Clouds of moisture curled around Aloy. She looked up at the waterfall cascading down the cliffside. Her warm breath came in puffs of white, quickly fading into the cold. A fresh snowfall was just beginning, with a few dainty flakes drifting down on the heavy air.
The group reached the foot of the cliff, and a matriarch motioned for them to climb not far from the waterfall. Bast stepped back politely, holding his arm out to let the girls go first. Vala and Aloy exchanged a skeptical look, but reached up and began to climb.
This part was not a race. It was simply to reach the heights of the mountain where the brave trail began. Nevertheless, it was an opportunity to prove themselves to each other. Aloy gripped the cool stone and pulled herself up along the cliff face, being careful with her footholds. She wasn't sure whether the moisture on her hands was from the rock, her sweaty palms, or a mixture of both. Clouds of steam rolled off the waterfall as they climbed.
Vala and Aloy were climbing side by side when they were forced apart by a powerful lunge from Bast as he grasped a ledge above them and moved quickly past. Aloy looked at him with disgust. He could have knocked them both from the cliff! That jerk let us go first to prove he could beat us even if we had a head start! Aloy had never seen such vain recklessness. Her will hardened.
Let him tire himself out on this climb. She would save her strength for the part that mattered. Vala caught her eye. Her calculating smile told Aloy she was thinking the same thing.
A familiar face awaited them at the top. Resh peered down at Aloy with disdain as she pulled herself over the edge. "What will it take to get rid of you?"
"Just start the race, and I'll be long gone," she told him, hands on her hips. She walked further from the cliff's edge to give the others room to summit, old snow crushing beneath her feet with the sound of leather scraping leather.
Resh's face twisted with poison. He would do whatever he could to keep this riffraff from competing with the other true children of the Nora. He led the group to a low rise on one side of a shallow valley, and turned to address them all. "In a few moments, a herd of grazers will come stampeding down this valley. Kill one and salvage its heart. Carry your trophy to the end of the brave trail and place it on the earth before Matriarch Talia." He pulled an arrow from his quiver. "Prepare yourselves."
This was it. Aloy's heart began to race.
The competitors drew their bows from their backs. The cold mountain air was silent, save for the fluttering and flapping of their leather clothes in the wind. Resh lit the arrow and fired it high in the air across the valley.
A deep and ominous horn sounded throughout the snow, coming from their left. The fine little hairs on the back of Aloy's neck stood up. The shrill cry of startled grazers filled the air, followed by the rolling thunder of metallic hooves on the rocky ground. In moments the herd came into view, and the competitors scattered as they each engaged a machine. Aloy spotted one near the back of the herd and let it close the gap between her on its own, then shot an arrow into its front leg, sending it tumbling down into the snow with a muted cry.
She sent an arrow into the glowing yellow lens on its head, giving the machine a quick end. She shouldered her bow, dropped to her knees in the snow, and started yanking off the protective plates on its side. Wish I had my spear! There was a spot on the side of a grazer's chest where she had learned to drive her spear point in and pull the end like a lever to yank the thick wiring aside and expose the mechanical heart. Instead, she had to rip off as many components as she could, then wrestle with the wiring by hand until she could reach the heart.
After what felt like an unbearably long time, she pulled her hand from the metal carcass and raised the heart in a moment of triumph. It was struck from her grasp and fell in pieces to the snow. Across the valley floor, Bast lowered his bow with an ugly grin.
"Your trophy's in pieces, outcast! You'll have to find another!" Resh yelled at her with glee.
She suppressed a cry of rage and charged ahead toward the end of the valley where the brave trail began, drawing her bow and looking for machines. A couple grazers had made it that far, but turned around when they realized it was a dead end. They came running towards her. Aloy knew she had to be quick and precise; there was no time to waste. The other competitors had their trophies and were already running for the trailhead. She nocked an arrow and knelt in the snow, aiming for one of the grazers. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then drew and released. Her shot sank deep into the grazer's primary lens, and the machine fell heavily, dead.
The outcast slung her bow across her back as she stood and ran to the fallen machine, stripping its plates in record pace and plunging into its core to pull her trophy from its metallic carcass.
No celebrations this time. She slipped the oily machine heart into a pouch on her hip and and ran for the trailhead. The others had a significant head start, thanks to Bast's little stunt. Okay... time to win this. Pace yourself. Breathe. You can catch up!
She passed beneath a large wooden arch that marked the start of the brave trail and tried to rein in her adrenaline heartbeat. There was a ledge ahead; she pulled herself up and soon reached another. Her arms still felt strong, but the challenge was yet to begin. Two short ladders scaled a cliff face ahead; she leapt up and climbed the measured rungs quickly, then crossed a short wooden bridge.
An elder male brave stood on the other side of the bridge, holding a flag, its long blue banner snapping in the stiff wind. The trail descended below her; the other competitors were nearly out of sight ahead. The last one passed out of view as he ran behind a rocky outcrop. As Aloy paused in despair, the brave spoke. "Dead last, girl. Might as well walk the rest of the way from here." No, this can't be! I can't lose! "Bast will win, or maybe Vala. But you will be made a brave as long as you finish."
A stab of disbelief. "Just finishing isn't good enough!" she said in a near-panic. She suddenly realized another trail, a higher one, rose to her left; perhaps there was another way. If she took the high road... maybe she would come out ahead.
"Whoa now... that's an old trail, falling apart. Two died on it last year. Better dead last than dead!"
He didn't know how hard she had trained for this. She would succeed where others had failed. She had to.
Two standing poles bridging a wide gap marked the beginning of the old trail. On the far side was a short rock wall with a ledge. Leap, leap, climb. I've got this.
She skipped back to give herself room, then took a running leap. She stepped lightly on the first, but the second was further away, and she just barely landed her other foot on it, waving her arms to catch her balance as she stood on it, trying to discern how to reach a ledge that seemed so far away. The old wood creaked and then cracked; the entire pole fell forwards and she flung herself at the rock face, catching the ledge with both hands and pulling herself up and over the edge. She immediately lurched into a run.
It was a short run to the cliff edge, where a zipline sloped down to the next stretch of the trail. She pulled a metal machine part from a satchel on her hip and flung it over the rope, grasping either side and pulling her legs up to streamline her body as she slid at a harrowing pace down the line. She released her grip on one side as she reached the end, and landed in a roll to soften the landing. Then she was up and running again, tucking her zipline anchor into a pouch.
An old, dead tree spanned a gap ahead; she hoped it would hold as she ran lightly across it and climbed the cliff face on the far side. One ledge, two ledges, a third, and she was up and moving once more. She was sweating profusely now despite the cold, and fought to keep her breath under control. If she became breathless and could not continue, she would lose. Part of her training had been self control. Pacing. Knowing your body's limits and when you can push them. She reached another climb and got to it.
Astonished voices echoed up from the main trail below. "Hey - up there! The outcast!"
"She's on the old brave trail!"
She reached a ledge with no further handholds up; her gaze quickly shifted to the side. The ledge stretched out to her right around a corner; she shimmied around it and was faced with a dead end hanging over the main trail below. With her feet on the rock face and her hands grasping the cold stone, she looked around frantically, spotted a handhold on the other side of the trail, and took a leap to reach it as her competitors ran beneath her.
"Is she crazy?"
Barely grasping the cold stone with her aching fingers, she found a foothold and climbed up over the edge. Grateful to reach solid ground again, she took a few running steps and pulled herself up once more over another ledge, her arms beginning to ache from the exertion. A long tree trunk was the only path down to a pillar of rock to the right; the main trail below wound to the left, and, she guessed, back around to the right. This was a chance to make up some time.
Without hesitation, she ran nimbly across the dead log, keeping a sharp eye on the wood in front of her to avoid stepping on any branches or knots that would throw off her footing. Halfway across, there was an alarming crack; the old log suddenly gave way. Aloy was able to push off at the last moment and make a desperate lunge for the pillar of rock, barely catching the edge and hanging there by one hand.
Her heart was in her throat. She reached up with her other hand, grasped the rock edge, and heaved with her burning muscles to pull herself over the edge and stood, her legs trembling.
A rappelling anchor jutted out from the far side, its Y-shaped arms wound with yellow machine cording. Without giving herself a moment to recover, she flung herself out into the open air, twisted around and hurled her grappling hook up and over the anchor, and rappelled down past the trail the others were running. The old trail continued around the side of the mountain. She landed, ran hard, leapt up a short ledge and continued on.
She reached a large crevice in the mountain, with several ledges and wooden handholds on its edges. It was a steep climb and she had little time if she wanted to get in the lead. It was hard to judge her pace compared with the others since she couldn't see the other trail. All she could do was push herself to the limit and hope it was enough.
She was breathing hard when she reached the top, but exhaled slowly and started off at a run once more. They had a tribe, but I had the wilds... Still, I have to be perfect. No room for error. A sloping incline led to another climb, this one more brief, but the muscles of her arms were growing weak. It took more effort than the last climb even though it was shorter. At the top, she struggled to catch her breath, but launched her body into another run.
She was high up on the mountain now, higher than she had ever been before. The strange arms of the long-dead Metal Devil rose into the air and curved back down in the near distance. The end of the trail couldn't be far now. Aloy ran across another log and finally caught sight of the other young men and women on the trail below. She was gaining on them! A fresh jolt of adrenaline fueled her spent body.
Bast and Vala turned a corner below her and ran for a wooden arch at the end of a zipline that began on the old trail just ahead of her. She ran full speed ahead and slid down the rope, keeping her legs high as her arms burned to hang on. She landed hard not ten feet in front of Vala, who was leading the pack, and ran for her life to the finish line just beyond, where Matriarch Talia stood waiting. Aloy pulled her trophy from her pack and jammed it down into the snow, kneeling, breathless.
She had won. Seconds later, Vala placed her trophy, followed by Bast, then the others.
Bast rose with insolence, pointing at Aloy, breathing hard. "She didn't win! The outcast cheated!"
The matriarch turned a baleful eye and a sharp tongue on him. "If by cheating, you mean taking the old trail, you know perfectly well there is no rule against it. It's run-down and deadly, but taking it is not forbidden." She turned to address them all, and the chagrin drained from her face. "In completing the trial today, you've made All-Mother very proud," she said with warm eyes, "but it is Aloy, once outcast, now a Brave, who was the first among you to finish." Matriarch Talia smiled. "Rest. Catch your breath and enjoy the view from atop the mountain before we descend back to the village. Your triumph here today will never be forgo-"
Talia was silenced as an arrow pierced her chest. She collapsed, dead upon the snow. Arrows fell all around them, striking some of the young braves in the back before they could turn to face the enemy. The others scrambled to their feet and took cover behind some boulders. A fresh hail of arrows rained down. How many attackers were there? It was impossible to tell.
Aloy fought for breath as she leaned hard against a boulder. The last thing any of them expected was to have to fight for their lives at the end of their tribal rite of passage. They had only just become full members of the tribe. Now they would live or die as braves.
They waited for the arrows to stop.
Bast pointed to a larger boulder to the right. "Over there! Let's go!" It would provide more cover, and it was closer to a rappelling anchor that would lead them down the mountain.
Aloy and Vala stood frozen in place as Bast made a dash for the rock, a couple other braves following him. A strange percussive thudding sound erupted, and all three of them were struck down by some kind of projectiles. Bast lay crumpled in the snow, bleeding. Vala yelled in anger and moved to charge out after him, but Aloy held her back. "Vala! We've got to stay alive."
Aloy realized there was little chance of escape. The mountain was too steep on this side for them to scale down safely under fire, especially with only one rappel anchor. They had to fight back. Their only chance of survival was to defend themselves. Beside her, Vala nocked her first arrow and stood to fire over the stone, ducking back down into cover.
Aloy's focus highlighted each of the human forms advancing upon them; there were so many... She picked out the closest one and took careful aim. Precision meant life or death on the battlefield. She didn't come this far surviving the wilds only to be murdered by strangers at the pinnacle of her success.
She hesitated for just a moment. The outcast had slain many animals and machines in her eighteen years, but she had never taken aim at a human. It felt wrong. She looked at the bodies of her fallen brethren on the snow before her, their blood staining the snow with death. With renewed conviction, she let the first arrow fly; it sunk squarely into the middle of a man's face, splitting his wooden mask. He dropped his weapon and fell. Her first human kill. Her stomach churned.
She took aim at another. Fired. A kill. And another. Another. Always aiming for the closest enemies, those almost on top of them. Her arms burned as she nocked and drew each arrow. They had to protect themselves as long as possible. If this group of killers reached them and engaged in hand to hand combat... they stood little chance of surviving. The new braves were exhausted from the trials of the proving, physically and emotionally, and now drained from the loss of their companions who were falling all around were all in shock, running on adrenaline, wanting to flee but having no escape route, shooting their limited supply of arrows from behind cover.
Despite the number of enemy bodies that now lay on the ground before them, more continued to come. They were relentless, and their numbers were overwhelming. Then a number of them appeared above the ridge. Reinforcements. Aloy checked her quiver; there were not many arrows left.
After the briefest pause and a harrowing battle cry, the murderous reinforcements spilled down the mountainside. Aloy allowed her instincts to take over as the strangers overran the braves' position. She was a whirling flurry of arrows, taking several men down as they approached her. She was running on fumes, no energy left, but forcing her body to continue moving. As the men drew within striking distance, she wished again for her spear, left at the bottom of the mountain.
She held two arrows in a fist and stabbed their points into the chest of a man who swung an axe at her. He missed; she did not. She kicked a foot out and tripped him; he landed hard on the arrows, which sank further in before snapping off. He made a strangled gurgling as she turned and shot an arrow through the throat of another man, who fell clutching his wound as blood came trickling from his mouth.
For every one she killed, there were more. She waited for the stab of pain that would end her life as she nocked, drew, released. Nocked, drew, released. Over and over. Stooping to collect bloody arrows and firing them again. Surely it was coming any moment now. There were so many enemies. The end had to be near. Better to die fighting than surrender to these killers. She doubted they would let anyone live anyway.
As she aimed an arrow at another enemy, a sudden pressure around her throat choked off her breath. She dropped her bow and saw a man standing to her right as she reached up; he had her by the throat. The ground fell away beneath her feet as he lifted her up. The enemy had reached her. The end was here. She reached feebly for her attacker, trying to grasp his face, but his arms were longer than hers, and she was so weak. So tired.
Her looked at the man who would end her life. A man with eyes as grey as the evening fog, but sharp as the fangs of a sawtooth. His black hair was in tight twists on top of his head. Everything about him was sharp. Cold. Unforgiving.
Spots of light began to flicker in and out of her vision. Her head felt tight, like it was going to explode. Aloy tore and scratched frantically at his hands, but he would not let go.
The wind grew stronger at her back; she realized he had walked over to the cliff's edge with her lifted in the air. With his other hand, he drew a short blade and pressed it to her throat. "Turn your face to the sun, child," he hissed. Through her light-headed fog, she felt the pressure of the cold, sharp metal get stronger, then a sharp pain as the blade cut her flesh. Her attacker made a cry of anguished fury. The slash was cut short and she was released, coughing and gasping for air. She lay on the frozen ground at the edge of the mountain, bringing a hand up to her bleeding throat. He had not cut either artery, or she would have bled to death in moments.
She glanced up in time to see her attacker snap off an arrow that had been lodged in his arm. He lunged toward... Rost!
Rost sent arrows flying at the man as they ran toward each other, then drew his spear and thrust it toward the enemy. Aloy struggled to stay conscious as she watched the fight, her head light from lack of oxygen, her body worn out.
They clashed several times, neither with a clear upper hand. Rost fought valiantly, but he struggled to match the strength of the younger man. The enemy brought his dagger down, but Rost blocked with his spear. They stared each other down as they struggled for dominance. The dagger broke through Rost's spear, throwing him off balance. The enemy swung around and thrust the dagger up into Rost's chest. He gasped and fell to his knees.
Aloy was overwhelmed with despair, her soul utterly crushed. Matriarch Talia dead, so many young braves murdered; were there any left? Rost coming to her rescue only to die by a stranger's knife. If even he was unable to survive a fight with these attackers, then she had done well to survive for so long. She had fought with every ounce of strength and skill she had. Darkness surrounded her.
A familiar voice. Rost's. She heard her name, "Aloy..." but his voice was ragged, torn, on the edge of death. "Survive."
From far away, she felt her body tumbling, the distant sensation of rocks and snow rolling over her back, her side, her front, and then nothing. The sensation of falling. With great effort, she opened her eyes slowly to a cloud of fire and snow above her, Rost's form silhouetted against an explosion. And then, nothing.