He heard the grinding of the cart wheels first. The clop of horses' hooves on stone and firmly-packed soil frozen in place by the icy dawn, the heavy whoosh of their deep breathing, the swish of their tails. And, of course, the rhythmic march of soldiers' boots flanking the cart.
Link opened his eyes. His vision was blurry at first, his head foggy from sleep and pain. As it cleared he could make out the spiny branches of firs far above his head, shimmering with morning frost – they were still in the mountains.
The raspy sound of his own breathing grated harsh and heavy in his ears. There was a fire burning in his side, and he felt the discomfort of hastily-wrapped bandages tight around his abdomen, along with a cold wetness along his entire side – his own blood, most likely, having cooled after leaving his body. The dampness and the chill made him feel like something soggy dredged up from a swamp and then left out in the cold to slowly dry, even as curled tendrils of mist sent moisture deeper into his body.
"Still alive?" someone grunted coldly, somewhere he couldn't see.
A face obscured by a helmet appeared in his field of vision, face weathered and hard under the metal. "For now," the man muttered darkly. "We'll see what the King does with this traitor."
Traitor. Link almost laughed at the word. Of course he would be branded as such. It was no surprise to him, after what he'd done. Killing the King's closest advisor – who, rumor had it, was also the King's mother – was plenty enough to give him the mark of a traitor. Raiding battalions of the King's armies as they traveled from one place to another was just the icing on the cake.
Link let his eyes fall closed. It was unclear where his road led now. The King had plenty of reasons to kill him – and the barest sliver of a reason left to keep him alive, if only for the information he held. Namely, the location of the hidden Sheikah fortress housing the leaders of this little rebellion against a dictatorial regime. That was, of course, if his injuries from the last battle didn't kill him before the King got the chance.
The raid had started well enough. Link and his men popped out of the undergrowth and spooked the horses pulling the carts of supplies. Link himself drove the beasts further into a panic by setting those carts on fire with a spell Impa had taught him only weeks ago. Then he'd realized that the wooden crates in the cart were empty. Decoys.
That was when a larger force of mounted cavalry charged down on them. Link gave the order to retreat, but against soldiers on horseback they didn't stand a chance. Link and a few others chose to stay behind and distract the enemy force. One by one they fell to grievous wounds, and Link at last was disarmed, knocked aside by a horse intent on trampling him, and plunged into unconsciousness from the fall.
He'd suffered a few minor scratches, several bruises, and one more serious injury from the encounter – a glancing blow from a horseman's spear that tore through his side, fortunately missing his innards but leaving a deep, jagged gash in its wake. That wound now pulsed with a fire that hinted of infection to come, and the fogginess in his mind certainly did nothing to eliminate that possibility.
He dragged his eyelids open again. Gray skies, pine boughs… he felt a twinge of worry. The King was located in Hyrule Field, at the castle – quite a distance from the nearest pine forest. He didn't know how long the envoy had been traveling, of course, but… surely they would have left the mountains by now…?
Gritting his teeth, eyes narrowed through the pain, he wriggled his way into a sitting position, using his hands bound in front of him to press against the bottom of the cart as leverage. His eyes narrowed further – not far from where they were, the trail seemed almost to start winding upwards. If I'm not completely disoriented – which I suppose is likely – we're not heading to Hyrule Castle by any usual route.
He glanced around at the soldiers surrounding him. Thirty men, it seemed – ten on horseback, and the rest marched alongside his cart, surrounding him. The corners of his lips twitched. They think I'm quite the threat, even wounded.
And they must have indeed been traveling for quite some time, for the soldiers sitting in the cart with him had nodded off, sound asleep. Typical Castle Town soldiers.
"Hey," he growled, his voice thicker and gruffer than usual, thanks to the pain he was attempting to hide. He nudged the soldier with a foot. "Where're you taking me?"
The man started awake, a hand flying to the hilt of the sword at his waist. His eyes narrowed as they landed on Link. "Filthy traitor," he spat. "What makes you think we'd tell you anything?" He glanced over his shoulder, towards the rider at the head of the envoy. "He's awake!"
At once the rider gave the command to halt. Link's eyes narrowed as the men stopped walking, the cart rocked to a stop. The rider at the front, clearly the man in charge, dismounted and started walking back towards him. Link's heart clenched as he caught sight of his face.
They think I'm a threat, indeed, he thought, as the man marched ever closer. If the King of Hyrule put Linebeck of the Royal Guard in charge of detaining me.
He'd fought alongside Linebeck, once. Sailed under his command years ago on an expedition to devastate the lizalfos hatching grounds on an island just off the eastern coast. Link had hoped that Linebeck would leave the Hyrulean military at his side with the upheaval caused by the new King's rise to power. Instead, he had shown his true colors – his own desire for glory and gold.
"I hope you got decent rest," Linebeck sneered, his eyes cold. "You'll be walking the rest of the way, and we won't slow our pace for you."
"I wouldn't expect you to," Link growled, biting his teeth firmly together as he forced himself to stand and then hop down from the back of the cart, grunting at the jarring impact when his feet hit the ground. His wound pulsed anew; he fought to ignore it, to put on a brave face, to act with all the dignity he could manage. It's the best chance I have now – if I can demonstrate grace and pride through whatever's to come, perhaps I could change a few minds. Send some to join Zelda in my place.
As a few injured soldiers moved to take Link's place in the cart, Linebeck grabbed his wrists roughly and bound them to a hitch at the back. "Walk, or be dragged," he leered, earning a few dark snickers from the men around him. Link glared coldly back. You don't intimidate me. Never have.
As it tended to be, with people once worthy of respect, Link reflected as the envoy started forwards again and he began to walk. Once they lose that respect, you see them as… diminished. Lessened. They've fallen from their pedestal.
His ankle rolled on a loose stone and he grimaced, stumbling in his struggle to keep his footing. He felt relieved that his clothing had not been overly looted – his armor was gone, of course, but he still had his boots, undershirt, and trousers. He considered the bandage around his side, oozing a slow trickle of blood even now, and felt a crisp bolt of clarity strike his mind, perhaps a courtesy of the frigid mountain air.
They gave my worst injury some treatment.
I'm not heading to my execution in Castle Town – they want me alive for worse purposes.
Torture.
As a primary figure in the rebellion, of course they'd want to pry every drop of information they can from me, Link thought bitterly. He glared at the back of Linebeck's head. I'll die before I break. Even if it had to be by his own hand, he decided. He would not risk Zelda's exposure and the destruction of Hyrule's last chance for freedom from the false new King.
The pain of his gashed side tore him from his musings much sooner than he would have hoped. It sent sharp burning flares all across his right side with each step slightly stretching and tugging at the damaged, inflamed skin. Every few steps a particularly nasty stab of pain drove through his skull as if a nail beneath a hammer, sending stars glittering across his vision. It became harder and harder for him to keep his breaths even, as the trail snaked upwards higher into the mountains and the air thinned. His thoughts blurred into one another, his eyelids drooping with looming unconsciousness as his body inched nearer to the extent of its capabilities.
Sweat that instantly chilled beneath his thin undershirt cloaked him in a thick, gritty layer of cold that further sapped at his strength and resolve. The cold prickled at his exposed face and hands like so many needles piercing directly into his blood, turning them numb and draining their color. His toes weren't faring much better, he noted with considerable worry – once he lost feeling in his feet, he doubted he would have the ability to keep himself from stumbling over each patch of uneven ground and jutting stone in the road.
And indeed, thanks to the frozen air choking the clarity from his mind, he was aware of the sudden stinging in his knees before he realized that he'd fallen. A feeble spike of adrenaline helped him scramble back to his feet as the envoy marched on, his heart pounding just a bit faster as he glanced around in the moment of clarity. His wrists, bound halfway up the back of the cart, had kept him from falling flat on his face. But the fall had still torn through his trousers; he felt the distinct drizzling of fresh blood on his kneecaps as the stinging continued.
And as he continued he felt the warmth of fresh blood seeping from his side, as well – in the fall he'd undoubtedly made his injury worse.
The dreary march up into the mountains continued. Link's feet dragged, and though he struggled to keep his head raised high he found himself staring absently, numbly down at his bound wrists instead. His breaths came fast and ragged, his consciousness and vision wavering with each shaking step until, with a startled grunt, he found himself on the ground once again, held up only by his wrists bound to the back of the cart, now bearing the entirety of his weight. Teeth clenched, he pulled at the rope, trying to gather enough leverage to drag himself back to his feet –
But his strength was spent, his consciousness coming in choppy moments of dulled senses – mostly pain, mostly the view of the underside of the cart as the wheels spat little stones back at him, as his legs dragged helplessly on the dirt road frozen nearly to rough stone by the frigid temperature, as his new stretched-out position tore horribly at the edges of the wound in his side. The taste of blood. The sound of his breaths, ragged and hoarse, in his ears. He could not tell how much time was passing, whether a few moments after he fell, dragged out by his own fading consciousness, or hours of torment along the road, long minutes spent entirely unconscious.
At some point the darkness took him completely. He was aware only of his heart, proving to himself that he was alive, even as it sent waves of pain pulsing through his being with every beat.