More than two hours had passed since Ashe had left the facility behind her.
The railway had not been difficult to find, exactly as Seven had told her, though he had gone completely radio silent the moment she stepped outside that place and had not returned since.
She called on him on several occasions, checking surfaces out of habit whenever she passed them, but after a while she stopped doing that and accepted the silence. She had learned the hard way that his presence came and went without explanation, so she moved forward on her own.
The railway was in some sections completely hidden, swallowed under soil and the roots of plants that had grown across its surface over what must have been a very long time. In other parts though it was fully exposed, running clean and visible through the open ground as though it had only recently been cleared. She followed it by reading those exposed sections, connecting them across the gaps.
Up close, it was not what she had expected. The basic principle of it made sense to her: two parallel lines fixed into the ground, forming a path along which something must have once moved regularly.
But the construction of it was something else entirely. The rails themselves were made of strange materials with what seemed like many functions embedded within them. Running along the inner edge of each rail were narrow channels, still partially intact in some sections, that had clearly once conducted something other than mechanical load. Their interiors were dark now and corroded, but observable still.
She studied it for a while, then continued walking.
On either side of the railway, the land was mostly rock and wild vegetation. To her left, pale stones rose through the growth, forming a kind of natural wall, while to her right the terrain opened into a vast plain scattered with trees and tall grass.
At some point during the first hour, she saw lizards. Small ones, quick and skittish, that vanished the moment they sensed her movement. It was the first sign of moving life she had seen since leaving the facility behind. There were at least three distinct varieties, each with different patterns along their flanks and different proportions as well.
By the end of that first hour she was tired. By the middle of the second, thirst had become the more pressing problem.
Eventually she spotted some trees from a distance, low with fruit, so she left the railway and approached them carefully. Their fruit varied in color and some of them were even pale enough to appear almost translucent. She had no way to know which were safe, so she worked with the assumption that the most vividly colored ones were more likely to be poisonous. She pulled one of the amber ones, split it in half and drank. The liquid inside was clear and cool and quenched her thirst immediately. The seeds at the core were bitter at first, but then settled into a nutty flavor that ended up quite tasty.
She was still standing beneath the trees with fruit in her hands when suddenly an unexpected sound reached her.
It was a deep and repeating impact that she not only heard but felt through its vibrations. She went still immediately. It took several seconds for her to understand that it was coming from further along the valley, somewhere beyond a bend in the railway where the line of sight was hidden.
She moved back toward the railway, keeping low, and found a position behind a cluster of rocks that gave her a partial view of the area ahead while keeping most of her body hidden.
That's when she could finally see what was making the noise.
It emerged from the bend slowly in such a way that Ashe had difficulty processing it at all, because her mind kept trying to adjust it to the surrounding landscape and she just couldn't. The scale of it was just too big. It walked on four legs that struck the ground with the force she had been sensing from a distance. The body above those legs was massive. It was rounded and made of a dark rusted material. Cables ran along the exterior connecting in several areas which blinked with a dim glow.
It was certainly not fast as it advanced.
Ashe assessed her options and quickly understood they were limited. The terrain on either side was too open and it would almost certainly expose her. And in her current condition, she wasn't fast enough to sustain a chase. The trees on the other hand did offer some cover, but they would keep her in place.
The walker slowed as it drew closer. Then, at a distance of roughly ten meters from where she was, it stopped entirely. Its legs folded, lowering its body toward the ground. The impact of it sent a brief tremor through the ground which she felt clearly. Then a deep mechanical exhalation set off from somewhere within it, accompanied by clouds of pale smoke that spread in the open air.
Soon after, a panel along the side of the body opened, revealing nothing but darkness at first. A few seconds in, a voice came from somewhere inside it: "What's wrong with it?"
It was a woman's voice.
"I don't know," a man's voice replied from somewhere Ashe couldn't pinpoint, somewhat frustrated by this turning of events. "I can't see any obvious damage from here. Nothing that should have caused this."
After a few minutes, she heard him again, this time with his voice raised.
"Dammit! We should have been in Railen by now."
As the smoke continued to disperse across the area, two figures became more visible.
The woman had short black hair and an exuberant presence. She wore a long olive coat over black trousers and high boots. Her clothes were marked by travel, but she seemed confident and comfortable in them. She looked to be in her twenties at best.
The man, on the other hand, looked slightly older. Tall, black hair, worn coat and a pair of distinctive fingerless gloves. That's all Ashe could see from her position. He seemed more introverted than the woman was, or maybe just too concentrated on their current problem.
He joined the woman soon after and they both exchanged words Ashe couldn't distinguish, then separated, each taking a different side of the walker.
Ashe had been watching them for perhaps two minutes, still hidden behind the rock, when her foot moved without warning on the loose ground and her boot came down on something that cracked beneath it.
Both the man and the woman stopped from what they were doing. Their heads turned toward her position at the same moment. They couldn't see her directly as she was still hidden behind the rock, but the sound had been specific enough in its direction that there was no question about where it had come from.
"Who goes there?" the man ultimately asked.