Apothecary

Chapter 23

I had to get to Link.

I took a few more deep breaths to try and calm down completely. Once my mind was cleared, I took stock of the situation. I glanced out of the mouth of the cave and saw that the storm had not lessened over time--it seemed worse now than anything else. I could dimly make out that the sun had lowered in the sky, but any footprints he may have left were long gone. There was no time to waste. I set a few more red potions to boil over the fire and dug through my bedroll for Ashei's down coat.

I sighed when I glanced back at our camp one final time. He'd even forgotten the lantern--not that it would matter, the storm would most likely have snuffed it out by now. I lit the thing and secured it to my hip.

I made my way outside and shoved the stone door shut with all my might, remembering Ashei's advice to me before we left. Make a trail if you can. Shield your eyes when walking in a day blizzard.

Well, a trail was right out--anything I left in the snow would probably be buried when I got back, with how fast the snow was picking up. I tried to shield my eyes as best I could, but it wasn't very  necessary--for the moment, the wind was to my back. Didn't stop the wind from blowing in my face when I got back up here--I had half a mind to steal Link's hat and use it when the time came.

What else?

Try not to walk head-on in the wind, yeah? And take short breaks whenever you can.

There wasn't any cover as far as I could see, so I would have to walk in the wind if I wanted to make it to him. And if I stopped for a break now...

Narrowing my eyes and filing away the advice for the time being, I pushed on through the slowly increasing snowfall, making it past the frozen tree. An oddly low-lying wooden bridge crossed a small chasm. It seemed sturdy enough, but I hiked over it quickly, trying not to worry about the inevitable question of how well it would hold up later, with the weight of two people on it...in the middle of a snowstorm.

Passing over the small bridge, I made my way across a vast frozen plain. The snow here was almost too thick for me to walk in, and I wondered how Link had made it through. It thinned out as the plain narrowed to a small trail--much better for sledding than anything else. Picking my way gingerly down the trail, I followed it until it leveled out into a more open space. There was a larger wooden bridge directly in front of me--a suspension bridge, surrounded by a small cauldron of Ice Keese. And just beyond it, I thought I spied a familiar green tunic. I slashed at the Keese, almost swatting them out of the air in my haste to dash across the bridge...

...and there he was, collapsed in the snow. 

I couldn't tell what had happened, but the pack of Ice Wolfos that had began to circle us, gradually closing in, gave me a good idea.

The problem with fighting out in places like Snowpeak isn't about whether you can hold your own against multiple enemies at once,  Shad had said. The real problem is more simple--mobility.

On a clear day, in good weather, Ice Wolfos were no problem--they generally appeared two at a time, and if the sky was clear, and the snow was packed down you could dispatch them quickly and move on to other areas. But here, in blizzard conditions, it was all too easy to become overwhelmed, dragged down by both the piling snow and the sheer number of enemies.

Especially if you were out here alone.

I made my way over to Link as slowly as I could, trying not to alert the Wolfos too much, and felt for a pulse. It was there, but it was slow--he needed to get warm.

The sword was still at my side. I carefully drew it, turning and eyeing the monstrous wolves one at a time--Shad had also said they were prone to attacking when your back was turned.

True to form, the instant one of them got around to my back it leapt for me, figuring I was unguarded. Remembering what I had learned in training, I stepped back and whirled around, catching it in the side with my blade. It reeled away with a loud yelp, and disappeared instantly--only for another one to appear almost at the same time. My heart dropped when I spotted two more leaping up from the snow afterwards, and another pair appearing on the far side.

Seeing the problem and realizing that my situation would only get worse when the storm hit, I racked my brain for a solution. I couldn't try and kill them all--that would be fighting an endless battle--and I couldn't run away while dragging Link at the same time, or we'd both be killed.

My eyes shifted to Link's prone form. Before he had been attacked, what had he been trying to do?

His bow was a foot away--maybe he'd dropped it when he'd been overwhelmed?--and the quiver was still over his shoulder. Sitting next to his hand (and looking as though it had been dropped as well) was one of Link's many satchels, filled with--stones? No, they were rounder than that, and--I stared at them more intently--they had fuses.

Bombs.

What would bomb arrows have to do with--?

I glanced again at the snow--likely to pile up even higher as the storm blew in--and then at the circling wolves, and then to the bombs and arrows gathered in my hands...

Seizing my chance, I quickly nocked a bomb arrow and took my aim--not at the Wolfos, but at the densely-packed snow that was spawning them. It blasted away quickly, and I fired again and again, in a loose circle around myself and Link, and then a pathway back the way I came. Soon I had enough of the snow scattered that when I slashed at the monsters again, they didn't come back. I lowered the sword, panting with the effort, and turned back to Link's prone form.

So he really did need someone to watch his back. Stellar job on my part.

Neither of you should have gone into this angry,  spoke the little chiding voice in my head.

Yeah, I know. I sighed, attempting to haul Link's unconscious form over my shoulder with much difficulty--Din's fire, what all is he carrying?!--and glanced around for any landmark, any vantage point whatsoever. Well, what now?

As I turned back and trudged onwards--near blindly now--through the snow, I kept a lookout for the larger storm I knew would be coming in. Finally it broke, and every step I took sank into new snowfall, so that I was stomping rather than walking my way forwards. It was slow going--I had to keep pausing and shooting the Ice Wolfos that kept appearing. My bomb arrow trick only worked once--the snow was so thick now that a match would be instantly snuffed out, to say nothing of trying to keep a fuse lit. Finally, by some act of Hylia, the Ice Wolfos stopped their assault--which left me with only the sea of white to contend with.

I had to stop when I was halfway back across the smaller bridge--the snow was so all-encompassing that I could no longer see the large tree that marked the entrance to the cave. Link was out cold, I was getting a cold, and if I didn't do something soon, both of us were probably going to end up freezing to death in the wastes of Snowpeak. I looked around desperately for some sort of marker, any sign that I could use as a landmark to guide us back to the cave, but everything was buried within the blizzard.

I took one step forward, and nearly tripped over the deep snow and the weight of Link on my back. I tried to shift him as best I could, and then took another desperate step forward. If I kept forward, on a straight path like I was, surely I'd have to run into the tree at some point? But then my foot slipped on a patch of hidden ice, and I nearly dropped Link in my haste to keep my balance. I leaned on the sword hastily as I struggled to keep upright.

And then I stopped. As snow-ridden as the landscape was, I had no way of knowing if I was heading towards a precipice or into a patch of snow that concealed thin ice. The small bridge was far enough behind me that I could no longer turn back and be sure that it was really there, and even if I turned around, I ran the risk of getting completely disoriented. Link was becoming heavier and heavier on my back, and as I stood there, shaking and nearly frozen, it crossed my mind that maybe I was more tired from the fight than I thought. 

But what was I supposed to do? The blizzard was getting worse, I had no idea where exactly I was going, and I was sure if I kept walking I would probably send the both of us over a cliff. But I had to keep going. I prayed to Din, Hylia, Nayru, Farore--any god that would listen--and begged them to set my feet on the right path, to keep me from getting us both killed out here.

All I could see was a sea of white. And I as I stumbled blindly through it, slowly I started to lose hope.