The First Line in the Wild

The air tasted of ash and old roots.

Ben stood at the edge of the dying camp, his blade strapped to his back, watching smoke curl into the purple sky. The branded gathered behind him in silence, their expressions tight, worn by hunger and haunted by things they wouldn't name. They did not speak to him. Not since the pact. Not since the god began to follow him like a shadow that weighed more than the sun.

Twa Milhom leaned against a crooked tree, arms crossed, rope slung over his shoulder like a serpent too lazy to bite. He had been silent for two nights. Watching. Waiting.

Ben didn't wait anymore.

He turned to the branded. Five of them. Still uncertain. Still watching.

"We're leaving."

The words fell like a stone.

No questions. No council. No invitation for opinion. Just truth.

"This camp was made by the dead. Everything we built here died with the ones who couldn't change."

He didn't look to Mala or Jeron or Laye. He didn't care if they approved. He wasn't leading by permission.

Ben turned to the god.

"Where would you go, if you wanted to live longer than memory?"

Twa Milhom smirked—not mockery, but something close.

"There are three places. All dangerous. All promising. All waiting for something to rule them again."

That night, Twa Milhom described the lands with no maps, only memory.

Kivalo, he said, was green as heaven's garden—wild with fruit trees, deep-water springs, and flowers that smelled like honeyed blood. But the roots whispered, and the soil moved when no feet walked it. The air was warm enough to rot a man's lungs by morning.

Bendu's Bone was dry, full of iron veins and broken temples carved by forgotten hands. There was power there, Twa Milhom said—but it was the kind of power that lured fools into worshipping ruins.

And then there was N'Daka.

High cliffs. Stone shelves. Pools that caught mountain rain. A land with spine, not softness. Something that endured. But it was too quiet. The wind howled through its stone hallways, and those who had lived there before… hadn't left willingly.

"Each land is a question," Twa Milhom said. "You answer by living in it. Or dying trying."

Ben listened.

He did not pause.

"N'Daka."

They walked for five days under a crimson sun and a sky that changed colors when the wind shifted. The world around them was cruel and unspeakably beautiful. Vines the width of tree trunks wrapped around ruins taller than towers. Crystal-blue rivers flowed through valleys lined with bones.

They passed a field of silken grass where beasts the size of ships lay sleeping under vines that smelled like crushed jasmine.

Laye asked if they should go around.

Ben shook his head.

"We go quiet. We go fast. We go through."

Twa Milhom never gave warning. If danger came, he let it come.

But none did. Not yet.

On the third night, they found a dead hunter near a ravine—eyes open, body untouched, face frozen in awe. Something had taken his voice, not his life.

Ben said nothing.

They buried the man without prayers.

N'Daka rose before them like a jawbone cracking open from the earth. Layered stone ridges. Sharp cliffs. Valleys that vanished into fog. Cisterns carved into black stone, filled with rain that smelled of iron and mint. Trees with pale leaves, like silver hands reaching toward the sun.

It was beautiful.

Which meant it was dangerous.

Ben stood at the entrance, staring up at the carved stone faces peering down from the cliffs—weather-worn and broken, but not yet erased.

Mala came to stand beside him.

"Place looks cursed," she muttered.

Ben didn't respond.

Twa Milhom stepped past them, walked into the stone hall without a glance, and disappeared behind a bend.

That night, they made camp at the mouth of the canyon.

Ben stood at the center of a circle of old stones—some carved, some shattered.

He didn't ask the branded what they thought. He didn't offer the name for approval.

He spoke it into the fire.

"This is Ikanbi now. The place of beginning."

Mala stared at him across the flames, her face unreadable.

Jeron said nothing, but tightened the wrappings on his wrists like someone preparing for a longer stay than planned.

Twa Milhom sat with one knee up, gaze unreadable.

"You've named it," he said.

"Now let's see if it doesn't eat you."

Ben marked a rough line into the dirt with his blade—an outline of walls, of towers, of water runoffs. Not dreams. Plans.

The wind blew hard, and the silver trees rustled.

Somewhere deep within N'Daka, something screamed.

But it didn't come near.

Not yet.

The fire burned low beneath Ikanbi's cliffs, a single flame dancing in defiance of the wind. The basin slept in stillness, but the land beyond it did not. Trees groaned softly under their own weight. In the distance, something howled—a long, low note that faded into the bones of the mountain.

Ben stood alone at the edge of camp, blade sheathed across his back, watching the jungle that ringed them like a mouth preparing to close.

Behind him, the branded lay curled in restless sleep. Mala on a stone slab, her hand always near the hilt of her knife. Jeron beneath a hanging root, twitching in his dreams. Young Laye curled in the arms of a cloak, worn to threads. They were still skeptical. Still here. He didn't need their belief—only their presence.

Twa Milhom stood nearby, leaning on a half-fallen pillar that hadn't been there earlier. His arms were folded. His rope slung across one shoulder like a sleeping beast. His eyes were on the jungle too, though Ben knew the god rarely looked at what was in front of him. He looked through things—into them.

Ben spoke without turning.

"The jungle presses too close."

Twa Milhom didn't answer.

"We need space to move. Hunt. Build. The land won't take us seriously if we don't claim it."

The god's shoulders shifted with silent laughter. He stepped away from the pillar, loose and casual, like a man with no blood to warm.

"You want space?" he asked, voice dry like gravel. "Then go earn it."

Ben looked at him, eyes sharp. "How?"

"You and your people," Twa Milhom said, grinning now, "you run. In different directions. One hour. No breaks. Through whatever's out there—cliff, jungle, stone, water. Where you stop, I'll mark it. That becomes your territory. Your reach."

Ben blinked. "You'll protect us?"

"For one hour, the jungle will not touch you. Not even the trees will whisper your names."

"And after the hour?"

Twa Milhom grinned wider, rope shifting on his back like it approved.

"Then the land forgets I ever cared."

Ben didn't hesitate. He turned to the camp and barked a single word.

"Wake."

The branded stirred. Mala snapped upright. Jeron rubbed his eyes. No questions came. Just movement. They had learned by now—when Ben spoke with that tone, the world was about to change.

"We run. Different paths. One hour. Where we stop, that's ours."

Mala frowned. "Why?"

"Because the god said so."

No one laughed.

They scattered at his signal, vanishing into the wild like sparks blown from a fire.

Ben took the north path, up the rocky slope, through thick ferns with silver leaves and roots that pulsed faintly beneath the soil. He didn't look back. Behind him, the others fanned out—Mala into the wet lowlands, Jeron toward the ravine, Laye up into the thorn-laced cliffs.

And all around them, the land did not move.

No snakes struck. No flowers bled. No shadows chased them.

For one hour, Ikanbi held its breath.

Twa Milhom remained in the center of camp. Alone. Silent.

When their footsteps had faded into the edges of the wild, he turned toward the mountain. Walked slowly. The slope before him was bare, choked with pale dust and unloving stone.

He lifted one hand. No flame. No chant. No show.

Just a single breath.

And the mountain answered.

Stone cracked. Earth trembled. A structure rose—not grand, not proud, but old, humble, like it had always been waiting just beneath the surface to be remembered.

A house.

One room.

Walls of bone-colored rock and blackened wood.

No doors.

Only a curtain of coarse fiber that moved without wind.

The god stepped inside and vanished.

An hour passed.

They came back one by one.

Mala returned first, soaked in sweat and mud, scratches down her arms like paint. Her jaw was clenched, but she did not limp.

Jeron came next, breathing heavy, his shirt torn and hands bloody from scaling a sheer stone ledge.

Laye stumbled in just before the hour turned, his feet blistered, face pale—but eyes sharp.

And then Ben.

He emerged from the trees, soaked, panting, dragging a thick branch behind him like a trophy. His boots were stained green from crushed vines and moss. His eyes met the god's.

No words passed between them.

Twa Milhom raised his hand. And the land responded.

To the north, at the edge of Ben's path, the tallest tree split open and revealed a mark burned into the bark—an open hand, palm forward, fingers spread.

To the east, where Mala had stopped, the grass turned to ash, forming a perfect circle that shimmered without flame.

To the south, Jeron's endpoint birthed a jagged red stone, rising from the ground like a warning fang.

To the west, near the cliffs, the thorns parted, never to regrow—leaving a clear path in and out.

Ben looked at it all.

"It's done," Twa Milhom said. "The jungle knows your lines."

Ben didn't thank him.

He simply nodded.

And the branded, watching from the edge of the fire, saw for the first time what it meant to walk behind a man who did not rule by fear or favor—but by movement.

That night, the wind curled around the cliffs of Ikanbi. The fire crackled low. The branded slept with weapons at their sides—but their backs to each other no longer.

Ben sat on a flat stone, sharpening his blade slowly.

Above him, the silver trees rustled.

Far beyond, deeper than any cave or tomb, something opened one eye.

But it did not move.

Because tonight, the god had claimed the wild in Ben's name.