Chapter 37

Rescue

Releasing the magic of the sword, Link gasped for a moment, suddenly feeling more tired than he could ever remember feeling. But only for a moment. He could not wait longer, but looked about him to see where his friend was and why he had not come to help.

The scene around him surprised him. There had been no more than three moblins as well as the stalfos when they entered the room, but at least six lay strewn about him now, as well as two standing nearby. His companion was dispatching the first, landing a furious punch that launched the moblin into the wall. Goron Link was holding one of the moblins' swords in his other hand, and as the moblin stumbled away from the wall he stepped forward and slew the creature with the blade. It crumpled to the floor with its brethren.

Link did not know where the other moblins had come from, but suddenly realised that his friend must have occupied their attention during his furious battle with the stalfos. He felt a wave of relief towards his friend.

Seeing the ruin around him and the destruction of his companion, the final moblin looked at them for a moment with its piggy eyes, then turned and ran down an adjacent passage. Link took a step towards it and hesitated.

"What's that way?" he snapped out.

"An assembly room," answered his goron namesake. "It's where we hold meetings for the gorons who are gathered together in the temple."

Feeling a wave of apprehension, Link looked at the other doors leading off the large room they were in. They all had locks on them. Glancing around him, though, his attention was caught by the crumpled bones of the dead stalfos. It had worn haggard rags that still clung to the yellowing ones, and a tattered belt strapped round its waist. From the belt hung a set of keys.

Bending down, Link grasped the ring of keys and yanked, pulling them easily off the worn leather. He tossed the keys to his companion. "Start getting these doors open and getting the gorons out and down the passage!" he called, then charged after the moblin that had escaped.

The tunnel he now ran down was taller and wider than the one from the chasm. Its walls were smooth and consistent, not a natural cavity but a tunnel built into the rock by the ancient goron craftsmen. This matched their architecture that he had seen elsewhere on the mountain, and not the work of the sages in the parts that he and Darunia had explored on the other side of the temple. It ran straight, going directly into the mountain. And opened suddenly into a room that sloped down in tiers like a miniature version of Goron City. It was not a big space, but it was packed with moblins. Link estimated at least fifty of the creatures, certainly more than he felt he could fight single handedly, or even with the support of goron Link.

In front of him, the moblin that had run from them was making loud grunting noises. It turned to see Link and seemed surprised that it had been followed. Link took a stride forward and slammed the Master Sword into the beast's chest, slaying it instantly. Wrenching his blade back, the monster toppled over backwards, falling off the tier they were standing on and into the moblins below.

Many of the guards were reacting to the intrusion now. Some had been sleeping and even now were snuffling in confusion, but many were drawing swords or reaching for spears and beginning to move towards Link.

Knowing it was no good trying to fight them, Link turned and fled back down the passage. He came back out in the room where he had left his companion, and found that goron Link had succeeded in getting some doors open. Gorons were slowly filing out into the room and looking about them in confusion.

"Are we going to be eaten?" asked one, looking at Link.

"Not if I can help it," the warrior replied fiercely, trying to find the figure he was looking for. "Link, where are you?" he called.

The smaller goron stepped out from the throng. "Here!" he called.

"Start getting the gorons down the passage and towards the exit. We're going to have a lot of company, soon!"

His friend nodded and began ushering gorons down the tunnel, and many had already passed down it when Link remembered the dragon on the mountain side. They had seen no sign of Darunia, and he had no idea how the battle might be going.

"The stairs!" he shouted after his friend. Goron Link turned and looked at him in confusion. "Lead them to the stairs!" bellowed Link. "Not onto the mountain side, down the secret way to Goron City. It's the best chance for escape!" Nodding understanding, the small goron pushed his way bullishly into the crowd trying to get into the passage. Many of the gorons were panicking and pushing furiously, but their Big Brother's son forced his way between them, calling instructions. Link smiled. He had clearly inherited his father's ability to lead.

Another goron came towards him, stepping calmly and obviously not giving into the panic around him. He was flanked by a similarly stoic figure. "It had been a long time, brother," said the goron.

For a second, Link looked at him in confusion, but then his face split into a grin almost as wide as a goron's. "Timbull!" he exclaimed, recognising his old friend. The goron smiled, and Link also recognised the goron who stood with him as Hendon. These two had been amongst the company that had entered the dodongos' cavern so long ago.

"Yes, it is I. It seems we are thrown together in adventure once again!"

"Look, there isn't a lot of time," said Link, glancing towards the passage and expecting the moblins to come bursting from it at any moment.

"I am still in your debt," said Timbull, ignoring Link's protestations. "You saved my life seven years ago, and like the rock of the mountain we do not forget. What help do you need now?"

Link pointed to the tunnel. "Moblins will be coming up that passage in a minute. Stop them getting out!" The noise of the crowding gorons filled the room, so he could not hear anything that might have been coming towards them down the passage.

Timbull nodded. "Very well, brother. We will not turn and flee. We are gorons, and do not take kindly to our treatment at the hands of these beasts."

Turning, Link could now see the moblins rushing towards them. The ones leading carried their spears in front of them. Link looked with concern at the unarmed gorons.

Timbull saw his glance. "Do not worry, brother. We will show these creatures that even an unarmed goron is not to be taken lightly."

They strode towards the tunnel and Link forced himself to turn away. He had to admit, they looked fierce and he would not have wanted to fight them, even though he held a sword and they had only their fists.

Forcing himself again to take calm breaths, Link looked about him. Most of the gorons that had been released had now disappeared down the passage towards the bridge over the abyss. He turned to look at the other locked doors and realised his mistake with dismay: goron Link still held the keys, and there were several doors unopened.

A noise caught his attention, and he turned to see Timbull and Hendon working to bottle up the moblins. As the beasts had charged, they had waited for them on either side of the tunnel, and neatly caught the spears of the two leaders. Wrenching them free, they were now stabbing into the tunnel and forcing the moblins back. Already bodies were building up and Ganondorf's soldiers were forced to climb clumsily over their own dead. Even so, the press of them would eventually overwhelm the embattled gorons.

Fighting down his panic, Link felt the adrenaline coursing through his body and reached again for the cord, the connection between him and the Master Sword. He found it and grasped it, and again the blue glow infused the blade. He walked forward purposefully, and hacked at the next locked door. There was a crash of wrenched metal as the magically enhanced blade sliced through the lock and with a bang the door flew open.

Gorons looked at Link, obviously confused by all the noises they had been hearing but not knowing what was happening.

"Out!" called Link. "Out, quickly! Get down the tunnel and across the bridge, as fast as you can!" He waved frantically towards the exit, as docilely the gorons began to walk out of their cell. They saw the tunnel he was pointing towards, and then some noticed the moblins pushing at the exit of the other passage. Some began to shout angrily, some in fear. With pushing and shoving, some simply ran for the tunnel Link had indicated. Again, the room was filled with the noise of their fervour. Hoping they would all file into the passage and were thinking clearly enough to cross the narrow bridge at the other end, Link moved onto the next door.

Using his sword to smash the door open, this time he did not even wait for the gorons inside to react, but moved straight to the next threshold. Soon all the doors were open and gorons were rushing out the way Link had indicated. Fervently praying that goron Link had things in order at the other end of the passage, Link pushed his way through to where Timbull and Hendon were still bottling moblins up in the passage.

It seemed he was not a moment too soon: as he tried to push past the hurrying gorons, avoiding being crushed by their rocky bodies, he saw a moblin dive from the tunnel, slipping past Hendon's spear and grasping hold of the goron. Grappling, the two fell to the floor, the moblin on top of the goron warrior.

With a shout, Timbull turned towards the confrontation, grabbing the beast and wrenching it from his friend. The moblin scrabbled on thin air for a moment as he was pulled from his foe, and then Timbull hurled it into the wall. In the time the two had been distracted, though, more moblins were now forcing their way through the opening and into the room.

Leaping forward, Link drove them back with the Master Sword, still emitting its eerie blue glow. The moblins fell back, but only for a moment. In the confines of narrow passage, they surged forwards.

Link could feel the magic of his sword, felt it almost telling him what to do. He clutched at the cord connecting him to that strength, let it build to a height he had not previously reached. The energy burst from the blade in a wave, exploding down the tunnel. It rippled along the rock walls, and the moblins were hurled backwards.

Turning, Link could see that the last gorons were now disappearing down the passage. Timbull and Hendon were looking at him with admiration in their eyes.

"You have become powerful in seven years!" said Timbull, his voice rumbling with appreciation.

"That won't hold them for long," said Link, glancing down the passage towards the moblins' guard room. There were already noises showing the moblins were regathering their forces. He looked down, and saw that the edges of the Master Sword were now dull, and its light had faded. He tried to reach for that power again, to find the thread that bound him to the sword, but he could not grasp it. Whatever power the sword held, he could not access it after the exertion he had put forth in driving Ganondorf's troops back down the tunnel.

He turned, and pushed his friends towards the exit that the rest of the gorons had already disappeared down. "It's no good staying here now. We've done all we can." The two gorons went ahead of him and they moved quickly through the passage, but before they had reached the end, Link could hear snuffling and grunting behind them, and the clink and clank of weapons and armour. The moblins were giving chase.

The retreating fighters emerged from the passage onto the bridge, the depths of the chasm yawning below them. Ignoring the black abyss and the flash of vertigo it gave him, Link stopped and tried to see what was happening ahead. The light from the exit illuminated the gorons huddled on the platform at the far end of the bridge. The door beyond was open, and they were filing through it. Link could not see Darunia's son, but assumed the young goron was helping direct his people towards the secret stair, in the room where Darunia had been chained up.

The gorons seemed less panicked than they had been, but it was taking too long. They could only pass one at a time through the door, and Link did not know how long it would take them to file down the stairs. The noises behind him told him that soon the moblins would be on the bridge.

He turned to Timbull and Hendon. "Find anyone you can who can fight," he ordered them. "You need to defend the rest of the gorons while they escape. I don't know how many moblins are left, and I know they're better armed than you are. Do you think you can do it?"

Timbull drew himself up, though he was still several inches shorter than the hylian. "We are gorons. It is time we paid these beasts back for their attack on our home," he said. Link nodded his understanding, and watched as the two turned away and crossed the bridge.

The hylian warrior now stood alone, half way across the bridge, the darkness swelling up below him and the fleeing gorons behind him. He took calm breaths as he stood, sword ready, and watched the first moblins emerge from the tunnel.

They were tall, taller than the tunnel itself and had had to hunch over to walk through it, but as they emerged they drew to their full height and waved their weapons. Giving bestial cries, they saw the single person stood before them, the hero dressed in green, holding a sword he did not truly know how to use. Too stupid to fear the magic he had thrown at them, they charged.

The first of them held its jagged sword, and raised it up. Link clearly saw its intention, and as it charged him he dropped himself low to the floor and launched himself at the beast's legs. The moblin could not stop its dash as Link knocked its legs from under it. Flying over his head, it landed on the rocky bridge, rolled with the momentum of its fall, and fell from the narrow strip of rock into the deep abyss.

Another moblin stood forwards. Leaping back to his feet, Link brought his sword up with all his strength. His diminutive stature meant he was below the monster that had been trying to get at him. Its sword flew over head, but Link's blade bit into its midriff. It was not a killing blow, but it sent the beast flying from the bridge to follow its comrade. The Master Sword was nearly wrenched from Link's hand as the beast fell, but he kept a tight hold and pulled the sword back, awaiting the next foe.

The battle raged on. Link fought the moblins as they advanced. The bridge was too narrow for more than one to come near him at a time. The Master Sword whirled in deadly arcs, bringing down every beast that tried to get close, but Link was not a trained swordsman. Some spear thrusts and sword blows came perilously close to beating his defences, and he was forced slowly backwards. Intent on the next fight, the next attack, the next beast, he was oblivious to the gorons behind him and could not spare the concentration he would have needed to turn and see what was happening. Even set on the foes in front of him, he intermittently reached for the cord, the thread that he needed to gain the power of the Master Sword, but it remained obstinately out of reach. This would have to be done by strength of arms, not by magic.

As he fought, he began hearing other noises over the hustling gorons and the ferocity of the battle. At first he ignored it, focusing on the moblin he was battling. But as the beast was beaten by one of Link's blows and fell from the bridge into the abyss, Link heard the sound again and could not deny it. It was the shriek of the dragon on the mountain side. Either there was battle raging outside the mountain as well as inside, or Darunia had fallen. Whichever it was, the argorok still lived.

"Brother!" At first the cry did not pierce the ardent concentration with which Link was facing his foes. But then it was repeated, and Link realised the gorons were calling to him, and they were close by.

"Retreat brother!" came the cry, and Link thought it was Timbull. "Now is the time! We wait to meet our enemies!" With one last desperate thrust, Link killed the moblin he had been fighting, wrenched his sword free and turned to run. He had been pushed back almost to the end of the bridge, and did not have far to go. Strong and burly gorons waited at the far end, fists clenched, determined to play their part against the aggressors who had overrun their mountain.

Link ducked past them and they closed ranks, ready to face the enemy. He fell to his knees gasping for breath. His arms ached from the effort of wielding the heavy blade for so long.

"Well fought brother. The battle is almost over, now." Link looked up. A goron was not joining the warriors facing the moblins, but stood apart from there, near where he had dropped to the floor to catch his breath.

Grinning with recognition, Link allowed the goron to help him to his feet. It was his old friend, Marduk, the first goron he had met on Death Mountain. "It's good to see you again," he said, and he meant it.

"And you, brother. It seems our debt to you has been doubled. When the son of Big Brother told us you were here, I felt I could not flee without seeing you first."

The mention of Big Brother reminded Link that he could not relax, though. "Where's Link?" he asked.

"He has gone with our people down the secret way he revealed to us. Few gorons knew of it, but it was wise of you to choose that as an escape route. He is even now returning to Goron City."

Link nodded. "Okay. You need to go that way, too. And all of these gorons, as soon as they can. Once the battle is finished, go down the stairs, back to the city."

"You speak as though you do not go that way yourself, my friend. Where does your path lie?"

Link looked towards the gaping exit, where sunlight still streamed through. "I've got a job to do first," he said, simply.

"Very well," said Marduk, seeing the fierce look in Link's clear blue eyes. "I have pity on the foe that stands before you!"

Doing the best job to clean his blade as he could in the circumstances, Link sheathed the Master Sword and walked to the exit. He shook off his tiredness and looked about him as he came out again on the mountainside where he had stood earlier with Darunia.

The hue of the sky told him it was evening. Din's Fire had already sunk behind Death Mountain and on the plains of Hyrule it was falling towards the west.

There was for the moment no sign of the dragon, but he had heard its call not long before. He looked about for his friend. His eyes raked the mountainside, but he saw no movement. Taking a moment to view the landscape, he saw he was on a slope, sweeping down below him between two high arms of rock. The path was very wide here, and cut sharply to the right some way below. This was the top of the Death Mountain Trail.

Then his sharp eyes saw a boulder lower down the slope that seemed to twitch. Beginning to move quickly towards it, Link could see arms and legs splayed out from the boulder. It was Darunia. He was clearly injured, but alive.

Link dashed to his friend's side, and carefully rolled him over. He was unconscious. Beside him lay the hammer of the gorons.

Then, with a shriek and a roar of wind, the dragon swept round the mountain into sight. Link bent down and picked up the hammer, holding it in both hands, and looked at the argorok. It had spotted him, and even now wheeled around in the sky to sweep down on this new prey.

Standing beside his friend, Link gritted his teeth. "Sorry brother," he muttered, echoing Darunia's earlier words. "The dragon's mine."