The wind had not yet scattered the ash from the war before new tension settled over Ikanbi.
At the edge of the bamboo forest, fresh earth marked the graves of the fallen. Just beyond the Trial Chamber, a second stone structure had appeared—its origin unspoken, but its function now understood. The Sacrificial Chamber had accepted the bodies of the enemy warriors, and the hum that followed confirmed what the people now believed: this land answered blood with power.
When its door shut behind the last body, the warriors who had fought stepped forward to receive their fate.
Ben stood first among them, feeling the sear of a fourth ring form above his left brow—shaped in Roman numeral IV. It was not pain that made him fall to a knee, but the realization of responsibility that followed.
His core commanders—Kael, Jaron, Mala, and now Enru—each bore the mark of three rings. Behind them, dozens of warriors stirred with new weight in their bones. Some, once unmarked, now bore the single-ring glow of a warrior. Others, hardened through trial, advanced to two rings.
Not all had been marked, but none were forgotten.
And from the shadow-ring—the new arrivals from the broken god Eratu's line—some, too, had risen. Those who fought with honor bore new marks or rings. Their eyes shone with awe, confusion, and something else—doubt.
The markings, after all, came from a god not their own.
The chain of command was restructured the next day.
Ben gathered them under the pale sky, using a drawn diagram on flattened bark and charcoal ash to lay out the new order:
"One-ring warriors," he began, "will lead twelve marked warriors with no rings.
Two-ring warriors command two one-rings and their full squads—that's twenty-four total under you.
Three-rings lead four two-rings, and by extension, forty-eight warriors.
And I… I am the fourth ring. There is no one above me but the truth of our god and the needs of our people."
He let the words sink in before continuing.
"No rank is just privilege. It's weight. It means when food runs low, your men eat first. When war comes, you step forward first. You are not lords—you are shields."
The warriors listened. Some puffed with pride. Others stood heavy with thought.
The shadow-ring members—those still not fully integrated—watched from the perimeter. Some whispered among themselves. Others stared at their newly marked kin with a mix of admiration and unease.
One of them, a tall woman named Vema, leaned toward Enru.
"They rise in a god's favor who is not ours. Do they still belong to us?"
Enru did not answer immediately. Then he turned, the new mark on his brow clear.
"We belong to survival. If you can live under a dead god's memory, do so. I choose the one who feeds our children."
Beyond the Ikanbi borders, another fire burned.
In the charred remains of the Red Claw scouting encampment, two survivors limped back to their tribe. Their faces bore ash and shame. The marks carved across their chests—symbols of victory and ferocity—were bloodied and smudged.
They had expected to find a tribe ripe for raiding. Instead, they found trained warriors. Discipline. Death.
Their chieftain, known only as Karkuun the Flayer, stood atop a rising stone dais. His armor was made of the flesh of former enemies, sun-dried and hardened.
When he saw the condition of his scouts, he said nothing at first.
But then he grinned, wide and cruel.
"At last," he growled, "a hunt worthy of our name."
He raised one clawed hand toward the distant horizon.
"We will not burn them. We will break them. One warrior at a time."
Back in Ikanbi, the mood was shifting. The militia trained harder. The civilians listened more carefully to the rhythm of drills. And at the edge of the main camp, the shadow-ring newcomers built silently, still unsure if they were guests or exiles.
Ben sat at the top of the hill, overlooking both camps. Behind him, the bamboo forest swayed, but no voice came from Twa Milhoms.
He didn't need it.
"We're not what we were when we started," he whispered to the wind. "But we're not yet what we must become."
He stood, the mark of four rings shining against the dying sun.
"So we'll become it."
And from below, the drills resumed—the synchronized beat of feet on dirt, weapons drawn, breath controlled.
Ikanbi was no longer just a tribe.
It was becoming a force.
Tension was no longer an invisible thread—it had become a taut rope stretched across the hearts of the camp.
The warriors from the shadow ring, though strong from survival, struggled with the daily rituals of the Ikanbi militia. The routines were foreign, rigid, and—most of all—unquestioned by those who had trained under Ben since the beginning.
Each dawn, the Ikanbi militia moved as one. They circled the cleared earth barefoot, lungs burning from sprints. They fell to the ground in rhythm, arms shaking through push-ups. They leapt into the air, swung their limbs in strange ways, repeated movements taught by Ben and once shown by the silent god.
The shadow ring warriors—Enru's men and women—tried to follow. But their bodies were trained for ambush and flight, not this endless repetition. They whispered among themselves:
"Why leap like frogs at sunrise?"
"Why must we run in circles with no enemy chasing us?"
"Why does a warrior eat beside a weaker one as if there is no difference?"
Their complaints were not shouted. Not even shared with Enru. But they were felt—in the slowed movements, the tired eyes, the quiet refusals when ordered to eat after training as one.
Enru noticed.
He watched one of his own fall behind during a run, then abandon the drill altogether. Another refused food that Sema had prepared, saying it was wrong to eat in groups like animals when a warrior should eat alone to keep his edge.
The Ikanbi-born soldiers noticed, too. They had spent moons learning not just to fight, but to endure together—no words, just movement. No pride, only discipline.
A rift began to grow.
Ben was told by Kael, who had seen a shadow ring man drop from formation and laugh when no one stopped him.
"Should I punish him?" Kael had asked.
Ben had only said, "Not yet."
That evening, Enru approached Ben by the central fire pit, where meals were passed hand to hand.
"They don't understand," Enru admitted. "Not because they're unwilling. But because they've never had a reason to obey something that wasn't life or death."
Ben stirred the fire with a stick, thinking.
"They think this is training for war," Ben said. "But it's not. It's training for trust. If we only train for battle, we'll fall when peace comes."
Enru was silent for a long time before nodding.
The next morning, before the run, Enru stepped forward and faced his group.
"You followed me from a dying god's silence," he said, voice steady. "Now you must follow this. Not because you're told, but because we must become one body if we're to survive what's coming."
He joined the run that day—not as a leader, but as one of them. He barked encouragements. He pushed the slowest forward. He collapsed into the dust when the drills ended, breathless, sweat-stained, but smiling.
Slowly, others followed.
Push-ups became less clumsy. Jumping jacks lost their confusion. Eating in silence after training no longer felt humiliating—it felt earned.
Not all converted. But the change had begun.
That night, as Sema stirred a clay pot of stew and passed it along, no one refused. The firelight danced on faces that had once looked away from one another. They now watched. Waited. Learned.
Ikanbi was not just growing.
It was changing its blood.
One breath at a time.