Chapter Text
She wasn't like anyone he'd ever known. Hair like fire. Eyes like the wild, emerald jungle. A curious, cautious creature with sharp teeth and a long reach. He watched people gravitate to her. Drawn in by her attractive face - her kind words, but he could see that she was a woman on a mission. One who didn't care to keep quiet - didn't care that Carja women were normally soft spoken, and Oseram women wouldn't be within fifty miles of bloodshed if their leaders had anything to do with it. The Nora Huntress danced with death. Nil had seen her grin in the heat of battle, despite her tempered words to him claiming not to enjoy it. Yes, his own people called her Nora, savage. But they didn't truly know the meaning of the word. And Nil suspected it concealed a deep fear they held, knowing that at their border was a tribe that trained every child for battle, regardless of whether they peed standing, and they had little love for the Carja or their gods.
Nil had fought enough wars against enough peoples to know that savagery was simply a state of mind. An unshackling of conscience. When he killed on behalf of the sun-king he'd seen honorable men and women commit gleeful atrocities for no other reason than because their commanders told them they could. Their god would absolve them of their guilt. Their King would reward them for their loyalty. How easily they forgot themselves. He'd been ordered to do things he ordinarily would never have done - the reason he'd volunteered himself for prosecution - but Nil had long since given up on the notion that he was a good man. Those crimes committed on the battlefield followed you after. They changed you. And what humans were truly capable of when they believed there would be no repercussions - when someone told them they could - was something he still thought about frequently, though guilt no longer plagued him like it had. He'd long since come to terms with the man he'd become.
It was an exciting occasion that his paths crossed with the Nora hunter. Sometimes he could admit that when pickings turned slim he actively sought her out; following the trail of sparking machines at the roadside. The whispers from traders about the girl with a spear and the ability to tame machines. Trouble followed her in a way that livened up Nil's days and filled his nights with dreamless, exhausted sleep. She was a mystery. Not religious like the Carja. Not superstitious like her Nora. Not brisk and unbending like the Oseram. His hunting partner was always asking questions. And though their time together hunting was always too brief, each meeting left a mark on him; counted in scars and near misses. His treasured memories. She looked at the world with reason and a detailed eye that he could appreciate. In conversation, they agreed on very little but that was all talk, Nil surmised. Just words without weight. In the shouts and the screams of battle they spoke a different language, and in that tongue they were of one mind on most.
Back to back they fought, arrows flying as she ducked and weaved, her body relaxed despite the threat of injury and death. When all their enemies lay strewn at their feet she turned to him and there was a splattering of blood across her cheek that stilled the breath in his lungs. For a woman that would continuously try and cool his impatient pursuit of death, watching her fight - watching her cut and carve and hammer her way through opponents filled him almost with as much pleasure as the act of killing itself.
But they were never made to suffer. Quick. Efficient. Surgical kills.
"Animals deserve a clean death," She'd said. Repeated softly. Something from memory, perhaps.
Nil had nodded in understanding. No words were needed. She was nothing if not honest. She didn't lie. Even when lies were more convenient than the truth.
The days hunting had been good. Twenty or so bandits escorted from the world of the living. Blood in the earth and the air so thick and heavy that even the slaves they'd saved had deemed the camp unsalvageable and been on their way, disappearing into the trees.
Nil had stayed to retrieve what he could and went to clean off at the nearby stream. The cold mountain water washing the blood and gore from his skin and armour downstream. The small wounds he hadn't noticed he'd taken, stung and he relished that little painful reminder that he was still alive. That his foes were dead.
A rustling of leaves - a shimmer at the corner of his eye made him spin and Nil reached for his bow, holding in a sharp breath as he scanned the treeline. He saw nothing. Not a fox, not a boar, not a machine.
Not his huntress, either.
In the back of his mind gears turned and Nil knew what it was he was facing. Knew that of all the animals and machines only one could disappear from sight at will like that - only one favored creeping up on their prey and striking from the shadows unseen. Nil notched an arrow and took a soft, quiet breath. There was no point in hiding. It knew where he was. He could only hope there was just the one waiting for him; stalkers usually hunted in packs.
And then he saw it as it moved, dropping a sensor; it's camouflage falling for just a moment before kicking back in. Nil didn't move - didn't so much as breathe as he followed the distortion of air and light with his eyes. He grit his teeth at the noise his bow string made as he drew back as hard as he could and held, waiting for his moment to strike. Possibly the only arrow he'd get out if he missed. He'd no shock ammunition so he aimed at what he hoped would be it's stealth generator and made ready to roll when it naturally decided to retaliate. Nil could identify the location of a bandit by smell of sweat and filth alone. Could hunt them in the dark. But his partner was more equipped to deal with machines. He would always avoid them where he could.
Nil tried not to think about failure but when he fired the first arrow and was rewarded with the screech of angry gears and the sudden appearance of the metal beast, something loosened in his chest. He could fight what he could see. And he could now see it. He watched the gun on its back glow and he rolled to the side, notching another arrow as bullets hit the ground where he'd been kneeling, spraying his clean armour with mud. He aimed for the most vulnerable spots on the beast he could see and fired arrow after arrow as it ran toward him now, and finally when the last arrow thudded through it's neck and it fell, it was close enough for Nil to make out the old dried blood between it's claws. The stench of ancient carnage long seeped through it's gears and armour.
The air he'd been holding in his lungs left his chest and he felt the tension leave his body for just a moment before he reminded himself that stalkers rarely hunted alone.
Nil quickly moved to the long grass, keeping as low as he could while avoiding the flares this one had already dropped. He crouched there, waiting and watching for any signs of movement; bringing his pounding heart slowly under control
And then he felt it; the tickle of air across the hairs on his arm that sent electricity through him and he froze as the beast brushed by. Slowly Nil looked up to see the telltale ripple hovering over. It stopped walking and flickered into existence long enough for him to see the empty stare on its face - just long enough for a thought to flash through his mind. Just one. At least it's not a bandit.
But death didn't seem to come for him as he expected it would and he watched as cables and wires moved along it's neck, winding and twisting, releasing patches of armour as they went. And suddenly the machine stepped away from a certain kill and Nil saw her rise from the grass on the other side, spear in hand glowing a piercing blue.
"Shoo, find the others," she whispered to it and it ran off into the trees. Nil heard the grinding and screeching of metal on metal as it engaged something he couldn't see beyond the tree line. She looked down to him and over at the other stalker he'd felled and he saw the appreciation in her eyes. "We need to get out of here. That override won't hold long,"
Nil stood and followed her as she navigated away from the commotion. She'd saved his life. Even knowing what he was. Knowing that he was a remorseless killer, undeserving of it, she'd saved him.
"I'm in your debt," he bowed slightly.
"Yes, well, I'm fairly sure the end you're looking for isn't to wind up a stalkers stain on the rocks,"
"It's not my own death I'm seeking."
The Huntress had the nerve to snort at his answer.
"Sure," She took a draught of water from a skin at her hip. There was still blood on her face, the red was still wet against her cheek in the humidity. Silence fell between them and when it was clear he had no intention of saying more she continued. "I spotted some fresh tracks heading north east of the camp. Probably a raiding party or a patrol that weren't there when we hit. If you move quickly, you could probably catch them at the bridge upstream,"
The words brought a surge of warmth to his chest and he gave her a wide smile before he was able to pick apart the meaning in her words.
"You won't be joining," he said as a statement, rather than a question.
"I'm heading toward Sunfall,"
"Toward, not to?," he asked. It was not a place he would recommend to travellers.
Nil had avoided the Carja cities as much as possible since he walked a free man from Sunstone prison. He kept clear of both Sun Carja and Shadow Carja alike. Too many on both sides would recognize him, he knew. His story and face were unfortunately infamous.
This would be a trek she would take where he would not be able to follow.
"Maybe," she huffed a tired laugh.
"We'll meet again. At the next camp," Nil said with a grin.
"I'm glad one of us is confident about something," she said and he saw the nervousness in her then. The woman knew how dangerous Sunfall was, but that was where her path was leading and she would follow it. Even if an early grave in the desert were it's culmination.
"I know that Carja Kestrels are woefully ill-equipped to fight Stalkers," he said softly, mouth pulling at the corners.