And still they tried.
A woman with frostbitten fingers held a sharpened bone knife between her teeth as she carried her child on her back through ankle-deep mud. Her tribe had fallen—scattered by one of the forest giants that now nested near their old spring. But she kept walking, kept cutting a path through brambles, because movement meant hope. Stopping meant death.
A young boy, no older than ten, crouched in the crook of a broken tree, watching a beast gnaw on his brother's remains below. He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He just waited. For the beast to sleep. For the stars to return. For anything.
Across the hills, a warband of starving hunters stumbled into a weaker camp and killed without warning. They took everything—tools, meat, even the thatch used for roofing. But they did not celebrate. They simply chewed in silence, eyes empty, already wondering where their next kill would come from.
These were the lives of those without fire from the gods.
Those who had not been chosen.
And to the beasts, their struggle was meaningless.
They prowled the same lands. Scaled the same cliffs. Drank from the same thawed rivers. The only difference was that beasts did not build, did not hope, did not remember. They acted. They devoured. They ruled.
One such beast—a towering, six-limbed horror with slick fur and a flat, snapping face—dragged an entire elk carcass across the high cliffs west of the Ikanbi border. It paused only to lift its head and sniff the wind.
It smelled people.
And it smiled.
Farther east, near a ridge laced with obsidian outcroppings, another monstrosity unfurled its wings for the first time since the frost. Its eyes blinked in different directions. Its chest rose with a low growl that rippled through the roots of the trees. It hadn't fed since before the snow came.
Now, it would.
—
But not all lands were ruled by death alone.
There was a quiet space carved between madness and mercy—where the Ikanbi now built.
Their fires did not burn wood, but warmth still lived in them.
Their warriors did not hoard, but shared without hesitation.
Their chief did not rule with cruelty, but watched—always watched—for the threats that crept close.
And those threats… were coming.
But the Ikanbi would be ready.
Because unlike the others, they did not face the world alone.
They had each other.
And they had Twa Milhoms.
Even if he never spoke.
Even if he never warned.
His warmth still burned.
And so they built.
But inside Ikanbi's walls, the silence between storms had grown.
The tribe moved with purpose. More shelters rose. More drills resumed. The people had begun to smile again—not wide, not often, but enough to mark the change in season.
Ben, however, did not.
He moved like a shadow from fire pit to shelter, from planning circle to training ground, from scout reports to late-night observation of the hills beyond. His expression stayed calm. Focused. Unreadable.
Mia watched him every day.
From the edge of the central circle where the Red Clawed and Duru were now housed, she kept her gaze fixed on him. Not with awe. Not with worship. With strategy.
He rarely spoke more than a few words at a time. He never lingered. He gave out no extra food, no praise, and no hint of preference.
And yet—every warrior looked to him before moving. Every elder nodded when he passed. Even the children fell silent when he stood still.
He didn't ask for power.
But the tribe bent around him.
She had never seen that before.
Not in the Duru tunnels where might ruled. Not in the camps of the wild tribes where chaos reigned. And certainly not in the eyes of men she had once tricked, threatened, or tempted.
Ben was different.
And that terrified her more than she cared to admit.
—
That morning, she had braided her hair tighter, bound her hide wrap in a way that revealed more than protected, and waited just outside the path that led to the stone ring where he reviewed militia reports.
She didn't speak at first.
She simply waited.
When he passed, she followed.
"Ben," she said quietly.
He stopped. Turned. Waited.
"You haven't said much since… that day."
"I've had much to think about," he replied. "And more to prepare for."
She stepped closer.
"Then let me be part of it. Of the preparing. The building. Something."
He looked at her, not cruelly, not kindly. Just… clearly.
"Why?" he asked.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Then opened again.
"Because I'm not just a mouth or hips. I've survived more winters than some of your marked. I know how people think. How they fall apart. How they hold on."
Ben studied her for a long moment.
"You're not ready yet," he said. "But maybe one day."
And with that, he turned and walked down the path toward the edge of the settlement, where scouts waited with new reports about movement beyond the southern trees.
Mia stood alone.
But the cold in her chest wasn't disappointment.
It was something else.
A flicker of respect.
And beneath that… the spark of resolve.
She would not be dismissed forever.
Not by snow. Not by beasts. And not by him.
The snow had begun to recede in thick sheets, curling back to reveal wet, black earth. Ikanbi stirred with a new rhythm—shelters being rebuilt stronger, new stone tools shaped with precision, and food caches dug deeper. The tribe was growing, reshaping. And so too, was its strength.
At the center of it all stood Ben, six-ring warrior, chief in all but title, eyes always on what came next.
Kael, Mala, Jaron, and Enru remained at his side—commanders shaped by war and fire. The militia divisions they oversaw had recovered from winter with renewed grit. Training resumed in steady cycles. Patrols expanded. But something new was rising alongside the old.
A path beyond even the fifth ring.
They called it The Outer Edge.
Not a title. A burden.
A mark of those who would face the wilds without formation, without ranks, without echo.
It began with thirteen.
Thirteen warriors who had survived the long winter and crossed into the fifth ring. Their marks were still fresh above their left brows—each a bold "V" enclosed in the sacred rope circle of the Ikanbi.
Ben called them at dawn.
No horns. No crowd. Just the sound of leather straps tightening and blades being checked.
The warriors stood in a semicircle before him—weathered, silent, aware that today was no ordinary summons.
Behind Ben stood the four commanders. To his left, a stone table with thirteen carved slates lay waiting.
Each slate bore the etched form of a beast—drawn with charcoal and sharpened bone, crudely but clearly. Alongside each image were notations: size, tracks, rumored location, signs of aggression.
Ben stepped forward.
"You have reached the fifth ring," he said. "That is no longer rare. This tribe is not like others. We grow."
He picked up the first tablet.
"But growth must be sharpened. Strength must be shaped."
He handed the slate to a broad-shouldered woman named Roa, known for breaking a stone boar's spine during the famine raids.
"This is your beast," he said. "You have seven days."
No one asked questions. No one bowed.
He moved down the line, handing out each slate with the same measured pause, the same eye contact. As if reading something deeper than the skin.
Some received tasks that would lead them deep into the eastern cliffs. Others, into frozen marshes where scaled horrors nested. One tablet bore the image of a beast so rarely seen it had no name—only a pair of spiraled horns and a trail of shredded bark.
When the last slate was given, Ben stepped back.
"You do not compete," he said. "You survive. You return. Whole."
"And if we don't?" one younger warrior asked quietly.
Ben's voice dropped. "Then the cold did not kill you. But the world did."
The thirteen nodded.
At sunrise, they left—no escort, no ceremony. Just wind at their backs and sharpened eyes.
The tribe watched in silence as they disappeared into the trees.
Behind them, Kael stepped to Ben's side.
"What if none return?" he asked.
Ben's gaze didn't move from the woods.
"Then we wait," he said. "And listen. And try again. But they will return."
He didn't say it with hope.
He said it with certainty.