The Legend of Zelda - The Tainted Blade (Season 3)

Facing Demons - (S3:E15) SEASON FINALE PART 3

Crofta, one of the best huntsmen in Lurelin despite being only a few years older than Zel, lay motionless in the dirt. His horse fled down the rain-soaked road back to Lurelin. Dasan, the blacksmith, still fought Rangtar as his horse lay dying in the grass. Blood gleamed on Dasan's shoulder.

Zel locked eyes with the lynel. The monster bellowed and slapped Dasan to the ground.

The moment froze in time. Suddenly, Dasan's body filled his view. Was he alive? Zel couldn't tell.

"GO!" Zel heard himself shout from the mirror. The scene shifted for Zel to watch himself sprinting across the bridge on the old mare Nessy. His friend Padan followed as they fled the pursuing lynel.

The hooves thundered along the wooden planks of the long bridge as the Zel in the mirror clutched the tainted Master Sword close above his heart. Behind them, Rangtar charged, using his arms like another pair of legs and catching up to the two fleeing boys.

"Faster!" Zel yelled at Padan.

From outside the mirror, Zel's heart thumped. He remembered the fear of the moment and it brought sweat to his forehead.

Rangtar lifted his torso and bellowed. With both arms clenched in a double fist, he swatted Padan's horse. Padan cried out. His horse screamed. Both fell over the bridge, flailing to the waters fifty feet below. The Zel in the mirror glanced back.

And the mirror froze again. His own frightened face filled Zel's view. He grasped the sword like a mother protecting a baby, obviously his only concern. He remembered seeing his friend fall, but what did he feel? Did he feel anything? Had he given his friend Padan a second thought since it happened?

Was Padan dead? He didn't know. Worse...he wasn't sure he cared. What did that make him? What kind of person cared so little whether his friend lived or died?

A trickle of cold fell over Zel's head, spreading through his arms and legs...a realization. The darkness of the sword didn't change him it only amplified what already lived in his heart. Even if he had never held the blasted sword, he might have reacted the same way. Blood always calls to blood, he heard his father say.

The Demon King Demise wasn't the source of evil in the world at all. Evil existed in the hearts of the people. It dwelt everywhere. It lived both in his real father the criminal, and in the man he grew up calling father. It lived in the hearts of his mother and her friends, and in the actions of both the lynel and himself that day on the bridge.

The corruption in the hearts of everyday people was the true blight on the world. Demise was only a predator grown fat from feeding off this corruption.

Who could save this wretched world?

***

Near the summit, the purple-eyed Adara readied herself to fight Endrick. With the memories of the previous battle, and being less fatigued than the first Adara who had died, Adara had a better idea and strategy of how to fight the man.

He straightened from where he peered down into the volcanic crack after watching the first Adara fall. He considered the sword in his hand, now crisscrossed with shimmering black tendrils connecting the blade to his arm in one wrapping. Black veins where the taint filled his bloodstream crept up his neck. His eyes twinkled with madness. Adara thought he might toss it in as well, and all would be lost.

He seemed to make a resolution and sheathed the sword.

"Endrick!" she shouted as she leaped over the ice halo surrounding the barren black ledge

He spun to her and his eyes widened. His jaw slacked for a moment before he regained his composure. He drew the Master Sword again. "So you have found the Four Sword."