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Both boar-riders whipped their reins and charged, shouting a mad war cry as they came. Their mounts followed suit, roaring grotesquely. The sound was unnervingly similar to the moblins of the woods: "Skreeeeee!"

I had one last thought before being borne away on a wave of adrenaline and endorphins: This is the stupidest thing you've ever done, and you're going to die.

My legs launched me forth, straight for Karrik and the other horseman. The tall blades of grass swished and parted, sweeping about my legs as I dashed forward. I came at the two moblins at a dead run.

Behind me, the sound of bulky hooves grew and passed. I felt a gusty wake of wind and smelled something rank and hairy. One of the riders croaked out what had to have been a frustrated curse.

Karrik's horse reared up, startled by my sudden approach. I drove to its left, putting it between myself and the spearman. As the horse fell back, Karrik snarled and tugged violently at the reins. I slashed out blindly to the right with the sword. The movement was awkward and wobbling, hitting nothing but air. I struggled to correct the momentum the attack had created and felt my trajectory veer off further to the left. My feet threatened to tangle beneath me and send me pitching onto the ground.

Hooves slammed and pounded in my ears. My heavy breathing and pulsing heart sounded like the roar of surf as if broke against a tidal cliff. Hot needles stabbed over and over across my chest.

I corrected my gait and forced myself to a halt. I whipped my entire body around just in time to see one of the boar-riders thunder from behind. The boar's foul tongue lolled out of its maw as it threw its head this way and that, jerking its rider's arms with each spastic movement. Its tusks looked deadly sharp as it grew larger and larger in my vision.

Shitshitshit!

I threw myself sideways, tumbling out of the boar-rider's path and headlong into the grass. Landing on my shoulder, I rolled through sweet wet darkness. The world tumbled end over end. The sky switched places with the earth, and for a moment I lay on my back. Blades of grass rose before me like spires, piercing the blameless blue above. Something small and spindly landed on my hand, chirped contentedly, and then leapt away. I considered how nice it would be to just stay there, laying in the cool shade of the prairie grass and staring up into the sky.

"GYAAYAAYAHH!"

The ululating, bloodthirsty yell was all it took for me to sit bolt upright. The world corrected itself. Sky took its rightful place over soil. The approaching shape of the other boar-rider pushed into the corner of my vision. I rolled blindly out to the right.

As I did, the clomp of hooves grew even louder. Had I not dodged? Had I not . . .

Something very fast sliced past my face and buried itself in the ground at my knees. The shaft of an arrow wobbled for a moment, then went still.

Arrows. I forgot about the fucking arrows.

I forced myself to my feet and looked left. Both boar-riders rode out farther into the meadow, side-by-side. One notched another arrow onto its bow, while the other clumsily attempted to manage the reins of its beast with one hand and a jagged war-club with the other.

Movement behind me: I spun about to face it, messily bringing my sword up over my chest. Karrik came at me at a full gallop. His face was a rancorous mask. He raised his thin sword – a rapier, I realized – and howled a single insensate word.

I waited, poised. As he drew within three or four galloped steps, I ducked right. With both hands firmly on the pommel of my sword, I held it horizontally and ran forward as fast as my burning legs would carry me.

My entire body shuddered with the ensuing collision. I struck the horse's flank at an awkward angle, driving my sword into it as hard as I could. The force of both bodies' speed and mass sent me careening in a wild, half-blind direction. I heard the horse scream and felt something hot and wet spatter across my arms. As I came to stop, I fell to one knee. My head swam. My fingers shuddered and flexed. I opened my eyes and saw blood across the blade of the sword and spackled across my forearms.

No time to rest. I was up and turning in moments, looking wildly for the closest opponent. The two boar-riders had broken apart and were heading at me at determined lopes, one to my side and one approaching head-on. Out to my left, Karrik's horse pitched and bucked, still wailing horribly. On its left flank was a wide gash, openly spurting fresh blood.

I smirked.

Suddenly, something charged into the right side of my vision. Quick, savage movement. I pivoted as fast as I could to meet it.

Not fast enough.

The world exploded. Something hard and cold and sharp ripped across my face and ricocheted off my left cheekbone. I saw nothing but brilliant white light and dancing black spots. All of my nerves seemed to fire at once. I tried to cry out, but my throat closed and my lungs convulsed. Overwhelming pain reverberated like an earthquake through my skull. My bones shook with silent agony. I felt a gentle wind and the tingle of freefall. It came to me that the blow had literally knocked me off my feet.

I landed. Hard.

I blinked furiously. My vision blurred and rippled like a piece of burning filmstrip. Once more, I lay at an angle that stretched the grass and expanded the sky. I'm going to pass out, I thought. My skull pounded. Something poured over my chin and down my neck. I sniffed and realized that it was blood. My blood. Face aching and every muscle above my shoulders on fire, I hauled myself up out of the grass and onto my knees.

Oh God. Here it is. This is how I die.

A soft wind billowed my shirt and played about the raw wound on my face. The exposed nerves and muscle fibers crackled as they met the open air.

Come on. Come on!

I shuddered back to my feet and stood.

Come on, you fucker!

The spearman cackled as he came into my sight. He casually ambled his horse in a slow arc. The tip of his weapon dripped liquid red. I understood then that if I had not turned when I did, the spear would have gone straight through the other side of my skull instead of simply skipping off the bone.

My breath heaved. I could see the two boar-riders match movements, coming around to flank either side of me while the spearman kept me pinned down.

The moblin before me smiled toothily. He spoke, low and lazy. "Yat ka Ganon, chief. Yat ka moka-ro. Moka-ro tak. I shit on your corpse, palebelly."

He angled his horse back toward me and lowered the spear.

I sucked a storm of air through my nostrils. Crushed grass. Pollen and wildflowers. Distant sap. The sharp, fecund smell of livestock. An overpowering stink of hot blood.

The boar-riders approached on both sides.

All or nothing.

The spearman charged. I charged back. On either side of my peripheral vision, the boar-riders careened in at ugly angles, overshooting their marks. I heard a wild arrow twang and soar high over my head. The giant boars squealed and keened as their riders pulled up on the reins. They disappeared. All I saw now was the spearman. Only half a second separated me from the end of his pointed weapon. A half second . . . A half-fucking go go GO!

I broke left, out of the path of the spearhead, and then propelled my entire body to the right. With my free hand, I grabbed at the reins and bridle of the horse, and then pulled. My grip was slippery and my weight awkwardly distributed, but as I wrenched my torso backward the effect was clear. The spearman rattled back and forth in his saddle; the horse whinnied and balked; I threw my entire weight into pulling the fucker down off his mount. I let my right hand free and brought the hilt of the sword down on the spearman's hands. He howled with pain.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boar-riders whip back past us and out toward the wagon. They were setting up for another approach.

I felt my body tilt upward as the horse reared and kicked. I flapped awkwardly with my loose hand, swatting to and fro with the flat of my sword. It connected with nothing, and then suddenly slapped headlong into the spearman's face. He made a startled, agonized sound and tumbled backwards. As the horse reared up again, I plummeted as well. For the third time, the world upended in a series of illogical Escher spins.

As I hit ground, the horse took off. I looked up and noted with no small amount of pleasure that it had departed without its rider. The spearman wobbled to his feet with a dazed expression. I took a step forward on legs that felt like soft rubber. I gripped the Master Sword with both hands and raised it to my side.

"Shit on my corpse?" I wheezed. "Fuck you!"

As action-hero lines go, it was fairly weak.

I bounded forward just as he was wanly raising his spear, and then swept the sword upward in a kind of half-assed uppercut. A shriek of horror and pain; something soared through the air and fell with a meaty thump; the familiar wet heat of spilled blood landed on my face and neck. I stepped back to see the spear lying forgotten in the grass. The moblin moaned and clutched at his right arm, which suddenly seemed to end about two inches below the elbow. Blood poured from between his gripping fingers.

Out near the wagon, the boar-riders wheeled about for their next charge. Suddenly, a lithe form with dark hair popped up from the grass surrounding the oxen. It wound up one shoulder and then heaved forward. Something rocketed out of its hand and struck one of the riders square in the face. Even this far out, I distinctly heard the ugly splitch of splintering bone. The boar-rider was propelled out of his saddle and spun into the grass. The riderless boar swerved wildly, keening and mewling as it went. It cut the other off, causing the remaining rider to veer into a wide, panicked run toward the grove of trees. Still making sounds like a slaughterhouse victim, the wild boar took off toward the edge of the meadow and disappeared.

I gawped. "Fuck me," I whispered.

Before me, the spearman had fallen to his knees. His skin had gone waxen and his sides shook. He looked up at me with a mixture of naked confusion and fear.

"Lam! Fahd ka met!"

A voice rose behind me, with the sound of hooves in its wake. Karrik. I threw myself to the side, managing to maintain my footing only by the slimmest of margins. Karrik's injured horse blazed past me and put itself between me and the spearman. It whinnied pitiably.

Karrik whirled and spat, "This isn't over, stranger! You have stirred up a great nest of hornets! I swear that I will find you and make you pay for what you have done today!" He swept a hand down and hauled the wounded moblin up behind him. Both regarded me hatefully, and at once Karrik spurred his horse forward. It barreled out toward the edge of the field where the boar had exited stage right. Within moments, the two vanished over the hillside and were gone.

A curious, breezy silence settled over the meadow. Wind gently swept the blades of grass and tussled the treetops.

I felt my body sway. The sword fell to my side and dangled. Everything made of meat on me hurt. Thigh and abdominal muscles throbbed. Tendons twitched and ached. The shredded muscle of the spear wound continued to pulse with a sputtering, almost electric pain. Somewhere behind my forehead, it felt like a jet engine had caught fire.

Blood and sweat mingled in a thin pool across my shoulders. Fronds of grass and bits of dirt stuck to my body in odd places. My shirt felt like a slimy membrane.

A wispy cloud moved across the sun. Quiet darkness fell in a pleasant shroud across the little valley.

Five days ago, my life had been meaningless. Each day had been the same as the last, in a never-ending litany of lost hours. And then had come that Friday, and all its attendant wonders. I thought about Allen and Stuart, beer and pot, Marilyn and Bryan. I thought about that nameless woman and her coal-dark eyes, smiling like a sphinx. I remembered everything that had seemed so normal, before my old life had been swept away, as if by some great tidal wave.

I looked down at the sword I gripped in my right hand. It shone silver and flowing red. The Triforce seemed to glow with triumph. Everything had started with this. It had been my albatross and my talisman. It carried me and drove me down. And somehow, some way, it had led me to this moment.

The blood sprayed across my face was beginning to go cool and tacky. I blinked and felt a spot of it smeared across my eyelid.

Something welled up in me then, like shining oil bursting up from the earth.

"Heh."

I laughed. Just a dry chuckle at first.

"Hahaha . . ."

Then, a painful guffaw.

"Hahaha . . . HAhaha. HAHAHA! AH! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

And then I was suddenly laughing uncontrollably, like a madman. I threw back my head and laughed. I let the sword slip from my fingers and laughed and felt my sides groan in agony and still laughed. The sound of it spread like fire, echoing across the meadow and rising up to the wondrous sky. I hiccupped and tasted tears as they ran across my lips and down the back of my throat.

I fell to my knees.

Not just laughing. Weeping. Openly, hysterically weeping. I shook like an afflicted man in a faith healer's tent. Open palms brushing the tops of the grass, I shook and laughed and wept and took in the wide world like a child born anew.

Not twenty minutes ago, I had stood in the night streets of Los Angeles. I had wandered miserably toward what had seemed an inescapable fate – submission to a future filled with paranoia, fear, and insanity. It had seemed the end of happiness and the start of something beyond terror and darkness. Something unbearable. But then . . . then . . . night became day. Dark became light. Ignorance became a kind of twisted understanding. And now I was here, wherever here was. I had my ideas of course, but . . . Jesus. It was insane. It was madness, right?

But what a beautiful madness it was!

End of Part One