The heat of summer returned in full force, and with it, the Ikanbi moved like a people reborn. Where once the snow had silenced the earth, now the forest buzzed, the ground softened, and sweat marked every back. No longer huddled in survival, the tribe stretched, breathed, and built.
Sema crouched at the edge of the kiln pit, carefully lifting the small clay bowl from the hot stone nest. Her hands, though scarred from winter's labor, moved with care. The bowl was imperfect—slightly lopsided and faintly cracked near the base—but it was the first.
She turned to her helpers—girls who once gathered herbs or stirred pots—and held the creation above her head.
"The first of many," she said.
Behind her, small wooden spoons and flat-pronged forks were drying in the sun, carved by the younger militia in their off hours. Sema's command over utility matched her growing artistic eye. The people had not just survived—they were beginning to live.
On the far end of the tribe, near the lower ridges, smoke curled up from the metal pit. The Duru men, now refitted as Ikanbi laborers, hauled up baskets filled with crude black stones—iron ore. Ben stood nearby, arms folded, watching as Druel directed a young boy on the proper swing of a stone hammer. Sparks danced, and soon the first small ingots of raw metal were laid out to cool on slabs of rock.
It was just the beginning—but it was a beginning.
A shout rose from the eastern edge. The Shadow Blades returned, their figures half-masked in dark paint and dried leaves. One of them stepped forward and knelt before Ben, unrolling a bundle of bark. Inside were strips of pale yellow fiber and a drawing etched in charcoal—a tree with spiral bark and sap that ran thick like glue.
"This is it?" Ben asked.
The scout nodded. "Exactly as she described it."
Ben handed the fibers to Mia, who had been waiting beside him with silent tension. Her fingers trembled as she took them, not from fear—but from purpose. She whispered her thanks and left to her small work corner. There, she began boiling the fibers, mashing them between stones, drying them, and weaving with trial and error. By nightfall, a single rough band of cloth hung from a wooden line—coarse, uneven, but real.
Ben said nothing. But his silence was approval.
The four militia camps now thrived with activity. The 150 new warriors, recently returned from the divine trials, had been divided evenly. Those who showed exceptional promise—or quiet ruthlessness—were sent into the shadows. The Shadow Blades now numbered more than 40, and their presence was a whisper between trees, training out of sight behind the bamboo grove near the god's home.
At the center of the tribe, Boji and a team of stoneworkers had begun reinforcing the inner fire pits. With metal in their future, the spiritual heat granted by Twa Milhoms needed vessels to hold and contain new flames. The new pit designs would allow future blacksmithing to merge spirit with material, sacred fire with forged blade.
Ben moved from task to task without rest. He ate little, slept rarely. He saw each stone laid, each bowl made, each fiber woven and each weapon swing in training. The tribe was growing—stronger, wiser.
From the cliffs above, Twa Milhoms watched the changing current of his people. Not with words. But with presence.
The age of stone had not ended.
But its edge had begun to sharpen.
Mia leaned back, sweat pouring from her brow, as she wove another strip of fiber into the crude loom she had lashed together from bent wood. The fiber from the spiral tree was coarse, but pliable when boiled long enough and beaten with flat stones. It took hours just to prepare a single strand, but the result—actual cloth—was worth the ache in her shoulders.
Sitting beside her, a younger Duru girl watched with wide eyes.
"Will we wear this?" the girl asked.
Mia nodded. "We will."
The girl smiled, brushing a strip of dry grass from her lap. "It's better than bone."
Mia chuckled quietly. "Everything is better than bone."
At that moment, Sema approached with a small clay pot in hand—one of her latest pieces, perfectly rounded, with a thin spiral etched around the rim. She placed it down next to Mia, exchanging a look that needed no words.
"We'll need more water storage if you're going to keep boiling all day," Sema said dryly.
Mia raised an eyebrow. "You just don't want me using your pots."
"They're tribe pots now."
A quiet pause passed between them. Then they both smiled—tired, but real.
Near the fire pits, the Duru continued hauling loads of ore. Druel barked out instructions, the boy beside him mimicking each movement with growing confidence. The fire roared hotter now, and two of the older Ikanbi, formerly hunters, had been tasked with shaping stone molds for primitive casting. They poured molten metal into the first one—a small blade meant for carving rather than war.
Still, it gleamed.
At the Shadow Blade compound, hidden behind the god's bamboo grove, the whispers of combat echoed faintly. The trainees there did not train in formation like the militia. Their work was quieter—more lethal. They moved through fog and leaves like ghosts. Even Mia could barely sense their presence anymore, and she lived near the edge.
Ben walked the perimeter at dusk. Watching. Measuring. Not every plan had bloomed yet, but the roots were spreading.
Later that night, as the fires dimmed and the tribe settled into rest, a soft breeze rolled across the camp.
Near the drying line, Mia draped her half-finished tunic. She stepped back and looked at it—not as a woman trying to seduce a man or earn a place, but as a builder. A maker. Someone who created something from nothing.
Sema passed her again on the way back from the clay kiln and stopped beside her.
"You know," she said, "you're not who I thought you were."
Mia didn't respond right away. She stared at the rough cloth, her eyes distant.
"Neither are you."
And in the quiet of a world that once tried to kill them, two women stood side by side—survivors remaking their fate.
While Sema shaped clay and Mia wove fiber, life across Ikanbi pulsed with new rhythm and quiet purpose. Though no drums beat to guide them, each Ikanbian moved with the invisible cadence of survival—fueled by warmth, food, and the will to build something lasting.
At the southern edge of the settlement, Jaron worked beside a group of one-ring warriors, instructing them not with words, but with repetition. They were erecting the new drying racks for fish and meat—an improvement on the old method that simply left food strung between branches. These new racks were elevated, covered with thatched palm for shade, and designed to channel smoke from fire pits upward to keep the meat preserved and insects away.
"Build with care," Jaron told them. "Every hand that eats will owe yours."
Near the western slope, where the soil was looser and damp from spring runoff, Enru led a team of young civilians planting the first wave of tubers. These were wild at first—brought in by scouts—but under Enru's guidance, the tribe had begun softening the earth, watering with intention, and spacing the plants to encourage future yield.
"Farming's not in our blood," one boy grumbled.
"It will be in our bellies," Enru replied, calmly.
In the east, near the place where the wind always whispered through the stone, an older woman named Ila—once a Red Claw prisoner—was teaching a group of children how to create dye from crushed roots and berries. She had painted a wall with simple tribal symbols: a ring, a god's eye, a long spiral that represented the seasons. The children added their own: stick figures holding hands, fire, a leaf.
They were forming culture.
At the fish pits, Boji stood on a large rock shouting instructions as warriors passed buckets of fish from one hand to the next. The summer warmth meant the tribe could fish more frequently—but also meant spoilage would come faster. His new plan? Salted drying, with smoke exposure and stone-cooled storage chambers buried beneath the camp.
He had already begun hollowing the first chamber.
Across the settlement, people were no longer simply surviving—they were specializing. Hunters became engineers. Weavers became designers. Farmers were born from warriors who lost the strength to lift a blade but not to lift a root. Knowledge passed from mouth to hand to soil.
And yet, not everything was work.
Children now played with wooden toys—crudely shaped dolls and carved beasts. The older boys tried to copy the warriors' training, falling in the dirt, laughing when they could not get up. One girl, with clever hands, was carving a flute.
And at night, for the first time in many moons, the Ikanbi sat around the fire not merely to warm—but to talk. To sing. To wonder.
Ben watched from the high ridge, arms folded, silent.
Below him was not the tribe he had inherited—but the one he had forged.