Chapter 3

As they climbed flight after flight of stone steps, higher and higher out of the subterranean depths of the Castle Dungeon, Zelda could hear the sounds of distant thundering, and see the walls tremble with the force of impact.

"What's going on up there?" she whispered to Zig, the masked pirate who carried her.

"Captains giving 'em hell, I expect," said the pirate, "That can't last forever though. We need to get up to the ship as fast as we can and get you out of here."

"Ship? There's no ocean near the castle."

"Not that kind of ship," replied Zig, mysteriously. Before Zelda could enquire what he meant by that Zig's unnamed superior cut them off with a sharp hiss. The senior pirate had come to a sudden halt on the landing of the next flight of stairs.

"You hear that?" said the leader, "Damn! Moblins! They're not far off. You'll have to take the boy too and go on ahead. I'll catch up."

Zig took the boy from the other pirate and slung him over his free shoulder. The skinny pirate seemed completely unaffected by the added weight. Up the stairs they went, two at a time, in an urgent sprint. Zelda had just enough time to see a group of pig-like guardsmen come rushing on to the flight of stairs, surrounding the pirate, before they disappeared around the corner and up the next flight.

"Will he be alright?"

"Who, Gwen?" replied Zig, "Oh yeah, I wouldn't worry about her. She can handle herself pretty well."

"That is a girl?"

Moments later, they were racing through the halls of the castle cellar, and Zelda knew they were only a few floors away from the ground level. Here there were more people, cooks and servants and other laborers running about, trying desperately to gather whatever little belongings they might have and scrambling for places to hide from the apparent conflict upstairs. A thundering boom rose about the place, and the walls trembled, sending dust down from the old stones of the ceiling.

"What is that awful sound?" whimpered Zelda.

"Cannon fire, princess," said Zig, "It was the only way we could distract that old Wizard long enough to get you out of here."

"Oh my!" gasped Zelda, "Your efforts are truly daring. I am in your debt!"

"Don't get all sentimental on me, princess, we're not in the clear just yet."

They continued through the kitchen and the scullery, bounding up the spiral staircase and through the open trap door into the halls of the ground level of the castle. Tapestries and suits of armor went flying past as they cleared the side halls and made their way towards the main entrance.

"We're going out the front gate?"

"That's the plan," said Zig, "They'll be watching all the back entrances, and Nyarlath's sure to be up in the tower putting on a show. There will be guards, but when it comes down to it no one will suspect that we're crazy enough to just waltz out the front."

"That's mad!"

"Wait till you meet the captain, and then you won't feel so surprised about that."

Through one more arched doorway, and the great hall gaped around them. They came through an open double door underneath the great marble staircase of the entry hall. Hylian guards were everywhere, and one of them saw Zig coming in. The guard raised his spear and pointed, shouting, "He has the princess! Get him!"

"Okay, Zelda, I've got to put you down for a second, so stay close and don't get caught!"

Zig set the princess down and shifted Link into a more comfortable carrying position. They boy's head bobbed deadly with the motion. Zig's right arm was free now, and with a flick of his wrist a long, triangular blade went shooting from his sleeve. The guards descended on him like a swarm of locusts, but the pirate was ready for them, and he danced around their clumsy spears with ease. There was a flash as he struck out with his blade, snapping spears and rending guard after guard unconscious, though it was apparent that he could have ended their lives just as easily.

Zelda gasped in wonder at the perilous scene, trying her best to stay at Zig's heals, and away from the encroaching guards. One of them came sprinting at her, and she screamed, but Zig was there in an instant, and he brought his blade like a cudgel down on the guard's helmeted head, knocking him out.

"Make for the gate, Princess!"

The two of them, Link still slung over Zig's arm, went sprinting out of the castle as fast as their legs could carry them. In all the commotion, the guard had not yet been able to seal the gate, and it stood ajar just enough for them to squeeze through.

Outside, the walls of the castle were ablaze, and hundreds of screaming figures scurried back and forth like the silhouettes of ghosts drifting through the smoke and flame of a hundred structure fires. Archers and ballista lined the bridge leading from the main courtyard to the castle gate, firing bolts of tremendous size at some phantom foe out in the misty, smoke-filled sky.

"What now?"

"Look!"

A behemoth object, like a great falling moon came down through the smoky sky, and at first Zelda thought they would be crushed. The humongous thing did not flatten them, though, but hovered over them with the gentle, floating quality of a helium balloon. The thing was huge and round, made of wood with massive iron straps and bolted studs. A droning hum accompanied it, and wind poured off it in gale force.

Zig came rushing past, grabbing Zelda's arm and dragging her further under the thing. There was a trio of explosions- Boom! Ba-Boom! –and fountains of flame like dragon's fire came spewing from iron tubes at the crown of the massive thing. The cannons decimated the Castle gate, collapsing the great wood and iron doors into a cloud of rubble and dust. For a flash, the fire lit up the sky, and Zelda saw that it was something like a sailing ship that hovered over her, impossibly, in the midnight sky.

As Zig dragged her beneath the wondrous enormity of the flying ship, a hatch on the underside popped open, and a ladder made of ropes came lulling down like a great brown tongue.

"Climb!" cried Zig, pushing Zelda forward. The ladder swung treacherously in the wind, but the princess gripped the ropes hard and began to climb as fast as she could, hand over hand.

Zig was just behind her, climbing expertly despite the handicap of Link on his left arm. Zelda glanced back at them, and saw by the light of the fires that the boy was still there. They were almost home free! It would be a dream come true to get away from Nyarlath and know that she had saved the brave boy who had tried to help her.

Boom! Ba-boom! Boom!

The cannons thundered at the sky again, and the ship shook violently. The rope ladder twisted and swayed, and then lashed like a whip in the torrent of wind. Zig's footing slipped, and his grip on the boy was lost. Link went plummeting twenty feet towards the hard ground.

"No!" cried Zelda.

Yet all was not lost! Out of the cloud of debris that had showered down in the cannon's wake a single lithe figure came sprinting, the tatters of the gauze wrap on its wrist trailing like streamers as it ran. Gwen caught Link just before he would have hit the ground.

Zelda and Zig let out a cheer as the pirate caught the boy. Gwen drew a cylindrical device from some hidden spot and pointed it into the sky. A little arrowhead with hooked edges fired out the end of it, and it brought with it a long chain of shiny metal, which burrowed into the hull of the flying ship. A moment later, the chain was contracting, pulling the pirate and her burden up into the air.

"You owe me big time, Princess!" shouted Gwen as the hookshot pulled her past. All Zelda could do was laugh and shed a tear of joy at the sheer relief. She and Zig climbed the rest of the ladder, and moments later someone was pulling them inside the hull of the massive airship.

"Alright, everybody on board?" shouted Gwen, passing Link off to another pirate, who disappeared down the narrow, wooden hall. "Good. Inform the captain. We can make our escape!"

The pirate pulled the wrappings away from her face, shaking out a mane of jet black hair. Zelda finally got a look at the face of her rescuer. Gwen was pale, almost ghostly white, with eyes of deep brown and a slender pink scar running the length of her right cheek. Confidently, she strode through the crowd of pirates, who were rushing about fiddling with barrels, tweaking complicated looking knobs and levers, and mending pipework where holes were letting jets of searing steam into the air.

"First Officer," said one of the pirates, addressing Gwen, "We have sustained minor damage to the hull and the starboard turbine, but she's still sky worthy. The captain requests your immediate presence on the bridge."

"Aye!" replied Gwen, "See to it that the princess is kept safe in the captain's quarters, and don't let her out for any reason until we're clear of Hyrule Castle. We just might be in the clear, boys!"

A general cheer went up among the raucous pirates and the one to which Gwen had been speaking took Zelda by the hand and led her off deeper into the airship's bowels.