The plain was cracked and barren—earth scorched black by centuries of tribal fire rites. At its heart, five fires blazed high, each fed with the bones of the dead and the cries of the living. Around them, the Confederacy gathered—not in unity, but in shared hatred.
The leaders of the surrounding tribes circled each other like beasts too proud to bow and too starved to retreat. Scarred chests bare, feathers and fangs in their hair, they snarled beneath crude wooden masks and bone-wrapped blades. There were no pleasantries. Only growls. Only hunger.
From the Bloodtooth tribe, a towering woman with jagged tattoos across her ribs spat into the fire and hissed, "You all speak of war, yet you fear Ikanbi like it's a god. It is just another tribe."
From the Ash Skulls, a hunched elder banged his club of knotted roots and whispered, "No. It is not. They are… different."
"Different?" mocked the Bonefire chief. "They bleed the same."
"Do they?" said another voice. Quiet, almost broken. A young war shaman, trembling behind his paint. "I saw one. He moved through the trees like mist. Cut a tuskbeast in half. His weapon didn't look like stone."
The elder slapped him across the mouth. "Speak that lie again, and you'll be bled dry before the fire."
But the seed of fear had been planted.
From behind them, shadows moved.
And gods arrived.
Not with glory. Not with beauty. They came snarling, writhing—gods of hunger and rot. Smoke-black skin, spines like thorns, mouths wet with spit and blood. Each one draped in old war paint, each more beast than divine. Their presence silenced the tribes. Their eyes turned southward, toward the jungle.
Toward Ikanbi.
The Plan
Bone maps carved in the dirt. Blood splattered over boundaries. Fingers stabbed into symbols.
"Four militia camps. Four strikes."
"We send 1,200."
"They won't expect it. They sleep too soft now."
"And the rest?"
"Hold them. Until the center breaks. Then 800 more warriors fall like fire from the sky."
"They will drown in numbers."
They chanted the phrase like a promise. They will drown in numbers.
Drums were carved from the skins of ancestors. Spears sharpened and soaked in venom. War beasts were dragged from cages—horned hogs with bloodshot eyes, panthers drugged into frenzy, men covered in filth and screaming.
Night after night, they danced and howled and burned offerings to their twisted gods. War songs tore the air.
All of Ayesha heard them.
Rituals of Madness
A child was thrown into the fire to bless the spears.
Warriors drank from skulls to earn their god's gaze.
One of the gods whispered into a war chief's ear, his breath rotting the skin.
"You will eat Ikanbi. You will eat its god."
The March
When the drums stopped, the warriors moved.
They did not whisper. They did not hide. The jungle knew they were coming—the trees quaked, birds scattered, and silence followed them like death's breath.
The tribes of the Confederacy had turned into a storm.
Thousands of feet pounded the earth.
Thousands of weapons caught the moonlight.
Thousands of eyes burned with one thought: devour.
Yet from the upper canopy, high among the branches of a banyan tree, a figure watched in silence.
He was just one man. No drum. No weapon. No war cry.
Only dark eyes under a hood of leaves. A Shadow Blade.
He vanished with the wind, leaving no trace.
But Ikanbi would know.
They would be ready.
And the jungle… would fight back.
The jungle held its breath.
As word of the approaching storm reached the heart of Ikanbi, Ben stood atop the central ridge, his gaze fixed southward. Smoke from the enemy's fires curled into the sky far in the distance—spirals of arrogance and bloodlust.
But Ben… he hesitated.
Not in fear.
In weight.
He saw the whole board—his militia camps, the civilians, the forests, the river, the graves of the fallen twelve. And now thousands were coming to undo it all.
For a moment, his hand lingered above the command stone. His lips parted but no sound came.
Then—
A voice behind him.
Firm. Calm. Unshaken.
"You are not just the warrior of this tribe, Ben. You are its judge. Its builder. Its wrath."
Twa Milhoms stood beside him—not as a glowing phantom, not wrapped in mysticism or storms, but barefoot, dressed in simple cloth, arms crossed as though he had always been there.
Ben exhaled slowly.
He nodded once.
"Then let it begin."
The Silent Order
From under the tree canopies, in the cracks between root and shadow, they moved.
The Unlisted—the unmarked Shadow Blades, not part of Ikanbi's visible forces, their identities known only to Ben and Khol. Their orders came by whisper, and their actions carried no glory—only results.
Five of them peeled off into the trees.
One crawled into the mud near a crossing.
Two more climbed into the trees above a jungle trail, where enemy scouts would pass.
And the last four—painted like wildmen, their skin streaked with filth and blood—blended into the enemy's ranks, walking barefoot, mimicking madness, their eyes dead and empty.
They would not strike now.
They would wait.
And when the drums shifted—when the signal came—they would burn the enemy from within.
The Blades Unleashed
The four commanders—Kael of Stone Fang, Mala of Ash Wind, Jaron of Blood Root, and Enru of Iron Sky—received the same message from Ben, carried by runners at twilight:
"Send every five-ring warrior. Stop their march. Disrupt the flow. Cut the limbs before the body arrives."
There was no ceremony. No names shouted. Just nods.
The camps stirred like stirred anthills.
The Thirteen, the original elite five-rings, armed now with newer iron weapons and sharpened discipline, met at the north ridge.
Others joined—newly marked, blood-tested warriors hardened in the trials.
Silent.
Dead-eyed.
Hungry.
Ben walked among them, placing a hand on each shoulder. He said no words.
Twa Milhoms followed behind him.
When the last warrior knelt, Ben finally spoke:
"No prisoners. No messages. Break them before they arrive."