(Part I: The First Break in the Jungle)
The first arrow struck a tree.
It did not come with warning — only silence shattered by impact. The shaft quivered in the bark, head buried in sap, just inches from a scout's face.
Then the jungle screamed.
Not a battle cry. Not a god's roar. The trees themselves screamed, as if torn from sleep. They twisted, leaves flailing, vines curling like snakes in heat. The enemy had not come with stealth. They had come with chaos.
From the south, they charged — warriors bare-chested and painted in clay and dried blood, wielding spears made from fang and bone. Some wore animal skulls. Others danced into the fray foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back, as if drunk on divine madness.
The god they followed was not seen, but its presence could be felt.
The air turned sour. Birds dropped from the trees mid-flight. The sky wept not water, but ash — a gray fall of dying leaves and crushed wings.
Zaruko stood at the front of his line, face painted in forge soot, blade gleaming in sunlight.
"Hold!" he roared, voice cutting across the treetops.
Behind him, rows of Kan Ogou's warriors waited in silence. Their shields were not perfect, their armor uneven. But their hearts beat with something unshakable. They were not just protecting land.
They were protecting flame.
The enemy surged forward.
And then the trap snapped shut.
From the ridge above, twin volleys of flaming javelins rained down. Clay jars exploded among the enemy ranks, turning mud into shrapnel. Some screamed as they were shredded. Others pushed forward, stepping over the fallen like beasts gone blind.
Zaruko gave no mercy.
He met the first warrior with a shoulder bash, his blade reversing and slicing open the man's side. Blood fountained onto the moss.
Another came with a jagged axe. Zaruko ducked, slammed a knee into his gut, and ran the blade through his throat.
The jungle became a forge — heat, iron, smoke.
All around him, the men and women of Kan Ogou fought with desperation refined by belief. Spears locked with claws. Shields broke beneath brute strength. Boulders were rolled into ravines, crushing invaders. Fire spread in a spiral pattern, guided by Maela and the smiths' signal flares.
They were not warriors trained in academies.
They were children of survival.
(Part II: The Other God)
The southern god made itself known.
It was a thing of faces — three skull-like visages fused into one grotesque form. It moved through the trees without stepping, sliding instead as if it oozed through time.
When it appeared, the enemy warriors screamed louder, attacking with renewed frenzy.
The god's presence bent the branches downward. Bark peeled from trees. Skin blistered on contact with the air.
Zaruko saw it and paused.
So this is the power they bring.
But before he could move — the wind changed.
And lightning split the sky.
It came in furious flashes. Thunder cracked the ground. The sky flared red, then black, then gold — and something descended.
Ogou.
He walked through the storm like a god made of flame and muscle. His hammer hung at his side, glowing with liquid heat. His eyes were iron. His presence did not inspire madness — it inspired order.
He said no words.
He simply pointed his hammer at the southern god.
And the jungle caught fire.
Trees snapped as the two forces collided — not just physically, but spiritually. Ogou's forge-light met the southern god's decay in a clash of realities. One reshaped the world with discipline and flame. The other corroded with doubt and hunger.
The enemy god roared with three mouths.
Ogou responded with a swing.
The hammer struck earth and the ground cracked open, magma hissing from beneath. The enemy god reeled. Its form struggled to hold — like glass melting under pressure.
But it did not fall easily.
It bit into Ogou's shoulder, smoke rising from divine flesh. A mark scorched his skin — a corruption born of war. Ogou didn't flinch. He reached into the wound, pulled the black ichor from himself, and smashed it into the southern god's middle face.
The mask shattered.
Thunder rolled.
And across the battlefield, the enemy warriors faltered.
Some dropped their weapons and ran. Others began to scream blood, their connection to their god severed. The air trembled.
Ogou turned his back on the broken deity — not out of arrogance, but out of truth.
The fight was over.
The god collapsed into the earth, body folding into vines, its energy scattering like ashes in a forge wind.
And the jungle remembered the taste of fire.
The battle ended not with cheers, but with breathing.
Heavy, desperate, blood-soaked breathing.
Smoke twisted between the trees, turning the jungle's green to a battlefield of shifting shadows. Bodies lay strewn in unnatural stillness — some still twitching, others half-buried in broken branches or crushed beneath stone traps.
A thousand insects buzzed in the sudden quiet.
The warriors of Kan Ogou stood among the fallen, many bleeding from shallow wounds, others leaning on shattered spears or each other. They had fought not for glory, but because there had been no other choice. And they had survived.
Zaruko moved through the wreckage, blade sheathed, shoulders heavy with smoke and dried blood. His arm had been slashed, his ribs bruised, but he walked tall. Every step was one of memory — flashes of gunfire from another life, desert winds, command tents, body bags.
But this wasn't that war.
This was something older, something purer.
He approached the place where Ogou stood. The ground around the god still hissed with magma steam. Ogou's shoulders were hunched slightly, one arm bloodied but already sealing with glowing iron scars. The god turned slowly, eyes burning like forge-coals.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Ogou's voice came, low as a furnace.
"They sent rot to test the flame. Now they will learn — fire purifies."
Zaruko bowed his head slightly, not in reverence, but in understanding.
"Will more come?"
"They always come."
Ogou stepped past him, walking toward the ruined god's remains. What little was left now wilted like overcooked meat — roots curling inward, bones cracking into black sand. Ogou knelt and pressed his palm into the remains. A quiet pulse rippled out, unseen, yet felt in the chest.
A consumption.
The southern god's essence was drawn into Ogou like a stream of smoke into bellows. His shoulders squared. His frame seemed heavier. The jungle shuddered, and something deep in the distance — some creature, some old watching god — cried out in fear.
Back at the village, the people had begun gathering. They came with torches and makeshift stretchers, their feet cautious, their eyes wide.
Maela stood at the front, her face pale with exhaustion. She had tended to the wounded and spoken prayers not to gods, but to ancestors — asking them to hold the tribe together when flesh gave out.
She looked at Zaruko and didn't smile.
She only asked, "How many did we lose?"
Zaruko shook his head. "Enough."
They buried their dead that night under stone cairns. Not in silence, but in song — rough, guttural verses rising into the smoke. Not hymns, but promises: You will be remembered. We will carry your fire.
(Part IV: The Fire Inside Them)
Later, when the sky returned to stars, and the forge hissed in low embers, Zaruko sat alone beside the blood-slick stream.
He washed his hands.
Not because they were dirty — but because they still trembled.
Not from fear. From memory.
He stared at his own reflection in the water, face carved by shadow, lips cracked, eyes tired. Behind him, the forge temple loomed — and above that, Ogou's presence, no longer distant.
And for the first time, he wondered what it meant to win.
Would every victory cost another soul? Another piece of himself? He had commanded troops in another world, survived deserts and insurgents and orders barked over radios. But here… here, he had killed gods.
And now gods would come for him.
He felt Maela approach before she spoke.
"You've changed."
He gave a small, bitter laugh. "We all have."
She knelt beside him, her hand brushing his shoulder. "They trust you, Zaruko. Even the ones who doubt. Even the ones who fear. That matters more than the mark on your chest."
He didn't answer.
She leaned in, whispered low. "But if the fire burns too hot in you, you'll become like them."
He turned, met her gaze.
"I'm not trying to become a god."
"No," she said softly. "But gods bleed. And men break."
They sat together, neither speaking, as the jungle cooled. As smoke drifted into stars. As Kan Ogou counted the price of survival.
And above them, deep in the unseen folds of the heavens, other gods stirred.
Some watched in silence.
Others whispered in jealousy.
And one — something ancient, something buried — opened a single eye.