They made a pathetic-looking bunch: Paintface struggling to carry extra weapons while leading the way, her two companions trailing the parade, warily watching the foreigners in the middle. In between came the demoralized Bandits, limping, shuffling feet, trying to stay in step with Paintface; Aloy walking closely behind Paintface and scanning the shallow hill to their right for any signs of attack from the residents of this place; and the two Bandit guards with a wounded straggler of a Bandit hanging onto them as they trailed the mass of people. Aloy knew that if the residents of this camp wished, they could cut this motley group down with a quick volley of arrows or a single well-planted hand-thrown bomb, and she would be powerless to stop them. I should be wearing my Shield Weave Armor under these rotten Bandit clothes! Aloy thought.
The sprinkles of rain had turned into a steady downpour, dampening the brown soil and suppressing any dust the shuffling of feet might otherwise have kicked up. But it also quickly drenched the light layers of clothing worn by all but the Bandit guards. And of course, Aloy realized there was a chance they were getting pelted by Radiation as well. It was imperative that they get out of the rain soon.
They were walking between what Aloy had suspected were makeshift tents, long rows of them on either side of the wide path they followed. But she realized that these were not tents at all, as she could make out the trunks of trees here and there: the canvas material that stretched alongside the trail covered an orchard of small trees with silver-gray trunks. In the darkness it was impossible to clearly distinguish any other features, but there seemed to be several rows of covered trees. It appeared this Bandit camp grew these trees and probably had covered them against the falling rain.
The ever-harder rainfall brought a chill to Aloy and made her wonder how the more seriously wounded would fare after this exposure. She split her time between watching Paintface trudge ahead, eyeing her surroundings for any signs of ambush, and keeping an eye on the captive Bandits that followed behind her.
Finally, through the darkness and the rain, Aloy saw their destination: what appeared to be a cave opening at the edge of a hill, jutting out in front of them from right to left. No lights shone ahead, so she couldn't be sure, but she thought as she walked: There's something familiar about this.
When the group reached the edge of the cave and assembled in a cold, dark, and damp alcove out of the rain, Aloy realized why it looked so familiar. There were dirt mounds here and there, half as tall as she, and a musty smell permeated the thick air, but she was quite sure: they had entered the holding room for a long-abandoned Cradle, a structure built by the Ancient Ones to store the seeds of life and to repopulate the planet with humans, once the Earth had been made habitable following the Faro Plague. This Cradle had been destroyed by something (Did the Machines break through the outer doors? Almost a thousand years ago? Aloy pondered), and it seemed to have no inner seal, the large, triangular door that had protected the Cradle known as Eleuthia-9 in her homeland. If this was indeed a destroyed Cradle, Aloy suspected there would be little to discover within its walls – if its walls still stood.
Paintface broke the silence.
"If… if you'll all stay here," she began, stopping to take in a breath, "I'll see if we can enter the Great Hall."
Great Hall? Aloy thought. If this is an ancient Cradle, what is the Great Hall? Eleuthia-9 didn't have a room like that – at least as far as I could find.
Paintface disappeared into the darkness of the cave. Aloy thought she heard a muffled "Oof!" and a curse word: Paintface had likely run into something in the dark.
Aloy realized that Paintface hadn't been carrying the Bandits' spears – or Aloy's bundle of clothing and possessions – when she left. So they must be in the cave somewhere.
Moving about the dark cave, trying not to step on any of the captive Bandits sitting or lying about the area, Aloy noted a glint of something shiny near the opening. On approach, she saw it was the blade of a spear, and next to it, the bundled Banuk fur holding her valuables. She opened the fur and fished around a bit, finally coming upon a small green canister: a container of Blaze, the highly flammable substance that made fire arrows and long-burning torches possible. She located a palm-sized steel bar, and next to it, a shard of flint stone, both tucked away in a pouch. She poured a small amount of blaze on the ground beside her, struck the flint with the steel once, twice – a few sparks sparkled in the air, then a third time – a spark landed on the Blaze and instantly the fluid burst into flames, providing a bit of eerie green light and a modicum of heat to the cold cave.
Aloy looked around at the Bandits, all watching her, some in awe, and spotted the little girl she'd carried not long ago. The girl was hugging the leg of a young woman (that's got to be her sister, she's too young to be her mother!) and staring at the dancing sheet of green flames on the ground. Aloy motioned for the girl to approach, and at the older girl's urging, the child walked toward Aloy, still watching the flames. "Sit down here by the fire," Aloy motioned to the Banuk fur, spread like a rug beside the fire. The child hesitated, then walked up beside Aloy and almost collapsed onto the fur. She lay on her side, staring intently at the flickering flames.
"I know you're all wet, and you've got to be cold, so don't be shy, come on over and sit," Aloy said as she stood, Blaze in one hand and flint and steel in the other. "I'll get another fire going over here – " she waved at her feet in another open area just a few steps from the current fire "—for the rest of you.
"And you, too," she said as she turned to the Bandit guards. "I don't have a lot and it won't last long, so get dry while you can."
A noise came from deep within the belly of the cave. It sounded like muffled voices, a group of people coming from out of the darkness. Aloy pivoted on the mound of silt and clay that she'd used as a stool and faced the direction of the voices. Soon she could make out the faint glow of flame, yellow-orange and moving toward her. Concerned that this could be an ambush, she moved away from the rest of the group, retrieved her Focus, placed it upon her right temple and tapped it alive.
Six humans, all Bandits. One of them was Paintface, and all were carrying weapons. Both the lead and trail Bandits carried hand torches. They didn't appear to be an immediate threat, as their conversations seemed casual and light.
As the Bandits appeared from a doorway, Aloy deactivated her Focus and stored it back in her waist pouch.
"Aloy! Aloy, I told you I'd bring help!" Paintface broke into a trot, dodging debris as she ran toward Aloy. The other five Bandits, three men and two women, approached much more slowly.
One of the men spoke.
"Aloy? A-loy? What kind of name is that? Are you really from a Bandit camp, because that doesn't sound like a Bandit name to me…"
Paintface stopped cold, realizing her mistake. She turned back to the approaching Bandits. "No, that's not her name! I was just saying hello, you know 'aloy there!"
"Uh, yeah, okay, sure," the Bandit said, but Aloy could tell he didn't believe the story. She had to help out.
"And 'aloy to you too, Paintface!" Aloy called out as she gave a small wave of the hand. "You can call me Red Devil."
"Uh huh," the Bandit looked disinterested in any conversation. "We have orders to take you to a holding cell until our boss figures out what to do with you. You and the rest of your Bandit gang.
"And while we're at it, what Bandit camp are you from, anyway?"
Uh oh, Aloy thought, I wasn't ready for that question! She had to make something up quickly, or tell the Bandit it was none of his business. But as she considered the best answer, a male Bandit behind her spoke up. She recognized him as the de facto leader of the lost group.
"We're from the Timberland Camp," the man said. "You've probably heard of us, because we've heard of this camp. We're all that's left. Machines attacked."
"Nah, never heard of your camp. Well you're now prisoners of the baddest of badass camps in the West, and you'll probably be put to death in the morning. Now come with us. Off to a prison cell."
"No no no!" Paintface shouted at the Bandit. "Maybe all of these people, but Skulldriver wants to meet this woman, right now."
"Is that so?" the Bandit replied. "Well, Red Herring – " Aloy interrupted: "Devil! That's Red Devil!" "Yeah, okay," the Bandit continued, "so, Red Dead-by-morning, why don't you and I just go see the boss."
"Wait a minute!" Paintface objected. "I told Skulldriver about her, about how she saved my life, so I should be the one to deliver her."
"Too, bad, darlin', I'm in charge here and I say I'm takin' this little girl to see the boss. And you'll help these folks get introduced to their new home."
"Sorry to disappoint you," Aloy spoke, "but I think I'll make sure all these people are safe and warm, then I'll meet your 'boss'." Aloy had two real concerns: that the Bandits were there to slaughter their new prisoners; and that this belligerent ass had more in mind than just taking Aloy to see his boss. She'd had enough encounters with men like this to know they usually had ulterior motives for getting her alone, and she didn't really relish having to run the guy through with her lance while wandering the depths of a hostile Bandit camp.
"Sorry to say this to you, bitch – if you think I'm going to do somethin' to you, you're wrong. Damn, why don't you take a bath sometime? You really reek!"
In a way, this was reassuring to Aloy, and it helped justify her donning the rotten and smelly Bandit clothes that Paintface had given her. Maybe she'd be safe after all. But there was still the matter of the injured and suffering Bandit prisoners. Aloy turned to Paintface and spoke.
"I guess I'll be alright, Paintface, but please promise me you'll find a secure place for these people. I'm going to count on you for that."
"Of course," Paintface replied, even as she glanced rather nervously at the belligerent Bandit. "They'll be alright until you talk to Skulldriver, anyway."
"Okay," Aloy said, looking back at her erstwhile guard, "let's go."
"You first," the man said, waving his torch in the direction of the Cradle. "I'll tell you where to go, just get us to the Great Hall and we'll see if the boss wants to talk to you.
"If not, maybe he'll let me kill you myself."
As Aloy and the Bandit walked slightly downhill into the dimly-lit ruins, she glanced back to see Paintface gathering the captive Bandits and was heartened to see Paintface herself lifting the sleeping young girl, wrapped in Banuk fur, and cradling the girl in her arms.
As they walked, the dim and flickering light of the Bandit's torch bounced off of the gray walls around them. Her theory was confirmed: they were walking a ramp that led through a large, open triangular entryway – what should have been the sealed hatch for a Cradle. There were none of the familiar glowing lights that she'd found in other such structures constructed by the Old Ones. This facility was entirely lifeless.
The walk in the dark was a short one, as the entryway opened into a large circular chamber aglow with torches along the walls. Aloy could hear the muttering of voices, many of them, from all sides of the central chamber. The Bandit silently waved his torch in the direction of a stairway that led down into the lower levels of the chamber. Aloy complied; as she approached the stairway, she could see that there were several anterooms on either side, and dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people in each of the rooms, most of them sprawled on the floor. Some sat in chairs, some on rusted metal that might have once been incubators for the Cradle. The torches threw dancing shadows and light on the entire scene in every room, so it appeared the occupants were moving about and gyrating rhythmically, but she knew that it was just the illusion of the flames. The scene was much the same in each of the four different rooms Aloy and the Bandit walked past; there were easily upwards of a thousand people – presumably all Bandits – in these rooms. And she was only on the top floor of at least three.
As Aloy walked down the stairs to the next level, the Bandit trailed behind her with his torch still held high, and she knew that they had reached the education level: that portion of the Cradle intended to impart the intelligence, the science, the arts, the history of the Ancient Ones onto a generation of innocent children, born and raised in the Cradle for the sole purpose of repopulating the Earth once the scourge of the great Faro Plague had been eliminated. Little did those innocents know that the entire universe of knowledge they were due to learn had actually been erased almost a thousand years ago by the man for whom the Faro Plague was named: Ted Faro. And Aloy knew, from her experience with similar Cradles, that it was likely that none of this facility's occupants had even survived to see the sun: natural and unnatural disasters had stricken many of the Cradles and they had failed in their mission.
Dozens of Bandits lined the walls on this level as well. They seemed to be relatively well-dressed and well-fed – at least as far as she knew about Bandits, anyway – and also well-armed. Skulldriver's inner guard? she pondered. At the far side of the relatively narrow walkway was a simple divider, nothing more than a flap of hide hanging vertically as though to mark off a private area. The Bandit led Aloy to this location and motioned for her to stop.
"Boss," the Bandit spoke above the low murmur of voices, "I got that bitch who killed Bearman."
Aloy heard rustling from behind the flap, then the end was pulled back and two Bandits emerged, lances at hand. They looked sternly at Aloy, as if they might attack at any time. She tensed up, ready to react if they made a move. But a voice from behind the tent, gravelly and hoarse, difficult to understand, stopped them.
"Bring her in," the gravelly voice said, in a low and raspy tone. "Just her! The rest of you idiots stay out."
The two guarding Bandits looked at each other in surprise; Aloy's jailor seemed shocked as well. None of them made a move. So Aloy moved. She stepped between the two Bandits and behind the hide flap. One of the Bandits stuck his head around the flap as she did, and the gravelly voice bellowed out, "I TOLD you to get the hell OUT! If I need you I'll call for you!"
The flap fell limp, not really closing the area off, but at least preventing prying eyes from the outside.
There was really nothing special about the corner sheltered by the hide flap. A simple bedroll lay on one side, against the wall, and there were a couple of simple wooden chairs under a single burning torch.
And there was Skulldriver. He was a massive man, easily weighing three times as much as Aloy, if not more. He sported a thick beard, mostly white but with streaks of black in places. His head was bald – and mangled. Skin was missing in large swaths over the top of his head, and what skin there was seemed to be a dead shade of gray. It looked as if his skull were trying to escape by forcing the skin apart. His eyes were two different colors: the left seemed to have a normal brown iris, but the right was entirely red – no iris visible at all.
Skulldriver was an imposing sight. With the voice of a growling animal, he could, Aloy suspected, strike such fear in people that they would immediately swear allegiance to him. To Aloy, who had witnessed much worse – fierce Machines intent solely on killing her, religious zealots with superhuman strength, evil and insane women wanting to rule the world through death and destruction – this man was not even in her top ten. But still, he was a sight.
Which made what happened next all the more shocking.
In a hushed and humble tone – still gravelly and broken, but noticeably softer – Skulldriver spoke. "You must be thirsty, my dear. Care for some wine? We grow the grapes locally – not the best of conditions, our growing season is too short, but still, all things considered, it's not that bad."
Skulldriver picked up a clay jar, decorated with multicolored lengths of straw woven around the base, and a clay cup. Aloy knew better than to drink anything potent right now: she'd need her wits about her.
"Well, I could use a drink," Aloy replied, "but maybe something with less of a kick? Water is fine, or a juice of some sort."
Skulldriver emitted a grumbling sound: laughter, Aloy suspected. And hoped.
"Sure, sure," Skulldriver said. In a louder voice he spoke in the direction of the flap behind Aloy. "One of you knuckleheads get our guest some grape juice! But not the fermented kind, the stuff we give our kids."
Seconds later, an arm thrust from behind the flap, a cup in its hand. Aloy took the cup, started to say "thank you," but decided better of it: Bandits aren't thankful for anything.
Skulldriver motioned for Aloy to sit in one of the chairs as he sat in the other. After several gulps from his cup, Skulldriver sat forward and looked at Aloy. Menacingly. Or perhaps not – it was hard to tell.
"You know, I should have you put to death. After all, you killed one of my best Scouts. I'm going to miss Bearman."
"Yes, I… I guess I can say I'm sorry," Aloy replied before thinking: Bandits probably don't apologize!
"If it were anyone but you, you'd likely be dead already. Most of my camp knows what you did." Another shot of wine. "If it were anyone but you."
"Okay," Aloy replied, a bit concerned about what this Bandit leader might know. "And who am I?"
"Oh come on!" this time Skulldriver let out a real laugh, shaking and sloshing wine from the cup in his hand. "Everyone knows the legends: the fire-haired demon woman, stronger than any man, able to tame Machines as easily as she destroys them. 'Anointed One,' she's called in some parts. Saved the world, maybe more than once.
"Then we hear about you in our land: able to deftly dispatch one of my best Scouts, lay open his son's leg, make friends with that crazy woman Paintface."
"Look," Aloy said, pointing at the blackened splotches of hair sticking out from under the scarf she wore over her head, "not fire haired! You've got me mistaken for someone else. I'm just passing through."
"The hell you are!" Skulldriver roared as he quickly reached his tree-sized open hand and snatched the scarf from Aloy's head, exposing the fiery red tufts that Paintface had not trimmed away or covered with lampblack. "See? You did a pretty poor job cutting your hair. And you've just got… I don't know… something… a presence. It's obvious just watching you, you have a confidence that is rare, maybe unique. You are a very special person, and it's a shame you have to try to cover it up! Oh, and you really stink, too."
The tent flap behind Aloy rustled; an arm reached around, and the head of one of the Bandits followed. Aloy quickly turned away, lowering her head toward her lap so the Bandit wouldn't see the mop of red hair. Skulldriver simultaneously tossed the scarf in her lap and yelled at the Bandit, "Dammit! I told you to stay out! This is a private conversation! I'll let you know if I need you, got it?"
"Got it," the Bandit said as head and arm retracted behind the flap.
As Aloy pulled the scarf over her head once again, Skulldriver continued.
"Sorry about the interruption. These guys are already pretty suspicious of you, and like I said, most of 'em want to kill you just because of what you did to Bearman and his son. But I'll make sure they don't succeed. I hope."
Aloy glanced at Skulldriver as he took another swig of wine. Was he joking? Was her life really in that much danger here?
Skulldriver seemed unfazed as he lowered his cup and spoke solemnly. "Yep, Bearman was one of my best Scouts, had been ever since some of my men saved him and his family from the Halfmen."
"Halfmen?" Aloy asked. "Who's that?"
"More like a 'what' than a 'who'. We think they used to be humans, but the Rad sickness, or some disease or other, rotted away their brains. Now they live in the shadows of the Radiated City. They attack people, catch 'em unawares, and then they pounce on 'em and eat 'em raw. They do seem to have some kind of social structure – they work as a pack to surround their prey, they never seem to attack each other, and there are always hundreds of 'em, no matter how many we kill."
"Those must be the creatures Paintface told me about," Aloy replied. "She said they got her daughter, but that your men saved her and her husband and son before the.. Halfmen… could get to them."
"Yes, that's all true. I suspect she told you other stuff that's flat out wrong. Woman's crazy. She makes a good Scout but it takes her husband and son to keep her under control.
"That's why I gave them the wayshelter to watch over, the three of 'em. Now her husband's dead and her son's leg is still in a pretty bad way."
"Wait," Aloy was shocked, "you mean that Bandit I killed was Paintface's husband? And the boy was her son?"
"Exactly."
"But she told me you were keeping them hostage somewhere in your camp. Was that story a lie?"
"Not to Paintface, no," Skulldriver replied as he reached for the jug of wine on the floor and topped off his cup. "To her, they were gone. We think the shock of what happened to her daughter was just too much for her. She wouldn't even talk to Bearman as if her were her husband. They lived separately, but the two fellows took care of Paintface, kept her out of trouble."
Something's really fishy here! Aloy thought. Either Paintface really is crazy, or she's lying, or this Bandit is lying. I'm not sure how I get to the bottom of this!
Skulldriver interrupted her musings. "It's late, you need your rest. We'll talk more in the morning. You shouldn't stay anywhere but here tonight. Use my bedroll – it isn't much, but it's safe, I promise you. Just don't roll around too much. Those rags you're wearing really do have a foul odor, and I may need that bed again soon! If you need a toilet, around the corner there's a bucket."
Aloy stood at Skulldriver arose from his chair.
"No, that's alright, I think I'm good till morning."
"Suit yerself. I'll be sleepin' right outside to make sure you're not bothered. Tomorrow we should be able to leave this dungeon and I'll show you around my camp."
And with that, the hulking Bandit leader lifted the flap and disappeared, leaving Aloy to ponder the fix she was in and think about how to get out of it. After, of course, a night's welcome sleep.