The jungle was silent.
Not in peace — but in fear.
Birdsong vanished. The hum of insects fled. Even the wind held its breath. It was the stillness that came before a storm — not of weather, but of blood.
Zaruko crouched beneath a twisted banyan, watching the narrow trail through the underbrush. His warriors — thirty in total — were hidden among the ferns and trees, spears steady, eyes fixed.
The fire cult was coming.
And Kan Ogou would greet them with teeth.
The enemy marched in silence, two lines wide, weapons glowing faintly with ember sigils. Their priestess was not at the front. She walked at the center, surrounded by torchbearers whose flames didn't flicker, even in the damp air.
Her eyes glowed brighter than before.
Zaruko's fingers brushed the hilt of his machete. He wasn't afraid. He'd seen gods in smoke and death in flesh.
He knew what this was.
A cleansing.
Not theirs.
His.
He gave the signal with a low whistle, like a mourning dove.
Hell broke open.
Spiked nets dropped from above. Spears lashed out from the trees. Warriors burst from hiding in organized waves — not charging wildly, but striking with precision.
The fire cult reeled. They hadn't expected tactics. They hadn't expected discipline.
Zaruko's hunters moved like smoke, hitting the flanks and melting into the green. His spearmen used the trees as shields, stabbing from cover and dragging bodies back.
In the center, the priestess screamed — not in fear, but fury.
And the jungle answered.
Flames burst from the soil like trapped spirits. Roots blackened. The air thickened.
Zaruko saw a tree ignite from the inside out. The bark split like a wound, spilling cinders.
He barked an order.
"Break pattern! Scatter!"
His warriors obeyed, switching to guerrilla clusters. The jungle now burned, but they knew the paths. The fire cult did not.
A boy named Len darted forward, hurling a firepot at a masked torchbearer. The explosion threw two into a tree. Zaruko caught Len by the collar, yanking him back as a burst of flame roared overhead.
"Eyes up," Zaruko muttered. "You're not a hero. You're a blade."
Len nodded, heart hammering, and vanished into the green again.
The priestess stepped into the clearing now. Her vines writhed. Her hands sparked. Fire licked her skin but did not consume her.
She raised both arms.
And the flames obeyed.
The front of Zaruko's line buckled. Several were scorched. Others broke and fell back. Fire does not reason — it devours.
But just as the blaze surged forward—
The forge answered.
Far back in Kan Ogou, Ogou's anvil cracked with a sudden burst of light. The sacred smoke that had hovered lazily now rose in a sharp spear of heat.
And Zaruko felt his sigil burn.
Not harmfully. Not painfully.
But hungrily.
The fire priestess had overreached.
Ogou would not allow her to feast alone.
Zaruko charged.
Through smoke. Through flame. Through the bodies of warriors locked in brutal melee.
He moved like a hammer. A veteran of modern wars trapped in a primeval battlefield. Every strike was deliberate. Every step measured.
He reached her just as she prepared another summoning.
Their eyes met.
Her smile broke like a mirror.
"You," she hissed. "What are you?"
"Not yours."
He leapt.
Their clash shook the trees.
She struck with fire — arcs of blistering energy that clawed at his skin. But Zaruko rolled beneath one, ducked a second, and slammed his blade into her thigh.
She shrieked — but no blood flowed. Only cinders.
She wasn't fully human.
But she wasn't fully divine, either.
And Ogou had no patience for half-measures.
Zaruko didn't fight fair. He tackled her into a tree, driving the breath from her lungs. His elbow met her jaw. His knee shattered her balance. She tried to call flame again — but he slapped her hand aside and drove his forearm against her throat.
Then he whispered:
"Your god is hungry. Mine is fed."
And he shoved her into the burning tree behind
She screamed as flame met flesh — or whatever had worn flesh in this world. The fire turned on her. No longer her ally, but her judge. Her vines withered. Her glowing eyes dimmed. The burning tree cracked behind her, and a gust of embers swallowed her whole.
Zaruko backed away, coughing through the smoke. His arm throbbed with heat, but his sigil didn't waver.
The priestess didn't fall.
She crumbled — into ash and bone, leaving behind a single burning coil of vine that hissed in the dirt.
No god screamed. No power rose to avenge her.
Just silence.
And then — victory.
The cultists saw her fall and lost themselves. Their ranks buckled. Some ran. Others dropped to their knees. The jungle that once whispered for them now spat them out.
Kan Ogou's warriors surged. No mercy. No quarter.
Not out of cruelty — but survival.
Zaruko let them fight.
But he never stopped watching the tree that burned.
The battle lasted hours.
By the time the last flame died, only a handful of enemy cultists remained breathing. Zaruko spared those who surrendered — stripping them of masks and weapons, assigning them to the ash pits for questioning.
He walked the battlefield in silence.
The jungle had scars now. The soil was blackened. Trees cracked open like old bones. Vines twitched where fire had kissed them. But it was still theirs.
And that meant something.
They buried their dead with the setting sun.
No drums.
Only names.
One of the elders placed a red cloth at each grave. "So the forge remembers them," he explained.
Zaruko said nothing, but he knelt at every one.
Even the cultists were buried — apart, unmarked, but covered in dirt all the same.
Because that was the difference now.
Kan Ogou buried the dead. It didn't consume them.
That night, Zaruko stood by the forge, watching the smoke rise.
He tossed in a single coil of the dead priestess' vine.
It vanished in silence.
And a single spark landed on his chest — the sigil warming like fresh iron.
He didn't flinch.
Ogou had seen the battle.
And had been pleased.