Hey guys, sorry this chapter took so long to write! This chapter really DID NOT want to write itself, but thank you guys for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!
. . .
"Roger, what did I say about playing with your food?" The machine in question froze as it was caught red-handed, the owl it had been tossing between its claws falling to the ground with a pathetic 'flop.' Releasing a guilty grumble, Roger stomped away from the creature, the owl taking the opportunity to soar away from its torturer. "Oh, get over here," the huntress sighed, beckoning Roger to lay beside her and scratching its head to show that all was forgiven. "I know you just wanted to have some fun, but we can't treat animals like that, alright?" Orea might have been a hunter, but Rost had long ago taught Aloy and her that all animals-even their prey-deserved respect.
"That machine can understand you?" Kotallo asked, his voice echoing against the ring of trees encircling their camp for the night. "You speak to it as if it can discern your words."
"I don't know if Roger can understand exactly what I'm saying," she admitted, shrugging her shoulders as she continued running a lazy hand down the automata's spine. "But I think it can understand what I'm feeling, in a way." Roger was certainly able to perceive when Orea was happy or upset, and the way it had thrown itself atop the Grimhorn back in TAU...
"I've never known a machine to behave in such a fashion." The Marshall absentmindedly applied a fresh coat of dye to his chest and legs. The paint had washed off in the river they'd waded through to catch their dinner a few hours prior.
"Neither have I. He's just...different, I guess." In all honesty, Orea hadn't the slightest clue as to how and why Roger behaved the way it did. Even before the Derangement, she had never heard of a machine acting affably towards humans: passive perhaps, but outright friendly? Never. "Whatever it is that makes Roger special, I owe this little guy my life," she continued, stroking Roger's head and earning a delighted purr in response.
"How so?"
"Before we arrived at the Grove, Aloy and I passed through Plainsong. We ended up having to fight one of the Utaru's land-gods."
"You fought an Utaru land-god? I thought they were peaceful, even with the Derangement?"
"This one went rogue. We had to take it down before it could raze Plainsong. At some point, it got in a pretty good hit on me-in all honesty, I thought I was a goner. Just when it had me cornered, Roger jumped onto its back, distracting it long enough for me to finish it off. I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for Roger."
"That's incredible."
"I know. All my years of hunting, and here I am with a machine for a pet," she chuckled, shaking her head with mirth. "Funny how life works sometimes, huh?"
"Indeed." Orea did not miss the forlorn gaze he cast upon his missing arm.
"I will say though, Roger aside, some of the machines I've fought in the Forbidden West have been incredible! I've never seen anything like them." The Seeker was thankful to draw the Marshall's eyes back toward her rather than his arm.
"You grew up in the East, correct? With the Nora tribe?"
"Yeah. Most of my life was spent in what they call the Embrace, their sacred lands. You've heard about the Nora?" Given how isolated the Nora tended to keep themselves-although the tribe had begun to open up beyond its borders after the Battle at the Alight-Orea was surprised a Tenakth Marshall would even know the its name.
"Fashav spoke of it occasionally-albeit only briefly. He recounted the Nora as skilled warriors who kept mostly to themselves, labeled as 'savages' by many of their neighbors. Although, given the barbarity the Carja themselves are capable of displaying, I seriously doubt they have any right to brand another people as such."
"Yeah: the Nora aren't too keen on leaving their territory. The Red Raids certainly didn't help matters. The Nora had only just begun speaking with the Carja again when I left."
"If the Nora are so wary of the world beyond their borders, why did you leave?"
"Never said I was like most Nora, did I?" She smirked, untying some of her braids that had been doused during their hunt for dinner to reform the familiar twists and twirls. "My sister and I left Nora territory to track down the man who killed our father," she explained, hands rigid with tension as she braided. "Along the way, we got tangled up in the Sundom and the Shadow Carja and everything else."
"My condolences for your father. Such a loss could not have been easy," Kotallo offered, arm twitching as though he wanted to reach out to her before halting himself.
"Yeah." Orea found her throat suddenly turned to sandpaper, possessing not a single phrase beyond the single syllable she had just uttered.
"Your hair-why do you braid it like that?" he asked suddenly. "Does it have a particular meaning, like our ink?"
"Yes, actually." She pulled section she was diligently working on over her shoulder to show him. "I grew up as an Outcast, so I didn't get the chance to learn most of the Nora's traditions, but I did learn this one. To the Nora, every twist of their hair means something, and while I can't say I truly consider myself a Nora, I've kept the habit." While Outcasts were supposed to wear their hair unbraided, as a symbol of their separation from the tribe and despite Rosts's strict adherence to Nora law, the only father Orea had ever known had taught them how to braid and style their hair, as well as the hundreds of different meanings a single fashion could express. We Nora do not pour gallons of ink upon our bodies, nor do we write our deeds in scrolls or the fires of a forge, Rost had said. Our hair is our past, our present, and our future, and not even banishment can take that from you.
"What does your hair mean?"
"That's a bold question Marshall. The Nora do not believe outlanders have the right to the story of their braids. Say something like that in the Embrace, and you'd quickly find yourself knee-deep in an all-out brawl."
"An exchange then," he proposed, tone equally as impish. "The story of your braids in exchange for the tale of my ink. Does that sound fair?"
"Perfectly." Now then, where to start? "Well, I started putting this braid in after I killed my first machine, and this one when I arrived in the Sundom..." Orea carefully went through each of the braids and knots in her hair, each twist or turn of her midnight tresses a marker: for defeating Helis, for entering the Hunters' Lodge, for acquiring the Shieldweaver, and so much more.
"And what about that braid?" Kotallo asked, pointing toward the back of her head. "What meaning does it carry?"
"This one...is for all the people I've lost," she answered quietly, fingers reaching back to touch the soft strands. "The Nora warriors who fought and died to protect the Embrace from the Shadow Carja, a Banuk shaman, Ourea, who sacrificed herself to save the Cut and shares the sound of my name, my father, Rost, and..." She stilled, her hands coming to rest upon the first knot of the braid, the spot reserved to mourn the mother she had never-and would never-know. "And someone I'm not yet ready to speak of."
"I understand," he nodded, and Orea could've loved him for the way he let the subject drop completely, not pushing her to reveal more than she was willing.
"What about you? I've told you my tale: it's only fair I hear yours."
"Very well," the Marshall acquiesced, ushering her through the legions of tattoos covering his body. Each line of color was fraught with unspoken meaning-a memorial to the death of his parents in a clan skirmish, a commemoration of his role in the razing of Barren Light, a token of his acceptance of Fashav as a brother-in-arms. By the time Kotallo ran his fingers over the last remaining marking on his chest, the sun had long passed underneath the horizon, the moon shining softly in its wake.
. . .
Snow crunched softly underneath Orea's boots as she walked, Kotallo at her side and Roger trailing behind her. The Sheerside Mountains beamed in the early-morning sunlight: bright enough to nearly blind the huntress. Two days of traveling had taken them to the mouth of the mountains, past a village Kotallo had named as Sheerside Climb.
"We should reach the Grove by sunset," he announced. "How long do you think Aloy will remain at the Bulwark?"
"I can't imagine she's too far behind us," Orea answered, grinning ear-to-ear as Roger rolled around in the snow ahead of them, its tail wagging in delight. Too. Cute! "Probably a few days behind us at most." Aloy wasn't one to dilly dally, especially when the huntress had a goal in her sights. "So what's the deal with Kulrut? Fashav explained it to us back at the Embassy, but what does it mean to the Tenakth-"
"Perimeter's all clear, nothing but dead grass." A sudden voice in her ear had Orea freezing in her tracks.
"What is it?" Kotallo asked, his body tensing as he carefully studied their surroundings, every inch the practiced warrior. The image of a jungle cat came to mind.
"Rebels, I think. They're nearby. "Maybe a mile or so away."
"You can hear rebels from that far away?" Right, he doesn't have a Focus. Orea was so used to seeing and hearing her world through the device, she occasionally forgot the vast majority of the world lived without a piece of the Old World in their ears.
"I can't explain it, but I have something from the Old World that allows me to hear what they're saying," the huntress explained. "Just trust me."
"Alright." Kotallo fell into step behind her as Orea led them further south. The transmissions seized by her Focus grew louder and louder. The trio finally slid to a stop further down the mountain, smack-dab in the junction where tundra met jungle, the territory of the Sky Clan slowly giving way to the Grove. "You were right. Rebels." Regalla's forces had holed themselves within the confines of an Old World ruin, its steel and stone now overlaid with wooden barricades painted in their colors.
"We should take them out," the Marshall whispered in the huntress's ear, voice little more than a hiss.
"Agreed." The way Orea saw it, the fewer rebels Regalla had at her disposal, the better. "Follow my lead." With a tap of a finger, she activated her Focus, scanning each of the rebels patrolling the fortress's entrance. Ten in total. The renegades stuck close to each other, wandering in groups of two. Thankfully, this particular camp didn't seem to host any mounts, although Orea doubted such would be the case for long if they were left alone. We need to take the guards down without anyone inside noticing.
"What's your plan?" Kotallo's arm accidentally brushed against hers as they huddled in the grass. Orea decided to ignore the warmth it left behind.
"The patrols are grouped into pairs, so we'll attack both members of the pair simultaneously."
"I'll follow you in." Darting across patches of dried grass growing against cold stone, they wove their way through the outer sentries-attacks in perfect sync, as though they had fought together all their lives. Now, for the lookouts. Using Roger as a distraction, Orea carefully picked off the camp's spotters, firing as they turned their heads toward the distinct tune of Roger's chirp.
"It won't take long before the rest of the rebels notice their sentries are dead," Kotallo noted. "What now?"
"We move further in." As shouts broke out within the camp, the rebels no doubt noticing the corpses of their comrades, the trio crept inside. "Made it." They were now deep in the hornet's nest. Orea's Focus picked up nearly twenty-five enemy signals. Some of them were even equipped with Focuses, the tech no doubt gifts from Sylens. Thankfully, Orea had learned the basics of spyware from fiddling with her old Focus (which now lay crushed in Latopolis) so while she could hear the rebels' communications, they would remain blissfully unaware of hers.
"This place looks like some sort of dig site. What are they up to here?"
"I'd bet shards there's a bunker underneath all this, but we'll have to carve through the camp to reach it."
"The camp should have a Champion," Kotallo stated. "If there is a facility underneath, they'll most likely have access to it."
"Then I guess we'll just have to get their attention. You ready for a fight?" At his nod, Orea snuck behind the gaggle of rebels huddled about one of the dead sentries.
"What happened?"
"They're all dead!"
"Someone's infiltrated the camp!" You're right about that. You've got a fox in the hen house. Jamming a bomb onto the end of her javelin, the huntress popped out of the grass, in plain view of the entire camp. Whistling loud and long, she felt fifteen eyes snap to her, all of which were very much hostile.
"Hi." Yanking her arm backwards, Orea launched the explosive-ridden spike as the rebels charged.
BOOM!
Tenakth sailed into the air, shot every which way from the force of the blast: some ablaze in a fiery inferno, others flailing like a destroyed practice dummy. The roar of noise immediately drew the attention of the rest of the camp, Orea and Kotallo throwing themselves straight into the fray. Roger hung back, taking potshots at any foe unfortunate enough to enter its sights.
With only half the camp left alive, Marshall and huntress easily divided the remaining rebels between them. Foes fell upon Orea's spear like water, a circle of corpses pilling at her feet. The Seeker found herself leaping back from her throne of rebels, however, as she dodged a blinding blue shield charging straight for her skull.
"You savage filth! I'll have your head!" What is it with the Tenakth and wanting my head? Judging by his armor and equipment, this warrior was either the camp's champion or leader. Kotallo was already locked ini an engagement with a similar-looking rebel. Both fighters wielded shields identical to the ones donned by Grudda and Tekka back at the Embassy-they wouldn't be easy to bypass, although Orea's fight with the aforementioned Champion had made the Seeker more than aware of the aegis's weak points.
Dropping abruptly down into a squat, Orea swung her leg in a wide arc, sweeping the rebel Champion off his feet. He dropped to the ground with an audible 'thud', the huntress immediately clambering on top of him, his shield now involuntarily discarded. The pair rolled to and fro in the dirt, trading blows in a bloody exchange of fists and feet. With a grunt, the Champion drove his feet into Orea's stomach, knocking the Seeker off his chest and leaving her with an ache in her gut.
Eyes scanning the balustrade, Orea caught sight of the Champion's shield, gleaming in the sun behind him. A plan having sprung into her head, she sped forward, appearing for all intents and purposes as though she was going to collide head-first with the Tenakth in front of her. As the Champion rose his fist to counter, Orea dropped low, sliding underneath the rebel's legs and toward his shield. As soon as her hands curled around the weapon's handle, the huntress surged forward, slamming the full force of the shield into the Champion's body, his armor beginning to crack underneath the pressure. When he tumbled to the wooden floor and did not rise again, Orea allowed herself an exhale: he was down. Somewhere beyond her, Kotallo's fight had ended with similar results, the camp's leader defeated by the Marshall's hand.
"A key?" Orea puzzled as she looted the Champion's cadaver, holding a slim card between her fingers.
"You find something?"
"Yeah: some sort of key. I'll bet it opens something in the bunker below us."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Making their way to the lowest level of camp, Orea quickly found a use for her newfound treasure. An ancient door hummed quietly in the farthest corner of the camp, a model Orea had seen dozens of times beforehand. Depositing her card into the nearby receptacle, Orea and Kotallo stood back as the bunker creaked open.
"We need to move carefully: there could still be more rebels waiting for us inside," Orea cautioned, signaling Roger to watch their backs as Kotallo and she crept inside.
"Let's see what the rebels are so intent on protecting." However, as Orea warily turned a corner, her Focus picking up several heat signatures, she was greeted not by Tenakth, but by Oseram. Oseram?! What are they doing here, working with Tenakth rebels?" She shook her head: regardless of their motivations-whoever these Oseram were-if they saw the huntress there was no doubt in her mind they'd try to kill her.
"Kotallo, do you have any flash bombs?" she asked, eyes never leaving the Oseram crawling about the bunker like ants. Wordlessly, the Marshall placed an explosive into her hand, a sort of silent understanding passing between them. Three. Two. Now!
A great flare of light exploded into the corridor, Orea only able to hear the startled yelps of the unfamiliar Oseram as she covered her eyes from the blast. While their adversaries were effectively blind, Kotallo and Orea were not. They tore through the bunker, their spears striking true and their enemies powerless to react, despite the heavy weapons most of the Oseram carried.
"This place seems like some sort of storage facility," Orea muttered. "What could they be hiding in here?" A strange circular device caught the huntress's attention, the mechanism emitting a low hum. It's a messaging device and-there's a recording stored on here. "I found something!"
"What is it?"
"It's a communication gadget, and there's a recording." As Orea tapped the machine, an unfamiliar voice flooded the room-a woman's, by the sound of it.
"To all Sons of Prometheus engineers and operatives," it began. Sons of Prometheus? Were those the Oseram we faced just now? But what are they doing in the Forbidden West? "I've been hearing some belly-aching. Whining about the Tenakth. The work. The conditions. The occasional limb lost to a machine when someone gets careless," the voice seethed, venom poisoning their words like ash."I get it. It's been a long road. We've suffered. We'll continue to suffer. But we're close. This alliance will get us what we want, that I guarantee. The Carja will pay for the Red Raids! In blood. And so will all their collaborators in the Vanguard and back in the Claim! So shut up! And get to work! And always remember: a reckoning is on the way."
"The Sons of Prometheus?" Kotallo repeated as the message finished. "I can't say I'm familiar with the name."
"Neither am I. But from the sounds of it, they want blood, and their target isn't just the Carja-they want to attack their own tribe in the Claim."
"So they allied with Regalla, knowing she plans to attack Meridian once the Tenakth are under her thumb."
"Yeah. But how did they get all this tech?" Orea puzzled. "There's Old World power cells in here, and weapon schematics too-more advanced than I've ever seen from even the Oseram. They're trying to build something, but how did they become so adept at manipulating Old World tech? And how did they get in contact with Regalla in the first place?" She sighed: these were all good questions-for another time. She needed to focus on the here and now.
"What do we do about the bunker?" Kotallo asked. "The camp's cleared, but the rebels could come back to loot it." Orea's eyes drifted to the power cells piled haphazardly in the nearby corner.
"We could destabilize those cores..."
"And take the bunker with it."
"No bunker, no power cells, no more weapons. Yeah, that could work." However, the timing had to be perfect: Kotallo and she would only have a few precious seconds to hightail themselves out of the bunker before it detonated. "When I say so, run as fast as you can and don't stop," she instructed, tapping into the bunker's central control module-which was also wired directly to a power cell-and cueing it to detonate. "NOW!"
Orea raced as fast as her legs would take her, the earth crumbling in on itself behind them. A massive shockwave nearly shot the huntress off her feet. Dust pooled in the air as the explosion faded, leaving behind nothing more than a pile of rubble, Orea bracing her hands on her knees as she peered down at the destruction. No more ancient weapons for you guys.
. . .
As the sun set that evening, the Forbidden West found itself haunted by one fewer rebel camp, and huntress, Marshall, and machine made camp for the night. Roger, its tail wagging in glee, dashed off to hunt dinner for the evening, leaving Orea and Kotallo alone to set up their bedrolls and build the fire.
"Thank you," she heard the Marshall murmur, his back to her as he fanned the flames of the hearth.
"For what?"
"For clearing out the rebels. You were under no obligation to do so, but what you did today helped my people. My home. Thank you for that." Orea froze where she stood, her eyes locked on Kotallo's as he met her gaze, gratitude gleaming in his eyes.
"You're welcome."
Up Next: Our hero's second encounter with Regalla and the Kulrut.