Sabotaged Love: A Zelink Story

Chapter 5: Link to the Rescue

"Run!" Norah cried, and Zelda didn't look to see what Norah would do. She took off running in the opposite direction, trying to not trip on anything.

Zelda heard some grunts come from behind her. It sounded like Norah was fighting the monsters. Then she heard a very high-pitched scream—not something she expected to hear out of the tomboyish woman—and, "Not my dagger!"

Zelda glanced behind herself quickly to see that Norah was now running from all four creatures, and her precious dagger was no longer in her hand.

"Why did you stop running? Go!" Norah screamed at her.
 
     Zelda turned around to keep running and was abruptly stopped—her white cloak had snagged on a rock. She bent over and tried to free it with shaking hands. Norah came over to help but Zelda got it off by herself.

Norah grasped her arm in an iron grip, a grip only a blacksmith could have, and yanked her forward, propelling her into a faster sprint.

"What are we going to do?!" Zelda cried, feeling so terrified she wanted to cry.

Norah looked around frantically as they ran. Then she stopped them and pointed up. "Climb that tree!"

Zelda looked up at the tree; it had a very wide trunk and lots of branches. She wasn't so sure about this idea, but it was better than anything she could come up with.

She removed her bag and handed it to Norah before starting up the tree. "There's a dagger in there!"

"Why didn't you say so earlier?!" Norah shrieked. She found the dagger and slashed at the Bokoblins with it as they approached her with their massive clubs. Zelda was almost halfway up the tree when the branch she had been holding onto suddenly snapped and gave way.

"Noooo!!!" she screamed, reaching out desperately for anything she could grab onto to stop her fall. She flipped over backwards and fell headfirst towards the ground below—but something caught her. She found she was hanging from the tree upside down, watching Norah fight off the gang of Bokoblins. She was very disoriented. "What happened...?"

"Are you almost to the top—Tetra!" Norah shouted in panicked frustration when she glanced behind herself to see Zelda hanging upside down in the tree. Her legs, tangled up with her white cloak, had caught in the branches. Zelda realized what had happened and reached up to try to free her legs. They were too stuck.

"Norah, you have to help me!" Zelda cried, pulling harder and harder at her legs to free herself.

"I can't do two things at once, ya know!" Norah screamed, and seconds later Zelda's dagger was knocked out of Norah's hand by one of the Bokoblin clubs. Norah held her now empty hand to her chest as if in pain and backed against the tree Zelda was in.

"Only one thing left to do now," Norah panted between breaths. "Scream for help and hope someone hears."

Both Zelda and Norah screamed as loudly as they could, desperately hoping someone—anyone—would hear them. The Bokoblins slowly closed in on them. This was it. This was how Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, was going to die. How absolutely horrible. She couldn't believe how quickly things had changed from a casual conversation between herself and Norah, to this—death by Bokoblins.

But just as the Bokoblins were about to raise their clubs to make their final attack, a figure dressed in green appeared on the scene in a blur. Zelda could only see the mysterious hero in action upside down, but she could nevertheless tell he was skilled. He killed each Bokoblin so quickly it seemed unreal. In a matter of seconds, the Bokoblins lay dead all around them.