Chapter 7

Another cage. This one dark and dank. She could feel where the wet stone had seemed foul smelling water into her clothes as there wasn't even so much a sprinkle of straw to cushion her. Her ears were no longer ringing, but the dripping of condensation sounded muffled. Cold. Carefully, she opened her eyes. Pain shot through her head, but she pushed herself to sit up.

Someone's legs were stretched out before her, blooded, and one was bent at an odd angle. Not someone's legs, she realized. Her own. The pain rushed through her as if it'd waited for her to be conscious. She gasped with it, eyes watering, but it didn't keep her from seeing the glint of white bone. Her left leg was broken, horribly, and her bone had slashed through both flesh and armor. The skin around it felt hot. She moaned at the attempt to move it, to wriggle her toes. Nothing.

Movement caught her eye. A man in armor, helmet covering his face, stood up from a chair outside her cell. She hadn't seen him there. Without a word, he stepped out the creaking, wooden door and out of sight. Quickly, she reached up to activate her focus. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't there. Squinting in the dark would be the only way to see if she were alone. "Hello," she whispered desperately. Nothing. She could see other cells across the bare room, but the darkness beyond them was unmoving, unresponsive. Looks like she had the place to herself.

Again, carefully, she attempted to examine her wounds. Torchlight revealed her clothes ripped and bloodied, and her skin beneath not much better. Bruises covered her, and spiked burrs tangled her hair, as if she'd been dragged through brush. If she held still, her wounds were a dull ache she could tolerate. Her weapons were gone, but she glimpsed them on the table, not far from her cell. She smirked despite herself: so her captors weren't smart.

It wasn't long before she heard the heavy thunk of a door being unbarred, but instead of the guard she'd seen earlier, another man strode in. The door clunked shut behind him.

"Well well. The Nora's awake." The voice had no malice, but the large man smiled down at her with a sort of creepy aloofness. He was shirtless save for a large metal breastplate, and striped leather trousers held padding that might be able to stop arrows. His long beard was grey, but he did not seem old. His head was bald. When he grinned, three of his teeth glinted metallically in the light. "I assume you have questions."

Well, that's a first, Aloy noted, tightening her lips in a scowl. "Who are you?" She demanded.

"Name's Rath, but that don't really matter. I'm a Freebooter from the Claim. You've probably met a few of us in the past," his chuckle indicated that he knew there was no "probably" about it. "Point is, you're here per the orders of people with a lotta paranoia and a lotta shards." He turned to spit into the corner of the room.

She wracked her memories for mention of the name, but found nothing. "You're Oseram," she noted, buying a little bit of time. Her eyes flicked to the table where her weapons lay. "Why did your men attack me? Do you not know who I am?" She tried not to let her pain show in her voice.

Rath moved to crouch near the bars of the cage, coming down to her level. "Of course I know who you are, fool," he growled. "You think we just attack random Nora on the road? No, you're special to someone. That's why we were paid to find you and take you alive."

Good… tell me everything, she thought. He was a proud man, the type that liked to brag. Perhaps he'll let slip something he didn't mean to. "Well congratulations. You got me. Now what?"

He seemed disappointed. "You don't want to know who hired me? Shame, it's a good story. Let's just say a few of the Ealdormen in the Claim think it's pretty suspicious that one of our own is murdered so soon after rumors of an upstart Nora who can tame machines. Now Ersa's dead and he's getting' hitched to another outsider. Pretty interesting coincidence, no?"

Aloy shook her head, but stopped when it made her dizzy. "Dervahl killed Ersa," she argued. "We were there. Erend and I. You know Erend? Find him, ask him. Does he know I'm here?"

"Oh, he will," Rath replied. He seemed bored with crouching, instead moving to the chair by the table and dragging it forward with a foot. He sat on it backwards, draping his big arms over the backrest. "S'all part of the plan." He picked at something in his teeth. "Erend's a pretty influential guy with us, see. Just like his sister was. Now I don't sit in on the Ealdorman meetings, most of my invitations to them get lost in the mail. But I do know that when they can't agree on something, they tend to go with the worst case scenario. Seems some of them are convinced the whole thing with Dervahl was set up by you and your precious Avad to get Ersa killed, and you brought Erend along to vouch for ya. Poor idiot believes the whole thing."

Her head fuzzy with pain, Aloy gritted her teeth. "And you? What do you think?"

The man emitted a whoosh of exasperation. "Pff, who cares what I think? I just get paid. You could be the sun king himself, wouldn't make any difference to me. They know for the right price, I'd drop a house on my own sweet mother." He leaned forward in his chair. Aloy wished she could shove it out from under him. His pale eyes took in her leg. "Part of my job is to rough you up a little. Seems like my men have already started the job."

"Better let them finish it, if you want it done right," she scoffed, putting more confidence in her chide than she felt. If they believed she was behind Ersa's death, what was she doing here, rotting in a box? Surely once Erend found out, he'd settle the whole thing.

Rath guffawed. "Shame! So hard to find a girl with a sense of humor 'round here." He moved towards her things on the table. Picking up her bow, he inspected it for a long moment, then with a mighty swing of his arm, shattered it against the table. "First thing's first. You may or may not be guilty of Ersa's death. But after I'm done with you, you'll admit to anything."

Her eyes widened. So that was it. Torture. She glanced quickly at the spear Avad had given her, still resting against the wall. Sooner or later he'd have to open the door. If she were quick enough…

There was a click as Rath removed a small canister from his belt. He pressed a button on it, at the same time covering his mouth with a piece of cloth that was wrapped around his neck. "Goodnight, huntress," he bade, rolling the canister through the bars of the cage. He was taking no chances.

She tried to hold her breath, but the acidic gas seeped into her open wounds, making her sob against her will. It burned her lungs, darkened her vision. Not again, she lamented as she fell backwards onto the floor.

When she awoke, groggy, several days later, she had no concept of how much time had passed. She remembered being awake for moments at a time in a haze. Rath was often there, along with several guards. She was no longer wearing her armor, but they at least did not leave her naked. She thought perhaps the shift they'd given her was once a sack for supplies: it stuck to her wounds and scratched her skin. She didn't know if they fed her. Occasionally, she had used the corner of her room as a latrine, so she knew she must be getting food somehow. Moving was nearly impossible, but she did it. Her leg had not mended, and indeed the bone was still exposed. She supposed that was part of her torture, as well as the other things they did. They'd cut the pads of her feet, she assumed, to keep her from running away. They burned her hands, so she could not grip. Her face, they seemed to steer clear of: only focusing on parts of her that were not covered in clothing or gloves.

They cut her hair. She remembered that part. Rath seemed to enjoy it the most. He even picked all the burrs from it for her, commenting on its length and beauty. "You don't see this color in our people," he'd noted, almost maternally as chunks of silken locks fell to the floor. "Perhaps I'll make a bracelet for my daughter.

"What do you want from me," she muttered through cracked lips. She asked this often, though she knew the answer. Patiently, Rath would pause whatever he was doing, and ask her the same question.

"Who killed Ersa?"

"Dervahl."

"Wrong answer." And so it would continue. The cuts were stitched, the bruises poulticed. She would heal only for it to go on all over again. She knew she was dying, but it was not from the beatings. She could no longer feel her broken leg, and she knew from the fever glossing over her vision and the color of her wound, it had gone bad. She could not escape, even if she could withstand the pain of her feet, her hands. They moved her from cell to cell while she was unconscious; she never seemed to have her bearings when she woke up. She needed time, but she knew her wits were slowly abandoning her.

"It was me," she mumbled one day, her eyes barely focusing on the bowl of water so close and yet beyond her reach. Rath leaned forward in his chair, excited.

"Excuse me?"

"I killed Ersa. Avad and I planned it from the beginning." She couldn't remember the last time she'd had water. Every fiber of her being screamed for it. Rath pushed the bowl a little closer.

"I could have sworn it was Dervahl who'd done it," Rath mused, leaning back again. "Are you telling me you've been lying this whole time?"

"Please," she lifted her arm, reaching for the bowl. Rath considered it for a few moments. Then he reached out to take the bowl, tilting it to pour half on the ground at her feet, letting it mingle with the blood there.

"You shouldn't lie," the big man chided her, handing the now nearly empty bowl to her. She gulped ferociously. "You're strong, girl. I'm sure you've heard that. But it's not me you have to convince. It's Erend."

She blinked, unsure if she were hearing correctly.

"The Ealdormen need him on their side if they are to arrange a coup. He is, after all, a Vanguardsmen. But he's never going to believe one of us. That's where you come in."

She tried to scoff, but blood filled her mouth. She'd forgotten about where they'd cut her tongue. She spat. "He wouldn't believe it from me either. He SAW her." Suddenly, she remembered. He didn't see her, not at first. She was the first one past the noise-making weapon that was keeping Ersa captive. She could have done anything before Erend had gotten to her cell.

Rath seemed satisfied as he watched her face. "Then you'd better convince him, girl. Because without Erend on our side, we have no use for him otherwise." He stood up, tucking his thumbs into his belt. "I don't think I have to explain what that means, correct? Perhaps maybe I do. Convince him, or the both of you die." He left her then in the tiny stone room she'd been kept, barring the door behind him.