Fan Fiction Friday: The Era Without A Hero – Part 58

||  Part Fifty-Seven  ||  Part Fifty-Nine  ||

Part Fifty-Eight

Osmond and Fado didn’t say much to one another as they made their way back through the mountains and toward Kingdom Bay. Rutela’s passing provided more questions than they could have imagined.

Why did Adok try to kill her? Who was she referring to? What do Huron and Erie have to do with all this?

The questions circled endlessly through Osmond’s head that night as they camped out. Fado, for his part, seemed equally as restless. When he was asleep and Osmond was on watch, the Sage of Wind tossed and turned as if being blown about like a leaf on a twig. Later, when it was time to switch off, Fado’s eyes were red and sunken in shadow.

“Are you alright?”

Fado nodded, “I just… It never gets easy…”

Osmond raised an eyebrow.

“Seeing your friends die.”

A gentle hand patted Fado’s shoulder and he lifted his eyes to meet Osmond’s. The young knight smiled and handed Fado a piece of bread that had been lightly toasted by their fire. Fado nodded in gratitude.

As the sun rose over the eastern horizon, the duo sacked their camp and made for the Silent Princess Inn. They were due to reach it just after midday, but as they came through the final pass and the fields of Hyrule opened up before them, they were met by a pair of riders.

“Sir Osmond and Lord Fado,” a lightly accented voice said.

“Yes, that’s us,” Fado said.

“Well of course it is!” The knight lifted the visor on his helmet to reveal the impeccable smile and a lock of jet-black hair that belonged to only one knight.

“Sir Ralphine!” Osmond exclaimed.

Ralphine dismounted and embraced Osmond quickly, “Wonderful to see you, lad. You’ve come a long way since the Swordsman Festival.”

“What brings you to Hyrule, my lord?” Fado asked.

The joyous expression on Ralphine’s face melted a bit. “I received word from Lord Liam, you see.” He reached into a pocket on his armor and pulled out a letter, then handed it to the diminutive sage.

Fado unfolded the letter and examined it. As he read through the letter, his face darkened, and his shoulders slumped. When he was finished, he handed the letter to Osmond to read.

Osmond’s eyes skimmed the page quickly at first. He doubted his eyes at first, and so he returned his eyes to the beginning and reread it.

 

Sir Ralphine,

          The Sage Council is broken. Hyrule is infested. The Queen is dead. We are out of time, I fear. I call for your sword as you once called for mine. Come to Kingdom Bay and seek out Sir Osmond and Lord Fado.

Your Brother in Arms

Liam

 

“I arrived in town two days ago, with a small contingency. I went looking for Madame Rassa at the Silent Princess Inn, as I suspected that’s where you would have taken refuge. However, the inn was completely vacant.”

“Madame Rassa is traveling with Zelda,” Osmond said.

“The Princess?”

Fado and Osmond filled Ralphine in on the events that had unfolded over the course of the last year as they began to head back toward Kingdom Bay. When they were done, they were just arriving in the city and the sun was ducking behind some clouds above the Lanayru Mountains.

“Fredrick,” Ralphine spoke to the other knight he’d been with, “please head along and prepare a room on our ship for these two. I’d feel better knowing they’re with us for the night.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

The horse galloped away through the town and towards the harbor. The cheerful disposition that Osmond knew Sir Ralphine to have had faded somewhat as the story had unfolded.

“So now you head for Death Mountain to see what answers the Gorons will have,” he said summarizing.

“That’s right,” Fado nodded.

“Dark times indeed. Who would have known the events of that night would have spawned such evilness.”

“Sir Ralphine, did you encounter such trying times in your homeland? Is that what Liam was referring to?” Osmond asked.

“I don’t suspect they were quite as dire as the danger Hyrule is in today, but yes. Labrynna was in the midst of a civil war you see. I was fighting for the Royal Family as a knight, much like you do. However, our King was felled in battle by an arrow and so the armies fell into disarray, many not wanting to follow the Queen. She was originally not from Labrynna and many accused her of stoking the fires of dissent that spurned the civil war to begin with. With many factions of our military force changing sides, I had no choice but to reach out and ask for Lord Liam’s aid.”

“I remember that. I was still an attendant to Lady Saria. It wasn’t long after…” Fado trailed off as a troubled expression crept into the edges of his eyes.

Ralphine nodded, “I am eternally grateful to him for his sacrifice to us.”

Osmond looked back and forth between the two, reading the expressions. They had both known Liam for much longer than he had, and it showed. The stories and knowledge of a time that seemed ages old now reminded him of Aldwin. The expression on their faces as they began to discuss that time was the same that Aldwin would carry whenever the so-called ‘old-times’ were brought up.

They arrived in the harbor and Osmond stood in bewilderment at the mass of ships docked there. At least a dozen war frigates were anchored just out in the coast, while two large vessels were docked in the harbor. One ship flew colors of Labrynna, a single white cross amid a sea of navy blue. The other ship flew a red flag with gold trim and the emblem of a tree in gold as well.

“You brought a fleet from Holodrum as well?” Fado asked.

“Brought them? No. We were both called to aid it seems. Lord Liam has friends in all nations around the globe it would appear. We arrived within hours of one another, and it seems the people of Holodrum have a debt to the Lord of Lanayru also.”

They boarded the Lanayru ship and followed Ralphine to the Captain’s Quarters. Inside the smell of the salty spray of the ocean seemed to dissipate somewhat, thanks to the round candelabra that hung over the central table. Maps were hung on the walls, with dozens of charts and scrolls tucked into cabinets below. A bed and small end table sat in one corner of the room, while a writing desk sat in the other. Between the two pieces, a row of windows looked out over the bay.

“These are my quarters, and you may come and go as you please. Your room and beds will be made up shortly,” Ralphine smiled. “Our cook will prepare us some dinner in the meantime. Sound good?”

The duo, having camped out for the previous few nights, enthusiastically approved.

“Sir Ralphine?” Osmond began.

“Yes, Sir Osmond?”

“I never got to ask you, but you knew my mentor, Aldwin, didn’t you?”

Ralphine’s face softened, “Only as a nameless trainee, I’m afraid. When I met him at the tournament alongside you that day, it didn’t occur to me. It wasn’t until later on when we were fighting for our lives that it dawned on me. Lord Liam, it seems, had departed for my land shortly after some trouble with a young knight-to-be here in Hyrule. He didn’t talk much on the subject, but occasionally when the topic of training or Hyrule came up, he would mention who I later discerned to be his protégé.”

“Do you know what happened between them?”

“Not entirely, no.”

Fado’s ears perked up as he attempted to look distracted by the charts on the wall.

“The knight in training had a significant other and she passed away unexpectedly. Apparently, Lord Liam had something to do with her demise. I never probed the issue, and I suspect that was the right decision. He was a man in great pain back then… In many ways, he still is.”

Ralphine’s words hung in the air a moment before stumbling and scrambled footsteps burst into the chamber.

“M’lord! Come quick!” Fredrick shouted, gasping for air.

A mixture of anxiousness and confusion seemed to linger in the small group as they were led below deck through two narrow staircases. They walked the length of the ship, past cannons and barrels of explosives. A small armory sat off to one side, while another narrow staircase resided on the other side. This flight of stairs led down into the galley.

Fredrick stepped into a small pantry to allow Sir Ralphine a chance to see what had caused the sudden disturbance.

A man with a rounded belly, dressed in a faded and stained white shirt with black and white trousers was laying on the floor. A pot on the nearby stove bubbled with potatoes floating near the top while the other side of the small kitchen was covered in other already cut vegetables. The knife though seemed to be missing. It wasn’t until they took another step forward that they discovered the knife lodged in the cook’s side.

“Found him after I’d done my rounds, sir,” Fredrick explained. “I came down here to let him know we had guests and to prepare something. Then I left to inspect the cannons and the men’s cots. When I returned, I found him here.”

Ralphine knelt down and stroked his clean face.

“Why would anybody kill your cook?” Fado asked.

Ralphine reached over and pulled the knife out, placing a towel in its place. He examined the blade as best he could, then showed the handle to Osmond and Fado.

The pommel had a Hylian Crest on it.

“Somebody who’s taken their love of Hyrule too far, or somebody that wants us to think that.”

“Captain!” a voice above deck shouted.

The group rushed back up the stairs and reached the deck moments later. One of the crew members was standing near the helm and looking out over the bay through his telescope.

“What is it?” Ralphine said stepping up alongside the young man.

He handed Ralphine the telescope and pointed it outward.

Osmond followed his hand and could see plainly what was wrong. The ships that were anchored just off the coast were ablaze.

Confusion and panic fell over the entire ship. Longboats were being lowered into the water with three men carrying long pikes each. They rowed their way outward, hoping to find survivors.

Ralphine began calling out orders, which his men carried out almost before he could finish them.

Fado, looking through a telescope mounted to the railing, gasped.

“What?” Osmond asked.

As Fado backed away from the telescope, Osmond looked through it.

On one of the burning ships, a man stood waving his hands desperately. Suddenly a sword blade exploded from his chest. With a violent shove, he was kicked into the water. His murderer turned and began to lumber around the deck.

“What the hell?” Osmond started, now stumbling back.

A scream from the ship from Holodrum drew Osmond and Fado’s attention suddenly. They looked across the dock just in time to see a man hefted up on another’s shoulders, and launched to the hard wooden surface below. With a terrible cracking sound, the body came to a sudden stop.

Osmond and Fado looked back up to see a skeletal figure, dressed in soaked pantaloons, a torn shirt, and seaweed clinging to its joints and limbs. A jagged sword was tucked into a cloth belt around its waist. Its glowing green eyes fixed on the duo. With a terrible screech, it drew its sword and pointed it across at them.

 

The Era Without A Hero will return…

 

This story is an imagining of the final days in Hyrule prior to the Great Flood talked about in the opening cinematic of The Wind Waker. The story is getting an audio version in podcast form set to begin releasing sometime in 2022 and there’s a complete soundtrack for the first volume here. Head over to erawithoutahero.wordpress.com or follow the story account on Twitter @ZeldaTEWAH where you can keep up on information regarding the future of the podcast, soundtrack, and other TEWAH news that will be coming soon! Every Era Has Heroes…