The council's ultimatum changed everything.
Before, our lessons were a curiosity — strange, mildly amusing, tolerated mostly because Baba Voss sanctioned them and because the rescued children had nowhere else to be.
Now they had to become purpose.
Purpose was survival.
Purpose was identity.
Purpose was leverage.
Our small cohort — six children under four years old — were no longer just children.
We were a project.
The Three Roles
Blind tribes understood three kinds of valuable people:
Hunters
Healers
Makers
If we did not fit into one of those categories by the end of the year, the council would make us fit. And their idea of "fitting" usually involved cutting pieces off until you resembled everyone else.
Literal or political pieces — both existed.
I was not interested in losing either.
So I looked at the cohort:
Haniwa → fast, curious, sighted
Tulli → small, silent, good listener
Tullen → precise, thoughtful, pattern-mind
Ren → cautious, memory strong
Talli → bold, impulsive, good eyes
Myself → sighted, system, ambition
Hunters?
Scouts?
Scribes?
Something new?
The tribe needed scouts.
The tribe did not know what scribes were yet.
But scribes were the first step toward administration, and administration was the skeleton of states.
I could not introduce bureaucracy now — the tribe would reject it as unnatural.
But scouting they understood.
So I began with scouts.
Scouts Without Maps
Scouting in a blind world was alien to my old knowledge.
Without sight, scouts relied on:
• sound lines
• scent currents
• tactile memory
• path mnemonics
• landmark textures
• animal behaviors
I could see, but I needed to know how they navigated. Because one day I would have to lead blind battalions.
Baba took us beyond the river to teach.
"First rule of scouting," he said, crouching low. "The forest tells you who owns it."
He took my hand, pressed my palm to a fallen log. My fingers brushed grooves — claw marks.
"Bear passes here," he said. "Often. Not hungry, only traveling."
Tullen asked, "How do you know?"
Baba tapped the air above the log. "No meat smell. No mud churn. No scat piles."
Pattern recognition.
Then he dragged us toward a patch of saplings bent in one direction.
"Wind comes from there," he said, pointing north. "So smoke travels that way. So men travel that way to follow smoke. So slavers travel that way to find us."
The System chimed:
Skill Gained: Natural Terrain Interpretation
Cohort Gain: +Awareness +Tracking +Orientation
But there was a thrill in Talli's voice when she whispered:
"Wait… if slavers follow smoke, then we should make smoke elsewhere."
Baba paused.
His head tilted slowly.
Then he barked a laugh — short, surprised, approving.
"That is a hunter's trick," he said. "Lead wolves to wolves."
Tulli grinned. "Then wolves kill wolves."
Tullen nodded. "And we don't have to fight at all."
They were inventing strategic misdirection without knowing the word.
The System agreed:
Tactic Seeded: Misdirection (Primitive)
Military Path Progression: +Ambush +Deception
We wouldn't build commanders.
We would build something tribes had never possessed:
Operational thinkers.
Baba's Question
On our way back, Baba fell into step beside me.
"You teach them," he said, not a question.
"Yes."
"You push them," he said.
"Yes."
"You do not push yourself."
I stopped walking.
He crouched to my height. "One year to make them useful is good. But one year to make you useful is also required."
"What do I need to learn?" I asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
He pointed at a branch twenty paces ahead.
"Hit that."
I raised my tiny hand, gripped a stone, and threw.
The stone arced through air, guided by sight and calculation, and hit the branch.
Talli gasped. Tullen stared. Ren froze mid-step. Haniwa grinned.
The hunters with us did not gasp.
Hunters heard the stone strike wood from twenty paces.
They heard something else too.
Children do not throw like that.
Baba nodded once.
"Good," he said. "Now do it blind."
He tied a strip of leather over my eyes.
The world went dark, muffled, imprecise. I smelled sap, earth, damp bark. I heard wind shift through pine needles and branches.
"Again," he said.
I threw the stone.
It hit dirt nowhere near the branch.
Baba didn't comment.
He just said, "Again."
I threw again.
Miss.
Again.
Miss.
Again.
Miss.
Then something clicked.
Wind brushed my cheek differently. Something creaked. Something rustled.
I threw without sight.
The stone clipped the branch.
Small sound, small success.
Huge meaning.
Baba nodded. "Sight without sound makes prey. Sound without sight makes hunter. Sight and sound together makes something else."
He didn't have a word for what that "something else" was.
But the System did.
Trait Acquired: Dual Perception (Level 1)
Effect: Balanced sensory processing between sighted and blind modes.
Military Application: Scouting, Ranging, Silent Warfare
Dual perception would one day become the training doctrine of my future forces.
But for now, it was just a child throwing rocks in a forest.
The Elder Returns
That night, the white-haired elder returned to our hut. The leather flap lifted. Smoke curled. The fire crackled. She sat.
"Your year has begun," she said.
Baba nodded.
"You have shown they can learn," she continued. "Now show what they are learning."
Baba nodded again.
"And after that," she said softly, "show why."
She tapped her cane against the ground once.
"Children who learn must become children who serve."
Then she stood.
But before she left, she rested a hand on my head.
"You do not move like a child," she murmured. "You move like someone waiting."
She smiled faintly.
"Kings wait before they hunt."
Then she left.
The System chimed.
Role Concept Introduced: Sovereign → Hunter-King
Cultural Interpretation Path Opened.
Hunter-King.
Not a bad myth to grow under.
The First Function
A week later, rain fell. Not a storm — a whisper rain, steady and cold. Hunters left to track deer. The rescued children stayed behind.
Haniwa asked, "Do we train today?"
"Yes," I said.
"What do we learn?"
I pointed toward the huts, where women boiled meat and elders sorted herbs and hunters sharpened spears.
"We learn how the tribe works."
Because if we could not justify ourselves to the council in one year, we would lose everything.
Not by war.
By irrelevance.
The System chimed.
New Objective Added:
Define Cohort Function (Social + Military + Cognitive)
The elders wanted us to become useful.
I intended for us to become indispensable.
There was a difference.
One built hunters.
One built nations.