Thirteen
“You know, I think we’ll need to adjust that map.”
The words were only for himself, whispered softly as Link stood on the high branch, well above the rest of the party. It had been a long journey, ending in an all-day trek through a thick forest, and by all possible measurements they would have to reach the end of the trees sometime in the early morning. All of them had been doing periodic checks from the treetops, though Link was the first to see that they had – in fact – arrived.
Sort of.
“How does it look?” Zelda called up to him. After the first two days of no contact with any foe past the occasional bat made out of jelly, they’d dropped some of the precautions on silence in order to get their answers faster. Unfortunately, this time Link had nothing to offer her, still staring at what Nabooru had told him was a secret cave, an underground labyrinth. Maybe before the Glass had broke, it had been.
“I think you should see this for yourself.”
He listened to her climb up, but didn’t look away from their destination. Five days without sign of any attack had seemed odd, but maybe Ganon already knew what was waiting for them, how unlikely it was they would succeed.
“What is - Oh... my.” Zelda whispered, as startled as he’d felt when he reached the top of the tree line and the valley stretched out in front of him. From what Nabooru had said, and the anecdotal reports before the Glass shattered, the entrance to the underground temple lay just beyond a small mountain town, with nothing of the secret labyrinth visible from the road, which was how it had remained secret for so long.
It was anything but secret now, and whatever she’d heard about strange lights or other subtle signs of change was nothing compared to the mammoth rock tower that drew up into the sky, dwarfing the nearby hills and placing the entire town beneath in shadow. Link could see thick clouds around the upper peaks, glistening with ice and heavy with snow. Much of the middle was obscured by the same clouds, the entire temple seemed to have a perpetual storm clinging to it – not unexpected for such a place, but slightly worse conditions than Link was hoping for.
//Slightly..?// He glanced at Zelda, still staring at the frozen structure in awe.
“My advice is,” Link finally said, “we don’t try to lick it.”
She didn’t stop looking at him funny, all the way to the ground.
----------------------------
With each day, it had become increasingly difficult to look at Ganon and Nabooru, Link well aware that they were trying to fit an entire lifetime’s worth of relationship into a five-day journey. The rest of the party tried to give the two of them as much space as he could, all trying not to deal with the possibility of losing this Ganon by winning. Link couldn’t help but think about what he would do, if he only had Zelda for another few days.
//Who knows, you just might.//
It didn’t take long to move through the rest of the trees, a chill wind growing sharper as they approached the plains. At the edge of the forest they stopped again, the rest of the party taking in the view Link had still not gotten used to. The icy monolith towering over the rest of the land was just not anything he could think of as real.
“Everything’s shining,” Zelda whispered. It was certainly true, as he sun came out from behind a cloud, and the entire tower sparkled like perfectly cut diamonds.
An open stretch of land separated the forest from the town, and the Sheikah quickly took the lead, scouting ahead. Nearly invisible with how low they could run along the ground, their feline forms were barely a rustle in the tall grass.
Link was glad they’d decided not to assume the town would let them resupply – or could, even if they’d wanted to. Everything he could see was glistening, all the roofs of the houses covered in ice, and no sign of movement, a silence hanging like a weight over all of it, like the shadow of the towering pillar that rose from its center, dominating the sky. Link sighed at the thought of the climb ahead, even if there were stairs.
“You think life might be fair for once, and put what we’re looking for right at the /bottom/?”
“You might want to wrap a scarf around your head, kid,” Nabooru drawled, as Zelda hid a smile behind one hand, “I think your brain’s already started to freeze.”
The Sheikah returned, nothing dangerous that they could sense outside the town, no sign of an ambush. Any sense of foreboding was as common in him as breathing, and so Link didn’t hesitate to follow as Zelda set off across the field.
The town had a fair wall, and very high front gates, obviously added in the years since Ganon had taken Hyrule. Ice-covered, as the rest of the town seemed to be, the cold radiating out, chilling even when the wind died and the day was otherwise sunny. He had the Master Sword out, of course, and nearly turned around to glare, listening to some sort of muted argument behind him, though Nabooru stalked silently past him before he could bother.
Link nearly hissed at her to slow down, not wanting to meet whatever enemy they were going to face without plenty of prior warning. Nabooru slowed instead, instinctively sensing the same overflow of magic through this place that he had, and it was Zelda who took the corner first. The Gerudo said something to him, but all his attention was on Zelda, and feeling his heart freeze very much like the buildings around them as she turned the corner and paled, one hand over her mouth to keep from crying out.
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“You let me handle this. I’ll protect you.”
How many times had Nabooru said that in the last few days? Ganon knew what she was protecting him from, or at least wanted to protect him from. Knew of the conversations about him, quiet words between Link and Zelda and the rest, louder and angrier whenever the Gerudo thief put in her opinions. When they reached this ‘Light of Order,’ it might mean his death, or disappearance, if they were going to try to defeat Ganon for good.
“If you don’t want to keep going, no one’s going to force you. Not even Link, no matter what he says.”
He hadn’t been alive very long, but with Nabooru at his side Ganondorf felt as if he’d lived every moment as well as anyone could hope for. He hadn’t been surprised at all to learn she was a Sage, as well as the leader of all the Gerudos fighting against Ganon’s dark reign.
“It isn’t right, to see people suffering and turn away, not when there’s something I can do to help.”
Nabooru’s eyes flashed dangerously. “It isn’t right that you be asked to sacrifice everything for this victory!”
“Haven’t you?” He flicked a hand forward, Link and Zelda walking ahead, wariness in their steps even though they hadn’t seen an enemy all day. Ganondorf wondered how it was possible that they could love each other as they had, for as long as they had under such dangerous conditions. Just thinking about Nabooru under siege, doing half the dangerous things she’d done made him alternately furious and deathly afraid.
“Haven’t they? If I want to do the right thing, why should I deserve to be treated differently?”
//Because we have the hope of living after this, and there’s a good chance that you don’t.//
The words were there, painful and agonizing in Nabooru’s eyes even if she wouldn’t say it aloud. She turned away, moving past Link and Zelda for a moment, as if daring something to attack her. Nothing happened, although Ganondorf thought that only a fool couldn’t feel the pressure in the air, the sense of horrible things just around the corner.
Link was appropriately tense, though really, Ganondorf hadn’t seen him ever relax much, even when the tension was no longer his fault. He could sense a darkness in the air, they all could, though whether it was Ganon or whatever ancient powers protected the temple, it was hard to say. Whatever the case, they were not walking into any safe place, and he watched as both Link and Impa moved a little closer to Zelda, ready to block should anything attempt to strike her.
Everything was silent, dangerously so, and Ganondorf flexed his hands, wishing for even a bit of his dark half’s powers, or even a weapon, though he knew he would wield it clumsily, nothing like the real Ganon.
//The real Ganon.// Difficult to think about it, but he knew it was true, and no matter what Nabooru said, he had to be brave, and face it with his head high.
“Do you think all the people left?” He could hear Nabooru ask, and Link responded only with a shrug, most of his attention still focused on the tower they were moving toward. Zelda turned the corner first, and gasped, a sharp intake of breath that meant she was barely holding back a scream. Link was at her side in a moment, but then he stopped moving as well.
A little girl stood in the middle of the street, just about to skip around the corner, one foot raised and a bright smile on her motionless face. The ice made her glisten in the sun, pigtails frozen into lazy curves in the air. It would have been a beautiful statue, but it wasn’t stone.
“Oh, Link. Oh no.” Zelda held her hand out, but stopped herself a moment before she touched the girl, and quickly snatched her fingers back, afraid she might break just as easily as the gate had shattered.
Ganondorf stared, dumbfounded for a few moments more, but finally looked past the girl, down the middle of what seemed like the town’s main street, to where a frozen baker set out glistening loaves in his shop window, and a tiny dog stood motionless on its hid legs, begging for a treat from two woman stepping out of another shop. One of them had her hand outstretched, waving to a man across the street, calling to him, and Ganondorf could almost see movement there, his eyes tracking across the street as if he might miss the response.
The Glass had shattered here to a very ill effect, these people hadn’t had any more warning than anyone else. It wasn’t any more comforting, and Ganondorf looked away from the frozen smiles, catching Nabooru’s eye over the glistening shoulder of a woman who had leaned down to help a child poised, eternally eager to take a wobbly step, tiny icicles connecting the raised foot to the ground.
He didn’t have to say anything, to know Nabooru understood – this was why they had to find the Light of Order, to put things back. Even if it meant his undoing, this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be.
--------------------------
The town had been frozen in a perfectly normal day, but as soon as they moved past the last few buildings, the grounds immediately shifted, much more threatening than even the cold and ice. Enormous upthrusts of dark basalts had shattered the frozen ice, piercing the sky, glistening streaks of quartz glittering dully beneath their icy sheen. It was, as most of the palaces and temples Link had visited, at once entirely organic and certainly man-made, swirling, decorative carvings twining around the rough pillars, a path marked out beneath them in rough-cut stones, all the way to the base of the central, icy spire.
Link had just stepped around the side of the first pillar when he heard a familiar squeak and swoop, lifting his sword instinctively, the ice bat skewering itself neatly on the point before sliding free, disappearing in a puff of sparkling smoke. At least they didn’t have to worry about the creatures here being any tougher than usual, though as he crept further up Link could just see through the crevice that served as the front door, and the many, many shapes shifting in the darkness beyond.
“So, who thinks we should find a better way than the front door?”
A few moments later, Link was tying knives to his feet and Zelda was slipping a rope around her waist, just long enough to keep her tied safely to one of the Sheikah. The other two were testing their claws on the thick ice that covered the sides of the temple, moving just as fast vertically as they did on the ground. Ice climbing, he’d done it before, and if it could at least get them halfway up, before they had to duck the winds inside, it was worth the risk.
The gusts were still formidable, even if they weren’t strong enough to drag them off the walls. Link could see the edges of all of Zelda’s scarves flapping madly in the breeze, Nabooru’s body dusted in gold as the whistling winds left her shimmering. Link was grateful for how well Ganon could climb, strong arms allowing him to pick across the cliff as easily as the thief could.
“You’ve got a good place to catch your knife, if you want to stretch your arm up and swing.”
Impa had the easiest time of all of them, hovering next to him effortlessly, completely unmoved by both wind and cold, though she did keep a hand hovering near the rock, as if it might anchor her though she couldn’t touch it.
“Thanks.” Link grunted, stretching as far as he could, fingers finding the hold he never would have noticed otherwise, giving him a much easier way to the next section of wall. The clouds above them were darkening ominously, as if the temple itself could sense their approach – and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a building had armed itself to meet him.
Link flipped the knife back into his hands, more than a little jealous as he watched one of the Sheikah dig claws into the wall, skittering easily across a long spill of ice. Zelda was above him, and he squinted against the light and flakes of snow falling into his eyes, smiling at how assuredly she made her ascent.
He made his ascent with a bit more care, though the well-crafted weapons easily caught and held in the frozen wall, the ice more than thick enough to support his weight. Link was halfway up, working his knife into a crack that would hold him long enough to swing his legs around a small outcrop, when he felt the knife tremble in his hand – the entire wall shaking where his body was pressed against it. Link dug in with his feet and looked closer, no longer at the cracks in the wall but through the half-opaque sheet of ice itself – and saw the teeth and jaws a moment before the monster broke through, the entire wall exploding around him.
Link could hear someone cry out above him, or maybe it was just the creature’s deafening roar. He stretched his arms out desperately, knowing he wouldn’t catch anything, and was startled when a large hand grabbed hold of his own, swinging him rather ungracefully back against the wall. He scrabbled against the rock and ice, kicking his feet until the blades stuck, slamming his other blade in with the hand not being held, and he was not released until it was clear he would not fall.
“Are you all right?”
It was Ganondorf who had saved his life, and it took Link’s rattled brain a moment to collect itself enough for him to nod back. He wanted to look down, to see what sort of beast would make such a suicidal leap, but a sharp shout from Nabooru quickly brought his attention skyward. A long, snakelike monster twisted in the sky, body glittering with icy scales, snow drifting off its wings as it swooped down again to attack.
//Don’t have ice breath. Please don’t have ice breath.//
Link swallowed a groan, as the winged creature leaned back, and let loose with another great roar and a sparkling, blue blast of energy, sending a shower of ice and stone raining down on them when it hit. The crater its blast left shone brightly, impact frozen solid in a curved fan of debris.
Zelda was perched above the hole in the wall, stuck with no stable place to turn, let alone fight, swinging to press her back flat against the stone as the monster’s claws raked deep in the place she’d been hanging a moment before. One of the Sheikah took an amazing flying leap, dragging its claws deep across the monster’s back and sending more than a few feathers flying as it tried to clip a wing. The serpentine body twisted wildly, jaws snapping as it tried to bring the Sheikah close enough to bite in two, but the catlike fighter quickly leapt back to the relative safety of the wall, assisting the others in protecting the princess as they tried to scramble to safety.
“Can you lift me up?!” Link shouted up to Ganon, who looked quizzically at him for a moment before Nabooru tapped his shoulder, already bracing her legs to be able to reach for him, and lift him up to the edge of the hole and the steady ground beyond.
The Sheikah were stealthy by nature, and Impa used her war cry only seldom, but to great effect when she did. Now, it had completely captured the lizard’s attention, and it followed the phantom as she darted across the wall above their heads. Trying to strike at her, more and more furious as its teeth only scraped against the stone.
A little more ice and rock fell, but the creature’s attention was still off them long enough for Link to scramble into the hole, Zelda coming down from above, and he spent only a moment to make sure she was on solid ground before drawing his bow. He leaned out of the cave only to jerk back as a huge block of ice flew past the entrance, cracking on the small shelf just above Nabooru’s head and tumbling wildly away.
The icy monster saw it glimmer as it fell, finally losing interest in what it couldn’t catch, and dove sharply away from Impa, spreading its wings wide to stop right in front of the hole it had created. Link could see glimmers of blue smoke twisting around its muzzle as it opened its mouth, preparing a blast that would freeze them solid.
He didn’t hesitate to let the arrow fly, and saw the bolt drive deep into the creature’s eye a moment before Zelda yanked him back, the icy blast still managing to hit the edge of the hole, sending them tumbling back and Zelda hitting the ground with a yelp of pain, one foot covered in a sheet of ice.
“Zelda!”
Link was up and guiding her to the wall, paying only the slightest attention as the Sheikah cleared away the ice, and Nabooru and Ganon made their way up. No sound of the monster, it had either been destroyed or flew away, he really didn’t care which.
“Anyone hurt?” Nabooru asked, shaking a liberal dusting of snow and ice off her head and shoulders, Ganondorf slowly flexing the ache from his fingers.
“It just glanced my foot.” Zelda said, more to console him than to answer her, chipping away at the ice around her ankle with a knife and giving him a gentle, reassuring smile. Link nodded, clambering to his feet, exchanging bows and knives for a sword as Nabooru lit a torch, moving a little further down the dark passageway.
“Any more interesting things in here?” She said, loud enough for her voice to echo along the gleaming walls, though no sounds came in response. It wasn’t long before they were all on their feet again, half-sliding along the bare, icy corridors. Most of the walls were nothing more than thick sheets of ice, letting in some ambient light in places, and making it very difficult to tell where they started and ended.
“It’s beautiful.” Zelda murmured, sliding her hand across a slab of ice several times taller than she was, green and slick as glass, the bottom edge curved like a ribbon.
“It’s a maze.” Nabooru said, a bit more pragmatically, “but if we’d have gone much higher outside, we all would have frozen solid. We’ll just have to see if we can find some stairs.”
In the end, it wasn’t so much a matter of stairs as a slight incline in the floor, spiraling slowly upward. The enemies in most of the rooms they passed through were plentiful but small, and finding them became as much of a problem as dispatching them. Once, Zelda yelled for him to look out only to have the swooping bat knock itself out of existence on an icy wall that none of them had noticed.
Many of the creatures that had inhabited the dungeon were now frozen in this tower’s walls, and being able to walk past monsters that would have taken a great deal to fight raised Link’s spirits tremendously, Zelda snickering slightly as Nabooru tapped the walls, teasing their frozen foes.
//If only it could be this easy with Ganon.//
The grim thought reminded him of the task at hand – of Ganondorf’s hand around his own, saving his life. He looked up, and the Gerudo glanced back as if aware of eyes on him, giving him a surprisingly reassuring smile. It was another of those gestures that Link didn’t think anything that looked like Ganon was capable of.
//He knows. It should make me feel better, that he knows what’s probably going to happen here.//
Should have, but didn’t, and even with the random monsters and the growing dangers he couldn’t stop thinking about it. A terrible abstract, Link still hadn’t come up with any way to fix the problem. He was preoccupied enough that he realized the slight creaking sound he’d heard had been following them for a long time, all the way down the passageway. No one else seemed to notice, and glancing at both walls suggested no new enemies about to break through, nothing preparing to strike from above.
All too late, Link thought to look down, and froze. The floor was ice beneath the snow, not stone, and nearly opaque with the strain of their weight, spider web cracks so plentiful he wondered what they could still be standing on.
“Link?” Zelda stopped automatically when she saw him so motionless, looking down at the floor herself.
“What is-?” Nabooru turned, going still, but Ganondorf was the last to turn, and took the final step too many on the fragile floor. A violent crack echoed through the chamber, followed by a creak like heavy doors opening, and Link’s shoes slid on the floor as it began to cave in. The Sheikah were leaping for the walls, digging their toes in deep, Impa able to keep to the wall as easily as the floor.
Nabooru grunted as she lunged for the wall, her hand golden and semi-solid as she wrenched her fingers into spaces no actual fingers could grip, somehow managing to hold on, her other arm straining, clenched tightly around Ganon’s hand as he kicked for his own foothold.
Link dove for the edge of the cliff, dismayed as what he reached for gave way beneath his hands, but a second desperate grab left him clutching the edge of a tiny cleft in the rock. It was enough to stop his fall, or would have been, had Zelda not been behind him, and his leg the only thing she could reach for.
He heard Nabooru’s shout as it echoed down, and braced himself for a long fall. They hit ground well before he was expecting it, ears ringing as the wind was knocked out of him, trying to listen to her no longer as important as trying to breathe and stop from sliding, the floor tilting at a violent angle, dropping them into a pitch-black tunnel.
Link tried to slow his fall, but his knives refused to catch in the slick ice, the hiss and clatter of steel in front of him proving Zelda’s similar luck. He braced himself for the worst, a sudden drop-off, icy water or a pit of monsters, but instead the slope grew less steep, and they were gently deposited on a patch of black stone, at the edge of another twisting cavern.
“Well.” Zelda finally breathed, both of them waiting for an attack, at least one monster set to their heels after all that chaos. Nothing happened, his ears were ringing from the lack of sound, and Link picked himself up off the ground, offering Zelda a hand up as he wondered just what would happen next.
“I hope the others are all right.” Zelda said softly, looking back up the frozen tunnel. “I don’t think we’re getting back this way.”
Link tried not to think about how beneficial such a separation would be to their enemies, how it might not have been an accident, and studied the curved walls instead, the – certainly - dangerous path that held their only way out.
High overhead, something was giving off a faint blue light, illuminating the path. It was the only stroke of luck Link thought they would get. The sloping, icy walls caught up the darkness of the floor, turning fathomless and nearly opaque with the absence of color. It made every gap or reflection all the more startling, Link nearly jumping more than once as he caught a sudden flash of his own face against a curve.
“Here.” Zelda had unwound one of the coverings around her hand, tying it to her wrist and giving him the other end. A precaution that seemed almost silly, if it wasn’t so likely the mazelike corridors would try to separate them.
The ground beneath their feet was a powdery dark, footsteps leaving no sound or mark, and Link tried to keep even his breathing as silent as possible. Of course it was eerie, the dim catacombs of temples always were, and even though it put her in danger he couldn’t help being glad Zelda was close by – especially when he heard the soft but distinct sound of laughter.
The corridors were too tight, the ground too silent, and all his breath left him in a rush, the panic of being trapped. Link couldn’t move, the cloth that tied him to Zelda snapping taut as she turned back, confusion and worry in her eyes.
“Did you hear that?” He could barely get the words out, and Zelda shook her head, but closed the distance between them, reaching for his hand. A second, dry laugh twisted through the curves of the passage, and Zelda’s eyes widened, recognizing it instantly.
“He’s here.” Link breathed, trying not to speak too loud, though he had a sinking suspicion Dark Link knew exactly where they were.
“We’ve got more problems,” Zelda murmured, pulling her hand from his, flicking a knife into her palm. Link could hear what she had now as well, a scuttling sound against the ice. He caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, though it was gone by the time he turned. A very real enemy moving in to attack, while the sense of greater darkness, an even more dangerous evil grew stronger by the moment.
Link edged around a corner only to react without thinking, slashing out as something came at him from eye level. The twitching tail fell to the ground, barbed tip scratching against the ground as the scorpion let out a screech of rage and pain. Scorpions shouldn’t have been able to screech, but they also shouldn’t have been the size of small dogs. Link drove his sword quickly down, and it vanished in a gust of ice and snow.
A sudden jab at his leg made him shout, turning sharply, slashing at another one of the creatures, their icy shells nearly transparent against the ground. The scorpion jumped back, blindingly fast, but made the mistake of trying to leap at him again, and Link easily cut it in two.
“Link?” Zelda’s voice seemed to be coming from far away, and he staggered back against the wall, refusing to let his leg fold up from underneath him, grimacing at the icy pain that rose past his knee, chilling his blood and numbing his body. Zelda knelt down, pulling the fabric of his pant leg away to reveal a tiny white mark, ringed in blue as if frostbitten.
Zelda’s eyes were wide and full of fear. “I don’t have anything to cure this, Link.”
“It’s all right.” He fought back a chill that made his teeth want to chatter, sucking in a trembling breath. “It just hurts a little. I don’t think it will kill me.”
He could still stand, and keep a grip on his sword – and hear more skittering, a legion of legs scratching against the ice. One of the stings might not be lethal, but any more and he wouldn’t be able to even fight them off.
Nowhere they’d been in the maze was a good place to make their stand, but with no way to tell how many they would meet or just exactly where the rest were, there was little way to charge into battle either. Moving cautiously, Link untied the wrapping from around his hand, separation no longer the greatest potential danger. Zelda didn’t have the time to do more than glance at him before they turned what he realized was the final corner, and they could move no further.
The floor dropped away into a wide, circular cavern, the floor covered in scorpions, icy shells gleaming and glittering like a living mosaic as they scrabbled and shuffled. Pillars of stone ringed the edges, blue flames blazing impossibly on top, bathing the room in more blue light. The column closest to them had fallen, cracking into segments that roughly divided the room, providing a makeshift bridge to a raised dais at its center, an ancient, detailed design illuminating its surface. Past the dais was another slim, raised walkway, and a white rectangle of light.
The exit, and from all his experience with dungeons and temples, Link was certain it was the only one.
“How fast can you move?” Zelda whispered, the skittering noises behind them growing louder, and if they weren’t already trapped they would be very soon. Moving forward was their only choice, that door their only chance.
“Fast enough to get there.” Link murmured back. “Although I’m guessing the door will close as soon as we step inside, and something big and nasty is going to come out of the floor.”
“Giant scorpion. Five rupees says I’m right.” Zelda’s grin was more than a little fatalistic, she’d followed him into enough places like this, they’d heard all of Nabooru’s stories for her eyes to gleam with gallows humor. “You think the torches will go out, and we can fight them in the dark?”
The look they shared was as warm and intimate as any kiss, and Link could feel the cold drain a little from his limbs.
“Well, now you’re just being a pessimist.”
No truly sensible way to make such a charge, Zelda leaping out onto the pillar with Link close behind, moving fast enough that they were half across before the scorpions started jumping. Zelda cut them down in midair, Link bashing any that managed to land in front of him, hearing the occasional body thud dully, scraping off the shield on his back. It was an effort to keep his defenses raised, arms trembling as they fought against the cold that sapped his strength. Link gritted his teeth, focusing on his balance, and was startled at how fast they actually reached the dais, standing back-to-back in the melee, scattering wave after wave of scorpions as they attacked.
The door closed, of course, a rock slab twice his size sliding down seamless to the floor. He tossed a grim smile over his shoulder, just as the ground beneath their feet started to rumble. The smaller scorpions quickly backed to the floor, one or two still leaping up, though they were easily deflected.
“You were right,” Zelda said, raising her knives as the floor of the dais began to crumble away. “The lights didn’t go out.”
It was often easier to fight one large enemy instead of a group of smaller ones, though Link couldn’t find much optimism in the enormous armored legs, each bigger than a polearm, that burst up through the stone.
He’d fought enough armor plated monsters to know the basics of defeating this one, but the confines of the dais put him much closer to the boulder-sized pincers than he preferred to be, smaller scorpions leaping up to attack whenever he strayed too close to the edge.
//I bet that tail shoots-//
Link couldn’t finish thinking the sentence before the giant tail arched up, barb glowing with the same icy blue light, and he dove out of the way of the frozen blast that nearly caught him anyway. It glanced off the floor, painting its path with a wide swath of ice and bouncing up to hit a smaller scorpion, the creature shattering when it hit the floor.
Zelda darted forward to attack, the monster scuttling back, lifting its claws to protect itself, creating a nearly impenetrable shield. Link darted to the side, hacking at as many of the smaller, thinner limbs as he could reach, trying to find any vulnerable spots in the thick armor.
The scorpion made a furious screeching sound, swiping at him with a claw and giving Zelda the opening she needed to leap up onto its back, digging her knives deep into the cracks in its plating. The scorpion’s tail lashed wildly, sending frigid blasts wildly in all directions. Link did his best to keep its attentions focused on blocking him, forcing it to divide its attentions and giving Zelda more chances to strike.
Finally, after a dozen shots failed to hit either him or her, the creature changed tactics, jabbing at her with its tail, forcing her to leap away. Link leapt backward as a sharp claw snapped out at him, cutting the air where he had been only moments before – and gasped as his foot hit a patch of ice, his balance irrevocably off. Unfortunately, the scorpion chose that moment to switch tactics, and swung its body around to use its tail as a club.
Zelda managed to leap up and avoid the attack, but Link grimaced as he heard it coming, knowing he couldn’t get out of the way. The stinger didn’t hit him, but the tail still slammed into his chest like a boulder, and he flew off the dais, landing hard enough against the far wall to rattle every bone in his body before falling hard to the floor.
Zelda was still fighting, and he had to get up and protect her, but it was difficult to find his limbs in the gray haze of pain, let alone to make them bear any weight. He waited a few more moments he couldn’t spare, wondering why the smaller scorpions hadn’t yet fallen on him. The world slowly stopped spinning, and Link gritted his teeth and pulled himself up, leaning against a large boulder and forcing the fight in front of him to coalesce into a single image.
A soft sound made him turn, though it didn’t sound like a scorpion, not enough distance between him and the wall to allow one to sneak up behind him even if it had wanted to. He looked into his own face, the image distorted slightly through the ice and -
Red eyes looked back into his own, burning with wicked amusement as Dark Link smiled. The pale hand reached out from the ice and grabbed his shirt, and pulled him through the wall before he could make a sound.
On the dais, Zelda had finally managed to get past the snapping claws and tail, lunging up from the floor to deliver a fierce blow with her knife to its mandibles, leaving the blade lodged in and pulling out a spare to stab at it again. The scorpion swiped at her madly, reeling back, but Zelda pushed forward, throwing more knives to follow the first, and with one last weak cry, the scorpion reared, and staggered and toppled off the dais, bursting into a flurry of ice and snow in midair, her daggers plinking like icicles themselves where they hit the ground.
The door slid open, the day so bright it brought tears to her eyes. The smaller scorpions had all fled, turned to dust with the destruction of the largest, and Zelda turned to see if Link needed her help to continue, at least for a little while.
The grin fell from her face, turning to confusion as he was not where she thought he had been standing, and then to panic as she realized he wasn’t anywhere at all.
“Link? Link?!”