The forest quivered long before the soldiers appeared.
A low, steady vibration, like a beast stirring from its slumber, rumbled across Halimun's moss-covered ridges. Birds scattered, tree frogs fell silent, and even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
From the far ridge, they emerged—the Kalderan Shadowbound, a razor-sharp wedge of dark, glinting armor, like the scales of a serpent. Every step was precise, thunderous, deliberate. The jungle didn't welcome them; it recoiled.
At the spearhead of that formation walked a figure who didn't just command it—he anchored it. He pulled it forward like a storm god drawing thunder in his wake.
Commander Darvas Sangkara.
His silhouette was vast, almost unnatural. The black-and-gold war mantle draped over him shimmered with every movement, rippling like oil on water. It flowed behind him, never snagging, never sullied. His obsidian black armor was etched with glowing crimson runes, not inked, but burned into the metal itself with ancient blood rites. They pulsed in sync with his every breath.
Around his shoulders, a mantle of blades, shaped like vertebrae and horns, bristled, humming with invisible heat. They moved subtly, like an animal's hackles, as if sensing the forest's unseen eyes.
His helm was off. He wanted them to see his face.
It was angular, hard as granite, with a jagged scar on the left side that split his brow and traced beneath his cheekbone like a lightning strike. His eyes weren't angry, but still. Focused. Calculating. And burning. With cold anticipation.
He halted on the ridge, a brief hand gesture freezing the soldiers behind him like statues. Sangkara surveyed the dense tangle of the Halimun forest, his lips curling into something older than a smile—something primal.
Then, the past rose like a ghost.
His memory came out. The memory when he lost to his silat master. That day the silat master wear white silat robes, his stance low, relaxed, perfect. The silat master had been untouchable—like wind in human form.
Sangkara had charged blindly. Arrogantly. He had been soundly beaten, disarmed, humiliated. But the master spared him, whispering something about mercy, honor, a second chance.
Darvas never forgot those words. Not the mercy. Not the humiliation. Not the sound of the master turning his back.
Three weeks later, Darvas returned with a Kalderan fire squad. They razed the entire school. Not one student survived. He slaughtered the master last—not with a blade, but with a curse. The man died convulsing, his silat stolen from his muscles by the Red Channeling.
Sangkara kept the scar, carving it deeper each year with ritual, a stark reminder. Since that day, he had studied silat like a predator studies its prey.
Now, in the shadow of Halimun's twisted canopy, commander Darvas Sangkara stretched out his hand. He didn't touch the trees—he commanded them to fear.
"I remember this kind of forest," he said aloud, his voice deep and smooth like distant thunder. His men straightened behind him, not from fear, but from reverence. He inhaled, savoring the scent of roots, decay, spirit.
"I remember the taste of their fear." He turned his head slightly. "And I will teach them mine."
Then, with a small motion, he snapped his fingers.
Behind him, the Shadowbound resumed their march. Toward the waiting storm.
The Kalderans pressed into the forest like a dark, encroaching tide. Vines hissed under their boots, and moss-covered stones crumbled beneath iron heels. The air, thick with moisture and pollen, grew uneasy, as if recalling an ancient memory.
But Lara remembered better.
From her perch high in the arms of a banyan tree, she watched through narrowed eyes. Raikha was further ahead, hidden beneath layers of broadleaf foliage, saber drawn and ready. But it was Lara who held the tempo now.
She'd been awake long before the Kalderans crossed the ridge, her body still humming with the aftershocks of poison. Yet her spirit? Fierce and focused. "Let's see how you like being hunted," she whispered.
Below, the Kalderan front unit—six armored, alert soldiers—stepped into a hollow ring of trees. Right where she wanted them. Lara tugged on a thin length of spider-silk thread tied around her finger. One subtle twitch.
Snap.
The trap was ancient, designed in the Thornstep tradition—meant to echo nature's wrath. A faint breeze whispered, and then the ground itself shifted.
Suddenly, twisting roots erupted from the forest floor like serpents, lashing out with startling speed. They entangled legs, jerking soldiers off their feet. Screams filled the air, muffled as thick branches curled around throats.
One man managed to raise his crossbow, only to fire blindly into a hallucination. In his mind, a horde of screaming forest spirits surged forward. His comrades watched in horror as he fell to his knees, begging forgiveness from nothing.
Another tried to retreat, but his foot stepped on a moss-covered rune carved into stone. Boom. The air vibrated with a phantom echo—a silat soundwave technique, buried in the ground by Gantari long ago. It rattled the soldier's insides, burst his eardrums, and flung him backward like a puppet cut from its strings.
The forest feasted on their panic. Lara allowed herself a smirk. "That's one," she mouthed, then vanished into the canopy.
From below, Raikha's voice whispered low through their signal vine: "Second path's clear. You set the timing perfectly."
She whispered back, "Of course I did."
But then—
A sound unlike anything she'd heard before.
Silence.
Not stillness—death. Leaves browned in seconds. Flowers wilted. Roots stopped twisting. Even the hallucinations dissipated like smoke in the wind.
Raikha tensed. "Lara," he said, his voice brittle, "do you feel that?"
"Yes," she replied, her voice no longer playful.
From deeper in the trees, a black wave was crawling outward—a dead zone.
Commander Darvas Sangkara had entered the forest. Where he walked, nature died slowly, in pain.
Raikha knelt low, his fingers digging into the mossy ground. The earth beneath him was dead. Not a pulse of life, not a breath, no song.
Lara landed beside him, quiet as falling ash, her dark braid tangled with leaves. Her chest rose and fell, controlled but urgent. "He killed it," she whispered.
Raikha didn't need to ask who. He already knew. "The commander," he said, his voice grim.
Lara nodded. "He broke the root seals. My second trap... it didn't even go off. He's not just messing with magic; he's cutting the forest off from itself."
Raikha clenched his jaw. "This isn't just war. He's hunting the soul of this land."
A heavy quiet settled, broken only by the distant creaking of dying trees, mourning their own fading life.
Lara's eyes narrowed, a fierce spark in them. "We can't outrun him forever, Raikha. You know that."
He turned to her, his gaze steady. "I'm not running."
A long pause. Lara studied him, then a faint grin touched her lips. "Good. Because I've got one last trap."
He raised an eyebrow.
She leaned closer, her voice low and firm. "The Heart Root. The deep vein. The Thornstep elders call it the cradle of Halimun. It's where all living threads connect. Where everything grows and everything listens."
Raikha frowned. "But that's sacred ground. Even Gantari said—"
"I don't care what the old man said!" Lara snapped, then softened. "If we lead Sangkara there, the forest will remember who it fights for."
Raikha thought about it, his saber tapping once against the root below them. The Heart Root. A place of balance, yes, but also of raw fury. A place where his silat might not just be movement, but a powerful message.
"Can you get us there?" he asked.
"I was raised to," she replied. "Langkasuri had temples. But Thornstep? We had paths. I know the old signs."
Raikha nodded. "Then we don't wait. We bait him."
Lara smirked. "You mean piss him off?"
"I mean make him follow."
She stood, wiping blood and dirt from her hands. Her eyes sparked. "Then let's make him chase fire," she said.
Together, they vanished into the living green—what little remained—moving fast, hearts pounding, toward Halimun's last sacred stronghold.
Behind them, Sangkara's shadow closed in, drawn by blood, by rage, and by something deeper. A storm, brewing.
****