A Link to the Past
Chapter Forty Six: Lynel Territory
Now that Link was familiar with how and when the guards did their patrols, as well as dealing with the much tougher residents of the Dark World, the hardest part about getting all the way back up to the Temple of Hera in the mountains was how far of a walk it was. The never ending rainstorm, terrain that ranged from hard packed dirt to grass to loose sand, and then the slow climb back up through the cave was all so exhausting that the young man had to stop once he reached the exit so that he could catch is breath. This short rest quickly turned into a nap, and by the time he was jolted out of it awake, the sky was a lot darker.
With the heavy dark blanket of clouds making it so he couldn't see anything below the edge of the cliff he was on, but the clear sky and lack of rain made it so that Link could easily see that the sun was setting. It was so nice to be dry, that was his favorite thing about the mountains lately, and thankfully the temple was only a short distance farther up the trail… oh, wait a second, that's right… the young man wasn't going back to the Temple of Hera. The building provided a much needed place to rest and that was about it, since the structure was no help at all when it came to how he was going to sneak through into Lynel territory. At least the setting sun would make him harder for the creatures to spot, but then again Link didn't know where he was going and he couldn't exactly see in the dark without fire.
The moon was starting to rise, and it helped him to see a little, but that didn't make the young man any less nervous as he left the Temple of Hera, heading east into the darkness in order to find the highest hill. The good news was that once he got close to it the highest place in the mountains should be really easy to spot, but after heading down the lesser used trail and around the first set of cliffs, Link had to duck down behind the rocks to avoid being seen by the creature. He had only seen a Lynel once before, but it was just as frightening to see as the first time his grandfather had told him about facing them in the mountains during the battle against Ganondorf.
Lower body and legs of a horse, with the arms and torso of something that, well… sort of looked like a person, but then again almost like something that would have lived in the Dark World. Pointed ears, sharpened teeth, hair that kind of looked like a horse's mane, this one carrying a kind of curved sword with a chipped edge as if it was used to hitting things really hard. His grandfather and the first King Façade had faced a small group of these creatures, and it had not ended well for them at all, uh… something about being kicked a lot, and then getting dragged across the landscape before getting thrown into the dungeons… not something the young man wanted to experience firsthand.
Continuing to trot its way slowly across the rocky terrain, the Lynel didn't seem to be aware of him, so Link was trying to decide if he should sneak past or kill the creature from behind, but then another one came trotting up, ending the possibility of a sneak attack. The two of them kind of grunted and snorted to each other, maybe in some kind of Lynel language? Whatever it was they were doing, it went on for several seconds before the second creature trotted away, and the young man decided to just keep sneaking along since he had no idea how many more of them there could be, but it was just so damn hard to see now that the sun had gone all the way down.
The moon allowed him to see the tops of the rocks and other features of this part of the mountains, but only when Link stood up high enough to look over them, and in the shadows he was basically blind. How come none of the treasures needed to win the Master Sword made him see in the dark? That would have been great, especially once the horse creatures began lighting torches to illuminate the areas around them… sure this made it easy to see where each patrolling Lynel was, but now it was even harder to quietly navigate around the rocks in the dark. Random flashes of lightning from the storm below made it so he didn't do anything stupid like walk right off a cliff, while the sounds of the wind and rain from below sort of masked any noises the young man was making, there were only more and more of those creatures as he moved on.
It made sense for there to be more Lynels as he moved deeper into their territory, but now there was a lot more light when Link came up to a large encampment filled with campfires and… lots… and lots of the horse creatures. Some were eating, others wandering around the encampment, many of them grunting and shorting to each other the same way those first ones had… his grandfather said the Lynels he faced spoke to him and Façade, but maybe they only did that with outsiders. It wasn't like Link was going to test out whether or not these creatures could speak the local language, so he stayed to the edge of the encampment just outside the circle of illumination, at least until that circle ran right into a long stretch of the cliff.
Two choices were all that the young man had at this point; circle back and find another way all the way over there at the other side of the camp, or try to sneak through an illuminated part of the encampment to the next shadowed area while hoping that none of them noticed. Link didn't want to go all the way back around since the camp was pretty big, so he took a deep breath, waited until the creatures he could see were either far away or looking at something else… and then having to duck back down into the shadows when another Lynel trotted in out of nowhere. All right, maybe what he needed was a distraction… yeah, just pick up a loose rock and throw it as far into the camp as possible, then make his move while they were all looking at the noise.
So Link picked up the first loose rock he found with his hands searching in the darkness, tossed it toward the center of the camp, and then got a sinking feeling in his stomach when the rock struck the same Lynel that just surprised him in the side of the head with a soft whump. Snorting and stepping sideways from being caught by surprise, the horse creature put one clawed hand on its stinging cheek while raising its torch with the other, and of course the young man was caught by surprise as well… so much that he couldn't move until the light was fully on him. Immediately the horse creature called out to the others in a loud neighing snort, but it wasn't until the nearest one was reaching for his curved sword that Link found the ability to move.
In a flash of movement, the Lynel swung its sword down, impacting the young man's shield so hard that it made him stumble back, so of course Link drew the blue blade, moving to the side to avoid the next attack before giving the horse creature a nasty cut across the horse part of its chest. In reaction to this hit, the Lynel grunted and lowered the torch as it stepped back, so the young man swung his shield this time, knocking the light out of its hands before taking off running for the shadows. By this time several more of them were giving chase, a couple of arrows hitting the ground next to him as he scrambled for cover, forgetting to try and hide and using the glove's power for a burst of speed to put some distance between them.
However, using such power in the dark was a bad idea, since Link tripped and fell on his face after only a few quickened steps, skidding to a stop on some loose gravel while more arrows landed around him and the sound of running horse hooves got closer. Trying his best to awkwardly get up, the young man kept running, climbing over rocks and making his way upward while the Lynels had to at times find a smoother way around… which they managed to do quickly. Up and up he climbed, feeling the sting and crying out as one of the arrows graved his leg, just climbing and climbing until… until there was nowhere left to go. Looking around in all directions, the only way to go from there was back down, and now the Lynels had him surrounded.
The rounded surface of the hill was not very wide, and provided no cover at all when the first Lynel rode up to attack him, but the Master Sword was longer than its curved one, allowing Link to nearly slice off one of its legs after deflecting that first hit with his sword. The first horse creature cried out in pain as it rolled back down the hill, but that didn't stop the second one from charging forward with spear in hand, taking away any advantage given by the blue blade's length… but not the freezing rod. Quickly turning his shield and unleashing the silvery mist just before the Lynel was about to throw the speak, the others gasped and stopped moving as their comrade's whole body was frozen solid.
"You might not… believe me!" Link said loudly between labored breaths as the horse creature fell over and shattered. "But I didn't… come here to… cause trouble!"
"You are correct, we do not believe you." One of them replied in an odd accent. "You invaded our territory, hit me with a rock, and now you attack us with magic before asking for peace? No, no, my little friend, you are going to die on this hill in about five seconds. Archers ready!"
The first attackers were backing away now, the ones carrying swords and spears giving way for the ones carrying bows and arrows to move forward, unfortunately well out of the freezing rod's range. There were over a dozen of them on all sides, with no way his small shield could block them all, and nowhere to hide. Again the young man tried to reason with them, but the leader ignored these words while ordering the others to get ready to finish him off, and then Link could only yelp in fear, stumbling backwards as all of the arrows were fired at once, but then there was the familiar sensation of falling. Falling through whiteness and wind until landing on his back on rocky terrain that was a lot sharper than it had been before.
Dim orange light bathed the landscape, the Lynels and their arrows nowhere to be found, and even the rainstorm having disappeared while the young man looked down at the distant features of the Dark World. Was that what happened? He accidently found the crack between worlds while running for his life? If that was true, then this was where the fortune teller had wanted him to go, and now Link was looking around for… oh wow, take a look at that over there.
Back over a ways to the west there was a massive stone structure, just as tall as the Tower of Hera in Hyrule, but rounded at the top and massively wider with a long protrusion sticking out of the front that sort of resembled… a large turtle looking up at the sky from underneath its shell. He had found it… he was looking at Turtle Rock.