By the time the sun reached its peak, word had already spread through the four militia camps—soldiers had been pulled out of training. No reason given. No farewell.
That evening, the four militia leaders came to Ben, not out of disobedience, but because the air between them now held questions too heavy to ignore.
Kael came first, blunt as ever.
"Why were some of my soldiers pulled, Chief?"
Ben didn't look away. He motioned to the man sitting silently beside him—Khol, now dressed in shadow-colored hide, the firelight licking across the scar that marked his exile.
"This is Khol," Ben said. "He is the fifth leader among you."
Jaron frowned. "Fifth? What is he leading?"
Ben's voice was quiet but firm. "A force that doesn't exist to the eyes of the tribe. His unit won't train with you, won't march in open line. He will not answer to the four of you. And most of what he does, most of you will never need to know."
Mala crossed her arms. "So, he hides while we lead?"
"He hides," Ben replied, "because someone must. You lead warriors. Khol commands shadows."
Enru studied Khol closely, then looked back to Ben. "So why tell us at all?"
Ben stood now, towering over the fire, his voice like stone sliding over stone. "Because while Khol's work will remain unseen, I will not dishonor your loyalty with lies. He is one of us. But only those who need to know… will ever know."
The fire popped between them, sending sparks toward the bamboo canopy.
None of them liked it—but none of them argued further.
Kael finally nodded. "So be it."
One by one, they left.
Only Khol remained, still seated.
Ben said nothing more. He just stared into the flames, thinking of the things that must grow in darkness so the rest might thrive in the light.
The clearing behind the trial chamber was dim, blanketed by the hybrid bamboo canopy that twisted like quiet sentinels. Ben stood beside Khol as the chosen few—two from each militia group, young but hardened by their rings—stood in a semicircle before them.
They were quiet. Alert. Confused.
These were not the loudest, nor the strongest, but they were the ones who saw everything and spoke little.
Khol stepped forward first. His voice didn't carry like Ben's. It was lower. Sharper.
"You were chosen for something that will not make you famous. You will not march through the village. You will not wear your rings in pride. You may die alone, with no songs. If this is not for you… walk away now. No shame. You will return to your old unit, and we will speak no more of it."
A silence lingered.
Ben's eyes moved across the faces of the ten.
Not one stepped back.
Not one blinked.
Ben nodded slightly. Then he spoke.
"You were chosen because you do not seek glory. Because in your training, your commanders saw the same thing I did: restraint, precision, silence. Khol will lead you from now on. He is the fifth leader. But no one in the tribe will know that. You will become the blade beneath the skin of Ikanbi—unseen, uncelebrated, but deadly."
Khol took a slow breath, then added, "What we do will be necessary. Hard. Maybe hated. But it will save lives. And one day, when the tribe is still standing because of the work you did in secret… you will know why you were chosen."
Still, no one moved.
Ben gave them one last look and stepped away, leaving Khol with his new unit.
As Ben walked back through the bamboo, he thought to himself:
"Not all leaders walk in the sun. Some were born to guard it from the shadows."
Ben's footsteps faded into the distance, swallowed by the bamboo and the hum of distant crickets.
Silence lingered like smoke.
Then it happened.
One by one, each of the chosen soldiers—six men, four women—gripped their chests in surprise. The dull warmth of their warrior marks began to stir. The symbols above their left brows—the very proof of their place in Ikanbi's hierarchy—shifted.
Not with fire.
Not with pain.
But with silent, deliberate purpose.
The marks slid down, leaving no trace behind their brows, and reformed just above their hearts—smaller, darker, deeper. They pulsed once, then settled.
The air thickened with uncertainty.
One soldier opened his mouth to speak, but Khol raised a hand. His voice was low but unwavering.
"From this moment forward, no one must know why your marks moved. Not your blood. Not your leaders. Not even the women you love or the parents who bore you."
He stepped forward, stopping just short of the group.
"The world will see you as unmarked. As if you failed. As if you gave up. Let them. Because your strength will not be worn—it will be used."
A beat passed. Then Khol's tone turned sharper.
"If any of you speak of this to your family, your lovers, or even to each other outside this grove, you will no longer serve Ikanbi. You will no longer serve me. You will be sent away—because one secret becomes two, and two becomes a grave."
He met each of their eyes.
"You were chosen because I believe you can carry this. If I'm wrong, leave now."
No one moved.
Khol's eyes narrowed with a grim satisfaction.
"Good. Now… burn who you were. Begin again."
The moonlight filtered through the bamboo, catching the faint, dark shimmer of the new heart-marks.
In silence, ten blades vanished into the night—hidden in plain sight.
The next morning, wordless visits began across the tribe.
Kael, Jaron, Mala, and Enru moved with deliberate calm, each bearing a simple message for the families of those who had been chosen and vanished without explanation. Their words were nearly identical—rehearsed without rehearsal.
"They are safe."
"They are serving the tribe in another way."
"There is no danger. They have not been punished."
The families, wide-eyed and hesitant, pressed for more—but none of the four commanders gave anything away. Instead, they repeated their reassurances and guided each family toward their new homes—small longhouses, tucked together at the very center of Ikanbi.
Ben had ordered their relocation personally.
A quiet perimeter was drawn—nothing obvious, nothing restrictive, but clear enough that no strangers lingered nearby. These families became neighbors overnight, living closer to the heart of the tribe than even some of the elders. It brought whispers.
Why them?
Why now?
No answers came.
Only the unspoken truth: something had changed.
And then, there was Khol's family.
They arrived quietly—just a man, a woman, and two small boys. Given a home at the very center of the newly formed inner circle, without hunting duties, without questions. Their presence stirred tension.
Some murmured behind their hands:
"Weren't they Red-Claw once?"
"How did they earn this?"
No one dared ask aloud—not after Khol had been seen walking beside Ben. Not after their marks vanished from their brows. Not after the militia leaders stopped looking them in the eye as they passed.
Meanwhile, deep in the hybrid bamboo beyond the sacrificial chambers, the chosen trained in complete silence.
There were no calls.
No commands.
No praise.
Just Khol's quiet voice and the sound of controlled movement. Crawling through vines. Watching shadows. Reading signs in bent grass and broken twigs. Killing sounds within themselves.
The ten never spoke of their marks.
They never asked about their families.
They became shadows in flesh.
Time passed differently in Ikanbi.
There were no clocks, no marked calendars—only the sun, the rains, and the rhythm of firewood burned at night.
Six moons came and went.
The tribe changed with the wind—slowly but visibly. New shelters rose, stone-lined fields expanded, children learned to name stars they would one day follow on hunts. The fish pens multiplied, and the cubs once barely tamed now roamed with loose leashes, guarding grain stores from wild beasts.
Life continued.
Laughter returned to the cooking fires. Songs began again near the river. Lovers met beneath the bamboo trees. Even the four commanders—Kael, Mala, Jaron, and Enru—seemed at ease, leading their militia groups with precision. The warriors drilled daily, hunted with purpose, and upheld the growing order that Ben had built.
But beyond it all, unseen by most, ten chosen men and women suffered in silence.
Their training was constant.
There were no days off. No family visits. No celebratory meals after a successful hunt. They slept when allowed, ate when permitted, and moved without sound. They learned to kill animals without being heard, to scale stone like shadows, to vanish in daylight.
They bled often.
Khol offered no kindness—only knowledge. He broke them apart and reformed them with tools older than language: pressure, pain, hunger, fear. He taught them to disappear, not with magic, but with discipline. To kill, not with rage, but with precision. To wait, not for orders, but for the moment no one else would see.
And they changed.
Muscles hardened.
Eyes lost their light.
Voices disappeared altogether.
The ten did not mark time. They marked change—in each other, in their bodies, in the soft deaths of their hesitation. They were still human, but only barely.
Six months had passed in the world.
But in that dark grove, it could've been a hundred years.
And still, they trained.