Chapter One – The Warrior
The dawn came heavy with mist, the sea wrapped in gray like a shroud. Tuyok stood on the shoreline with his spear planted in the sand, watching the waves curl and break. He had been a warrior of Mactan for nearly a decade, his hands hardened by oar and blade, his chest scarred from skirmishes with rival islands. Yet no bard would ever sing of him. He was no datu, no elder, no man of legend. Just another soldier among Lapu-Lapu's many loyal sons.
And Tuyok was content with that. To fight, to live, to see his people safe—these were enough.
Behind him, the village stirred awake. Children carried water jars from the well, women laid out fish to dry in the morning sun, and men sharpened bolos for another day of labor. Yet all their eyes drifted, as his did, to the sea. Something was wrong with it.
For weeks now, the tides had spoken in strange ways. Fish washed ashore with swollen bellies, their eyes glassy and white. Shells once prized for their meat opened only to reveal black rot. And sometimes, at night, the waves seemed to whisper like many voices carried upon the wind.
Tuyok pressed his palm to the butt of his spear and exhaled. The sea is angry, the elders said. We have not given enough. Or perhaps we have taken too much.
He remembered the night before, sitting by the fire as old warriors told tales of drowned spirits—souls claimed by the deep who rose again when the balance was broken. He had laughed then, with the boldness of a man too young to believe in curses. But standing here now, the taste of salt and rot on the air, Tuyok was not so sure.
"Brother Tuyok!"
The call broke his thoughts. He turned to see his cousin, Balangaw, jogging down the beach with a grin too wide for the hour. "Lapu-Lapu calls for the warriors. There is news from Cebu."
Tuyok narrowed his eyes. "More trade?"
Balangaw shook his head, lowering his voice as though the sea itself might be listening. "Not trade. Strangers. Pale-skinned men with thunder in their hands. Rajah Humabon feasts with them. Some say they carry the cross of a foreign god."
Tuyok's grip on his spear tightened. He thought again of the blackened fish, the whispers in the waves. Pale-skinned men. A foreign god.
The sea churned before him, dark and restless.
He spat into the surf for luck, then turned his back on the water and followed Balangaw toward the village.
History was stirring, and he would walk into it as just another soldier—brave, loyal, and destined to be forgotten.