Chapter
21
"What do we do?" Char asks.
Zelda gazes into the fire, hugging the
Mirror shield. Zuli traces pictures of a rat in the sand with hearts around it.
Garnet sharpens his Four Sword.
"We need an army." I say.
"How?" Zuli asks. "Where
do you get an army?"
"The other tribes. All of them
suffered because of Demise. If we tell them news I'm sure they will help."
"The only problem is, Demise has the
ultimate weapon." Zelda says without looking up. "He has the Ether
Blade. Without that our efforts will be futile."
"We have the Master Sword. Fi can
talk him out of it- there is still hope for the Ether Blade. You said so
yourself that you would find a way to free him and make him human."
She looks at me and smiles but there is
sadness in her eyes.
"Alright, Link- I mean Jade."
She corrects herself. "Let's do this."
***
Rallying the tribes was no easy task.
It's hard to form an army against an enemy you don't know the location of. But
in the end, they agreed to come to our aid when we shoot a flaming arrow into
the sky. It's not much, seeing as there will be a significant delay. But the
beacon lighters are on watch. The only thing to do now, is search for Demise.
"I mean he did say he had an army-
how hard can it be to find that?" Zuli shrugs.
We come to the bowl of Hyrule: the very
centre of all the fields, where the Draghan Clan thrives. They are the
wealthiest and most advanced of all tribes. They have built a fortress of
stone. And that is where our journey leads us: the last tribe to make a pact
with.
"Do we knock?" Zuli asks as we
approach the wooden doors.
"They are the most violent of us
all, we need to be careful." Zelda says.
The hair raises on my neck. I whip around
to see something black seeping toward us.
"Draw your swords!" I command.
My companions join me, armed. The blackness takes shape collecting itself into
a gelatinous blob. A giant eyeball seeps forward, the blackness peeling back
like a lid. Two giant arms shoot out, the palms glowing an angry red. It stands
up on these arms and lopes toward us like a severed torso. I run forward and
chop off a hand. It turns into a black wolf, the likeness of which makes a
falling sensation rush through my gut. The mangled beast tackles me. Garnet
kicks it off and charges in. He hacks off the arm it's limping with and it
turns into a python, thick and coiled. While he stumbles from its strikes, Zuli
goes for the eye. The one unharmed arm swats him like a fly.
My skin prickles as I feel the wolf
stalking from behind. I turn and stab it only to have flesh eating roaches pour
out of the wound. I jump back flailing to get them off as they pick bits off of
me.
"It's Dethl- the nightmare!"
Zelda yells, arching an arrow. "Demise must know we are here." Her aim
never misses. Dethl hisses, trying to
blink away the shaft of wood.
Char delivers a deadly blow to the body
onto to be chased away by redeads, clawing their way out of the oozing gash.
"Go for the eye!" Zelda shouts.
"THE EYE, LINK!"
The four of us nod in understanding.
Keeping the nightmares at bay we go in for our target. But Dethl doesn't make
it easy. He flails his arm pushing us into the groping arms of the redeads and
the coils of the snake.
Zuli who seemed out of commission made an
unexpected recovery and nailed Dethl in the eye with the Master Sword. Shoving
it in deep he adds the four sword and tears it through the jell-like substance.
Dethl and all his nightmares dissolve into nothing.
I kneel panting.
"Way to go, Zuli." Char gasps.
"Yep." Is all he can say.
Battered and warn we turn to the doors again. They open. The People that rush
out I recognize. With their wild matted hair and blood red furs, they are the
people that attacked my home: they were the reason I went on this god forsaken
quest. With a club to the head I am out cold.