I could use.
Well, I'll just stop typing, then…