The jungle did not sleep.
It trembled.
At the edge of Kan Ogou's western wall, the wind carried no scent—only tension. Even the insects, usually defiant in their constant song, had gone silent. Something deeper than fear ran through the earth, making the very trees lean away from the coming dread.
Zaruko stood barefoot in the mud, the weight of war settling in his bones like old armor. His breath came slow and measured. Around him, his warriors crouched in total silence, hidden in shadow, painted in earth. Spears rested against their shoulders, bowstrings were drawn taut.
Behind them, the village was dark. The forge glowed faintly in the distance, but no smoke rose. Maela had ordered all flames dimmed. Tonight, the enemy would not find them with fire.
Zaruko crouched and pressed his palm to the ground.
A tremor.
Then another.
He turned to Maela, who approached in a silent run, her spear strapped to her back.
"They're close," she whispered.
"They'll try the traps first," he replied. "Let them."
She gave a short nod, her eyes scanning the dark trees ahead.
Somewhere deeper in the jungle, a drumbeat began—slow and hollow. Not like their war drums. These sounded more like bone and stretched skin than wood and hide. Ritualistic. Rhythmic. The beat of something old.
From within the jungle mist, firelight flickered—torches, hundreds of them. They came in waves: warriors painted in rust-red symbols, feathers tied to bone piercings, axes made of jawbone and obsidian. Their faces were blank, almost entranced. Behind them moved the priests—robed figures humming with unnatural energy. And further still… something else.
Zaruko lifted one hand.
His signal.
Spring the traps.
The jungle exploded.
Nets hidden under moss snapped upward, launching spikes into the advancing front. Pitfalls yawned open like hungry mouths, swallowing warriors into darkness. Spines dipped in venom lined their bottoms. Vines—woven tight and soaked in burning sap—snapped upward, lashing flesh and bone with cruel heat.
Screams. Chaos. But no retreat.
The enemy moved forward anyway—many dying, others crawling over their corpses to continue. They felt no fear, only purpose. Something was driving them.
Zaruko watched with narrowed eyes. "They're not breaking," he muttered.
Jinba, beside him, spat into the mud. "They're not thinking either. That's not good."
From behind the enemy front, a figure stepped into view.
The war priest.
He wore no armor, only a cloak of jaguar pelts and chains made from human teeth. His mouth opened unnaturally wide, and he chanted in a voice that made the ground vibrate.
From his feet, black mist crept forward—slow, deliberate, hungry.
Plants wilted. Vines shriveled. Birds fell midflight.
A god was watching.
But it was not Ogou.
Zaruko's breath caught. He felt it—like cold oil seeping into the cracks of his spirit. His warriors began to falter. Some backed away. One fell to his knees, mumbling nonsense.
"We need to fall back," Maela said, her voice tight.
"No." Zaruko's eyes flared with heat. "We hold."
He stepped forward, raised his axe, and shouted, "With me!"
They charged.
Where the traps failed, steel and fire took over. Zaruko's forces struck from the flanks, knives flashing, spears stabbing through gaps in bone armor. The enemy fought like demons—unfeeling, unrelenting.
Zaruko ducked under a sweeping axe and buried his blade into the attacker's throat. Maela slammed a shield into another's chest, knocking him into a snare.
Behind them, the war priest's chanting grew louder.
The black mist crept closer.
Then—a vibration.
From deep within Kan Ogou, the forge roared.
Flames burst skyward. A column of molten light shot upward, splitting the clouds above. The humming returned—low, rhythmic, like a forge bellows breathing in rage.
The mist paused.
The priest turned—uncertain.
Ogou was watching.
Within the forge, the strongest of Zaruko's people—those who had trained in the heat, those who bled into their blades—felt their blood boil. Spears left in racks shimmered. One man picked up a hammer and felt it vibrate like it wanted to leap from his hand.
But Ogou did not emerge.
He watched.
Back at the front, Zaruko faced a new threat.
The berserker.
A brute taller than any man, wrapped in bone-plated armor and wielding a club made from fused femurs. He charged, bellowing. Warriors scattered.
Zaruko stepped into the path.
Their clash shook the jungle.
The first strike shattered Zaruko's shoulder guard. The second missed by inches.
Zaruko ducked, spun, and drove his axe into the giant's ribs—but the berserker didn't slow. He swung again, catching Zaruko in the side. Pain lanced through him, but he didn't fall.
He roared back.
A feint—low sweep, then elbow to the jaw. The berserker stumbled. Zaruko took the opening, jumped, and drove his blade through the monster's throat.
The brute staggered, gurgled, and collapsed.
A hush fell.
The enemy began to retreat—not panicked, but as if called away. The war priest backed into the trees, chanting once more. The black mist followed.
Zaruko breathed hard, blood dripping from his chin. Around him, warriors exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
The first clash was over.
But this was no victory. It was a test.
From the forge, a voice echoed through the stone walls—not with words, but presence. Ogou had not intervened, but his hammer stirred. The air smelled of metal and ash.
Above, the clouds darkened.
More gods would come.
And this time, they wouldn't just watch.
Zaruko stood in the thick of the battlefield, chest rising and falling with shallow, ragged breaths. His side throbbed where the berserker's club had struck him, the bruise already forming beneath his skin like a brand of defiance. Blood trickled from a gash across his brow, blurring one eye. Around him, warriors moved in silence—tending to the wounded, collecting arrows, retrieving the dead.
Some knelt beside fallen comrades, whispering prayers not to gods, but to the earth itself. Others stared into the trees, as if expecting another wave at any moment.
But none came.
Only the crackling of dying torches and the distant rumble of the forge filled the air.
Jinba approached, dragging a limp enemy by the arm. "Caught one breathing. Barely."
Zaruko nodded and wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand. "Bind him. Keep him away from the others."
"We don't question prisoners," Jinba said, voice low.
"We do now."
The enemy had left too easily. As if the attack had never been about victory—but about measurement. Testing Kan Ogou. Testing him.
Maela crouched beside one of their own, pressing cloth to a boy's shoulder wound. She glanced up at Zaruko, her face hard but calm. "We lost eight."
Zaruko's jaw tightened. "We could've lost everyone."
He turned toward the forge, which still pulsed in the distance. That golden-red column of heat and power continued to rise into the sky like a beacon—or a challenge. The fire did not diminish. If anything, it grew hotter, brighter. Ogou's forge was awake.
The tribe gathered as dawn broke.
They met near the central circle where judgment was once passed, where decisions that defined their people were made. The old stones were now etched with new carvings—Ogou's tools, the rising flame, Zaruko's sigil. Not because Zaruko had ordered it, but because the people had begun to believe on their own.
He stood on the raised platform of rock, wrapped in a bloodied cloak, hair damp with sweat and smoke. Around him, dozens of faces looked up—some hopeful, some scarred, some still afraid.
"The enemy is not just a tribe," he said. "They are something more. Something broken. They feel no pain, they chant the name of a god who walks in silence and shadow."
He paused.
"But they were stopped."
Murmurs passed through the crowd.
"Because of your hands," he continued. "Your strength. Your traps. Your blades. You held the line."
A cheer broke out—small at first, then louder.
"But," Zaruko raised a hand and it stilled the noise, "this was only the beginning. They now know who we are. And they will return."
He turned toward the forge, its plume still visible even through the trees. "And when they do, they will find more than warriors."
He looked at the youths, the elders, the artisans. "They'll find iron. Flame. Purpose. We are no longer just a village."
He raised his axe. "We are Kan Ogou."
The people responded—not with words, but a rising chant. Low and rhythmic. Feet stamping. Hands over hearts.
Kan Ogou. Kan Ogou. Kan Ogou.
Zaruko didn't smile. His mind remained on the black mist. The war priest. The strange resistance in the enemy's eyes—as if their souls were shackled to something older.
He left the platform and walked to the prisoner's hut alone.
Inside, the captive lay bound, one eye swollen shut, but alive. His chest rose and fell in shallow waves. Blood stained his mouth.
Zaruko crouched beside him.
"You were not here to win," he said quietly. "You were here to test."
The man didn't respond.
Zaruko leaned closer. "Who speaks to you in the dark?"
The man's good eye rolled toward him. His voice, when it came, was dry as bone. "The One Who Does Not Burn."
Zaruko's skin crawled.
The man laughed—more cough than sound. "He waits in the jungle where even flame fails. You are not his fire."
Zaruko stood. "No. I'm not. I am Ogou's flame."
He turned, but the man whispered one more thing as Zaruko reached the door.
"He sees you, fireborn. And he will extinguish you."
Zaruko said nothing.
Outside, the sun had risen. The sky was painted gold, but streaked with stormclouds gathering again in the west.
That night, he stood at the temple again. The entrance glowed. Heat wafted out like breath.
The forge roared—not just with flame, but with will.
Zaruko stepped inside and walked toward the center, where a massive anvil glowed faintly. Behind it, Ogou's hammer rested on a rack of black stone.
Zaruko knelt, not in worship, but in remembrance.
"I know you won't fight for us," he said aloud. "Not yet. But we are fighting in your name. You chose me. And I choose them."
He stood. "We need more. Not answers. Not gifts. Just time. Hold the fire steady."
He paused, then chuckled dryly. "Or yell at me. Something."
No reply came.
Just the steady, pounding rhythm of the forge.
Zaruko turned and left. Behind him, the hammer vibrated once—just slightly.
In the following days, the warriors trained harder. The forgeworkers grew stronger, guided in dreams by instinct they didn't understand. Tools improved. Blades lengthened. A few even experimented with armor—boiled leather over bone.
No more worship songs were taught. But now, at night, children repeated stories they'd heard around the fire.
Of a god with a hammer who once built a mountain with his bare hands.
Of a man marked by flame, born across worlds.
Of a village that did not break, even when the darkness crept close.
Zaruko watched it all, quietly.
Kan Ogou was no longer simply surviving.
It was becoming something more.
Something dangerous.
Something divine.