He had been watching for days. Weeks, maybe.
Hidden in the high canopy of a dying kapok tree, the scout from the Red-Clawed tribe crouched in silence, eyes fixed on the strange people below. He had been sent to confirm the ruin of Ikanbi—to report back that their little rebellion had failed, that their fire had gone cold. But what he saw… defied every tribal rule he knew.
There were no chiefs bellowing orders. No drums. No daily sacrifices or victory chants. Instead, the tribe moved like a beast without a head—yet somehow with a single pulse.
And that terrified him.
I. Strange Movements
Every morning, before the sun had kissed the treetops, they rose. The warriors.
Not to eat. Not to chant. Not even to sharpen their weapons.
They ran.
Four groups, spread out across clearings beyond the village, moved in eerie silence. No one barked commands. No one set the rhythm. Yet they moved in unison—falling to the ground, pressing their bodies up, rolling, standing, sprinting, again and again. He didn't know the purpose.
"Are they punishing themselves?" he whispered, scribbling onto bark.
Then the food arrived.
Women—not warriors—brought steaming bowls of food to each group. They were silent, too. Each group ate alone, away from the tribe. No communal fire. No shared pot.
That was the first sign something was deeply wrong with Ikanbi.
II. Disappearances
Then it happened.
At the peak of their morning madness, as the sweat clung to their skins and steam rose from their backs, they began to vanish.
One by one.
No smoke. No flash. No sound. Just… gone.
The scout rubbed his eyes. Then again—another disappeared mid-roll, vanishing as his body curled. Another blinked out as he ran. Another was just standing there—then nothing.
He nearly fled. This was sorcery. Dangerous.
But then, hours later—they came back.
Not all at once. No, that would have made sense.
One appeared beside the stream and dropped to his knees, drinking water until he vomited, weeping between gulps.
Another came back curled like a baby and began whispering a name over and over. He didn't stop for nearly an hour.
A third reappeared already mid-run and kept going straight into a tree before collapsing and laughing.
"What in the world is this place…" the scout murmured.
III. A Tribe Without Chaos
He expected a scolding. Punishment. Tribal order.
But no one beat these strange warriors. No one questioned their madness. They were allowed to break down, to scream, to cry—and then to return to training the next day.
He couldn't understand.
In his tribe, you showed weakness once and were thrown into the fray to die. But here… the broken returned stronger.
The next morning, the same cycle happened. Training. Vanishing. Madness. Then silence.
He began to name them in his head: The Weeper. The Runner. The Screamer. The Smiler. All returned, all strange, all… unbroken.
IV. The God Who Walks
And then he saw him.
The tall figure with smoke-dark skin and pale glowing eyes. He didn't walk from the jungle. He appeared. And when he lifted his hand, the entire militia vanished at once.
No movement. No sound. Just a wave—and they were gone.
The scout nearly fell from his perch.
He had heard tales of gods. But this one… this one didn't act like any god his people revered. He didn't ask for worship. He didn't demand blood. He only trained them. Broke them.
And they came back changed.
Stronger.
Worse.
V. Fear and Revelation
By the end of the second week, the scout could barely write. His bark notes were filled with trembling glyphs:
"They do not shout, but they move together."
"They vanish into another world and return."
"They cry. And yet they are stronger than before."
"They follow a god who doesn't ask for sacrifice—only endurance."
"This is not training. This is transformation."
On the fifteenth day, the scout saw a warrior—one of the Weepers—return with calm in his eyes. He no longer cried. He stood at attention, straight-backed, and began leading others in movement.
The scout dropped his charcoal.
"They are… multiplying."
VI. Final Thoughts
The Red-Clawed scout didn't know if what he was seeing was magic, madness, or the future.
But as he climbed down from the tree that night, he muttered to himself, voice low and broken:
"They are not a tribe anymore.
They are becoming something worse than an army.
They are becoming believers."
The days passed, and no one vanished again.
The eerie waves of disappearance—the vanishing warriors and their ghostlike returns—had stopped. But that did not bring the scout peace. No. What followed was worse.
Because this was what he did not understand.
The madness had order.
The silence had rhythm.
The chaos… had become harmony.
I. A Tribe Without a Chief
From his perch in the tree's shadowed canopy, the Red-Clawed scout watched the Ikanbians rise before dawn—again and again.
Each warrior group had their own space now, set apart like small nests of discipline. They gathered with the same focus, same patterns. They ran. They dropped. They lifted their bodies. They climbed. They did it without being told.
He saw no chief shouting at them. No beating of drums. No punishment sticks. Yet they trained harder than any soldiers he had seen under a warlord.
"Who gives the orders?" he whispered into his bark scroll.
No answer.
And none came.
II. The People's Joy
It was the non-warriors that baffled him next.
The tribe had… peace.
Fires glowed beside every home now—small, controlled, and personal. People cooked their own food, shared it with kin. No great central feast. No fight over portions. And yet, everyone ate.
Fish farms by the river shimmered with silver. Children played near pens where they raised wild beasts—beasts!—with names and collars.
He saw laughter. Not celebration of death or conquest, but of… life.
A girl danced barefoot beside her home, clapping her hands while her mother stirred something bubbling over a flat stone.
He could smell the food even from here.
Rich. Spiced. Alive.
"They should be starving," he muttered. "They are primitive."
And yet, they were not.
They were thriving.
III. Discipline Without Whips
Every day, the warriors trained—separate groups, same movements. Each meal delivered by the same four women. No one complained. No one demanded more.
Even the youngest warriors—the newest from the shadow-ring—had begun to run without command. Their shoulders straightened. Their eyes sharpened. They belonged.
The scout saw one girl pause after training and help another carry food. Not out of weakness. Not because she was told. But because it was right.
His hand trembled on the bark.
"They obey nothing. And yet they obey everything."
He had seen war. Blood. Rage.
But never structure without a tyrant.
Never growth without domination.
IV. Unease in His Bones
He found no enemy to hate. No clear leader to kill. No idol to desecrate. Only… a people who endured something he could not understand and emerged more focused with each breath.
A man appeared from one of the homes one morning—perhaps a warrior, perhaps not. He helped dig irrigation channels for the bamboo farms, speaking softly with a woman holding a baby. Later, he returned to a group of spear-wielding youths, correcting their form. He flowed between lives.
"They have no castes," the scout whispered. "They change roles like changing clothes."
And yet no confusion. No disorder.
V. His Final Thought
He scratched into bark one final time:
"They do not conquer.
They do not kill.
But they prepare.
Every day, they prepare.
For something only they seem to see."
He stared at the tribe as smoke rose from cooking stones, as laughter and drills shared the same air.
And in his chest, something twisted—fear not of what they had done, but of what they might become.
"They are a seed," he said aloud. "Not a storm. Not yet. But gods help us all when they bloom."
He had seen enough battles to know the way of things: the strong took what they wanted—food, shelter, and women. That was the order of the world.
But not here.
Not in Ikanbi.
From his perch, he watched one of the warriors—broad-shouldered, fast, a two-ring by the markings—finish training each day, then wait. Quietly. Patiently. Not for orders. Not for food. For a woman.
She would appear with water or meat, sometimes speaking, sometimes silent. And the warrior—this capable killer—would follow her like a pup. He obeyed her gestures. Her voice softened his eyes. And then, they would walk home together.
The scout narrowed his eyes.
"She gives the orders?"
Later, he saw another. A one-ring this time. He left the training grounds and ventured deep into the trees—alone. Hours passed before he returned with the carcass of a horned beast strapped across his back. But instead of claiming it as a prize, he laid it gently before a woman who sat weaving bark fibers near her fire.
She looked at the gift, then at him. Her face unreadable. She stood, touched his cheek, and said something the scout could not hear.
They laughed. He left without entering her home.
"He hunts… for permission?"
The scout stared, slack-jawed. Back in his own tribe, men took what they desired. Strength was license. Consent was weakness. A woman's resistance meant nothing.
But here?
Here, warriors fought beside women. Trained with them. Waited for them. Tried to earn them.
"Why don't they just take them?" he muttered aloud. "What kind of madness is this?"
No one answered. Only the low crackle of distant cooking fires.
In Ikanbi, power did not mean possession.
And the more he saw, the less he understood.