How to set up the CNC without taking into account the directory?

Question

PHP

Hello, there are addresses
site.ru/category1/?pages=top
site.ru/category2/?pages=top
site.ru/category3/?pages=top
etc.
How to turn it into a link of this type
site.ru/category1/link/top.html
site.ru/category2/link/top.html
site.ru/category3/link/top.html
If you do this in htaccess:

RewriteRule ^category1/link/([^/]*).html$ category1/?pages=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^category2/link/([^/]*).html$ category2/?pages=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^category3/link/([^/]*).html$ category3/?pages=$1 [L]

it works, but how to make it all one line?
So I tried:
RewriteRule ^link/([^/]*).html$ ?pages=$1 [L]
it does not work.

Answer 1

RewriteRule ^category(\d+)/link/([^/]*).html$ category$1/?pages=$2 [L]

Answer 2

Use a software router.
As an example -
https://github.com/nikic/FastRoute