The wind that carried Mala back to Ikanbi smelled of sweat, bark, and old blood. She moved with the urgency of a predator who'd seen something worse than itself. Her cloak was torn. Her eyes were sharp.
Ben was already at the ridge above the eastern huntline, sharpening a bone-handled spear.
"There are three hundred and twenty-seven of them," she said without pause. "Not warriors. Families. Stragglers. Fleeing something… or someone."
Ben kept sharpening.
"Hunted?"
Mala nodded once. "Their god is dead. Eratu. Slain in the eastern wars."
Ben stood slowly. "Then they're prey."
—
By dusk, the earth knew where they would sleep.
Primitive life did not allow for sentiment or softness. In a world where fire still had to be coaxed from stone and breath was never guaranteed, strangers meant danger—even if they bled.
Ben led his scouts west of Ikanbi's growing heart. There, in a clearing beyond the yam fields and bark-dried fences, they drove sharpened poles into the soil and outlined the camp boundaries with ash and woven bark lines. This was the law before ink—law written in soil, smoke, and fear.
"This is where they stop," Ben said, voice low and firm. "This is their ring."
—
When the newcomers arrived, their feet were bare, their backs raw from sun and whip. They came carrying their dead gods in memory, their broken customs in silence.
Ben met only one of them face to face.
Enru. A two-ring warrior. Calm-eyed, jaw like a carved stone, bearing the mark of a god that no longer spoke.
"I speak for them," Enru said. "They've lost everything."
Ben looked him over. "Then they've got no reason to lie."
Enru held his gaze.
"They will work."
—
Twa Milhoms did not come.
He neither watched nor whispered.
Ben understood. This wasn't the god's test.
It was his.
—
The next day, new customs were declared—not with written edict, but by word, by drum, by ash drawn across dirt circles.
No weapons near the core fire.
No man crosses the river without leave.
All must work or go.
The new camp is called the Shadow-Ring.
It is not part of Ikanbi until proven.
Militia took shifts guarding the boundary. Hunters kept to high paths. The warriors marked the trees with ochre, signs passed down from before language. Circles meant safe. X's meant watchful. A slash meant someone had died here.
Primitive law is not gentle. It is not clean. It survives because it demands clarity.
—
That night, scouts returned on foot.
The Red-Clawed were near.
Only a day away.
Ben didn't blink. He summoned his war circle—Kael, Jaron, Mala, Boji, and others who'd carried spears when the first walls of Ikanbi were nothing but dreams.
They squatted in a stone circle, no chairs or banners—just dirt, fire, and trust.
Ben spoke plainly.
"This will be the first war under our name. No songs. No gods. Only us."
He looked at each of them.
"If we fall, we fall as one. If we rise…"
No one needed the rest of the sentence.
—
That night, the oldest tradition of all returned.
Prayer.
Not the kind born of incense or temple stones, but the kind whispered into dirt, breathed into cold fire pits, offered with cracked hands and weary hearts.
They came to the Trial Chamber not to fight, but to kneel.
Some left offerings—bundles of bark, folded herbs, dried fish. Some spoke no words at all.
A man knelt alone—one who had once shamed the tribe, now marked and bound by law. His prayer was not for power, but for the wife he was assigned… and had come to protect.
She came not long after, unaware, and knelt in the same place.
Their silence meant more than vows.
—
In the days that followed, the air grew heavier.
War drums were not needed. The tribe's breath was a beat in itself.
Militia moved with purpose—hands blistered, shoulders sore. Spears were tested in earth, then in flesh. Civilians wove thicker walls, pressed bamboo into clay, reinforced old fences.
Children stayed close to the center. Elders whispered old names of protection.
The tribe was becoming something more than survivors.
It was becoming memory. Shape. Spine.
Ben stood above it all, silent.
Watching.
Knowing that in this primitive life, nothing was ever truly safe—but everything could be made sacred through discipline, will, and law.
The Shadow-Ring flickered with firelight.
Not yet Ikanbi.
But no longer alone.
And in the darkness beyond, a storm prepared to test them all.
Ben stepped into the Shadow-Ring camp as the fires burned low. The people were quiet—wary, not fearful. Many watched from behind crude shelter walls or cooking pits dug in the earth. These were not the loud, chaotic crowds of desperate wanderers. These were survivors who had walked through the ashes of a dead god's fall and outlasted their own graves.
At the center, Enru sat cross-legged by the fire, sharpening a bone-handled blade. His eyes met Ben's long before the others noticed him.
"You smell of decision," Enru said without standing.
Ben crouched opposite him and laid the broken charm from the Red-Clawed scouts in the dust between them.
"They're close. And they've issued a warning."
Enru studied it, then nodded. "They were always animals. Even when Eratu was alive. Without him… they're worse."
"I don't have the numbers to face them and protect your people if you won't fight," Ben said flatly.
Enru's jaw tightened. "You didn't let us near your heart."
"Because I don't know what beats in yours yet."
A silence passed—thick with challenge.
Then Enru rose. His voice carried not with volume, but with the iron certainty of someone who had once led men into battle.
"We are hunted. Not broken. We will not wait for Ikanbi's mercy. If you will lead, we will follow. But not as pets waiting for food scraps. We'll stand or fall as warriors."
Ben nodded once.
"You'll get the same rations. The same rules. But when the fight comes, there won't be time to decide who belongs and who doesn't. You'll have to bleed beside us."
Enru turned, signaling with a low whistle.
Several marked men and women stepped from the shadows—two-ring warriors, faces hardened, weapons primitive but well-kept.
"They're yours," Enru said. "They were mine once. Now they'll follow your banners if the banner is worthy."
Ben stood. "Then start preparing."
He turned to go, but paused.
"I'll speak your names before the war."
That night, as the stars rose above Ikanbi, the two camps breathed the same air for the first time. Fires were fed from the same woodpile. Sema's stew was shared across boundaries. Silent nods replaced words.
And near the Trial Chamber, a growing line of quiet pilgrims began to form.
They came not to seek power…
…but to ask for protection.
For their children.
For their leaders.
For their tribe.
For whatever the gods still bothered to watch.
High above them all, from deep within the bamboo, Twa Milhoms sat at the edge of a cold fire pit.
Watching.
Still silent.
Still waiting.