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Talanah was pinned down, of course she was. A dozen sharpshooters with bows trained on this spot, it was a struggle even for a Hawk.
Arrows ricocheted off stone, and she’d love it if they used some ammunition of decent quality so she could pluck them and fire them right back. But all their shafts broke, and so she was pinned, counting the shots in her quiver.
Blast Ahsis, blast these men, blast Redmaw. And blast the night, enabling this ambush, the jungle air thick and dark and making her think twice about which shadows to fire into. Dawn was breaking, the stars were winking out and she could see just a bit of color to the sky. But by the time the sun rose, Redmaw could be dead, Ahsis could have her trophy. She didn’t have that kind of time.
Distantly, beyond the shouts, she heard the thrumming of mechanical hoofbeats, machines drawn to the struggle. If she stayed low and was lucky, they’d take a few of the outlanders down, or at least divide their attention-
A lone strider crested the rise and pulled up short, as though surveying the hollow. She could see from around the edge of the boulder. It’s eye still glowed blue, momentarily blinding her as it swept by her hiding place, and she wondered for a moment how it was not on alert. Were the sounds of battle not enough?
Then it charged, blue as ever, straight down the hill and into the fray. Outlanders dove aside but it rounded on its forelegs and kicked. Shouts of coordination turned to frenzied shouts of fear, as men scattered in the jungle brush. The strider picked a target and sprinted again, she imagined the sickening crunch of someone trampled beneath it’s hooves.
From near her hiding place rose a hasty rustling, as one of her assailants leapt from the brush, and made to run. He must have been sneaking up on her, but in the commotion has decided to make an attempt at escape. She nocked an arrow for the coward, but before she could find her mark he collapsed, tumbling a short ways down the hill to fall across a rock. A yellow-fletched bolt in his throat. Nora-make.
Thrush?
“Get the girl!” One man bellowed, above the crashing and screaming.
Talanah rose from a crouch, braced on the side of the boulder. The strider stampeded up the far slope, at men on the ridge. The light against the hill made a silhouette, something on its shoulders-
An archer aimed a flaming arrow, fired it into the strider’s flank. It did not falter even a step, but as the blaze cartridge exploded the flames rippled into a wall that backlit the machine’s passenger. Red hair flying, bow drawn, already letting loose an arrow in return.
Talanah realized in that moment she was the luckiest Hawk in the lodge, and that her Thrush was probably well out of her league. She’d heard rumors that the Nora girl rode upon bandit camps from the back of machines, but to see her in action was something entirely different.
The clearing was quieting now, half from death and half from fear. Aloy and her strider silenced the men on the ridge, and rounded down once more, it’s hooves the only sound until she howled out a hunting cry. The machine sped for a rock as though it could scent the fear of it’s quarry. Maybe it could.
It rounded the back and bathed the shadowy cleft with blue light from it’s eye. Aloy vaulted over its head, spear in hand now, and descended on five outlanders. She struck with a practiced ferocity, and the strider struck with her. At one point she rolled beneath it’s hooves as it kicked an assailant trying to flank her, like it was protecting her. The man crumpled, and Aloy rose to place an arrow between the eyes of the last enemy standing.
As silence fell, she surveyed the carnage, the decoration in her ear hummed to mechanical life with a flare of blue that lit half her face. It was unmistakably her.
The strider meandered up to her, bumping it’s shoulder harmlessly into her side. She murmured to it and pulled an arrow from it’s flank before giving it a solid pat, and picking her way over corpses towards Talanah’s rock.
“Are you safe?” Aloy called out.
“Fine!” She replied. “You made quick work of them.”
“What did they want?” Aloy paused at the body in the gully, bent down to retrieve her arrow. She wiped it clean of blood in the grass and checked it for damage in the dim morning light.
“Ahsis hired them, to stop me or maybe just to slow me down.”
“What happened to facing Redmaw together?” Her Thrush didn't sound offended, the hurt in her tone was born from humor.
Talanah shrugged anyway. “Didn’t know when you’d be back, couldn’t wait.”
Aloy dipped her head, understanding. “Which way?”
“West, from sunrise. Hurry.” Talanah slung her bow, and began to lead.
Aloy whistled a high note, and the strider approached them at a lope. As it drew near and slowed, she vaulted onto it’s back, then turned and extended a hand to Talanah.
“You said to hurry. This is faster than either of us can run.” Up close, the wires on the strider’s neck emitted a soft blue glow, that lit Aloy’s face and revealed her smug grin.
“Can’t argue there.” Talanah shook her head and took the hand, allowed herself to be hauled onto the strider’s back, settling behind her Thrush. The bundles of cables were oddly soft, no stiffer than tanned leather. And there were plenty of places to hold on, weave her fingers under plates and between wires. She tried not to think about the two blaze canisters at her back.
Aloy clicked her tongue and kicked her heels, and the strider set off at a comfortable lope, that picked up speed as she urged it along. Talanah clamped her knees and held tight, leaning low and marveling at the rhythm.
The road flew beneath them, and Talanah risked pulling a hand free to point out broken trees and a trail of carnage crossing their path. Aloy turned the strider north, following massive tracks across fallen trunks and shattered branches. Their mount leapt over a log, and it’s hooves clacked on a metal plate. So Ahsis was putting up a fight after all.
Through the trees, red lights flashed, and the boneshaking screech of the Thunderjaw’s artillery rung out across the jungle.
Aloy pulled their strider to a halt at the lip of a bowl, swung off and drew her marksman’s bow. Talanah tried to follow as gracefully as she could, but ended up scrambling. Not that it mattered, both of them were intent on the hulking visage of Redmaw ahead. Ahsis was no more a threat than a fox at its feet, firing wildly at it’s breast.
“Do we join in?” Aloy asked, tense and crouched low as a sawtooth with eyes on prey. “I don’t want to help him-”
Talanah tried to reply, but was cut off by a bellow from their mark, as it stamped down one foot and swung it’s tail into Ahsis, flattened him against a boulder.
“Our hunt now!” She crowed, nocking a concussive arrow and firing. Redmaw swept it’s neck towards the women and bellowed.
The fight was a storm of arrows and thunder, there was little time for her to observe. But she has watched her Thrush face a dozen glinthawks, a dozen snapmaws, a dozen outlanders. She cannot imagine Aloy as anything but calm and precise under pressure. And as she sees canons and chunks of metal slough off Redmaw’s haunches, pieces she was sure she had not aimed for, she knew she was right.
When the hollow at last fell to silence, it was dawn. Redmaw lay in the clearing in pools of soft light, dust and leaves settling around it, joints still sparking. Aloy stood on its back, feet braced on blackened plates, carving into its mechanical flesh. She plunged her arm in and tugged free the hefty square of metal, its heart, machine-blood smearing her hands and dripping down her arm. It all glistened in the morning rays, metal and oil and sweat and hair. She was a Nora girl but the sun blessed her all the same.
“That’s my fourth Thunderjaw.” Aloy called, brightly. “They start to get easier, don’t they?”
Talanah grinned wide. That was her Thrush.