CHAPTER 1 : TANOH

His scar had been burning on his left collarbone since dawn.


The flesh around it had hardened when he touched it, as if the wound wanted to bite him back. Two deep, parallel holes that did not look like an animal bite. He had learned not to touch it anymore. Morning was the worst time—the heat rose with the sun, and the scar seemed to answer it, swelling and pulsing under his worn tunic.


He had seen thirteen yam festivals, maybe more. No one counted for him anymore.


The Banco forest began just a few steps ahead. He knew it by the way the air changed—a wet smell full of mold that made anyone want to leave. No insects were visible. No animal sounds. It was as if everything had died. The trees stood close together, their twisted trunks reaching toward the sky like frozen arms begging for help. The leaves were a deep green, almost black, as if the light disappeared inside them before reaching the ground.
He came back here every morning for many moons, moving a little closer each time, and retreating a little less. 


The Mandélébé came from there. The ones who had taken everything from him. His mother. His village. His life before. The life where he did not know they existed, where he did not know a bite could leave a mark that still burned today.


That day, in the middle of a clearing, he stopped.


Not a single beast sound. Not a bird call.


A spear cut through the leaves on his right. He dodged by instinct and stepped back. Five figures spread around him with a precision that tightened his stomach. Young adults, heavily armed, taking position without pushing or speaking. Someone had planned their formation in advance. Someone who knew what it meant to hunt in the Banco.


He looked at their hands before their faces. Hands always told the truth about strangers—the calluses revealed their favorite weapon, the shaking showed inexperience. But these hands were clean. Trained. Almost made for this.
A second spear whistled through the air—he dropped low and felt it graze his shoulder, the metal slicing the air. Time for thinking was over.
The first one to move held a long spear, his arm raised, shoulder ready. A spear fighter, made for this, keeping distance and forcing movement. Every time Tanoh tried to get close to one of the others, another spear would whistle to push him back to the center. The five were not trying to kill him. They were trying to wear him down, make him turn, measure him, and see what he could do before deciding whether he was worth killing.


He stopped running and rushed straight at the spearman. He had noticed that the boy clicked his tongue nervously before every attack—a tiny habit, but enough.


The boy had spent the past moons learning other people’s weak points, alone, in the edge of this forest that was his whole world.
The formation broke for a second. He struck the spearman’s forearm, sending the spear flying, and turned again at once. But a tall man with thick arms was already there, shield raised. He took the punch without moving and pushed Tanoh back with a single shoulder shove. Strong. Avoiding Tanoh’s eyes. Not there to attack—there to hold, control, and close every exit like a wall of wood and flesh.
Rage rose in the back of Tanoh’s neck. That pure fuel he knew so well, the one that had brought him back to this cursed border every morning.
He hit the shield twice—useless, but it gave him rhythm. Then he turned and grabbed the wrist of a third fighter coming from the side, short sword in hand. They rolled on the ground. Tanoh was faster and ended on top, knee on the man’s chest—but pain exploded in his back. Someone had struck him from behind with the flat of a blade between the shoulder blades, hard enough to cut off his breath.


He still got up.


He staggered, spat blood, and saw the fifth one—the one who had stayed back the whole time. She had no visible weapon. Slim, thin, braided hair tied into a bun at the back of her neck. She only watched, pointed with her chin, and adjusted the others with a movement of her hand. She almost never blinked. The strategist. The only one he had not touched yet.
The formation closed in. His legs felt heavy, his temple was bleeding from a blow he had barely felt, and the scout who had vanished into the bushes at the start had now appeared behind him, smiling slightly, twirling a knife between his fingers like a metal dragonfly.
Tanoh turned to face him.


The shield was already behind him.
Then—


“Back off.”


The voice came from above—calm, effortless, with the kind of authority that did not need to be loud. The five froze at once, like puppets with their strings cut. The young man stayed alert, fists tight, searching for the source of the sound among the tangled branches.


The man dropped from his branch with the ease of someone stepping down from a stool. Tall. Middle-aged. Gray braided hair and deep brown eyes. He rubbed his left shoulder, a habit done thousands of times, moving his tunic just enough to show old, pale scars that held nothing glorious.
“What is this?” he said to his juniors. “You’re attacking a teenager now?”
The five looked at each other, trying to figure out who would answer, who would take the blame.
“Elder, we couldn’t know! He was roaming near the edge, we thought he was one of them. Better safe than sorry,” said the spearman, rubbing his bruised forearm.
The man swept his gaze over his juniors, without anger or pride—only a cold assessment—then turned his calm attention to the boy, the way one studies unknown ground before stepping on it.
He took one step forward.


The ground did not move, but the air around them suddenly grew heavier, as if an invisible hand were slowly pressing on Tanoh’s chest, making it hard to breathe. The five instinctively stepped back, while Tanoh struggled to keep his balance. He did not understand this power, but he knew it came from this man—a cold, controlled will. The pressure rose again, stronger, like a clamp tightening around his ribs, then suddenly disappeared, leaving a strange emptiness behind.


“Hey, kid. You have no business being at this border. The Banco kills those who come too close. You should know that.”
Tanoh did not answer. Blood from his temple ran into his left eye, hot and thick, and he did not wipe it away. He would not lower his eyes. Not in front of them. Not in front of this man, who had just shown he could crush him without lifting a finger.
The man sighed—just a breath that said he had seen this before, and he knew how it ended.


“So, tell me. What’s your name?”


Silence.




The man waited and did not push. Around them, the five who had broken formation reorganized themselves, still glaring at Tanoh with suspicion. Tanoh looked at them one by one, distrust burning in his stomach. This time, they would not get him.


“Kid, what are you looking for here, far from your own people?” asked the elder, raising a hand to calm his juniors.
The scout, still twirling his knife, pointed it at Tanoh.


“You’ve got guts not to answer. Without the elder, I would’ve slit you open.”


“I have nothing to say to you. Get lost,” Tanoh snapped.


The strategist pulled some throwing needles from her pocket and looked at him calmly. Her eyes never left him.
The elder noticed, turned to her, and gave her a brief look. No words. No gesture. She understood and put the needles away.
Then he looked back at Tanoh and said, “I won’t leave a teenager in your condition alone at this border. He touched his chin, thinking. If you’re here, it’s probably because of them. What did they do to you?”


A short silence.


Then Tanoh asked, “Who are you... What are you doing here?”


The elder did not answer at once. He glanced at the shield bearer, who shrugged as if the question had nothing to do with him.


“We’re Opadjilé,” the shield bearer said.


Tanoh only stared. The word meant nothing to him. A tribe? An army? Another one of the fighters cut in, his voice sharp:


“And it’s our mission to be here. You, on the other hand...”


Tanoh grunted through clenched teeth, ignoring the burn in his temple. These Opadjilé—whether they were Mandélébé hunters or not—did not seem to be bluffing. And the man with gray hair... Tanoh felt the danger from him, like the forest itself.


“Come with me, boy. Where your strength and your rage can help you instead of destroying you,” the elder said.
For a moment, there was no sound, no movement, no voice.


Then screams tore through the air. Not human. Not animal either. Something in between.
Tanoh shivered. The elder saw it.




“Decide now, boy. Soon, you’ll face the ones you’re looking for. But you are not ready yet,” the man said quickly.




Tanoh waited. He had only a little time to choose, between the forest that had already taken so much from him and this man who might take him too.
Serve. Destroy himself. The words echoed like choices offered for something he had never chosen.
No, he thought. Not yet. Not after all this time. Not after what those creatures did to me. Not after what I let happen.
He felt the familiar heat on his wound, like a mouth trying to speak for him.




“If you beat me, I’ll follow you,” he said, with challenge in his voice.


The man looked at him for a moment. No surprise. More like recognition, as if that answer confirmed something he had already seen.


“Come on. I’m waiting,” the elder said.


Tanoh loosened his fists, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, took a breath, then attacked without warning. In the Banco, there were no rules. He had learned that very early.


Everything he had—his speed, the angles he had learned from fighting alone for many moons, the rage burning in his neck—he used without holding back.
The elder blocked the first strike and barely avoided the second. But he did not counterattack.
Tanoh kept going, changing rhythm, but nothing got through. The elder always moved to where Tanoh was going to strike before Tanoh even decided it, with such economy that the fight almost became silent. No heavy breathing, no visible effort. The elder read every attack like text.
Then the man vanished from Tanoh’s sight for a split second, and when Tanoh turned, the hold was already there. A hand on his shoulder, a foot planted on the ground, and the world flipped. He bit the earth. Tried to rise. Fought. Struggled. Resisted...


“Enough,” the elder shouted firmly.


Tanoh stayed still, his cheek pressed against the cold ground. The rage left his muscles like a fever breaking—slowly, in waves. For the first time in a long while, there was silence inside him.


A hand came down toward him.


He stared at it, unsure, like someone staring at a weapon he did not know. Then he took it.


“Tanoh,” he said. “That’s my name.”


“Nankalé... Welcome among the Opadjilé,” the elder said, helping him up with measured kindness.


He turned to the others.


“Let’s move. I released too much Kra earlier. It’s dangerous in this place.”


Tanoh followed.


They moved from branch to branch under the tree canopy, fast and silent shadows. Tanoh did not look back. He kept his eyes ahead, on the back of Nankalé, toward a place he knew nothing about—and for the first time in a long time, he was no longer staring at the Banco.


The cursed forest shrank behind him. Something tightened in his chest. His scar screamed.


Tanoh wondered if it was the forest calling him back.


But it was not the forest.
It was the silence behind them—the special silence that had filled the clearing before the attack—returning, closing in, getting closer. No footsteps. No cries. Just the emptiness that swallows everything.
And Tanoh understood that the Mandélébé did not hunt with noise.
They hunted with silence.