The first to see him was a boy — no older than twelve — tending the watchfire outside the southern cliff. His breath caught as a shadow emerged from the hollow, tall and steady, marked by soot and silence.
Zaruko had returned.
Alone. Unharmed. And the forge-temple still smoldered behind him.
By the time he crossed the stone path into the heart of the village, word had spread like lightning through dry grass. Blacksmiths left their forges. Children climbed rooftops. Priests whispered prayers beneath their breath.
He did not speak.
He carried no trophy, no wound, no smoke-trailing weapon — only the same quiet gravity, heavier now, as though the hollow had etched its secrets into his bones.
Matari met him beneath the forge-throne, the heart of her domain, with flames dancing behind her like spirit-wolves. Her war-cloak was off. Her sword remained at her side.
"You walked into a place cursed by old blood," she said, watching him carefully. "And walked back out as if the fire bent to your will."
Zaruko stood tall. "It didn't bend. It stepped aside."
A ripple of unease passed through the gathered crowd. Matari's eyes narrowed. "What did you see?"
"I saw something that should've struck me down," he said. "But didn't."
"Why?"
"I don't know," he lied, voice steady. "Maybe it feared me. Maybe it feared what walks with me."
The forge went still.
No laughter. No challenge. Just the hiss of steel cooling and hearts pounding.
Matari stepped forward, then removed from her neck a medallion forged of iron and obsidian. She extended it toward him — a symbol of her tribe, the crest of the Forge-Cliff People: a hammer and crescent flame etched into stone and smoke.
"We don't bow," she said. "But we recognize strength, survival… and silence when it speaks louder than thunder."
Zaruko accepted the medallion without a word, then reached into the inner fold of his cloak and pulled out a cloth — handwoven, marked with charcoal and ochre.
A vévé. Simple, elegant, ancient.
The lines formed a rising flame flanked by two crescents — the mark of welcome, protection, and kinship.
"This," he said, "is not payment. It's invitation. Let your people walk Kan Ogou's ground without fear. You will be received as friends. And if danger follows you, show this. It will be known."
Matari took the cloth. Not as a trinket, but with the weight of sacred exchange.
Behind her, even the older warriors nodded. The smoke did not rise against this pact — it curled with approval.
That evening, Zaruko sat beside the younger warriors near a quiet forge, eating bread and salted root.
They asked no questions about the god, the fire, the hollow.
He offered no myths. Just a truth.
"I'm not the strongest," he said, voice low. "I've just refused to die. Over and over again."
One of the girls looked up. "You think we'll be like that too?"
Zaruko didn't smile. But his answer was kind.
"You already are. You're still here."
The next morning, Zaruko prepared to leave.
As he reached the edge of the cliffs, Matari stood waiting, the vévé folded carefully over her chest.
"We are not yours," she said.
"No tribe should be," Zaruko replied.
"But if war comes?"
"It always comes. That's why we walk together."
She gave a single nod. "You walk like a man. But something follows you. Something that reminds the gods to keep their distance."
He looked back at the cliff village once — firelight on stone, smoke rising like incense.
Then he walked into the east, where the winds grew colder, and the ground whispered of the next people… the next test.
Zaruko did not look back as he vanished into the east, his cloak brushing the stone with each step, the vévé of invitation having already passed from hand to hand.
But the land did.
The old forge-temple, once dormant and cursed, shivered beneath the rising sun. For the first time in seasons, the soot stopped falling. The winds shifted — gentle, not gasping.
Deep within the hollow, where the stone had blistered and cracked under a curse no priest could name, something invisible unraveled.
The shadows that clung to the rocks like moss began to fade, as though some great breath had been exhaled. Pools of dark water dried. The stone no longer whispered.
The oldest priest approached the hollow's mouth that evening, cautious and trembling. But no voice greeted him. No eyes glared back.
He fell to his knees.
"The curse is broken," he whispered. "The land… is breathing again."
Back in the village, the forge-fires no longer flickered strangely. The metal rang clear when struck. The children no longer pointed to the cliffs in fear.
And Matari, standing alone near the edge of the forge-throne, stared at the vévé folded in her hand.
"He didn't just survive," she murmured. "He changed something."
The old seer's voice echoed in her mind:
"He walks like a man… but carries a shadow that remembers when the gods were young."
Now, the wrong shadow was gone.
And the land itself seemed to bow in quiet thanks.
The wilds thickened again.
Zaruko traveled east for another month, guided only by instinct, wind, and memory. He passed rivers choked with white stones, plateaus stained red by old blood, and groves where no birds sang. The land grew colder, more hostile, as though the gods themselves had grown quiet.
He lived off roots, dried meat, and wild onions. At night, he pressed his back to cliff faces, blade across his chest, listening for breathing that wasn't his.
On the 37th day, he saw smoke — unnatural smoke.
It rose from square towers cut directly into the cliffside, part of a village built like a fortress. Thick walls of shale. No banners. No music. No voices.
Zaruko stood still at the edge of the forest, watching.
A single horn sounded.
From the wall, archers appeared — notched arrows already drawn.
He raised one hand and stepped forward slowly, cloak open, sword sheathed.
"I'm not here to fight," he called. "I bring no army. Only the promise of fire and friendship."
No reply.
Then — a gate opened.
Two warriors emerged, faces painted with clay and ash, spears out but not thrust forward.
They didn't ask his name. They simply said, "Come."
Zaruko walked.
Inside, the village was stone — cold, efficient, and silent. Even the children did not speak. Eyes followed him like wolves watching a stranger near the den.
He was led to a circular hall, half-buried into the cliff. No throne. Just a firepit and flat stones.
A woman sat there — scar over her eye, fingers stained with forge-ink, and a gaze that could strip bark from a tree.
She didn't stand.
"You're the one they whisper about from the west?"
Zaruko bowed slightly. "I am."
"We don't care for myths here."
"Then you'll like me. I carry none."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Why are you here?"
"To listen. To learn. And to offer you a choice."
"Choice?"
Zaruko reached slowly into his cloak and pulled out a folded cloth.
Another vévé. This one marked with dual flames and the rising sun between them — a symbol not of dominance, but of shared path.
"A chance to stand with others before the world decides to crush you alone."
The woman didn't take it. Not yet.
But she didn't turn him away either.
For the first time in years, a foreigner was allowed to sleep behind the walls of the Stone-Faced Tribe.
And in the shadows of that village, something stirred — not darkness this time, but curiosity.