The Vigil

The attackers came in the night, just as twilight was swallowed by the ether and rain, migrating westward and trailing slowly behind the sun, began to coat the city of Kasuto. They came silently, slowly, stealthily; by the time the sentries took note of them, they were already close enough to knock at the door, or, more accurately, to knock at the fringe city’s walls with catapult fire. It was one of the younger recruits who first spotted them. Even thieves need torchlight with which to make their way at night.

The Hyrulian Royal Guard might have been able to mobilize effectively, had the young plebe not made the unfortunate mistake of shouting for all ears to hear, even those of the unwanted guests, “Alert the captain!—they approach from the west side!” Naturally, the other soldiers on duty scurried to confirm his report, and, when they saw just how near the enemy was, they erupted into a frenzy. They scrambled every which way in a shabby attempt to assemble, although they turned out to more effectively scatter and disrupt their own defenses than to unite and make a stand. Even the countless hours of battle-training the Guard underwent during recent months could not prepare them for the fear and apprehension that accompanied a real battle, that the enemy carried as its battle-banners came into view.

Those damned insurgents, on the other hand, decided to ensure that the Guard would not be permitted the chance to respond with artillery fire. Before the Guard could even begin to mount a defense, the insurrection launched a series of what at first appeared to be scattershot volleys aimed at nothing in particular, but what later proved to be a direct attack at the city’s own perimeter artillery posts, which in turn proved most successful, effectively disabling the Guard’s ability to return fire. Any hopes of maintaining a tactical advantage were lost before the Hyrulians could even organize. What by all means should have been a battle to prevent loss of civilian life became, in an instant, a desperate struggle to minimize it.

But it was a cold night, a windy, rainy night, and so morale continued to plummet as sharply as the temperature as slowly but surely the Gerudo and their allies—Moblins, Bokoblins, Bulbins, and all other manner of goblin-folk—whittled away at their defenses, taking potshots at the city interior whenever they got the chance. The arrows the Hyrulian guard returned in response did slow the enemy’s relenting, but only to a point. Arrow shafts were nothing compared to catapults. While an experienced archer could take down anywhere between about twelve to fifteen rouges in a minute, if he were lucky, a single shot from a ballista could easily demolish three times that number, even if it fired completely at random. Which, once the falconets on the perimeter were immobilized, was what the enemy’s catapults proceeded to do.

In the streets, children and their mothers ran amok, shrieking in fear and despair, while fire and police brigades hurried from disaster area to disaster area trying to deliver trapped innocents from the fiery maws of collapsing buildings and working futilely to maintain order amongst the maddened masses. By a stroke of bad luck, a munitions depot that stocked small explosives for demolitions workers was struck by a particularly large catapult projectile, which, as one might expect, caused the entire block surrounding it to have its windows blown out, if not the walls, ceilings, and everything else along with them. Thankfully, it was long into the night, and the building was not localized in or nearby a residential area, else the casualties that followed might have been much more numerous. Of course, nothing could make the sight of crumbling wood, mortar, and brick where half of the industrial district once stood any the less traumatizing.

The Royal Legions of Hyrulian Knights, after years of effectively holding back the advances of the insurgents, had, in more recent months, seen an unprecedented increase in the success of the stratagems being employed against them on the fringes. After crushing a Hyrulian force along the Eastbanks of the Castor Wilds, the Gerudo began an offensive drive that splintered the Legions’ defensive lines and left them licking their wounds while the enemy made a strong advance into their territory. Starting from Castor, the insurgents squelched with unprecedented prowess whatever antagonism they encountered as they advanced toward Hyrule Kingdom proper.

The king realized that his country stared into the eyes of a beastly threat, and so, casting aside the lonely pride of his fathers, he requested the assistance of the Zoras. King Zora had agreed to send a battalion directly to Kasuto, but several days had gone by, and that battalion had not yet arrived. Now the enemy had crossed the Wilds, and enclosed upon the city at the southern bank of Lake Hylia.

While the other divisions were out in the field, specifically the Royal Cavalry under which he had served when his father first enlisted him, the good captain and his Guard had remained in Kasuto, training endlessly in case the fight came to them. His vanguard quickly ascended to become the best among the Legions, his center was composed of some of the most experienced swordsmen in the land, and his rearguard, while slight in number since most of the able-bodied rearward-men were deployed alongside the Royal Cavalry, was just as skilled.

Every three hours on the hour, from dawn until midnight, his archers ran targeting drills to keep themselves sharp. His swordsmen worked doubly hard, training for three hours solid in the morning, then two hours in the afternoon and late evening. What small numbers of cavalry units were under his command toiled constantly to keep themselves and their mounts in tiptop shape since their job was arguably the most demanding in the field.

Again, however, most of the members of the Guard had never even caught a glimpse of real combat. Their kingdom had remained relatively safe, carefully protected by the mountains to the east and the hundreds of miles of distance between it and Gerudo territory to the west. By the look of things, the time had come to test the fruits of their efforts.

Well, in the loosest sense. The time to test those fruits seemed to be slipping slowly through their fingers, if it had not done so already.

:::

The battle was not going well.

Kasuto had already lost nearly three hundred of those enlisted in her stalwart defence to the enemy’s bombardments, whereas the casualties inflicted on the enemy in response were shallow, at best, in comparison. And of even those scarce few, most of them were Bulbins. Her ranged defenses were slowly, but surely, failing against the enemy’s protracted, interminable onslaught. Without a change in strategy, without a shift from a defensive huddle to an offensive thrust, they would soon lose the numbers necessary to fight back at all, and the enemy would push them into a corner. The tug-of-war struggle that the Hyrulians and the Gerudo had entertained for the last decades was finally reaching a point, a climax, a summit from which the Hyrulians teetered, trying desperately not to tumble into defeat.

But how to keep one’s footing, let alone the footing of a nation and its valiant militia, when the climate of circumstance was so treacherous? Such was the question that lay before the good captain and his king—should they continue suffering through the enemy’s siege, and hope for reinforcements from the Zoras, or should they risk everything in one final charge? They had been deliberating the matter for the past hour or so, despite having declared such deliberation unnecessary during the earlier months of the campaign, when the tides of war seemed to be turned more in their favor. It was the dreadful irony of wartime politics, as Captain Paligre would often say. He had not hesitated to mention it even during the present convention. Then again, he had not hesitated to mention much of anything that came to mind, not only during this war assembly, but during any and all previous ones.

His cavalier in that respect made him one of the king’s most trusted allies, and had earned him his rank as Captain of the Guard. It also echoed through the Great Hall as he voiced forthrightly his piece on the matter, filled to the brim with exasperation potent enough to shatter glass and topple towers of stone.

“We simply lack the tactical advantages necessary to invest ourselves and our fellow Knights in such a charge! I’m not quite sure you’ve noticed, Minister Potho, but Kasuto is under siege! We have the numbers necessary, that much is certain, but how are we going to march them out of the gates and onto the field? The Great Bridge is not wide enough to allow for any more than six or seven files—that’s barely more than half of a typical rank! Surveying the field, we can see that the Gerudo have at least enough archers deployed to crush our infantry units before they can even draw swords or return fire. Our best bet is to hold out until reinforcements arrive.”

“Your Highness, so long as those ballistas keep hammering the city, we run the risk of the Great Bridge itself crumbling against their volleys!” responded Potho, chief advisor to Daphnes, the king. “As of now, the only thing holding the Gerudo back are our expert marksmen on the perimeter, and, as the enemy artillery turns its attentions back to the perimeter walls, it is only a matter of time before even that defence fails. Without a strong vanguard, our primary advantage in battling the enemy on the ground is lost. If we are to, indeed, hope to attempt a charge before our numbers dwindle too low to even consider it, or before the enemy can deliver a battering ram to the city gates, or before some other terrifying fate befalls us, it must be now. Now, or—”

“Majesty, I must protest!” interjected the captain. “Even if we were to amass the manpower necessary to break through their lines, even if we were to find the chance to assemble them out on the battlefield, to let up even the slightest touch on the perimeter sentries would allow the enemy opportunity to find a soft spot in our city’s walls and exploit it, or worse—to assemble ladders and breach our defenses in that way. And, as you must certainly know, Highness, and as I am sure the Minister is well aware as well, to chance a charge with the main-battle at the forefront would be suicide. The enemy’s archers, while not as expert as our own, are deployed in such a manner that they would ensnare anything that wanders unwanted within their midst with a hail of arrowfire like a flytrap catches its dinner. An infantry unit, unguarded at its front and flanks by the vaward, would make for a ripe and easy target. The Zoras have promised backup support, and we should hold faith in that promise. All this I have repeated several times, as I see the Consulate notes. Wait for the Zoras, so that we may confuse the enemy’s fire and ensnare them in flytrap’s jaws of our own.”

All this, again and again, et cetera and so on. Back and forth they would bicker for hours on end, without fail, each and every occasion on which a matter such as the one in question came up for debate. There was no stopping them. Ever since Rusl had been made Captain, he and Minister Potho had been constantly at odds, yanking at one another’s chains as though playing a child’s game of tug-of-war. Of course, it had been so prior to Rusl’s appointment as well, but prior to his appointment they had not been able to carry their little quarrel into Consulate matters. Now the two of them dominated the Forum, which admittedly helped to factionalize the Consulate and thereby accelerated debate, but still was quite an annoyance when neither of them seemed keen to hold his tongue. As in this case, for instance. It was high time that King Daphnes bring down the gavel, as the saying went, before they squandered away what precious little time they had to decide on a course of action by squabbling in committee.

“That’s quite enough, milords,” His Majesty said wearily. “You have both made your cases, and made them clearly and firmly. Unless another wishes to propose a solution, then, High Minister Potho will take a poll, and hopefully we can decide this matter like civilized gentlemen.” He turned and bowed to the Minister, who rose to the podium and began issuing some ceremonial nonsense, at which point His Majesty promptly returned to His Royal Seat, sighed, and paid but half an attention to the proceedings.

Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule was still very young, as far as the kings of his day went, but his eyes betrayed the trials of age that had plagued his reign since his coronation, since the death of his father not long after war’s inception. Though he would not, could not disclose as much to his subjects, he often told the good captain, who was his closest friend and confidant, of how terrible a thing it was to be a king during wartime, and that he would gladly surrender his crown to another, if anyone more willing or able than he wished to accept it.

But, of course, there was no such other—none shared his love for the people, nor his shrewdness in military matters, nor any other among those qualities that had served him and his country well throughout this long, tiring campaign. And, much to Daphnes’s dismay, the vote came to a tie, which meant that he and he alone could cast the deciding bid. He rose once again to the podium and addressed his consultants with careful consideration in both word choice and tone of voice, so as to futilely mask his already-obvious uncertainty and anxiety.

“Well, good sirs, I must admit, this is a most arduous dilemma. I cannot imagine any more difficult one that a king might face. Should I take the reigns, and issue the preemptive strike that may turn the tides or may send them crashing down upon us? I have surveyed the chaos in the city below, and, it must be said, if I could, perchance, end this fighting swiftly, that would quite apparently be the more appealing alternative. As the both of you esteemed gentlemen have said yourselves, with circumstances as they now are, it is quite impossible to claim victory in this battle by fighting from within the city walls. We are eggs in a grounded nest, and the snake has already wrapped its coils around us, and, in time, will squeeze the life out of us and have us as its supper.”

He paused briefly, and turned once again to the Great Hall window to look over his kingdom.

“And, yet…” he said, so quietly that he might have been addressing himself, and not the bunch of gray-haired gentlemen on his Consulate, most of them thirty or forty years his senior, “I look upon what might become of my kingdom and I see the product of such so-called ‘decisiveness’, and I wonder whether I could bear to face these troubles as my ancestors have done. It was these same notions, these same intentions, these same designs that threw us all into this tumult to begin with. His Royal Majesty, my father, was faced with a similar choice—to risk everything to quell disaster, or to suffer enduringly through it, and to count on hope to deliver him. He chose the former, and invited more tragedy than he had a taste for. And I often wonder to myself whether his fate was punishment for shoving providence under the table and taking matters into his own hands when they were not his to take, and then the other option—to wait, and to hope, and to pray that help may come, that powers outside of my control will be able to set things straight—that option becomes all the more attractive to me.

“And so the final play falls to me. Will I follow in the doomed footsteps of my ancestors in the hopes that their way might hold fast against Hyrule’s enemies? These Gerudo insurgents seem all too keen to pursue such a course. They seek revenge, blood-recompense for their fallen kin, those who my father conquered and crushed. What do I seek? I seek peace, peace for my people, for all peoples. Who am I to raise a sword in the name of my forefathers, and call that justice? I would become no better than them, no better than mine enemies, a clan of thieves and bloodthirsty beasts, as it were. At the same time I cannot surrender, for they also seek something, a great and ancient power, one that I am sworn to the gods themselves to protect above and beyond all my other earthly oaths. Surrender would prove worse than condemning my people to death.”

The cloud of doubt vanished like the fog of dawn into the clarity of day from His Highness’s countenance and articulation. Now was the time for decision, and so he would decide.

“Since these matters have already proven themselves to be beyond my power, as they proved to be beyond the power of my father, I am forced, then, to fold my hand, and to hope that one of the other players in this game of chance holds the cards that I do not. We shall place all our fortunes in the hands of the goddesses that bore us. We shall wait for the Zoras.”

He hoped that they, and his good friend, King Zora, would not betray his faith in them. The hour of their arrival was already over-late. But, as the saying went, good things come to those who wait, and so he would wait, and hope, and trust that that would be enough.

:::

The young Princess Zelda stood at the Great Hall window, the one that looked out into the eastern courtyard, peeking in, silently bearing witness to the proceedings. Though she was barely six years of age, she was shrewd far beyond the level of normal youngsters, even among royalty, and she understood more or less every word uttered in the Consulate and every plan put forth. Any she could not comprehend she could and would have explained to her by Impa, who indulged her ardent curiosity even against the king’s wishes.

The matters that the men of the Consulate thrashed out of late terrified the young Zelda, and, after eavesdropping on many a secret summit of military men, she often found herself running, sobbing like a babe, into her nanny’s arms. But still Impa permitted her—nay, encouraged her—to poke her nose into her father’s business. It was not only an opportunity for the young princess to obtain a firsthand education of conducting the affairs of state, but it also helped her to develop surreptitiousness, a skill which had served Impa well in defending her village of Kakariko during the early years of the fierce wars, and, as she hoped, they might help the young Zelda to survive when she grew a bit older, just in case these hostilities with the Gerudo dragged on and such skills became necessary.

As it turned out, Zelda soaked up both words and the skills set before her like a sponge, and so Impa’s objectives encountered much success. Already Zelda knew all the pleasantries related to matters of diplomacy, had memorized all the primary military formations as well as when to use them, and had proven on many counts that she was capable of predicting the advice that might be solicited by a select few members of the Consulate in certain situations, and already she knew the lay of the palace so intimately that she could find hiding-places where even Impa had to exert great effort to discover her—all at her tremendously young age! In a few more seasons she might be shrewd enough to govern Hyrule herself, or, at the very least, to render herself invisible—Impa planned, when the little princess was a bit bigger, to impart to her some of the old Sheikah arts as well.

In any case, she was absorbing everything Impa set before her at an impressive rate, almost as impressive as her passion for the infamous candybaker tartlets, and it seemed inconceivable that her pursuits of acumen and ability might discontinue.

Unfortunately, with the climate of Hylia as it was, mostly thanks to the war, the royal family lay imprisoned in a cage of precautions. Spies of the enemy could be anywhere, after all. For the young princess, this meant staying within the confines of the castle grounds, and so all her life she had been unable to appreciate much in the way of acquaintances. Aside from Impa, her interaction was sparing, and so Zelda began to spend more time honing her literacy and tending to the royal gardens than she did socializing with her attendants.

Worst of all, though, what began as her occasional peeps into the Consulate conferences developed into something of an obsession. If the little princess was not in her chambers, or sleeping, or in the banquet halls at mealtimes, or poking her hand into pastry bins, she would probably be peering into the Great Hall window, attending conversations that she was not supposed to overhear. With the tides of war turning against the favor of the kingdom of Hyrule, however, and tensions appropriately high in the Great Hall, she had even begun trudging to the eastern gardens at night, long after her attendants were asleep, to peer in as the Consulate delivered their nightly reports of happenings on the fringes, reports that became more frequent, and, as such, had the princess visiting all the more frequently. Now she hardly slept at all.

Despite her place, safely tucked away in the overarching cage of the castle’s security, she still became a victim of war.

When the Consulate finally adjourned, the teensy Zelda darted as fast as her little legs would allow across the yards of the castle courtyards and into the royal chambers, where she found and awoke her napping nanny at once to disclose to her what she had overheard from the Great Hall window.

“Nanny Impa! Nanny Impa!” she shouted, grabbing her dear nanny’s hand and tugging it insistently. “Hear, hear; so much has happened!”

Though Impa was, at the moment, over-tired from all the errands the other attendants had had her run throughout the night, ever since the siege had begun, she had long ago learned to force herself to wake to attend to the needs of the children of the court. She would adhere to her duty and attend to her princess.

“What has happened, dear Zelda?” Impa asked, lifting up the little girl and holding her to her breast.

Zelda immediately, earnestly, lifted her head from Impa’s bosom and looked her nanny in the eye, revealing the childlike desperation and fear that it so sharply pains a nursemaid to see in her charge. And she spoke in that super-fast manner of speech that only small children and adolescent girls can churn out without stuttering: “Captain Rusl came from Kasuto to meet with Father and the Ministers in the Great Hall. I hurried to the window as fast as I could, and I heard some of them say that the city may not last the night if help does not come. Minister Potho thinks that we need to drive them away now, but Father told him that we must wait for the Zoras. But I cannot forget what the others have said! O Impa! I am so frightened! What shall become of this plight?”

Impa brought a finger to her lips and hushed the teary-eyed princess, hugging little Zelda to her with the tenderness of the motherhood she had never quite been able to enjoy. “I do not know what will happen, dear one, but I do know this: have faith, and you will find the courage to persist. Stay with me, Zelda, and I shall protect you through all things. You have my promise, child.”

And then, almost inexplicably, she happened upon a truly remarkable idea, one that astonished her in its simplicity, almost to the point that she wondered why she had not considered it until then. Her birthplace. “But if you are truly afraid, then perhaps we ought to make haste for Kakariko. I can assure you that we shall be safe there, at least for a time.”

“But, Nanny Impa!” Zelda exclaimed, wrapping her arms tightly about her nursemaid’s neck, “there may be insurgents about!”

Impa shook her head and smiled warmly at her protégé. “Fear not, child, for I know a secret way out of the city that will keep us far from danger. It leads through the winding passages of Zora Canyon, to be sure, but passing through that ravine will be much safer than attempting to flee across the Southbridge. Does that sound agreeable to you?”

Zelda nodded, smearing the tears from her lashes, and replied with a simple ‘mmhmm.’ Impa set the young lass on the floor, rose to her feet, and took little Zelda’s hand.

“Come then, child, and we shall inform the attendants of our plans and be off at once.”

The two of them set off together, Zelda’s fingers still trembling underneath the warm, firm grip of her nanny’s.

:::

It’s time to run.

The old Sheikah released little Zelda’s hand and hoisted her charge onto her back with the grace and poise of a mushabi, and broke into a solid sprint, leaping from rock ledge to rock ledge, effortlessly maintaining her footing where most others might not. In wandering the eastward pass, the two of them had inadvertently stirred a lair of sleeping octoroks, and, as such, had invoked the beasts’ bullet-ridden retribution. Thankfully, their many-tentaculated attackers were sluggish on dry land, and even more so on the treacherous rocky terrain of the river valley descent, and so it was not long before Impa turned her head backward, ascertained the success of her flight, and slowed to a stop at the valley basin, setting the little princess down so that they could resume a more leisurely pace.

They were now safely away, not only from the octoroks, but from the impending peril of Kasuto and, gods forbid it, the Hylia Keep as well. They could travel with greater ease knowing that the dangers of battle were no longer at their backs, only those of the wild, in which Impa was well-versed. Other than that nasty encounter with that foul den of octoroks, however, the river valley seemed to be rather void of feral things, and they found no more trouble. Before long Zelda began to feel the weight of night press down upon her, and so Impa proceeded once again to carry her. The princess dozed off rather promptly, and Impa could not refrain from smiling when she felt the child’s cheek lean in sleepy silence against her shoulder.

Within the hour she reached the banks of Zora River, and so she started into the damp and misty cliff-caverns that cut through the canyon walls. Her kin had used them in ages past to travel between Kakariko and Zora’s Domain, whenever it came time to bear a member of the Zoran royal family to the grave. The cool spray of the river tickled her skin as it had not done for so many long years. She draped her cloak over the little Zelda so that the cold and wet would not wake her from sleep, and then gave herself to the tranquility of the sacred roaring river. She had not found use for these caverns in a very long time, and it seemed a relief to finally hear the sound of the stream rushing through the Kakariko gorge once more.

A few more hours, a few more miles through the valley wall caverns, and they would be at Kakariko’s doorstep. It would be easy walking from there one out; the paths inside the valley-caves were well-marked, and besides, Impa knew them well. The worst danger they’d encounter in these parts were angry octoroks, and they were diurnal, and would not attack at night unless disturbed, as that last nest had been. Zelda could sleep soundly until they reached the village, but Impa would have no such peace to herself.

Prior to quitting the castle, Impa had donned her old Sheikah garb, a remnant of her yesteryears, of a time during which she served as steward of her village of Kakariko and not as a servant in the royal courts. Zelda had once remarked that she could see that her nanny missed life in the country, missed the lulling nonattendance of politics in the daily matters of village existence. She said that she had stolen a fleeting glimpse of her dear nanny’s homesickness in the deep, glassy reflection of the old Sheikah’s eyes. For in the eye, the mirror of the soul, the truth lays bare, but when filtered by heart and mind it becomes laden with lies, forsworn. Young children recognize this best of all, impressionable through they are by the pretenses of big people, for they have not yet forgotten how to see.

It would not be doing the old maid enough justice, however, to attribute her sentimentality of times of yore merely to a pining for Kakariko itself. What she truly longed for, beyond returning to live once again in her ancestral home, was to join once again in the ceremony of her tribe. To stand, naked and bare, before pyres lit in prayerful reverence toward the gods, and to bask in their glory and might, nothing but air between her and the heavenly flame. To wear proudly the ritual-paint of the mushabi, and to run with them, hunt with them, with only the sublime glow of twilight to light their way. This was their custom, and they had held it dearly, as had Impa in her youth.

But, alas, the Sheikah had absconded Kakariko, had left behind her and her only to be steward to chosen lands the elders no longer wished to preserve. So often she heard echoes of the past, of the Whispering Ones’ lament. They haunted her every dream, in sleep and in waking.

“Shadow and light are not meant to mingle,” the whispers said to her. “It is not the gods’ design that we should live alongside the descendants of the Hylia folk in this way. It is our place to serve as shadows, in ways others might not dare, not in the light, for we are not of it. For that reason the goddesses gave us Kakariko, that we might remain separate, apart from the light. Now you offer the Hyrulians sanctuary within our once-hallowed grounds. No longer can we dwell here, Impaz’shi, not alongside the fated ones, and so we must retire to another place.”

They had told her more, but she could not suffer to recall those harsh words again. She could not bear to turn over in her mind the blame they had cast upon her for what she had deemed, and deemed even still, to be a good turn toward the people whom her tribe was supposed to serve. Nor could she bear to entertain thoughts of the scornful reckoning she had received along with it.

Now, so many years after, it was far too late for contemplation. And especially now, when newfound duties, her responsibilities to her charge, called for her attentions.

She shuddered despite herself.

She would have to swallow those echoes of her past, and let them ring hollow, as her own people had done.

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