Smoke coiled in the twilight like dying breath.
What remained of the Ashbon command rode back to their capital in silence. Burned. Shaken. Some had lost limbs, others their tongues, and many returned hollow-eyed—whispers lodged in their minds like shards of bone.
They did not sing. They did not chant.
They carried no trophies.
Their high commanders entered the inner sanctum and fell to their knees before their god's effigy—an obsidian figure with seven arms and a mask carved from black firewood.
Moloh-Tal did not speak.
He did not have to.
The silence was suffocating.
The dead were tallied. The rituals reviewed. The burning visions retold. No one could explain the precision of the attacks. No one could understand how divine enemies had slipped through layers of protection crafted over generations.
"They knew our names," one of the priests whispered. "They called our secrets before we spoke them."
Others wept. Some clawed at their skin, muttering about mirrors that bled, about drums that spoke.
Their god brooded. His rage was quiet, but the pressure in the temple grew so thick the walls cracked.
The enemy, it seemed, did not come as men or armies.
They came as gods.
Outside the Gate
The tribe's main road stretched like a scar through the valley. Sentinels posted along the walls began to murmur, then yell.
Something was wrong.
Someone sat alone just beyond the gate.
An old man in white. Worn hat tipped over his face. A crooked cane resting across his lap.
The guards aimed their weapons. He didn't flinch.
A few beast-riders approached to drive him off, but their steeds buckled before reaching him. Every creature—snakes, hounds, warbirds—refused to go near the man.
Then came the smell: rum, dust, and roasted yam.
One of the guards recognized it and screamed.
"No… no, that's not a man!"
Before anyone could move, a distant horn sounded—not from the enemy tribe, but from outside the valley.
Zion's Arrival
Zion, flanked by Ayomi, Sael, Kael, and a vanguard of Nouvo Kay's best, came into view just as the sun dipped below the horizon.
They had expected a tense arrival. Hidden scouts. Tight formations. Preparation for blood.
Instead, they found Papa Legba already there—waiting at the enemy's front gate like a grandfather greeting late guests.
Zion froze.
Ayomi and Sael both dropped to one knee, hands over their hearts.
"Why is he here?" Kael whispered.
Legba didn't look at them. He rocked slowly in his small chair, tapping his cane against the hard-packed earth.
Tock.
Tock.
Tock.
He finally spoke, voice cracked like ancient wood.
"Y'all made it in time for the fireworks."
The enemy behind the gate began shouting. Arrows were nocked. Orders screamed.
But no one fired.
None dared to.
Moloh-Tal, from the shadows of his dark temple, rose from his throne for the first time in decades. The air thickened with sulfur and rage.
The gods had come to his door.
And the old man was the first to knock