Horizon Zero Dawn

Chapter 6

I was running through the green, brown lush forests. The bad men were after me. They caught my trail about one day ago while I was following the road. They ambushed me, but they were only two so I killed both of them with no cost. I tried to avoid the road from then onwards.

I did not know where I was or where I was going. I needed to get back to the road or at least close-by to it. If I looked back I could still see a thin trail of smoke from the ambush site. No one survived so far as I knew, that was about 20-30 braves... dead.

I hadn't seen any machines along the way. The forest had the smell of rust and corruption, I still wondered about that machine we fought back at the village, the striders were attacking people, and had the sense of corruption around them.

Maybe that black machine corrupted the striders and commanded them to... I didn't actually know. I needed to get back to Mothers Rise and warn them.

Where did these men come from? Why are they here? How do they command the machines? Who are they?I had seen none of the Nora, maybe they had told the villagers to pack up and head to Mothers Rise.

I hoped my sister and mother were alright. The defences of Mothers Rise were good, they had sturdy reinforced wooden walls and about 60 Braves in the garrison.

I heard voices in the distance, so I crouched behind the tree. I peeked behind and couldn't see the men that were talking. I moved closer behind another tree.

There were three men in a very small clearing through the trees. One man was big and armoured, the other two just had simple black garb and metal shoulder pads. All of them had bows.

"...we should starve them out, surround them," said the big man.
"Or we could smoke 'em out," said another.
"That pig headed swine gave Ral'Kõsh to the vanguard to command."
"Another leader wouldn't be so bad, we should kill him."
"Yes, we have to create a diversion, like every other murder."
"We could set the dogs out, they haven't eaten in two days."
"Then the bloody tyrant Al'móck could lead us and we could get this over and done with."

They started to cheer and laugh at that. I had to kill these three so they don't get the so called tyrant to lead them.

I notched one of my seven arrows I had to my bow and drew it back. I aimed for the armoured man, there was a slit by his neck.

They moved as I was ready to shoot and missed the shot. The men jumped back and looked around in shock, I drew another arrow and loosed into one of the unarmoumed men.

It hit him just below his torso and he went down. I took cover again by the tree and a arrow came whistling past me. Then the another arrow came and buried itself on the opposite side of the tree.

"Come on out savage!" Jeered one.
Then a cry of pain broke out from one of the men, and then the clash of metal on metal went up, and the whole forest herd. I felt lightheaded and everything around me went black.