CHAPTER TWO
The Coward
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
On the far side of the camp, Kalayo sat cross-legged with the others, his broad frame hunched over something in his hands. He shaped a lump of river mud into smooth curves, pressing and turning it with calloused fingers. Dayang hesitated before approaching, watching the way his eyes kept drifting toward the shore, where Abo and Rayo stood talking in low voices.
"What are you shaping?" She asked, crouching beside him.
He turned the form in his hands. It looked something like a fish. "Keeps the hands from forgetting how to kill," he muttered.
Dayang studied his work with quiet surprise. "I didn't take you for a potter. Those hands seem better suited for snapping bones."
Kalayo didn't smile. "Used to make these for my little brother. He cried unless he had something to hold." His thumb pressed too hard, the form caved in. "Always fell apart before they dried proper."
Kalayo's gaze returned to Abo. His fingers shaped the mud again, but this time, into something like a child's clutching hand. Kalayo's hands went still, and Dayang noticed. "If the rains had come that year," Kalayo said quietly, "Maybe we all would've turned out different."
Her eyes followed his. "Back on the boat... when you dared Abo to kill you," Dayang said quietly. "Did you mean it? I know it's not my place, but... there's something wrong with him. Not just dangerous—off. The way he fights—"
Kalayo's hands trembled, his grip tightened around the air. "He killed my sibling."
Dayang nodded slowly, then she twisted the knife. "He saved you, though." She let that linger.
"When the storm came. When your boat capsized, and you lost your men... It was Abo who swam for you. Even with the currents tearing us apart. He heard you through the thunder. He went in. The rest of us were too afraid."
She turned her head, her voice was almost a whisper. "You owe your life to the same hands that took your loved one."
He crushed the clay in his palm, mud oozed through his fingers. A firefly drifted near the flames, its glow flickered once, then vanished in the heat.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The Riverfront Assault
The village stood on stilts above the swamp, its huts swaying slightly in the salty wind. Rope walkways linked the structures, and smoke from cooking fires drifted above the thatched roofs. Fishnets hung out to dry beside red-painted shields, and spears leaned against the stilts.
And at the edge of the shallows: sentries. Not many, not enough, but hardened. Bare-chested men stood marked with soot and bone ash, their skin inked with tattoos from old battles. Trophies hung from their necks, teeth, ears, and beads made from enemy bones. They held their bows drawn, silent and steady.
Then came the low groan of wood on water.
Longboats emerged from the mouth of the river. Warriors stood at the front, tense, their eyes sharp and alert. The raiders were marked in war-paint, thick black ink winding across their skin in lines and curves. Their bodies formed walking canvases: boar tusks inked across their ribs, crocodile-scale patterns running down their backs in clean geometric shapes, and hawk feathers drawn beneath their eyes. Some wore bone earrings or shark teeth through their septums, while others had teeth filed to sharp points and lips stained with soot.
Lime was smeared across their foreheads and cheeks, making their faces look like skulls in the dark.
"They're painted!" someone shouted from the village.
"The Painted Ones!" another cried, panic rising in his throat.
"They've come down from the highlands!"
At the center of the lead canoe, him. His white hair was braided tight, and a long scar cut across his face, crooked and sharp, like something left behind by lightning. His blind eyes were cloudy white, touched with a hint of blue. His head tilted slightly, as if he were listening to something in the wind.
The sentries froze. One man, taller than the rest, dropped his arrow. His voice cracked as he staggered back. "It's him. It's the bastard!"
Another turned pale. "He's supposed to be dead."
Another whispered, voice shaking, "The white-haired curse... they said he burned."
No one in these islands was born like that, not naturally, not without omens.
A third screamed, spit flying, bow shaking in his grip. "He's back! Spirits damn him! He's come back!"
They remembered.
The butcher of their cousins in the eastern marshes. The boy-ghost with blind eyes and a smile full of teeth. Who walked into a wedding feast and slit the bride open from navel to throat. Who danced through fire with bones for drums. The one who, when pinned through the thigh by a spear, laughed so loud the children started crying before the blood even reached the ground.
And now he was here.
Not a ghost.
Not a rumor.
Alive.
"Unfortunately." Abo raised one hand and smiled, teeth flashing wet in the firelight.
Then—
The sky howled.
Arrows shot out from the huts. One of the canoe's rowers jerked, his throat vanishing in a red spray. Another screamed and tipped overboard, his blood spread in the warm water around him, thin and red.
"Shields!" barked Datu Rayo.
The Painted raised their shields together in a tight formation. They overlapped the edges, tilting them slightly forward to deflect incoming strikes. The wood thudded as it absorbed the impact of steel-tipped arrows and blades. The impact was the sound of drums being struck at once.
Rayo flung a fire arrow high, its arc cut across the night like a comet. A moment later, chaos bloomed. Flames spread across the thatched roof, the fire crackled as it caught, the dry leaves ignited instantly. Screams broke out in the dark, chickens burst from their pens, and children cried nearby.
"Hold position!" Rayo bellowed, standing tall in the prow of his canoe.
The sentries broke. Some tried to douse the fire, others ran to reinforce the riverfront. They left the rear unguarded, exactly as planned.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The Gate from Within
Smoke curled into the sky. Kalayo saw it first, thick smoke rising behind the rooftops. It was the signal, the fire had caught in the thatched roofs. The defenders had fallen for the bait and gone to the riverfront. It was time. He gave the hand signal, and his team advanced through the last stretch of swamp.
They moved quietly through the waist-deep water. Kalayo's body was covered in mud, with black ash and roots helping to break up his shape. He stepped forward slowly and carefully, and four warriors followed beside and behind him. There weren't many of them, but they weren't just anyone; Abo had picked them himself.
Dayang: fast, ruthless, calculating. She'd once split a man's skull in the middle of a river raid without getting a drop of blood on her chest wrap.
Dagan: brutal and efficient. Always calm, unless Abo was near. He could break through a man's guard with two strikes and barely lose his breath.
Baybay: twitchy, reckless, but terrifying in close quarters. He carried three bolos, usually forgot which one he'd sharpened. He said that added to the thrill.
Tuglaw: didn't talk, didn't hesitate, and hit like a landslide.
But that wasn't the entire reason why Abo picked them, not really.
They moved through the lower part of the village. Bamboo stilts stood around them, slick with mold and softening from the fire, the walkways above shook with footsteps. They heard shouting, weapons clashing, and fire crackling overhead.
Most of the defenders had gone to meet Abo and Datu Rayo at the shore. Not all, though.
"Fewer guards doesn't mean none," Kalayo muttered.
They moved up. Two sentries sat on crates below the main stairs to the gate tower. They never got up; Dayang slid her blade under one man's jaw, while the other shouted once before Dagan smashed his head against a post.
The team moved up, splitting between the stilts and ladders. They regrouped on the main walkway that led to the large gate at the front wall; the gate was reinforced with bamboo slats and rattan rope, it wouldn't break unless someone opened it from inside.
More defenders showed up, these ones were ready, they wore bone and hide armor. Their eyes were wide with panic, but they knew how to fight. They clashed. Weapons slammed into shields, shouts and snarls filled the air. One of the warriors lunged at Baybay and struck his ribs with a glancing spear. Baybay shrieked, then laughed, bit the man's ear, and stabbed a dagger into his thigh until he stopped moving.
Dayang moved between two larger opponents. She used one man's weight to shove the other off balance, then ducked low and cut behind his knee. He dropped, and her second blade drove straight into his throat.
Tuglaw took an arrow to the chest, it barely slowed him down. He pulled it out and slammed his axe into the shooter's collarbone, the crack of splitting bone echoed through the compound.
But then, Kalayo saw it. A woman, maybe no older than Dayang, huddled in the corner of a raised hut. There was a young boy who gripped her hand. A son, perhaps. She wasn't armed, she didn't scream either. She just held the child tighter, eyes wide, too terrified to move.
Kalayo froze, his foot sank an inch deeper into the mud that wasn't there, only wood beneath him. Tuglaw saw them too. And more than that, he saw Kalayo watching them. Their eyes met for the briefest moment, then Tuglaw turned and walked toward the hut. He didn't raise his axe at first, just stood at the entrance, towering, staring down at the mother's hand.
"Leave them alone!" Kalayo barked. "Stick to the plan!"
"I am," Tuglaw said, his voice flat.
Then he tilted his head, just slightly, almost like a cue. The mother bolted, and Tuglaw cleaved the child in half, right in front of Kalayo. The child, with empty eyes that mirrored his soul, didn't scream; no one screamed for him.
Tuglaw stepped back and flicked the blood from his axe, spraying it across the bamboo wall. His face showed nothing, no pride, no anger, just a sense of being done. Kalayo opened his mouth, but no sound came; the words were stuck in his throat.
A sudden movement pulled his attention. A defender came in fast from the side, silent and focused, machete aimed at Kalayo's neck. Kalayo's body tensed, but he was too slow. His thoughts were still stuck on the child's empty eyes. Before the blade could land, Baybay threw his weight into Kalayo, knocking him aside, the machete missed by inches.
Baybay stumbled and reached for the bolos at his side. His fingers grabbed one and yanked it free, but when he saw the blade, his face fell. It was the dull one, the unsharpened bolo he always forgot to replace. The defender turned back, machete raised again. Baybay swung first, but the blade bounced off the enemy's armor with a weak clink.
The defender thrust a sharpened bamboo spike straight into his chest. It went through bone, through his back, clean and fast. Baybay choked out a breath and collapsed, blood leaking from his mouth as he hit the ground. "Baybay!" Kalayo shouted, pushing up to his feet. They had fought together before, Baybay was reckless, always rushing in, but it didn't make sense why he threw himself in the way. They weren't close, and they barely knew each other
Kalayo blocked a machete with his arm guard and stabbed forward with his bolo, hitting the attacker's gut. "Gate!" he yelled.
Dagan and Tuglaw reached it first. Dagan hacked at the binding cords while Tuglaw used his full weight to shoulder the ironwood shaft. Dayang ran interference, hurling a short spear into an archer on the rooftop.
The gate groaned, one cord snapped, another held. Another wave of warriors descended from the tower, five more, shouting and armed with curved blades. Kalayo moved to intercept. He slid under the first swing, sliced upward into the gut, then kicked the corpse into the next attacker's legs.
"Faster!" he yelled.
Tuglaw bellowed, took the gate lever in both hands, and twisted. Something cracked, then he gate shifted, and wind rushed through the split. The final cord gave way, and the front gates of the village burst inward. A wave of the Painted flooded through. Rayo's men, Abo amongst them.
Kalayo stepped back, panting, soaked in blood that wasn't his. A few men were down, and wounded, but the job was done. The village would fall, and the pillaging would begin.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The Fall Begins
The gates burst open, and the village echoed of war cries, steel clashing, as smoke filled the air. The Painted surged forward, howling like beasts. Faces smeared with soot and ink, they carved paths through the defenders while grabbing everything of value they could reach, while fire spread across the rooftops. This was a harvest, and they were reaping.
One raider kicked down a hut door and dragged out jars of salt pork. Another slit a screaming goat's throat and tossed its body over his shoulder. Ropes of dried fish, bronze trinkets, spears with decorative material, and gold. Worn, hoarded, hidden in prayer jars and dug up from under floorboards. Anything worth weight was seized. Even as blood soaked the bamboo, hands still reached for treasure.
Some warriors veered off from the fighting entirely, bursting into homes and tearing through pots. When a woman swung a ladle at one of them, he split her skull and kept digging through her belongings.
But near the center of the village, the resistance grew stronger. The sentries weren't running, they were holding their ground, fighting smart, moving between huts, disappearing and coming back with new weapons. The Painted's lines started to break apart, clusters of raiders began to isolate from one another. Still, they pressed in.
Further ahead, a group clashed at the central platform. It should've ended quickly, but it didn't. One raider was dragged down into the water; another died trying to loot a corpse. The fighting didn't ebb, it spread, sharpened, grew teeth.
Rayo roared from the rear, one arm slick with blood. His men followed close behind, grim-faced and wheezing. Some limped, others shouted for torches, but no one slowed.
Still, the rhythm was off, this was taking too long.
Abo moved through the chaos, barefoot and covered in blood. His blind eyes stared ahead, but every step was steady. He moved with a strange cadence, listening for gaps in the fight, scenting direction through the smoke and blood. To his left, a walkway creaked, then gave way. A raider fell through the bamboo slats with a scream, vanishing into the dark water below. Fire was eating away at the platforms.
A sharp crack caught Abo's attention. A large hut split apart, collapsing in sparks and flames. Wood crashed into the water, sending up ash and smoke. For a heartbeat, he slowed. A Moro warrior lunged from the side, Abo shifted his weight without turning, and the man's blade swung through empty air.
He hooked the attacker's ankle with his foot, twisted, and dropped him with a splash of mud. Then he grabbed a fallen shield and cracked it down over the man's head. The skull gave with a dull crunch.
Another came from the front, spear aimed for Abo's gut. Abo stepped into the thrust, let the haft slide under his arm, then grabbed it and drove the blunt end backward into the warrior's face. As the body dropped, he took the spear, weighed it once, then hurled it sidearm, it buried into another man's ribs mid-step. Abo kept moving, picking up weapons, throwing them aside when spent.
A kampilan swung wide, Abo slipped the arc, pressed close, and yanked the blade from the attacker's hands. He rolled the hilt across his fingers, thumbed the fuller. "Heavy toward the tip. No wonder you're missing, dipshit." Then he stepped in and drove it up through the man's pelvis until the scream broke off with a wet rattle. He didn't care what he held, everything in his hands became a weapon.
But the noise had changed, not just chaos, pressure. The Painted were thinning. Just past the central platform, Dagan fought like a man trying to outrun death. He was covered in blood, some his, most not. His breathing came in steady bursts, each strike, brutal. A bolo in each hand, he carved down three defenders trying to breach the cluster of raiders from the rear.
Then, movement came from the side. A figure dropped from the rafters, silent, and fast. But Dagan turned too late. A spear plunged through his shoulder, pinning him to the walkway. He snarled, and stabbed upward, killing the attacker even as his own legs buckled. Another spear found his gut. But this time, he didn't rise.
Kalayo saw it, and so did Dayang. However, neither could reach him. There wasn't time.
A horn blew from the western flank, a warning. From his vantage, Kalayo scanned the field. Too many gaps, too many dead, and not enough reinforcements. They were being overwhelmed.
At the east wall, Dayang parried a blow, her blade striking bone armor. She ducked and slashed low, cutting the man's leg out from under him. Two more charged in fast. One raised a bolo; the other held a spear.
Tuglaw wrenched his axe free from a corpse and stepped in. He caught the club with the haft of his axe and shoved the man aside. Dayang pivoted, drove her blade under the second man's ribs, both attackers dropped.
"We're outnumbered," Dayang hissed.
Tuglaw didn't answer because he didn't have to.
"Where's Rayo?" she snapped.
"Dead," Tuglaw said. "Went down an hour ago. Half the line gone with him."
Dayang's lip curled, her breath steamed in the smoke. "Then this raid is fucked." She stepped back, shoulder brushing his.
"You understand what this means, don't you?" she said quietly. "Rayo gambled everything on the blind bastard. Not just his skills, his story. He believed in every tale of Abo's genius."
She let out a bitter laugh. "A piece on the board. That's what Abo meant by valuable pieces."
Tuglaw said nothing.
"At first I didn't agree," Dayang went on. "Rayo was a nobleman, barely had enough coin to fund a decent feast, let alone a campaign. I thought this was suicide."
She looked around. Burning rooftops, dead raiders. Fewer and fewer still standing. "But then the blind bastard paid me. Half his fortune, in advance."
Tuglaw raised a brow.
"You too?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Baybay too," Tuglaw said, his voice low. "Abo paid him heavy. Not just gold, something personal. Baybay wouldn't say, but you saw him take that hit for Kalayo. Must've been worth more than his own life."
Dayang's jaw tightened, her mind turning over the pieces. "Abo hired us to keep Kalayo alive. Every raid, every battle, Kalayo's there, chasing Abo like a shadow. That bastard has the survival sense of a roach, but he's never died, not once."
"Protecting Kalayo wasn't our only job," Dayang muttered.
Tuglaw stared at the flames. "That Moro woman, the one with the child. She's not from here," Tuglaw confessed, eyes flicking toward the sentries. "She's a slaver. He told me to look for the woman with a faded sunburst on the back of her hand. Said to cut the child down in front of Kalayo. Said it would wake something up. I didn't ask what."
A support beam cracked, and a stilted hut caved in, screaming wood and collapsing fire.
"He handed us his treasure," Tuglaw said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Like a man who knows he's not coming back. This raid, this village, it's his funeral pyre. He's planned it from the start."
Dayang's eyes narrowed, her mind racing. "Why? What's the point of stoking his hate, making him see that child die, if Abo's just going to burn?"
Tuglaw's gaze flicked to her, sharp and cold. "You're missing it. Abo's not just protecting Kalayo. He's building him into something."
Dayang spat blood into the mud from a cracked tooth. "Twisted son of a bitch."
Smoke closed in around them, screams mixing with the glow of fire. The air shook with chaos. Bodies of Painted, defenders, and villagers lay scattered, half-sunken in the swamp mud. The village was collapsing, and their time was running out.
Dayang shook her head, wiping blood from her cheek. "Doesn't matter, we've got a job. Keep Kalayo breathing, get him out. But first—" She nodded toward a lone sentry charging their way, his spear raised, eyes wild with desperation.
Tuglaw hefted his axe. "Deal with this one, find Kalayo, and get to the boats. Move fast, or we're all ash."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Smoke still hung in the air, turning the dawn sky a flat, dirty gray. A young Moro boy stood there, barefoot, no older than ten, eyes wide with terror. He held a small blade in both hands, its point trembling, aimed at Kalayo's gut. It wasn't a bluff. The kid was shaking, but he meant to stab.
Kalayo didn't move. For a moment, Kalayo saw his brother's face in the boy's terrified eyes. Before he could move, a shadow flitted past.
Abo.
He didn't speak. He just… Stepped past. Blade already in motion. The child collapsed without a sound, their body folding in on itself. No sound, just stillness. Kalayo stood there hollow.
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End of Chapter