The Atlantic Forest did not forgive the unprepared. Beneath the closed canopy of the forest, the air was a solid mass of humidity and heat that seemed to weigh upon the shoulders of the twenty men.
The sultry heat was relentless, and Ubirajara knew that in that environment, the sun was not merely a source of light, but a silent enemy capable of causing heatstroke and fatal fevers.
However, the group advanced with a subtle technological advantage: the body dye of urucum and jenipapo.
More than just a simple war paint, the mixture acted as a natural sunscreen, blocking UV rays and protecting the skin against insect bites and excessive dehydration.
As they walked, Ubiratan, the assistant of imposing stature and sharp mind, stood out in the vanguard.
He stopped before a giant tree that dominated the landscape.
"Ubirajara, look." said Ubiratan, pointing to the colossal trunk. "It is a Samauma. It is the perfect tree to locate oneself in this sea of green."
Moacir, one of the most experienced warriors accompanying the group, approached and struck the exposed buttress roots with the handle of his tacape.
A deep, resonant sound, like the beating of a giant drum, propagated through the forest, reverberating for kilometers.
"The sound travels through the earth and the air through it." explained Moacir. "If someone gets lost, they only need to find a Samauma and strike it. The sound will find the ears of those who know the forest."
Ubirajara observed the phenomenon through the eyes of an entrepreneur. To Moacir, it was a tool for navigation; to Ubirajara, it was "nature's loudspeaker."
"In the future." whispered Ubirajara to himself, his eyes shining with creativity "this can be used as a long-range communication network."
It was the perfect circumstance to invent a code analogous to Morse.
After hours of marching, the group reached the bank of an imposing watercourse. Moacir stopped, observing the muddy flow.
"The name of this river is Paraíba: the River difficult to navigate." explained the warrior. "It covers a distance that no man can walk in a single moon."
"Paraíba?" Ubirajara felt a mental click. "This must be the Paraíba do Sul River. As I expected, we are in the border zone between what would be São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais."
They began to climb the slope, and the humid heat intensified, testing the group's physical endurance.
Thanks to the HIIT training Ubirajara had imposed, focusing on explosive movement and rapid recovery under stress, the men were able to keep the pace, even though they were at the limit of exhaustion.
After walking about two kilometers up the mountain, they entered the first folds of a dense range. Ubirajara ordered a pause.
They looked for a protected plateau, and soon the fire was lit. A mutum captured during the morning was set to roast, and the aroma of the meat brought temporary relief while they waited for the sun to lose its strength.
Ubirajara sat beside Moacir and, in a casual tone, asked: "Have you ever been to this place before, Moacir?"
There was a brief moment of silence. Moacir looked at the embers, his expression clouded. "You don't remember? We came through here together, fleeing, after the village was attacked by the Tapuias."
Ubirajara froze. The weight of a memory that was not entirely his, but which inhabited that body, threatened to emerge.
He felt a tightening in his chest, the shadow of screams and fire that his modern consciousness had not lived, but which the flesh remembered.
"I try not to think about that period." replied Ubirajara, recovering his composure. "Besides, I was very young."
Moacir nodded, respecting the silence. "We must be approaching a stream. After it, after another half-day's journey, we will reach the place where the original village stood. Do you think it is wise to see how it is there now?"
Ubirajara pondered. Seeing the ruins of the old village was not merely out of nostalgia or curiosity; it was a tactical reconnaissance of how the Tapuias operated. "Where is this stream?" he asked.
Moacir pointed north. "In that direction, up the mountain range."
They resumed the march as the sun began to set, tinting the treetops a deep red.
Ubirajara kept his eyes sharp for biodiversity.
He identified magnificent specimens of Brazilwood, Peroba-rosa, and Ipê. For the army, they were resources for heavy weapons; for future industry, they were the base for mill structures.
The Brazilwood, in particular, was special for the exceptional hardness of its heartwood.
Suddenly, the sound of running water grew stronger.
Upon reaching the bank of a crystalline stream that cut through the slope, Ubirajara noticed something unusual in the bed.
The stones were not rounded by the river in the common way; they were dark, shiny, and when he picked one up, he felt a disproportionate weight.
He analyzed it calmly, wiping away the silt. It was high-grade Hematite.
"As expected... this stream is abundant in iron." he murmured, feeling the adrenaline course through his veins. "This place must be the Mantiqueira Range.
So, in this life, I am from Minas Gerais? Interesting..."
The iron was there, outcropping on the surface, asking to be gathered. With the sunlight fading, he gave the order to camp. In rhythmic and ordered movements, the fruit of the military discipline he had instilled the tents were raised.
They were rustic, made of plant fabrics and few skins, due to the lack of quality leather. Ubirajara noted in his thoughts that he would need to capture and breed cattle or tapirs on a larger scale to supply this demand for leather.
Night fell, revealing a sky of a purity Ubirajara had never seen in his previous life. Sitting near the campfire, he reflected on the conversation with Moacir. The original Ubirajara had seen his home destroyed.
He thought about how blessed he had been in his past life never to have lived through such trauma, despite the corporate stress.
In a gesture of habit, he almost thanked God for that privilege, but stopped halfway. The key question hit him again: "How did I end up here?"
No rational explanation seemed to suffice. If it were something supernatural, where were the divinities? If it were a temporal accident, why the body swap?
He remembered the words of the Shaman Arandu about time not being a straight line, but something non-linear, circular, and overlapping.
"Could it be a natural phenomenon?" he thought.
Being agnostic, Ubirajara preferred to believe in an unknown mechanic of the universe. Some physical force, resulting from the curvature of time, had caused the collapse of his consciousness at that specific point in history and transported him to this era.
Unknown to him, his guess was right, though he had not guessed all the details with precision.
The factor that allowed the corporal possession was not chance, but blood compatibility and the resonance between his soul and that of the original Ubirajara.
In the morning, the journey continued with new vigor. The group climbed the range with precision, but the peace was broken by a figure that emerged from the brush.
It was a vanguard scout, running in absolute silence until he stopped before Ubirajara.
"I found Tapuias." whispered the warrior, his breath short. "They are just ahead, crossing the valley."
Ubirajara became serious immediately. The introspection of the night was replaced by the instinct of command. He fired off a succession of hand signals and low-voice orders.
"Ambush position! Split column! Total silence!"
The group disappeared into the low vegetation of the range as if they had never existed. Ubirajara crouched behind a fallen trunk, his hand gripping the handle of his reinforced tacape. His eyes scanned the brush ahead, waiting.
The time for planning was over; it was time for the test-drive, to see if the men's training had been effective and if he could perform again in combat, or if he would fail now.
The silence on the slope of the Mantiqueira Range was as dense as the sultry heat rising from the ground.
Ubirajara, crouching among the nervous roots of a peroba, observed the group emerging from the trail.
There were twelve men.
They were Tapuias, probably speakers of some Macro-Jê language, with lean bodies and body paintings that imitated the bark of trees.
Ubirajara made a hand signal, keeping his twenty warriors in an inverted "V" position, hidden by the foliage. He did not want blood yet.
The iron he had just found in the stream needed peace to be mined, not a border war that would drain his resources.
"Moacir." whispered Ubirajara, without taking his eyes off the enemy leader. "Try to talk to them. Use the general language. Say that we are travelers, that we do not seek blood and we come in peace."
Moacir nodded, though the tension in his shoulders revealed he did not believe in diplomacy. He rose slowly, with empty and open hands, stepping out from the protection of the shadows.
"Nde py'a porã!" shouted Moacir in Tupi, the standard greeting of peace. "We are passing through."
The Tapuia group stopped instantly. Their leader, a man with his earlobe enlarged by a wooden disc, tilted his head.
His warriors drew back their bows of dark wood. He replied, but the sound that came from his mouth had nothing to do with the Tupi language; they were guttural, clicking sounds, a language that seemed to come from a throat full of stones.
"They do not understand." murmured Ubiratan, beside Ubirajara. "Their language is different. To them, we must sound like enemies."
Ubirajara rose as well, trying to maintain the diplomatic posture he had learned at corporate negotiation tables, adapting it to the jungle. He took a step forward, gesturing to the stream and then to the horizon.
"Peace." said Ubirajara, in a clear voice, trying to use universal gestures. "We... friends."
The Tapuia leader took a step forward. His eyes were small and sharp. He released a torrent of rapid words, pointing to the ground beneath Ubirajara's feet. He seemed indignant, the veins in his neck bulging.
"Is he saying this ground is sacred?" Ubirajara asked Moacir, without looking away.
"Or that it is the place where they hunt." Moacir replied, his hand descending slowly to his tacape.
"Or that the simple fact that we are breathing their air is a declaration of war. The problem, leader, is that to them, we are the 'Tapuia' now. The strangers."
Ubirajara tried one last card. He picked up a piece of the heavy hematite from the ground and held it out to the leader, like a gift.
The Tapuia, however, saw Ubirajara's abrupt movement as an aggression. To a people who lived on the verge of attack, a heavy object held out was a weapon, not a geological offering.
The Tapuia leader let out a shrill cry, an order that needed no translation.
"Attention!" yelled Ubirajara, diplomacy shattering like the stone blade on the peroba trunk. "Column formation!"
The first shot came from the Tapuias. An arrow whizzed centimeters from Ubirajara's ear, thudding into the trunk behind him.
"Now!" commanded Ubirajara.
The response of the Tupi warriors was mechanical, the fruit of weeks of exhaustion under the village sun. Instead of advancing like a disorganized mass, the twenty warriors split.
The ten who composed the infantry vanguard struck their tacapes against their hardened leather shields, creating a metallic, rhythmic sound that disoriented the attackers.
The Tapuias, accustomed to individual ambush combat, found themselves before a geometric wall that advanced in deadly silence. Ubirajara did not run; he walked, coordinating the flanks.
"Ubiratan, left flank! Moacir, hold the center!"
A Tapuia warrior leapt from a lateral tree, aiming a stone axe at Moacir's neck. Before the blow could fall, two Tupi warriors, acting in trained coordination, intercepted the attack.
One blocked the attacker's arm with his leather bracer, while the other delivered a dry blow to the enemy's ribs with the tip of his short spear.
The combat on the slope was chaotic, but to Ubirajara, it was a game board. He saw the Tapuia leader trying to regroup his archers.
"Decapitation Unit, with me!" ordered Ubirajara.
He and five of his best men broke through the defensive line. They did not fight the common soldiers; they serpentined through the trees, ignoring lateral provocations, focused only on the enemy command.
Ubirajara reached the Tapuia leader. The man was strong and fast, wielding a heavy club of black wood.
The Tapuia's first strike crushed the ground where Ubirajara had been a second before. Ubirajara did not strike back with brute force. He used his opponent's momentum, dodged to the right, and with the handle of his own tacape, struck the nerve of the leader's arm.
The club fell. Before the Tapuia could recover, Ubirajara had the tip of his weapon at the man's throat.
Around them, the Tupi warriors had already neutralized most of the adversaries, not through mindless slaughter, but through the occupation of space and technical superiority.
The remaining Tapuias stopped, seeing their leader surrendered and their ambush tactics neutralized by a formation they did not understand. Ubirajara breathed deeply, sweat mixed with body dye dripping down his face.
He looked at the Tapuia leader, who stared back at him with a mix of hatred and terror.
"I tried to talk to them." murmured Ubirajara in Portuguese, knowing no one would understand. "But if diplomacy fails, only steel remains... or rather, brute force."
He made a sign for his men to tie up the survivors. The expedition now had prisoners who knew the area.