The sky bled.
It began with a rust-colored smear along the horizon, a dull ache of crimson in the clouds. As the sun vanished, the moon climbed, stained the color of old blood. Winds quieted. Beasts silenced. Even the forge, eternal in its breathing, flickered low as if in reverence—or fear.
The villagers stood outside their homes, necks craned, faces pale in the unnatural glow. Mothers held children closer. Elders muttered stories that hadn't been spoken in generations.
"This moon demands blood. Not of the tribe… but from the world."
Zaruko stood before the forge, his back to the fire. Maela was at his side, her eyes narrowed in quiet alarm.
The forge behind them hissed, then surged. Heat licked the air.
Zaruko raised his voice. "Tonight, the Red Moon watches. The silence of the beasts, the breath of the forge, the quiet in your bones — all of it speaks Ogou's name."
He looked at each of the warriors gathered.
"Ogou has spoken. A warrior bears no mark unless it is earned. No protection is granted without offering. Each of you who call yourself a shield of this tribe must walk into the wild and take what the earth does not give freely."
Murmurs broke out.
"This is madness—"
"There are children in my home—"
"Winter is already upon us!"
Zaruko raised his hand.
"This is not punishment. It is tradition. Not born here—but awakened here. Hunt alone. Bring back a beast that you slay in Ogou's name. Its body must burn in the forge. If he sees you fit, the mark will come."
"And if he doesn't?" asked Jinba.
Zaruko's voice was firm. "Then you are not yet ready to carry fire into the next season."
No one argued after that.
By dawn, the warriors had vanished into the wilds.
The jungle swallowed them one by one — vines draped like skeletal hands, shadows thick with unseen eyes. Ayeshe's predators did not sleep during winter. They stalked the silence, fed on fear, and grew hungrier with the cold.
A woman named Kesa fought a two-headed jaguar whose second skull whispered riddles before striking. Her blade cracked one eye, but it was her bare hands that ended it.
A man called Niron tracked a beast made of woven branches and muscle. It bled sap. It cried like a human infant. He vomited after the kill, but carried it home without hesitation.
A young warrior, barely older than sixteen, found no beast. But he found something worse—a fallen comrade, limbs torn, sigil seared half-formed across his back. The boy wrapped him in cloth and walked for miles in silence, dragging the body behind him.
Three days passed.
The forge roared again.
One by one, the warriors returned.
Kesa tossed the two-headed jaguar into the flames. The forge flared silver, then coughed out black smoke. She fell to her knees, screaming—not in pain, but in revelation—as the sigil of Ogou carved itself onto her shoulder in flame. A spiral of hammer and fire.
Others followed.
Some offerings vanished into ash without a flicker. Those warriors bowed and walked away—unmarked but alive.
The young boy brought his comrade's body. He did not speak. He did not cry. He placed the man's bloodied blade at the base of the forge, and stood motionless.
The forge pulsed faintly.
Then something subtle happened.
On the boy's wrist, faint and flickering like embers in the dark, the sigil shimmered. It did not sear. It did not brand. But it was there.
Zaruko stood behind him. "Ogou sees you. This is not reward. It is a promise."
That night, thunder cracked the air.
From the mouth of the forge came a voice — deep, layered with iron and storm:
"I accept these blades and bones. My warriors stand. When the snow melts, war begins."
Then silence.
The forge fell still.
But no one moved.
There was no feast. No celebration. Only vigil.
Warriors lined the village perimeter. Eyes sharp. Blades ready.
Snow fell in heavy silence.
Maela lit a single flame outside her hut, bowing her head in thought. Not prayer. Thought.
Zaruko stood alone near the jungle's edge. He looked not at the fire, but beyond it. Toward the trees.
Something watched.
And not the beasts.
A tremor passed through the earth. Faint. Like a breath beneath the land. Or a heartbeat.
They were not just hunters now. Nor survivors.
They were the chosen.
And something far older than war, far hungrier than winter… was waking.
The crimson light of early dawn crept across the frost-touched jungle floor, tinting the leaves with a ghostly hue. The beasts of Ayeshe had gone strangely quiet, their absence heavier than their growls. Winter approached like a stalking predator, and in its breath came an old silence — the kind that smothered even the wind.
Zaruko stood atop the eastern rise, eyes scanning the returning silhouettes. One by one, the warriors emerged from the tree line — each with something carried over their shoulders, dragged behind, or bound with ropes fashioned from vines and hardened hide. Their offerings.
Some bore great horned felines with glowing eyes now dimmed by death. Others returned with things that seemed stitched together by nightmares — hybrid predators with quills, bone ridges, or venomous glands. The jungle had not surrendered its gifts easily. Blood had been spilled — both beast and man — but it had been done with purpose.
Zaruko said nothing as the warriors assembled in the central clearing. The statue of Ogou loomed behind them, obsidian and flame-lit, silent as always — but watching.
Maela stood nearby, her gaze sweeping across the bloodied warriors with reverence and worry. "They've changed," she whispered to Zaruko. "Not just the wounds. Something in their eyes."
"They've faced Ayeshe and come back standing," Zaruko said. "This world doesn't offer growth gently."
One of the youngest hunters, a boy named Fiko who had never held a blade before this rite, now stood shirtless before Ogou's statue. Across his shoulder, a deep jagged gash still bled — but more striking was the symbol etched into his skin by claw and dream.
It wasn't inked. It had surfaced.
A near-identical sigil to Zaruko's own — only this one pulsed faintly, as if freshly forged into him by unseen hands.
The elders knelt, murmuring prayers. But Fiko only stood silent, confused. His kill, a winged serpent with eyes that saw too much, lay beside him.
Zaruko approached and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You are not alone anymore."
Fiko nodded, blinking back a mix of fear and awe. The sigil continued to throb, as if reacting to the forge that now glowed softly behind the temple walls.