The forest burned behind them, and still, the drums sang.
Deep in the Nyala Basin, where vines crawled like serpents and the air tasted of iron and damp earth, Sarive stood on a hill of ash. His bare chest glistened with sweat and blood, his braided hair matted against his shoulders, and his eyes—black as obsidian—watched the retreating shadows of the last slaver caravan vanish beyond the hills.
He had won.
Again.
The enemy had come with rifles and chains, seeking bodies to trade like cattle. But they had not expected the jungle to fight back. They had not expected Sarive.
He raised his spear—ornate and old, inherited from his grandfather—and slammed its butt into the earth. Around him, hundreds of warriors raised their fists and weapons and roared a cry that echoed through the trees like thunder.
"Afron!"
A word that didn't exist yesterday. A word Sarive had spoken only this morning when the sun cracked through the mist like a golden blade.
It meant Africa reborn.
And today, it began.
At the base of the hill, his younger brother, Makonnen, stood in the clearing, surrounded by scrolls, strange glyphs, and bent sheets of bark parchment. He was thinner than Sarive, with skin like deep bronze and a sharp, clever face that rarely betrayed emotion. Where Sarive bore muscle and scars, Makonnen carried knowledge and plans. He was only eighteen, but his thoughts were older than most kings.
He had already begun designing a new way to speak.
"Was the last outpost cleared?" Sarive asked, descending the hill, voice low and rough like a lion's growl.
Makonnen nodded. "The slave pens were destroyed. Survivors are being fed. The women from Kudi have asked for weapons and to join the war."
Sarive grunted approval. "Good. We'll need them when we take Kasa next."
Makonnen didn't look up from his work. "You've carved a path through blood, brother. But blood dries. Words endure. If we are to make Afron more than a dream, we need more than fire and steel."
Sarive knelt beside him. "I don't need your lectures."
"No," Makonnen replied, unfazed. "But you need my language."
He handed his brother a folded parchment. On it were symbols Sarive had never seen—neither Arabic, Latin, nor tribal. Something new. Something sharp. Efficient.
"The first five letters of Offic," Makonnen said. "A tongue that does not belong to a colonizer. A language we build. A language we own."
Sarive looked at the lines. It was strange. Alien. Beautiful.
"I like the shape of it," he said quietly.
"You'll like it more when it teaches a thousand tribes to say the same word for home."
That night, a fire was built at the heart of the ruined slaver fortress. Warriors from all over gathered—Kikuyu, Zulu, Ashanti, Fulani, Berber, Oromo, Fang. Most had never met before, their dialects colliding like clashing swords. But under the flame, they shared food, laughter, and silent reverence.
Sarive stood before them, wearing the pelt of a silver lion across his shoulders. When he raised his hand, the crowd quieted.
"I have walked through fire," he said, voice booming. "I have seen our mothers shackled, our children stolen. I have watched kings kneel to foreign gods and foreign greed. I will not kneel."
A ripple of assent.
"I say no more tribes. No more borders. No more selling each other for gold and powder. I say we become one. One land. One blood. One purpose."
He turned to Makonnen, who stepped forward with a carved stone tablet and raised it high.
"This is Offic," Sarive declared. "The first tongue of the Afron. You will learn it. Speak it. Raise your children in it. And with it, we will build an empire that does not forget who we are."
Then he raised his spear. "This is not a rebellion. This is a beginning."
The next day, the scouts brought word: three rival chieftains, including the powerful Warlord Mba of the Great Lakes, had heard of Sarive's victory and were marching to crush him before his fire spread.
"They fear a dream," Makonnen said as they reviewed the map drawn in charcoal on animal hide.
"No," Sarive replied. "They fear what the dream demands."
"What's that?"
"Sacrifice."
By week's end, the three armies surrounded them. Makonnen urged retreat to the hills. But Sarive refused. "If we flee now, we'll run forever. If we die here, they'll forget our names. But if we win... the fire becomes a storm."
So they prepared.
Makonnen rigged steam traps from broken guns. Farmers dug trenches. Women trained with spears. And at dawn, when Mba's drums echoed across the valley, Sarive's warriors did not run.
They sang.
The battle was chaos. Gunpowder met obsidian blades. Fire swept the underbrush. Mba himself charged with a dozen bodyguards, but Sarive met him head-on beneath the baobab tree. Their spears clashed, and when it ended, Mba lay still, his helmet split open, his blood watering the roots of the old tree.
Sarive stood over him, panting. The enemy armies broke. And the sun rose red and golden.
When the fighting ended, Sarive knelt in the grass beside Makonnen.
"Write it," he said. "A treaty. In Offic. One law. One name. Let the first words be known."
Makonnen took his tablet and began to carve.
"Let it be known across the winds of the Sahara, the jungles of Congo, and the salt shores of the East:We are Afron.We are not subjects.We are not slaves.We are sons and daughters of the Sun.We speak one voice.We rise as one.We die as none."
And thus, the first document of the Afron Empire was born.