The Legend of Zelda: Zelda's Honor

Chapter 20 - Practical Medicine

The Gerudo fortress was impregnable to all but the craftiest of thieves and even those few eventually got caught. Guards were stationed at every known corner of the compound to prevent entry to their private domain. It was built and carved into the surrounding rock over the centuries. Small square holes chiseled into the brick and mortar acted as primitive windows into the interior. Inside every corridor was a drab, plain, but strangely warm set of hallways which linked and interweaved with each other. Little was placed on the walls for decoration. If anything was deemed fit, it was usually the skulls, skins and other mementos of the kills the Gerudo had made.

It was here that the strangers were finally allowed in after eras without a single foreign agent; the group was ushered through the halls with Ganondorf in the lead. One of the Gerudo women had picked up Saria and was carrying her. Link and the rest of the group were escorted under guard and had no choice but to follow. Malon was unsure of where they had taken her father and was praying for his safety. It was clear that they had not suspected Zelda was a girl for they treated her just the same as Link, slight disdain but not outright hostility for they were still children after all.

Ganondorf turned around to the group as he reached a juncture, he indicated with his arm down the corridor to his left, "Take the injured in here and see to their wounds Nabooru. Let it be known that I am gracious to guests within my home."

He left them with a disconcerting smile as he stormed off down the opposing hall with the witches slinking along in his wake. Nabooru directed the guard to quickly set Saria's tender frame on the adobe slab in the center of the room. Saria had been extremely quiet the entire time. Her eyes had begun to glaze with shock from her injury. She simply withdrew into herself; it worried Link greatly to see his friend like this.

"Get back." Nabooru commanded as she placed Zelda, Link and Malon in a corner of the room. There was an inlaid alcove in the wall which could have been a bed. Link hopped up onto it to rest his weary legs, the other two followed suit. They all leaned over, craning their necks to look around the Gerudo healer to see if Saria was going to be all right.

"Set up some heat." The healer directed Nabooru, "We will need something hot to seal the wound once the arrow is removed."

Nabooru strode over to the nearby hearth jutting out of the wall; seemingly built out of muddy clay. The interior seemed to be made of red brick plastered with cement refined from a process they learned from the old scientist at Lake Hylia. They said that man was good for something, for it surely wasn't sex! Why Ganondorf would bring that man into their domain, she could only wonder.

Shaking her head, Nabooru heaved hard on the wind press spiking the flames of the hearth higher. She grabbed a thin piece of metal and set it inside the brick grill and left it there to get heated. With her task accomplished she walked back over to the medic who was examining the puncture wound of the arrow.

"Good." The female nodded to herself, "It went straight through her. The arrowhead is sticking out the back. We can easily snap it and take both ends out cleanly. I will need some Nayru weed."

The medic pointed to a jar on a high shelf just beyond Nabooru, she turned and found the bottle she was indicating. It had a small amount of bluish leaves that gave a small, incandescent glow. What an odd plant, Nabooru thought. Shrugging she opened it up and gave some to the woman examining Saria. She snipped a few leaves off with her nails and threw them in a pestle, she then grinded them to a fine pulp before flexing her fingers for the trickiest part of the operation.

"I need you to hold her down," she gestured to Nabooru, "she will probably struggle a good deal at this next part."

Saria being abnormally still, let herself be rolled onto her side by the two women as Nabooru calmly placed a firm hand on her shoulder and another on her leg. Sora hovered over the entire debacle with rising alarm, her light flickering in greater degrees of agitation. With a breath, the healer snapped the back end of the arrow shaft in two as Saria let out a cry of discomfort. Once the shaft began slowly pulling out from her body did the writhing begin, Nabooru forced the screaming girl to be still as the last bit of the arrow slipped out of her body.