The morning mist clung to the jungle like a veil of breath, heavy and silent, as if the land itself was holding back a sigh. A hush had settled over Kan Ogou—not from fear, but focus. A storm loomed on the horizon, not of rain or lightning, but of gods and vengeance.
Zaruko rose before the sun, as he always did.
His spear rested across his shoulders, arms draped loosely over it as he walked the perimeter of the training grounds. The warriors were already assembling—some stretching, others checking the bindings on their handmade armor. There were no drums this morning. Only the soft creak of leather, the low rasp of breath, and the scrape of stone blades on palm-wood hafts.
"Form up," came a voice—firm, clipped. Na'Ro, the forge-bound tactician, stepped forward, directing two lines of young men and women into formation. He'd once been a hunter, known for his silence and skill with snares. Now, he was Zaruko's second in command.
The warriors stood barefoot in the red clay, eyes forward, chests bare. Red ochre swirled across their bodies in sacred patterns — not random, but copies of the one mark they had seen and revered: the sigil carved into Zaruko's chest.
He hadn't told them what it meant. But they felt its power, and that was enough.
Zaruko walked among them, watching. He corrected stances. He grabbed a spear and demonstrated a parry. He showed a girl with a crooked stance how to turn her hip to generate more power in a thrust. It wasn't mystical. It was muscle. Memory. Motion. That was what won battles.
Not every god needed to speak.
"You hesitate, Kala," he said to a younger boy. "Why?"
The boy looked up, his voice strained. "My brother died last moon. His blood marked the ash circle."
Zaruko nodded. "Then fight for him. Let your fear make your strike sharper. You want to make sure he didn't fall for nothing? Stand where he can't anymore."
The boy adjusted his grip. He nodded.
By midmorning, the fields echoed with the thud of training spears on bark-covered shields, the bark cracking like bone. Sweat glistened on skin, and the air filled with grunts and breath and the unspoken urgency of preparation. They weren't just preparing for a fight. They were preparing for war between belief and bone.
By firelight that night, strategy replaced steel.
A wide hide had been stretched across the ground, stained with charcoal and mud markings. On it: a crude but functional map of the jungle's edge, cliffs, valleys, and the river that forked like a serpent's tongue.
Zaruko crouched beside it, flanked by Na'Ro, Maela, and the three river scouts who'd returned with news of the enemy.
"They're coming from the northeast bend," said Rho, the tallest of the scouts. "At least three tribes joined with the god of thorns. Their banners are twisted vines, bone hanging from branches. We saw no children. Only warriors."
"How many?" Zaruko asked.
"Too many to fight clean," Rho replied. "We must bleed them first. Starve them second."
Zaruko drew a line with his finger through a narrow ridge between two hills. "Here," he said. "We collapse part of the ridge and draw them toward the fallen stone. Then they split to flank us—and walk right into the spike pits we'll place here."
Na'Ro nodded, already calculating the logistics. "If we plant burning pitch beneath the collapsed ridge, we'll blind them before we strike."
Maela folded her arms. "And if they smell it before triggering it?"
Zaruko met her gaze. "We place fresh hides over the pitch and let meat rot near the path. Let their beasts sniff that instead."
Rho let out a low whistle. "You're thinking like prey."
"I am thinking like someone who's fought a war of exhaustion," Zaruko said flatly. "They're gods and warriors. We make them tired. Then we make them bleed."
The next morning began the Ceremony of Cloth.
Not all traditions came from gods. Some came from instinct. From a people realizing they had no legends to lean on and so began creating their own.
Maela stood at the center of the gathering, hair braided and tied back with red bark twine. Before her, dozens of villagers sat weaving strips of dyed fiber—red and black sashes. Children dyed them in crushed berries, ash, and soot. Warriors wrapped them around their arms and necks, tying them as signs of unity.
"The first huts of Kan Ogou," Maela said softly, holding a bundle of sticks, "were made from desperation and fire. They have kept us warm, fed, and alive. Now we burn them."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
She tossed the bundle into the center flame, the fire catching quickly. One by one, others came forward, adding wood from their own homes. Not as a farewell, but a promise. From this ash, armor would be forged. The forge that Ogou had claimed pulsed in the distance, heat radiating like a heartbeat.
A warrior approached Zaruko later that night. "I do not pray to Ogou," he admitted. "But I believe in the fire. Is that enough?"
Zaruko looked to the forge's faint glow in the distance. "You don't have to worship to fight for what protects you. Just stand when it counts."
Later still, Zaruko visited the family of Teme, a hunter slain by the Thorn God's followers.
Teme's widow offered him stew made from wild yam and bitterleaf. Their daughter sat on his lap, tracing the lines of his scarred hands with her small fingers.
"He used to sing before leaving to hunt," she said.
Zaruko nodded. "I remember. His voice was like gravel over coals."
"He never sang when he came back."
"No," Zaruko said, "because he was saving it for the next journey."
The daughter giggled softly. Her mother smiled through the grief.
"We will burn a sash for him," Zaruko promised.
The final night before word of enemy movement came, the village was still.
Two young warriors—Joa and Miren—sat near the forge, arguing.
"If Ogou is devoured in battle, do we die too?" Joa asked.
"No," said Miren. "We fight harder."
"What if we lose?"
"Then our stories become ash."
Zaruko passed by and stopped.
"Listen," he said. "We may win. We may fall. But you are not fighting for gods. You're fighting for the fire inside your chest. That doesn't vanish unless you let it."
He touched Miren's shoulder. "And if Ogou falls, then I carry his flame. And if I fall—" he paused, "then you carry mine."
At dawn, a horn sounded at the edge of the jungle.
The scouts had returned. Eyes wide, breath ragged.
"They're coming. The Thorn God leads them himself. Not in dreams. Not in sigils. In flesh."
Zaruko stood. The forge behind him glowed like blood. The villagers gathered. Children held their breath. Warriors tightened their sashes.
Zaruko turned toward the edge of the village and drew his blade—not forged, but born of blood and memory.
"Let the land remember who we are."
And the forge answered, flaring brighter than it ever had.