The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 37: Plan B
By, Frank Hunter
There was barely enough time to tear a strip of fabric from his cloak and wrap up his injured arm before the desert came to life. A single patrol was sent out after Rigo, a dozen men, just after his escape. The men looked diligent, and seemed like they would be tough in normal circumstances. But it was dark, and the desert was not their domain. Rigo knew they were already afraid of this place, and they didn't expect him to be quite as dangerous as he was proving to be. So, Rigo was able, without much trouble, to play on their fears himself.
Two of the men carried torches, and so the rest spread into two groups, searching the sands for tracks or trails that might lead them to him. These strategies, while no doubt useful in the woodlands and fields these men hailed from, were futile in a place where the terrain shifts every time the wind blows. That, and the torches weren't doing any favors for their night vision.
Rigo circled around behind one of the groups and without much trouble stabbed the torch-man through the back with the sword he'd taken from Tydus. The man openly gasping in his death throes, Rigo snatched his torch and jammed the flame into the sands. It extinguished with a hiss, giving the Hylians no more than a glimpse of his face before plunging them back into deadly darkness. Rigo was able to dispatch one more as the survivors panicked, regrouping with the second half, the one that still had light.
The now single squad prodded about in the firelight, looking desperately for him. The squad leader attempted to retain some semblance of order. But Rigo smiled. They didn't understand the true danger. They didn't realize that the second man Rigo had killed was carrying a bow and a full quiver of arrows. He now had a projectile weapon. The targets, lit up by their own firelight, didn't stand a chance.
Rigo fired an arrow into the squad, bringing down another man with a pained shriek. While the rest worked to figure out what had just happened, he brought down another. After that, the squad leader finally wised up, and ordered that the torch be put out.
As the light went away, Rigo dropped down low, lying down in a bed of dry desert grass. His cloak camouflaged him well enough in the dark, and he bided his time until the squad moved close enough to him that he could see them in moonlight. Slowly, quietly, he loaded one final arrow, and when that one hit its mark, the squad leader was dead.
The other soldiers, now devoid of leadership, decided they'd had enough and retreated back toward the chasm, back to their camp. Rigo watched from his hiding place and let them go, coming out only when he was sure he was alone again.
The combat had been satisfying. Rigo had trained so hard with Nabooru for so many years, and rarely got the opportunity to do anything with that training. Now that it had finally been unleashed, it felt good. Beyond good, it felt just, to get some good solid revenge on the ones who had held him captive for so long. He knew that these men, these specific men, probably had nothing to do with it, but in that moment he didn't care. He walked among the corpses he'd left in the sand pillaging for supplies, coming away with more arrows, a flint and steel, and a small dagger that would fit in one's boot. No rations or water, though. They hadn't intended to be out that long. Rigo scowled. He knew all too well what it would be like to go thirsty in the desert, but the only source of hydration was Lake Hylia, back down the bridge, and that was no good. It was liable to be under watch by archers, and he remembered all too well how unsafe the jump was. He'd just have to be grateful it was night and he had some time before the heat of the desert sun fell upon him.
His scavenging done, Rigo got up and started to go…where? He didn't know. With the only route back to Hyrule guarded, he couldn't return to the castle and inform Zelda about what had happened here. What would be the point of it, anyway? The whole army she'd been able to assemble for this national emergency was here anyway. If those men were loyal to Tydus, there was nothing she could do now. No one she could send to challenge the Colonel.
Those men were also standing right between Rigo and Amili's army of Gerudo. He had no way of getting to them, to help them before Tydus mobilized for the attack. But even that barely mattered. Even assuming he could get past the army, assuming he could join the Gerudo, once Amili discovered that Rigo had taken the Chalice, who's to say she'd want his help anymore? By giving the relic to an enemy force…maybe now he really was a traitor…
He thought of the mad glint in Tydus's eye, the way he was pushed over the brink by the pull of the Chalice. Or maybe that sort of malice had always been in him. He had always been conniving, selfish, and despotic. Now he just had the opportunity to sate his hunger for power, and he'd latched onto it like a tick.
"Aaaagh!" Rigo shouted, and clutched at his head. What did any of it matter anymore? Incentives and ambitions, they were all meaningless. The only thing that mattered was that a war was coming tonight. His people would suffer for it. Amili might suffer for it, and regardless of what she thought about him, Rigo knew how he felt about her. She was the girl who had come out with him into the desert as a child, and had saved his life at least twice. The woman who he refused to embarrass or cast aside. Maybe he'd known the truth as a child, but the feelings had stirred in him again now that he'd seen her, grown and resilient. The notion of hurting her had bothered him so much, and the idea that she might be killed in a war for no visible gain was too much to bear. And why?
Because he loved her. This, he now understood.
Penny for your thoughts? Nabooru chimed in.
Rigo's train of thought derailed and he shot back to the moment. "How is it possible you can be so calm?" he asked the spirit.
Death gives you an incredible perspective on these things, she said. It's not easy to get too worked up. Regardless, we should probably do something about Sergeant Stupid back there. There's not much time.
"I don't know what to do," Rigo admitted. He shared his ideas about Zelda with Nabooru who, uselessly, agreed with him entirely. She won't be able to do much, Nabooru said. Though if you leave now, you might be able to head him off at the Fountain. Ambush him.
"Would he know where to find it?" Rigo asked.
Who knows? Depends how in he was with the Royal Familiy. It sounded like he was pretty confident.
"None of that helps Amili, though. The Gerudo could all be dead before he went there. We need to stay here and help." Rigo fidgeted his hands, wishing he could do something constructive. "Hyrule's useless. And we can't get reinforcements from the other end either. It's two weeks to Jirin from here. The Gerudo won't be able to hold out that long." He thought on that for a moment and a crazy idea came to him. His eyes went wide as it took hold. "Wait, maybe not. What did that guy, that Fyer guy say about the big cannon in front of his place? He said it could shoot you to the moon, right? What if we used that? Do you think it could blast me all the way across the desert? Could it get me to Jirin tonight?!"
Assuming you could make it to the lake safely, and assuming the impact from that kind of shot didn't crush your bones to jelly? Nabooru clarified.
Rigo sputtered. "Y…yeah?"
How would you get back?
The idea shattered to a million pieces in front of him. Rigo's shoulders sagged and he groaned again in defeat. Yeah, that was a major oversight, but he couldn't focus. His mind's eye kept shifting to Amili's face…to the image of her dead and bleeding out on the desert sands. "At least I'm trying," he said helplessly. "We can't go to Hyrule and we can't go to Jirin. It's just us and the desert!"
There's always the Arbiter's Grounds, said Nabooru.
Rigo had considered it. The Arbiter's Grounds, the only other place out here that was reachable. But it didn't offer him anything he didn't already have. "There's nothing there but gold." He remembered his adventure into the Temple, the creepiness of it all. He shivered. "Gold, and ghosts. That won't be any help."
Actually, you may be wrong about that. There are a ton of them out there, though. The ghosts I mean, Nabooru said. If you could assemble them all, get them to follow you? You might be able to do something with them.
"Right," Rigo said. "Yeah, I'll just go talk to them. Convince them to turn into some kind of mystical, spectral army. 'Cause I know how to do that. Come on, Nabooru. The cannon was more realistic."
He was ready to write off the idea as utter craziness, but Nabooru didn't respond to him. She was, in fact, deliberately silent, in that way she tended to be when she knew something Rigo didn't. So for the sake of argument, he pushed the ridiculousness of the idea aside and prompted her.
"What?" he asked. "You're telling me you can do it?"
I am a spirit, genius. Just 'cause you're the only mortal that can hear me doesn't mean you're the only person I talk to. Jeez, I'd go crazy.
"You mean there are ghosts…"
Around you? Almost always. That Stockade place, for example, was full of death. Of course there'd be spirits lingering.
Rigo's hair stood up on end at the idea of invisible people watching him, around him all the time. He'd thought it had just been in those special places, the ones that felt cold, haunted.
Most of the time, ghosts are harmless, Nabooru went on.On their own, they can't do very much to interact with the physical world. Blow a breeze through a curtain or something like that, but nothing too aggressive, nothing scary. In places of spiritual power though, it's a different story. There are places in Hyrule where the dead were once summoned to congregate and were entrusted to protect certain powers. Two Temples, specifically. The Shadow Temple deep beneath Hyrule, and the Spirit Temple in the desert.
"The Arbiter's Grounds," Rigo resolved.
Quite right. The Shadow Temple was always the more potent of the two, its purpose being to contain malicious spirits that would otherwise wander the lands of Hyrule. By drawing them there, they were contained and could not manifest and cause harm.
"I thought you said ghosts couldn't affect the mortal world," Rigo said.
Not on their own. But in large groups, or under the control of a talented sorcerer, they can. So the Royal Family used its magic to designate the Shadow Temple spiritually as a place of the damned. So, the ghouls went there, and the Temple was watched over by the Sheikah, the ancient protectors of the Royal Family.
"That's back in Hyrule, though. What was the Spirit Temple?" Rigo asked.
That Temple was different. It was supposed to be a place of pensive reflection, a draw for the calmer, less violent spirits across Hyrule. It was a place of spiritual fulfillment. But, whatever its original purpose, that really doesn't matter now. The Hylians built an enormous prison complex over the original Temple. In doing so, they introduced what must have been decades of hate and sadness and death into it. But, the Temple's energy is still there. Those souls who died in the prison wouldn't be drawn to the Shadow Temple, not with the Spirit Temple so near. You've felt them yourself, outside the Temple walls.
"That icy cold feeling, like you're being watched?"
You are being watched, Nabooru said. By the spirits of countless dead prisoners. Many of them were very dangerous in life. Many of them still hold a grudge against the Hylians who held them there. They're not the monsters that dwell in the Shadow Temple, but with the right push, they might be inspired to take some of those decades of anger out on the Hylian army nearby.
"They'd become like those skeletons that attacked us?" Rigo asked.
No, that was powered by one of the Temple's own booby traps, Nabooru dismissed. Actual ghosts won't usually be able to become so solid. Well, maybe in the Shadow Temple. Not here. But, we can make them visible, and some might even be able to affect the physical world. It could be enough to give the Gerudo an edge if the Hylians think the spirits are on their side.
"That's a little flimsy, Nabooru," Rigo said, already beginning to turn and trot toward the place where Rigo knew the Arbiter's Grounds stood, scraping at the darkened sky.
If you have anything better, I'm all ears.
He still had nothing. The plan was something, but that was all it was. Rigo wasn't looking forward to revisiting that haunted place, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to amassing an army of dead prisoners to get his back. He'd always known to be wary of ghosts and wandering souls, but Nabooru was willing to just engage with them. To plunge right in.
"You're sure this can't backfire on us?" Rigo asked. "These spirits won't just become powerful and then take all their problems out on us?"
If you do what I say, and I mean exactly what I say, then we'll come out of this alright. Nabooru instructed. Probably.
"Real vote of confidence there…" Rigo remarked.
I can make you a guarantee if you want, but that won't mean anything if I'm wrong.
Fair enough.
Rigo put his head down and picked up speed, running as quickly as he dared to in the dark. He pushed his doubts out of mind and committed to this brainless, insane, irrational, and wholly desperate plan. He figured there'd be plenty of time for doubt and criticism later. If they survived the night.