As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 85 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story (and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY from now until they're both caught up with each other (like I was doing with FwB until this weekend).
And if you're just interested in discussing things with other readers, of course, you can go to my DISCORD here: h- t_ t_ p-s -: -/ -/ -discord . g-g / N9yDA8t6Cw (taking out hyphens, underscores, and spaces of course).
Finally, you can also read my ORIGINAL FICTION on Kindle. If you've got Kindle Unlimited, they're all free. Here's my author page, h-t_t_p-s -:- /-/ tinyurl _._ com /- 4ffb7wph with links to everything published. (Remove all Hyphens, Spaces, and Underscores, of course... 'cause Ffnet.)
Note, this is one of the shortest chapters. Sorry, just worked out that way. Next will be a fair bit longer, and back to the usual after, iirc (remember I wrote these like 7 months ago, since I just finished writing Ch. 88 today and post weekly).
Chap. 52: Sudden, Intense Violence
It was a good thing, Zelda thought in hindsight, that the Shrine's refreshing, healing, and revitalizing ability was so profound. She needed that healing not ten minutes after leaving the Shrine. "Should have expected Stalkoblins in a graveyard," Zelda hissed, clutching one hand to other arm, which held her newest spear in numb fingers as she backed away, careful to keep her eyes on her opponents. Not just one Stalkoblin, though, but three, and a brace of Keese besides them, swooping down from some hidden resting area inside the cliffs she had spent two days climbing and mining, or perhaps one of the many ancient trees that surrounded the grave-site.
That energy and wakefulness was quite necessary, as the princess found herself dodging left, right, ducking one swooping bat-monster, spinning deftly to avoid another despite the late hour, or was it early morning? Then a leap over a wild swing the second Stal had made for her knees, tucking them up against her chest. Her foot somehow lashed out practically of its own accord to kick at the face of the third undead Bokoblin, and it went flying, teeth chattering loudly as it rolled in the grass a dozen feet away.
For her trouble, the first one, armed with a long, pointed stick it had probably chewed into shape given the flecks of fiber stuck in its broken, misshapen teeth, slashed across her midriff, drawing blood as it opened her armor and flesh alike. Zelda hissed in pain and jumped back again a moment too late.
Her own spear spun almost on its own as she counter-attacked at the nearest Keese, swapping hands amid replaying fragments of lessons. It does you no good, her old teacher had said, long before she had taken up an impromptu tutelage at the hands of her Champion, a gruff, old veteran whose face she could not recall with the snippets that came from her previous life. Or, given what the ancient Zelda had told her, perhaps it was actually, truly, from a previous life? It does you no good to focus on your dominant hand alone. What if you are injured, that hand damaged? You would be helpless. You must train to defend yourself with both hands. Yes, focus on your better one. Yes, it will keep you alive often enough. But what if it doesn't? More training is necessary. Train. Train more!
That phrase, train, and train more, echoed in her skull again and again as Zelda's spear twisted, using her waist as a fulcrum near the base, her hand half-way up its shaft, to smash another Stalkoblins' skull off its body. The bones collapsed, and this time, she had just enough space to thrust too, crushing the focus of the dark energies that animated the corpses.
One down, she thought. The Keese that had fluttered away from her last attack dive-bombed her again, its ring-shaped mouth closing and opening furiously as it mindlessly sought to consume her bite by bite. The princess ducked, the shaft of her spear barely stopped the club from the second Stal as it swung again. She rolled and spun again, whirling the spear back in the other direction around her body now with both hands. The two circles this time were made in concert, and the added momentum cut that same Keese in half despite missing it with the sharper head of the weapon.
The spear stabbed at her again, another minor wound into her left thigh, but Zelda winced. She batted it away and moved in, the still-numb fingers of her left hand curled into a fist. Crack.
Yes, it hurt, and Zelda allowed herself a moment to wince in pain and shake her suddenly not numb hand free of it after she caved in the brittle bones. Then, quickly, she followed up with the butt of her spear, stabbing twice directly at the remains of the Stalkoblin's face. It crumpled, too.
Now there was one upright Stal, one body searching for its head, which was rolling slowly back toward it now, pulled by the dark magic that kept them moving after who knew how long, and one more Keese.
Zelda snarled angrily, and thrust again. The Stal blocked the strike with its club through luck alone as it had swung at the same moment. Her next attack, faster than it could recover, slipped between two ribs, glancing away with a dull bonk-scrape, with little effect.
The third was a bit better, and again a head hit the ground. This one, the princess wound up a more powerful kick for, almost like it was a ball on a playing pitch. It shattered not against her boot, but against the headstone she had kicked it toward with full force, blasted into a hundred or more miniscule pieces.
Of course, that had given the last Stalkoblin time to remount its head on its spine, a line of purple-yellow energy connecting the two with a flash before it turned to face her, its horrific, skeletal mouth twisting into a mad grin.
"No," she told it firmly, as it bent to retrieve the crude spear that had already bled her twice, "Not again."
It thrust. She did, too.
Her training showed, her own movement more quick and precise than the undead Bokoblin's motion. Its Boko Spear swept between her arm and chest, where she caught it even as it recoiled from another stab that removed its head. Directly, explosively, as Zelda ripped the blade of her own weapon sideways from the eye socket, going out the long way across more of the cavernous empty space its tiny brain might have once been.
The last Keese, her final opponent of the night, she hoped, was still fluttering and circling overhead.
It blinked the singular eye that made up half of its face, then turned wing and flapped away.
Zelda's spear hit the ground, and her bow slipped into her hand, already strung.
Thwip.
One shot, and the Keese fell to the ground two dozen feet away.
Zelda smiled proudly, that would have been a good shot at the best of times, as the monster bobbed and weaved high in the air. Amid trees and foliage, at night? It was near astounding, and she'd done it without losing a second arrow.
For now, though, loot.
There wasn't much. A few horns, and the large, heavy club that had nearly beaned her a few times, and the chewed-upon spear that had wounded her twice, if only superficially. Zelda took the bat, glad once more that the loops her father's ghost had made for her satchel magically decreased both size and weight of whatever weapon she attached there. The Keese actually had more, both had left behind an eye and a pair of wings, which Zelda was now fully aware would be quite useful for elixirs, if and when she had a chance to brew some again.
Speaking of drinking strange things... she needed a meal. One thing the Shrines did not take care of were hunger and thirst. It was good, then, that she still had plenty of apples to eat on the way, and a happy horse equally ready to share in the snack just outside the graveyard.
Zelda stopped for an actual meal as the sky started to lighten in the east. She had left the graveyard behind three hours earlier, and the remainder of the night had been quiet and peaceful, even tranquil, as she and Nightmare started up the long, winding road to the east that would take them back to Hateno. Her stallion seemed quite grateful for not just the trio of apples she had fed him, but the chance to graze without carrying her along was even better for it, along with the handful of oats and the Palm Fruit she had added to its diet.
Her own meal of Cuccoo legs and sauteed wild greens went well with fresh water from a nearby spring, but she was still far too awake to sleep.
It was growing daylight anyway, so she decided to continue on.
Up the hills, foothills, and more, she and Nightmare walked together, as she decided to rest him a bit. He was a large horse, probably more than strong and enduring enough to carry her for long stretches, but Zelda felt it was better to be kind when she could to help balance out the risk of his existence near her. Sometimes, she expected, she might literally ask the horse to charge head-long into danger. If she had to do that, then why torture him beforehand?
Nightmare sensed the problem first. His nose twitched. He shied away from her, pulling at the reigns she still led him by, tugging her to the right. Away from the Cliffs of Quince, where the Hateno Tower stood, a blue-shining monument to the Ancient Sheikah, but also a prime landmark for orientation along with Mount Lanayru, far on the horizon.
A small, narrow bridge of stone led across a gorge there, carved by the Squabble River over untold eons, which connected the road she was on with a smaller trail that wound up toward the Tower, and, eventually, back to the spot she had been raped by the Yiga man.
Zelda let her eyes close as she fought to control her emotions on the subject.
That was a mistake.
She should have listened to her horse's instincts.
Instead, a blade slashed into her armor and right arm, cutting deeply, along with the howl of a red Bokoblin.
A Bokoblin carrying an actual short sword. And it was not alone. With the red, there was also a larger, stronger blue one with a heavy club similar to the one she now carried, which stepped out from behind a large stone to stand in the road and raise the weapon. "Lady surrender, have good time. Blue-fire Bomb-lady not surrender, we take her harder, no good time. Either way, you come with Crumdum and Bitswit. You come now."
"We cum," the red one giggled maniacally, the bloody tip of its sword jabbing toward her.
Nightmare bolted, tearing the reigns from her hands as it tore away, up the hillside to the northeast.
Zelda sighed, glancing down at her arm, which was bleeding heavily. Her old teacher's words were, as she had thought hours earlier, wise, and sometimes too timely.
It would be hard to wield a spear like that... but a sword she could do. A shield she could, maybe, do. Just on the wrong hand.
So she turned and ran.
The Bokoblins, predictably, followed.
But they were short, and she was, while a woman, of at least average height. Her legs were longer in proportion, too, and while the blue Bokoblin was far more vigorous than the red, her own endurance was Goddess-enhanced. So she ran, and within five minutes, had significantly outpaced them. She was still nearly winded, breathing hard and probably red-faced, when she turned and skidded to a halt in the dirt road, well-traveled by pack animal, traveler, and cart.
Yes... "Just enough time," she murmured to herself, and drew her Yiga weapon and shield, then switched hands. Her fingers shook with nerves as she tied the shield awkwardly upside-down on the wrong arm, then gave it a few experimental waves. It would do. She was better with a spear than a sword, and better with her other hand, but Zelda did have some training this way. The way her body moved as she held the weapon, at least, spoke of confidence her mind did not necessarily feel.
The blue, predictably, closed the distance first. Its larger size and better general physical ability carried it to the princess, who had just finished giving a flourish with her blade to acclimate to its weight and odd heft, at least thirty seconds before the red one.
Which meant she had half a minute to finish the job. She was not about to let some two-Rupee ambush like this be what captured her again.
Of course, her body betrayed her. She swung out as soon as it came in range, but with the wrong arm. Her shield, upside-down, was several inches away from the blue Bokoblin's snout as it skidded to a halt, surprised by her sudden attack, while her sickle was raised defensively.
Stupid, she thought, and repositioned as quickly as she could, but any advantage from the movement was lost. The Bokoblin's club raised high over its head, casting a shadow down onto Zelda's face from the mid-morning sun.
It fell with a heavy thud into the dry earth of the unpaved road, and Zelda lashed out again, this time with the proper, left hand. She drew blood across the Boko's blue chin, the blade carving up along its jaw and through the flap of its right ear. The Bokoblin shrieked in agony, and tried to haul the club up, but Zelda stomped down on it. One blue hand lots its grip, the other just held on as it was yanked downward.
Vulnerable.
Zelda clocked it on the back of its thick skull with her shield first, and she watched with glee as the Bokoblin reeled, even as her own blade came up overhead too. With a final, vicious slash, she severed the monster's spine at the back of the neck, and stepped over its already dissipating corpse to dash toward the red one.
Horrified, its blue-blazing eyes widened.
Then it turned, dropped its blade, and ran for its life.
Zelda didn't give it a chance. Like the Keese early that morning, her bow was out quickly. It was harder to aim, since she couldn't easily use the other hand and her arm was bleeding profusely, so her hand was unsteady. The first arrow struck it in the right bum cheek, and the Bokoblin staggered. The second missed completely, sailing out over the gorge to drop into the depths some hundred yards past. The third must have hit something vital, a lung or its heart perhaps, because the Bokoblin took four more lumbering steps after that strike before it fell, vanishing into the same now-familiar but still disturbing black and purple mist its kind always seemed to.
"Waste of arrows," was her only judgement about it, though as she stood tall again and looked down at her arm, "And a healing potion. That's worse than a poultice can deal with."
She lost an hour and a half cleaning, cutting away a bit of dying skin from her arm, and then attempting to place a few awkward stitches which would likely either need a true chirurgeon to replace, or a Sage's powerful magic to heal properly, then dress the wound before downing her most poorly-made Healing Elixir. It was still painful letting it go, even if she was grateful the alchemical magic of it was potent enough to halt the pain and start the mending process almost immediately.
The ingredients were just too hard to come by, even if they were better for healing than regular medicine alone. The only things she knew of that might be better involved the dust distributed by one of Cotera's daughters, still safely held in some of her bottles, but Zelda was not willing to let those go so cheaply, either. Perhaps for a near-mortal wound, rather than something that would, eventually, heal with time.
Thankfully, the next ambush, and the one after that, were both more easily dealt with. Two red Bokoblins simply lay snoozing in the grass, snoring as she approached. The first had died without a whimper, its brain skewered by her sickle, and the second a few seconds later had jerked spasmodically and stared, wide-eyed and terrified, up at the adventurer as she looked stoically downward. The third ambush actually took a fight, but against two red Bokoblins once again, even a stand-up battle was little threat any longer.
The wear on her sickle was a bit of a shame too, since all Zelda had to replace it as the thin, wickedly sharp blade began to bend and warp under the strain of combat was the basic traveler's short sword she had gathered from the first ambush, the very one that had stabbed into her arm.
Fortunately, Nightmare came trotting back up to her from the hillsides shortly before Zelda entered a narrow, steep-walled ravine. Wary of a fourth ambush, she had spent an hour checking along both ends of the cliff before following the road down, but it seemed the Bokoblins were not smart enough to use what would have been a prime location for an attack.
Even just dropping stones onto passers-by could be lethal, after all, if they had no real place to flee.
It was on that southwestern side of the ravine that she spotted familiar geography. The Tower, yes, but also Ginner Woods, and the larger Firly valley, with Hateno beyond it. She smiled.
A few Moblins might still be a huge threat, literally, but she could at least hopefully avoid them by staying on the road.
Her horse joined her with a whinny and nicker, seeming almost sheepish as he judged her satchel and shoulder. "Oh, don't worry, you big coward," Zelda chuckled, "but please- ow! Don't poke me there. Yes, you can still have treats, you lug... yes, yes. Here you go, a pair of apples. Don't run off again, okay?"
After that, it was much smoother, and Zelda, riding for the first time since the sun had risen, reached Hateno Village just after sunset had begun.
Arranging for the Mayor's wife, Clavia, to re-stitch and dress her arm might have cost her fifty full Rupees, but Zelda felt it was well worth it.
Even if Prima wasn't (sadly) available to help alleviate her stress and pain with pleasure.
There was always next time, and the room was a comfort itself.