Death Seeker - Horizon: Zero Dawn

Chapter 5

It seemed to take a lifetime to pass through Mother's Vigil. It was eerily deserted as he carefully plodded through. Braves had respectfully removed the bodies, and taken them back for burial, but the memories of that horrendous day remained. He could just make out a hut in the darkness, where a man named Rost once lived with his family. He kept walking south and followed the stream around the lake to a spring. Flakes of snow drifted around him, landing softly on his head and black-feathered cloak.

He stopped by a small gathering of pine trees, a white dusting already on their green skins. It was much cooler now, but Rost barely felt it. He launched the shovel deep into the earth with all his might, piling up the collected dirt. Again he struck, another huge load thrust into a pile. Eventually the grave was large enough. He skewered the tool into the ground adjacent to the hole, wiped his brow and followed the water's edge back to the village.

His boots clumped through the stones as he began climbing up the border path, towards Shivering Watch once more. But nothing stirred in him this time. He felt zero emotion running through his body. He lived only to complete this final task, branded into his malignant existence. His soul had left his body, purged brutally by the secret ritual of the Nora and returned to the Goddess.

He looked about, atop the mountains that encircled him, feeling the ghostly eyes of centuries dead Nora looking down on him from the long abandoned village of Two-Teeth. Fearful they would be, keeping distant from this deliverer of death. The wooden gate grew closer, and Rost walked straight through, picking up the first small body he came across. He carefully placed his cold body onto sacred ground, placing a caressing hand on Garun's cheek. He returned to the pile of corpses, ignored one of them, and carefully carried all others to the same place as the first.

Then he returned for the girl he previously ignored. He didn't say a word, but picked up her fragile body in his strong hands with slightly more care than the others, and slowly made his way back through the village, following the trickle of water that led to the pine trees.

-

Rost patted down the last of the dirt with the shovel, striking a stake into the earth adjacent with the flat of the blade. He squatted to the floor, hanging the necklace he took from Alana's neck onto a cut notch at its peak. He paused a moment, observing the carved cedarwood pendant dangling from a beaded leather cord. It was shaped like a crescent moon, with three holes. One large – depicting Rost and his position of importance. The two smaller holes completed the family members, represented her mother and Alana. She'd worn it since she was born. He stood, snatching it from the stake, and slung it over his head as he returned to the dead village to retrieve his equipment.

It was time to find the twelve outlanders, and make them pay.

-

Rost stood at the foot of a huge, Carja barbican. Sealed shut by gigantic arched double doors, made from solid oak and braced with plates of iron for strength. It was Daytower Gate, the border gatehouse separating Carja and Nora lands.

"Who goes there?" A deep voice boomed from above.

It was almost sunrise, but nevertheless still dark enough to surprise Rost he'd been spotted so easily.

"I said 'Who goes there?'"

Rost pondered his answer, wondering how to persuade them to open the gate to this savage from the east.

"Are you Nora? You look like Nora."

"Would Nora be stood here at this damned gate?" Rost shouted, the guard didn't reply. "It is forbidden for Nora to leave their lands. No. My...friends left me behind to catch up. I borrowed this cloak from a nora to stay warm."