The forge compound roared like a living beast.
Orange sparks danced in the early morning light as Zaruko stood before the newly constructed furnace—his hands blackened, eyes locked on the glowing core. The structure, a half-circle of stone layered with ash and insulated clay, breathed through a set of foot-powered bellows carved from thick ironwood and hide.
The blast furnace was crude by the standards he barely remembered from dreams of another world, but it worked.
With every pump of the bellows, the fire grew hotter—hot enough to separate impurities, to melt the iron down to its strongest self. Not just blacksmithing. Refinement.
A new beginning.
Maela stood at the edge of the forge, the smoke curling around her like a veil. "This thing," she said softly, "It could change everything."
Zaruko nodded. "It already has."
She walked closer, eyes on the liquid glow. "Is this what the old world was like? What you remember?"
He hesitated. "Pieces. Steel. Fire. Cities that fed off their own hunger." He turned to her. "They rose when they built together. They fell when they forgot how."
Maela placed a hand on the edge of the warm stone. "Then promise we won't forget."
"I do," he said, "Every time I look at you."
That night, under a sky thick with stars and wind, Zaruko and Maela strolled through the heart of the village. No longer a scattered sprawl of tents, Kan Ogou had grown into form and purpose.
Raised platforms lined the walkways, torches flickering above woven banners. Elevated footbridges crossed over irrigation channels carved from stone and mud. Children ran barefoot across walkways, laughing. Older youths helped haul grain into the new drying towers built with pulley lifts—another gift of memory turned to wood and rope.
"Do you ever think about after?" Maela asked, her voice quiet. "After the battles. After the building."
Zaruko looked at her, then past her, to the hammering of metal and the chanting of guards in training. "There's always another hill to climb."
"I don't want to climb them alone," she said.
"You won't."
She stepped in front of him, hand on his chest. "Don't just lead for them. Live with me, too."
He kissed her. Gently. Like a promise.
By dawn, the warriors were already training.
Bakari stalked the training ground like a lion, bellowing orders. "Shields high! Line tight! You die when the one beside you dies!"
The new Shield Line trained in tight unit formations, using reinforced wood-and-iron shields. Across the field, the Swift Guard practiced moving silently through tree-shadows and heavy underbrush. Senja led drills in night-vision combat, stripping armor to its lightest form.
In a quiet corner, Niazo blew into a carved horn. Its sound echoed three times off the nearby hills—short, sharp, and designed to carry across great distances. One tone for north. Two for east. Three for danger.
Meanwhile, the Fire Division worked alongside artisans to understand the new furnace. Smoke signal testing, molten trap placement, and crafting weapon edges sharper than obsidian—it was all new, but necessary.
"We're not just preparing for battle," Bakari said to Zaruko as they walked the perimeter. "We're preparing to survive whatever comes after it."
Zaruko nodded. "Exactly."
Trade had changed too.
The village's central square now hosted a growing bartering ring—color-coded counters set out for each trade: boneworks, hides, metal, grain, tools, cloth. Guards kept watch, and for the first time, a timekeeper drum kept order.
Carved bone markers, dyed fabrics, and polished shells became common tokens of value. They were still learning the balance, but value had begun to mean more than just survival.
Artisans were compensated with food, labor, or promise-tokens. The blacksmith's apprentice, barely fifteen, now had a team of two younger workers and a claim on a drying hut.
Kan Ogou was growing—not just in strength, but in spirit.
The sky was dark when Toma and his envoy returned.
Silent.
Dust-covered and stiff, they entered the square with eyes that had seen too much. Behind them, tied with cord and marked in red, was a carved plank of wood—etched with a message scorched into its surface:
"The Mouth is open. Build if you must."
Zaruko took the plank and placed it on the council platform beside the first steel blade forged that week.
He looked to his people—warriors training by torchlight, traders still bartering by candle, builders carving stone for tomorrow's homes.
Smoke curled faintly in the east.
It wasn't fire.
Not yet.
But it was coming.
"If we build," Zaruko whispered, "we build knowing the storm will come. But this time… we will not run."
The plank lay heavy in the center of the council platform, its message etched like a wound.
Maela approached slowly, her fingers tracing the scorched grooves. "They don't threaten war," she murmured, "They threaten consequence."
Toma stood nearby, uncharacteristically silent. His usual fire had cooled to ash.
"What did you see?" Zaruko asked, turning to him.
Toma didn't meet his gaze. "Nothing human. Warriors without names. Eyes hidden. Their mouths… they didn't speak. Not truly. They followed the Speaker like puppets pulled by silence."
He paused. "Their village was clean. Too clean. Not a child, not a woman, not a single elder in sight. No laughter. No animals. No drums. Just… order. I think that's what haunts me most."
Zaruko clenched his jaw. "And the Speaker?"
"A mask. No emotion. He called what's coming 'the Mouth.' As if it's a thing. A place. Or worse… a god."
Later that night, as the warriors settled, and the fires dimmed across Kan Ogou, Zaruko returned to the forge alone.
The steel blade he'd laid beside the message was still warm, pulsing faintly from the day's final heat. Not yet blooded, not yet born into violence.
He picked it up, held it before him, and imagined the kind of leader he would need to become.
Not just a builder.
Not just a fighter.
But something in between—strong enough to shape, patient enough to listen, ruthless enough to protect.
The wind outside carried the faint scent of charcoal. Not from their own fires.
From beyond.
The Next Morning – Orders Given
The sun rose with a strange sharpness to it. Like a blade sliding across fabric.
Zaruko addressed the council and his gathered captains.
"We prepare two things," he said.
"First, a defensive perimeter at the eastern ridge—trenches, spike rows, and an early-warning watchtower with the horn system Niazo developed."
"Second," he continued, "we begin construction on the stone holdfast—not a fortress to expand, but a wall to endure. It will sit beyond the outer ring, facing the Forked River. A message to the Mouth."
Bakari smiled. "Finally."
Toma stepped forward. "And the envoy? If they return again?"
Zaruko's voice was hard. "Next time, we speak in a different language."
The Village Moves
By midday, every part of Kan Ogou was in motion.
Builders began stacking stone near the future holdfast site, hauling sand and lime to forge crude mortar.
Scouts ran new routes, mapping terrain at sunrise and sundown.
Farmers worked to reroute the irrigation flow to better nourish both crops and the drying pits for future trade.
Children were taught signals and safe routes, their games now layered with drills and shelter routines.
A blacksmith attached a bell to the new grain tower's pulley system—simple, but it would become a signal line across the central ring.
Even the air seemed to shift. No longer a village surviving.
A people preparing.
Zaruko and Maela – One More Night
That night, Maela entered their tent to find Zaruko still awake, sharpening the newly forged blade. The red glow of the coals gave his face a quiet intensity.
"You're changing," she said, watching him.
"So is everything," he replied. "I have to meet the change."
She moved to him, sat beside him, and gently took the blade from his hands.
"You don't have to carry all of it," she whispered.
He didn't answer. But he didn't take the blade back, either.
She kissed his temple, then rested her forehead against his.
Outside, a soft horn echoed once—just a test from the ridge.
But still, Zaruko reached for his boots.
The people of Kan Ogou were building something greater than walls and blades now.
They were building memory. Resilience. Vision.
The Mouth might be open.
But they were no longer prey.