Dark by S. Park

Part sixteen Blood and Betrayal

I was still muttering occasional curse words as we threaded our way through the foothills. And it was starting to snow. I directed my curing at Link more often that at the sky, though. Were it not for him I wouldn't be out in this.

The sky was gloomy and the sun just shone through beneath the clouds on the distant horizon when we reached the end of the trail we'd followed. It stopped before the gaping mouth of a black cavern.

Silently we dismounted and led the horses inside. Link was silent because he always was. I was silent because if I said anything it would be a tirade of cursing, and that wouldn't do me any good. Immediately inside the cavern there was no sign of any danger, so we set up our camp there.

Outside big, fat flakes started coming down fast. It looked like a real snowstorm, and I was glad to be out of it. With the cave's shelter, the tent was almost comfortable for once. Link played his ocarina for longer than usual, since his fingers weren't freezing. I just lay and listened while the hate drained from me. I was almost frightened at how angry I'd gotten this time. I'd slipped all the way back to actively plotting Link's death again, and not just occasional thoughts that I quickly fought off, I'd been seriously thinking about how I might do it nearly the whole time we'd ridden.

But even calmed down, and unsettled by how bad my anger had been, I was still not pleased at Link's decision to send us on this detour. Surely there was some other way. We'd been so close! And now we were back in danger, in a situation where some monster might hurt Link, or might provide the opportunity that my hatred sought.

"Link?" I asked when he'd finally finished playing.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure you want me along for this? I'm not safe to have at your back."

"Then I won't turn my back on you."

"Link..."

"It's okay Dark. Just this one cavern and then we'll have the answer, and you won't want to kill me any more."

I sighed and didn't reply. Link climbed into the blankets with me and wrapped his arms around me. I clung to him, glad of his warm, reassuring presence. Even though it was warm enough we might have perhaps slept apart, I didn't want to. I was happy that he seemed to feel the same.

In the morning we gathered up our gear, once again in silence. I slung the Master Sword over my shoulder, pausing to touch the handle, always warm even when I hadn't been carrying it. Link carried his hammer, and I had somewhat mixed feelings about finally seeing him in action with it. It was a very fine weapon. I could recall, from our shared past, what it had been like to use it against the dragon in the fire temple. But I could also recall the feeling of my own bones breaking. The memory stirred up tendrils of hate. Link had killed me, or nearly so. He had defeated me, and I'd been harshly punished for that failure. Why should I not hate the one who had been responsible for me falling under Ganondorf's lash? Maybe it wasn't only magic that made me hate, maybe I did have real reasons, and the song made me forget them.

I brooded on that as we left the entrance chamber and ventured deeper into the cave. There was no light, and soon we found ourselves in total darkness. Link pulled out one of his fire arrows and whispered the simple spell that lit it. That made a good enough torch for us to see by.

"Give me the arrow," I said.

"Huh?"

"I'm going first. You're not supposed to turn your back on me," I said shortly. I regretted it almost as soon as I'd said it. I should have just let him lead the way.

Link didn't reply, he just nodded and handed the arrow over. I took it and started forward, cautiously searching the darkness for signs of keese, or stalfos, or any other sort of monsters that might turn up.

We had gone only a few strides when something moved in the darkness. The arrow's light gleamed off far too many eyes, and as they neared I saw they belonged to blue, bat-winged, demonic creatures. They were like nothing I'd ever seen before, but they were definitely not friendly. Something whistled past me, but I didn't jump, I'd been expecting it. Link was shooting arrows at them. He hit one, dead center between its four white eyes, but to my shock it didn't fall over. Instead it seemed to explode into smaller pieces, and those pieces flapped at me. Keese! I yelped and swung the arrow in my hand at them. If I dropped it we'd be in utter darkness. I managed to hit one, and it fell, keese were actually not that dangerous. They were small and relatively fragile, though they'd happily give you a vicious bite.

The things were getting closer so I rapidly switched the arrow to my right hand and drew my sword. I'd have to do without my shield, I certainly couldn't do without the light. A squeak behind me told me that Link had dealt with another keese, but there were no more arrows. Apparently he didn't want to fill the room full of keese all at once. I didn't blame him.

The first of the oncoming creatures came within range and I swung the Master Sword. It felt so right in my hand, and I found I was grinning as I fought. I struck the creature a nearly perfect blow, and it fell, half-decapitated, and didn't explode into keese. Thank goodness.

Link stepped up beside me, hammer in hand, and he struck the next one right in the chest. I flinched at the crunch of the hammer hitting home. The creature simply dropped. Then another started to circle around behind me, and after that the battle became a whirl of chaos, as the things dodged and dashed around us, their claws reaching for us, their fangs snapping, their too-small wings flapping angrily as they fought. If you nicked one it would turn into several keese, so Link and I both soon learned to only hit them when we had a good chance at a killing blow. But that drew out the battle far longer than usual, and by the time the last demonic thing was dead Link and I were both panting, far more worn that we should have been.

"Let's rest a moment," he said, resting the head of the hammer on the cavern floor. "Need to catch my breath."

"Yeah," I said and sheathed the Master Sword. I still couldn't think of it as my sword. And I still felt that Link had been insane or stupid to give it to me. But then Link seemed to be doing a lot of stupid things lately.

"That was fun," said Link after a moment.

"Ha. I suppose. Though I'd still rather not be doing this. I had a few close calls too many, especially since I have to hold the damn light."

"I could hold it."

"Oh sure, and then you'll be just that much more vulnerable the next time I try to kill you," I snapped. "Idiot."

Link gave me a somewhat annoyed look. "I'm not an idiot. I just..."

"You are an idiot," I interrupted. "If you had any sense we wouldn't be here at all."

Link just sighed and picked up his hammer again. "Let's get going."

I shot him a glare, but drew the Master Sword again. Heaven knows what else we would run into, we'd barely started. And none of it would be needed if Link had been willing to listen to me and try asking around Questra some more. Nor would he need to risk my attacking him! Why did he refuse to even discuss it? Was he so arrogantly sure of his own rightness? Was he so certain he was that much better than me? I snarled silently. It would serve him right if I did manage to injure him. All it would take was a moment of inattention on his part. And there would be many such in the coming battles, I was sure of it. Of course I'd have to pick my time carefully. I didn't want to get killed myself, not if I could help it. But there would surely come a time when Link wasn't expecting me to strike, and when that happened, I would be ready.

Several hours later we were both resting, sitting on the cavern floor this time. We'd fought more demon-things, far too many keese, several stalfos, and a handful of like-like, one of whom had come all too close to sucking me in. I suspected the fire arrow's light had drawn it to me. Now we stood before an actual door, the first thing we'd seen here that had definitely been worked by people. Behind it might merely be more ordinary monsters, but I suspected we would find more than that. The old man's book was probably guarded by something very dangerous. And that fight might well give me my chance to wipe the satisfied smile off of Link's face, perhaps permanently. The fire of anger in me burned higher at the thought, flames of hate licking up hungrily.

I was first through the door. I'd insisted on going first all this time, and I wasn't going to back down on that point now. For one instant I thought the chamber beyond was empty. Vast arches supported a ceiling high overhead, the details of which were lost in shadows. The floor was level, paved in large flagstones. And on the far side of the room I could just make out another door. But between it and I lay an irregular, shadowy mass. It looked like stone, and I thought perhaps it had fallen in from above. But then it moved and two gigantic yellow eyes snapped open.

It was not stone, but the stony skin of a charcoal-black dragon. I dove to one side as it inhaled and blew and blast of fire at me. Link dove to the other. I rolled to my feet, arrow still in hand, though with the dragon's fire still pouring out I hardly needed it. But hopefully the thing would stop soon and then... "Ah hell," I muttered. Then the arrow would make me a target in the darkness. It had been bad enough attracting the smaller monsters, but this thing? I did not want to be the center of its attention!

It took a breath and the room fell dark save for the arrow. I swore under my breath over and over and over as I ran. I wove and dodged frantically, not daring to look back and see if the dragon was aiming at me. Another blast of fire right on my heels, close enough for me to feel the heat, told me it was.

Suddenly light flared brilliantly on the other side of the room. And then the shadows danced madly as the light shot across the chamber and struck the dragon. Link had fired a light arrow at it. The beast roared deafeningly as the arrow sank in. But the light didn't go out, the arrow was stuck in the dragon's side, still glowing, not just the head but the whole shaft. I tossed the fire arrow aside and quickly pulled my shield from my back. Now I could fight!

We charged the dragon from opposite sides, I with the Master Sword, Link with his hammer clutched in both hands. Every time the dragon turned towards one of us, the other struck. We wove and danced around it, and though it breathed fire again and again it was actually easier to dodge close in like this, we could duck around the creature itself and it couldn't blast us without burning its own body.

Its skin looked like stone, but the Master Sword could cut into it, and the hammer was even better, it cracked and shattered the dragon's scales wherever it hit. We couldn't reach very far up that massive body, but it was soon limping and scored with cuts and cracks.

Finally, with another deafening roar, it collapsed. Link jumped up on the dragon's own snout and struck it with the hammer directly between the eyes, and it screeched once more and then fell still and silent.

Link leapt lightly down, panting but grinning. He looked as though he'd just had the time of his life. I scowled, hating him now even more than I had before.

He turned, going around the dragon to the door it had guarded. I trotted up behind him, the Master Sword still in my hand. He hadn't noticed that I hadn't sheathed it. I was so angry that I couldn't feel anything else, there was none of the stomach-clenched eagerness I'd felt on the lake shore so long ago when I'd seen my chance. I was beyond that. But I'd seen it again, now, in Link's green-clad back going through the doorway before me.

I lunged.

The Master Sword sank in easily, so easily. Razor-sharp steel that had cleft dragon's scales didn't even hesitate driving through fabric and flesh.

Link screamed.

The sound turned my blood once more to ice.

Link fell forward, sliding off the blade to the floor. My hand, suddenly nerveless and numb, let go of the sword, which fell after him. The gold and blue of its hilt caught the light that streamed from behind me as it fell. The colors were vivid, as they had been on that very first day, when I had failed. Now I had succeeded, and the blue, gold and green that was Link was turning red. Red soaking his tunic, red on the blade, red everywhere.

Red, the color of my eyes. The color of my betrayal, the color of his. Why had he turned his back on me? He had promised he wouldn't turn his back on me!

Author's note: Thank you all for reading this far. The story is, of course, not over yet, but I have actually reached the end of what I have written and ready to upload. Evil of me to stop here, I know. I will be uploading more, maybe as soon as this evening, maybe later. It depends on how the writing goes today. The full story should be finished within the week, at the latest. Thanks again for reading, and don't forget to leave a review. I always like to hear what people think of my stuff.