Jorka woke to the cold bite of dawn seeping through the cave mouth. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, casting faint orange flickers across the stone walls. He reached out instinctively, expecting the warm curve of Mara's body beside him.
His hand met empty moss.
He sat up sharply, the blue-black veins beneath his skin pulsing once in silent alarm. The cloak he had spread beneath her was still there, rumpled and carrying the faint scent of her—wild herbs, blood long dried, and the musk of their coupling—but she was gone. No footprints in the fine sand beyond the moss bed. No torn scrap of hide left behind as a message. Nothing.
He rose, naked and unhurried, and stepped to the entrance. The vines that curtained the fissure hung undisturbed. Outside, the forest was quiet—birds calling in the gray light, mist clinging low to the undergrowth. No sign of struggle. No blood. She had simply… vanished.
Jorka stood there for a long moment, staring into the trees. Part of him wanted to search—track her scent, follow the invisible trail she must have left—but another part, colder and more familiar, recognized the futility. She had given what she promised. Once. No claims. No lingering. He had asked for nothing more.
He sighed—a low, tired sound that carried the weight of eighteen years and one night.
There was nothing left to do here.
He dressed in his blood-stiffened hides, gathered the few things worth taking—his knife, a water skin refilled from the spring—and stepped out into the morning. The path back to the Soranghi camp lay east, through familiar ridges and valleys. He walked. Not ran. Not leaped with the new power humming in his veins. Just walked, one steady footfall after another, letting the forest close around him like an old friend.
The journey took a full day. He moved without pause, eating berries and roots along the way, drinking from streams. The blue-black force inside him kept fatigue at bay; his body felt inexhaustible, but his mind turned in slow, heavy circles. Mara's moans still echoed in his ears—loud, unrestrained, real. For one night he had tasted what the High Goddess had denied him for a lifetime. And now it was gone, like smoke.
By dusk the next evening, the familiar scent of woodsmoke and tanning hides reached him. The camp lay in its usual clearing at the foot of Blackfang Ridge—log longhouses arranged in a loose circle, central fire pit, the tall totem of carved elk antlers marking the heart of Soranghi land.
He crested the final rise and stopped.
The sight hit him like a war axe to the chest.
Bodies.
Dozens of them.
Hung on sharpened stakes driven deep into the earth around the perimeter of the camp. Not impaled through the torso in the old execution style—through the shoulders, arms stretched wide, heads lolling forward. Blood had dried in long black streaks down their chests and legs. Flies buzzed in thick clouds. The stench of rot and iron rolled over him in a wave.
Jorka's breath caught.
He recognized them all.
Every face. Every scar. Every braided beard.
His clan. His people.
And among them—highest on the tallest stake, arms spread like broken wings—was Sorang. His father. Head of the clan. The man who had raised him, taught him the axe, the hunt, the unforgiving code of the forest.
Sorang's eyes were open.
Alive.
Barely.
Jorka moved forward on numb legs, boots crunching over trampled ground littered with broken spears and shattered shields. The stakes formed a grotesque ring around the central fire pit, which smoldered cold and black. No one moved. No one spoke. Only the wind and the flies.
He stopped beneath his father's stake.
Sorang's head lifted slowly—agonizingly. One eye was swollen shut; the other fixed on Jorka with dull recognition.
"Father," Jorka rasped.
A wet cough rattled in Sorang's chest. Blood bubbled at his lips.
"Jorka…" The word was barely a whisper, cracked and faint.
"You… live."
"What happened?" Jorka's voice came out low, dangerous. The blue-black power stirred in his veins, cold and eager.
Sorang swallowed, the motion tearing a grimace across his ruined face.
"Dorag… came back that day. Alone. Said you were dead. Swept away by the river. Claimed the tiger pelt as proof of his victory. Demanded the leadership. Said the Hunter of Soranghi should rule."
Jorka's fists clenched. The air around him shimmered faintly; small stones near his boots trembled, lifting an inch before settling again.
Sorang continued, each word costing him.
"I refused. Told him… the clan chooses its leader by blood and deed, not by one kill. He… laughed. Challenged me. We fought." A weak, bitter chuckle escaped him. "He was fast. Stronger than before. Cut me down. Took my hands first… then my legs. Left me alive to watch."
His gaze drifted to the other stakes.
"He did the same to the elders who stood with me. The young ones who tried to fight back. Spiked us all. Said it was a new age. Said he would take the women's enclave tonight—claim them all as his prize. Celebrate his victory."
Jorka's vision narrowed to a pinpoint. The blue-black power surged, roaring in his skull like a winter gale. Pebbles rose around him in a slow, menacing orbit.
"He went to the valley," Sorang whispered.
"Took half the warriors still loyal—or too afraid to refuse. Left us here… to die slow."
Jorka stepped closer. He reached up, fingers brushing the rough wood of the stake. With a thought, the spike splintered at the base—clean, silent cracks running up its length. Sorang's body sagged forward; Jorka caught him before he fell, lowering him gently to the blood-soaked earth.
"Rest," Jorka said. His voice was calm. Too calm.
Sorang gripped his son's arm with what remained of his strength—one mangled hand, fingers missing.
"Dorag… he's changed. Something dark in him now. Not just ambition. He… spoke of power. Said the forest gave it to him when you were gone."
Jorka's jaw tightened.
The forest had given power, yes.
But not to Dorag.
He laid his father down on the ground, arranging hides from a nearby longhouse to cushion him. Then he stood, looking at the ring of crucified men—some still breathing, some gone. The blue-black veins on his arms glowed brighter, casting faint indigo light across the carnage.
"I'll bring him back," Jorka said quietly.
Sorang managed a faint, bloody smile.
"Kill him… for all of us."
Jorka nodded once.
Then he turned east—toward the mist-shrouded valleys where the women's enclave lay hidden.
The path to the forbidden place was forbidden no longer.
Dorag had crossed every line.
Now Jorka would cross the last one.
He walked.
And behind him, stones rose silently into the air, following like obedient shadows.
The night deepened.
Somewhere ahead, in the valley of women, a usurper celebrated.
He would not celebrate long.