Chapter 5: The Curse is Broken?

Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point,
Straight into the monster's eye they rammed it hard—

~Odyssey, Book IX

Gohma.

For Link, Mido, and their two fairies, that was a name that meant death. The death of their old security, of a life with no knowledge or expectation of evil. A name that would mean their own deaths if things went badly in these next few minutes.

The eye of Gohma. A single yellow pupil that glowed brightly enough in the dark for them to notice it, near the ceiling. Seeing them. Staring at them.

"Did you see that?"

Navi's voice jerked Link's focus away from Gohma. "See what?" His words slipped out, barely audible.

Navi flew towards the water. "The lake. Something fell in just a minute ago."

"Another Skulltula?" He knew that was unlikely, even as he said it.

"It was round, I think."

"Hey." Mido sidled up next to him, and for once, that didn't bother Link. "You have that slingshot you had last night?"

Link had already turned his attention back to the eye. "Nothing to shoot with."

"Let me see it. I've got an idea."

Link dug the slingshot out of a pouch at his belt and slapped it into Mido's hands, flicking an irritated look in his direction. "Keep your voice down."

"Look out!" This from Pol and Navi.

Mido and Link glanced instinctively at Gohma's eye. Gone.

"Run!" said Navi, but it was too late.

A black shape crashed down on the shore of the lake, trapping Link and Mido between the way they had come and the unknown behind them. Two legs thick as tree trunks raised and lowered the body as a scream escaped the mouth, filling the area around the lake with its sound and all the fears that sound awoke.

Ignoring those fears, Link rolled through Gohma's legs and found himself under her tail. Something wet and hard thumped him in the head; he realized what it was at once.

An egg. Like the one last night.

Link shivered as he remembered the burning sensation of the hatchling's body fluids on his face. He hacked his sword through the middle of the egg, spearing the creature inside it.

"To the left!" Navi squeaked.

Link dove aside as two more eggs landed on the ground he had just relinquished. Both cracked open upon contact.

"Over here, you!"

Mido's shout did little to prevent Gohma from lifting one of her feet and smashing it down on Link, but Link turned the foot aside by jabbing it with the tip of his sword. The blade didn't penetrate the monster's skin, but it did buy him time to throw himself out of danger for the moment.

The two hatchlings leapt forward. The first ran into Link's Deku Shield. The second hopped over it only to impale itself on Link's sword. Link struggled to remove the blade but found it firmly embedded in the hatchling's body. Grunting and heaving, he dragged the body around with him as he avoided several more stomps from Gohma's feet.

When the blade finally came free, Link sped towards Mido. "You said you had an idea?"

"Bring her over here," Mido said.

"Easy enough." Gohma followed Link closely, making two strides for every ten of his but still keeping up with him. The dead rat stench he had noticed earlier grew stronger the closer she came to him. Just as her foot overshadowed his head again, he jumped over the body of the Deku Scrub, kicking aside dozens of splinters: pieces of the Scrub's wooden body.

"Duck!" said Mido, even as he snapped the band of the slingshot at Gohma's eye.

Link threw himself down, noting that the hatchling he had knocked aside with his shield had recovered and nearly caught up with him.

"Missed!" Mido grumbled and picked up another splinter.

"I'll lead her off," said Link. "Keep trying." He stood up and dashed towards the lake, then ran parallel to the shoreline, putting distance between himself and Gohma.

"Hey, listen!"

Link cracked a smile at Navi's effort to distract the hatchling. Circling back in on the point where they'd crawled out of the lake, he honed in on the hatchling's blindside, risking the danger of Gohma's feet since mother and child ran close together.

A quick overhead slash with both hands cleaved the hatchling's body in two. The force of his own blow surprised Link so much that he stopped to stare at the blood coating the blade as it smoked, making his nostrils twitch.

Once more, Navi's warning saved him from injury. "Look out!"

Gohma's tail ripped into the soil at Link's back, missing his flesh by inches. Whirling, he jammed his shield down to hold the tail in place while he stabbed at it. Again, the blade failed to penetrate the thick skin, so Link grabbed onto the tail and began to climb it—just as it swung upward.

He screamed as the catapult motion tossed him over Gohma's body and nearly fifteen feet through the air before he landed, skidding through the soil by the shore until he hit his head on solid bone and found he had returned to the dead Skulltula.

"What's that smell?" Pol, Mido's fairy, flew back and forth from Mido to Link.

A wave sloshed against the shore. Link tensed as he peeked out at the water. A hatchling stood less than three meters away, dripping water and slime on the ground.

"A minute ago," Link whispered, "you said something round fell in the lake. Did it look like an egg?"

"There could be hundreds of them in that water," said Navi.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

A second hatchling had risen from the water while they were talking, but by that time, Link had turned to face Gohma again. The Queen had paused several feet away to wait, Link guessed, for the rest of her hatchlings to break the water.

"Link…"

Navi's voice was so quiet that it took him a minute to realize she'd spoken. "What?"

"You'd better turn around."

"Oh!" Blood drained from Link's face like rain sliding down a wall. Dozens of hatchlings had appeared in the water, their antennae wriggling above the surface. The number of ripples around them suggested many more stirring beneath the surface.

Navi hovered at his ear. "The faceplate."

The faceplate. Link stared at the Skulltula's bony carapace. How is that supposed to help?

All at once, the line of hatchlings began moving forward, forcing him to make a decision. Time slowed as his thoughts sped up. His hands moved toward the faceplate as hatchlings leapt at him in pairs. He heard the sound of Gohma's tail lashing through the air.

Moving quickly, he snatched up the faceplate and used it like a spring to toss the first hatchling behind him. Gohma's tail, instead of impaling him, sunk in through the hatchling's eye and out through its back, stopping right above the faceplate and dripping venom onto the bone.

Link flung the faceplate down and pushed himself up, darting beneath Gohma to rejoin Mido on the other side.

"What took you so long?" Mido grinned, holding a handful of splinters.

"Never mind—shoot!" Link cast a fleeting glance behind him.

Mido dropped to one knee and placed three splinters in the band of the slingshot, hiding the sweat on his face and his trembling hands by keeping himself out of Pol's light as much as he could. When Gohma had turned to face them, he let go of the band.

One splinter sailed wide, but the other two pierced the center of the monster's iris, causing her to rear up before collapsing on the ground with her legs askew.

"Your sword!" said Navi, but Link was already on the move, his Kokiri Sword slicing through the darkness. The blade cut into the eye of Gohma, finishing the work the splinters had started. He watched as the dying monster thrashed about, dragging her punctured eye with her to the lake. Her hatchlings, losing interest in their prey, followed their mother into the water.

It happened when Gohma's eye touched the water. Blue flames erupted along her body, spreading to the shore and engulfing hatchlings within a twelve-foot radius. Steam shot from the eye and burned what was left of the Skulltula's webs above them. Within a half-minute, the fires had covered her and the surrounding area completely.

With the loss of their Queen and mother, the hatchlings scattered, some bursting in a shower of corrosive body fluids, some drowning in the lake, some simply keeling over. Mido and Link took it all in, ignoring their own exhaustion for now. Even Navi and Pol remained silent.

It may have been the lack of sleep or food. It may have been the worry they had been trying to ignore since they saw what was happening to the Great Deku Tree. Maybe Gohma had released a toxin to the air as she died. Whatever the case, when the chaos around the lake finally ceased, Mido and Link crumpled as one, two boys that had spent themselves in a battle they should never have had to fight.