The slavers arrived at dawn.
Cold air clung to the earth and mist rolled low along the trees, muffling shapes and swallowing sound. Snow crunched beneath boots and cart wheels. Bone charms rattled against leather armor. Dogs sniffed the ground with restless hunger.
Six men.
Three dogs.
One covered cart — empty now, meant to carry children later.
Baba Voss watched them from behind a fallen pine, motionless as stone. His spear rested against his forearm, point angled downward to avoid rustle. Around him crouched six hunters, breaths quiet, hands wrapped around clubs, knives, and crude bows.
They could not see the slavers.
But they could hear them.
Slavers moved like people who believed they owned the world — armored, confident, unafraid. They talked aloud. They kicked at snow. They joked about the women and the price of strong boys.
Their arrogance was the one sense the blind did not lack.
Behind the line, at the very edge of perception, a small body crouched beneath furs beneath a woven shelf of roots. I watched the clearing with eyes sharp enough to see frost forming on bark.
Children did not join war.
But rulers learned from it.
Baba had placed me there himself.
"See the world from danger," he'd said.
He never once realized how literal that was.
The Trap
The slavers approached the village entrance — an open gap between two winter-bare pines.
A gap Baba had deliberately left unblocked.
Slavers saw an entrance.
Hunters saw a choke point.
The system chimed in my mind, text overlaying the world like a HUD.
Military Path Progression:
Skill Gained: Terrain Exploitation (Basic)
Effect: +Ambush Success Rate in Familiar Territory
The slavers marched straight into the kill zone.
Baba made no signal.
There was no bird call, no whistle, no cue.
He simply stood — an imperceptible shift of weight — and the hunters acted.
Clubs struck from above, cracking bone through leather. Knives drove into ribs. Arrows thudded into backs. Dogs yelped and fell, throats cut before they could bark.
Slavers screamed and spun in circles, unable to identify direction. Blind ambushers operated with silence and touch. Slavers operated with fear and flailing.
The first exchange lasted eight seconds.
Three slavers fell dead. Two crippled. One unscathed — the biggest and most armored.
The survivor roared, swinging a curved bone blade wildly. He caught one hunter's arm, slicing deep. Blood spattered across snow. The hunter fell, gasping.
The slaver grabbed him and pressed a blade to his throat.
His voice boomed across the clearing.
"Drop your weapons or I open him!"
Hunters froze.
Slavers used hostages because it worked on sightless tribes.
But not on Baba Voss.
Baba's head tilted. His nostrils flared.
He scented blood — then wind — then weight shift — then foot placement. His spear arm tightened.
He moved.
Fast.
He crossed the clearing in five strides and plunged his spear deep into the slaver's collarbone, angled downward to avoid slicing the hostage's throat.
The slaver screamed as his arm went numb. The spearhead tore through shoulder and lung. He collapsed, gurgling on blood, weapon falling uselessly from his fingers.
Baba ripped the spear free and ended him with a second thrust through the heart.
Silence fell.
The hunters breathed heavily. The wounded moaned. Dogs twitched in their final throes.
The battle was over.
But the system, unlike the tribe, did not wait.
Battle Outcome: Victory
Casualties: 0 dead, 1 wounded
Loot: Bone weapons, leather armor, bindings, cart
Then:
Tactical Merit Awarded: +Leadership Aptitude
Underneath it, a new window:
Military Skill Gained: Basic Command
Effects: +Morale, +Coordination, +Tactical Execution
And then something even more important:
Era Advancement: Tribal → Proto-Military
The tribe had unknowingly formed the world's first organized infantry.
Aftermath
The village celebrated with quiet solemnity. Victory did not mean relief — it meant acknowledgement of threat.
Bodies were burned. Meat was salted. Tools and armor were claimed. The wounded were treated with boiled roots and animal fat.
I sat near the cart the slavers brought, inspecting it like a scholar and a thief.
The cart had iron rivets — iron, not bronze. Scavenged from remnants of the old world or traded with Payan smugglers. The slavers were not simple raiders — they were connected.
Connections meant factions. Factions meant politics. Politics meant war.
The system chimed.
Intelligence Update: External Faction Detected
Faction: Valley Slavers
Motive: Child Acquisition and Trade
Awareness of Tribe: Confirmed
Threat Level: Moderate → Rising
I smiled — tiny, silent, unnoticed.
The more complex the world, the more room for rulers to maneuver.
The Conversation
That night, while the tribe slept, Baba sat sharpening his knife by the fire. The wounded hunter slept beside him, bandaged and breathing weakly.
I crawled to Baba's leg and leaned against it.
He rested a hand on my head.
"You smell the fire change," he murmured.
It was true. Wood changes scent as it burns — from pine to smoke to charcoal. Sight made that easier, but Baba didn't need sight to teach it.
Then he asked something new.
"When men attack, what do we do?"
I pointed at the ground — then made a sweeping motion.
He interprets:
"Choose the battlefield."
Then I tapped my chest — then pointed outward.
He interprets again:
"Strike first."
I nodded once.
Baba laughed, a low rumble like thunder under furs.
"You will be a warrior."
Not just a warrior, I thought.
A sovereign.
The Council Meets Again
The next morning, the council gathered. The elder tapped her staff thrice — opening the meeting.
"We killed six slavers," an elder reported.
"We lost none," another said.
"More will come," a younger hunter warned.
The eldest among them, hair white and braided with charms, asked the only question that mattered:
"What does Baba Voss say?"
All heads turned toward him.
Baba answered without hesitation:
"We do not wait for wolves. We hunt them."
The council stiffened.
This was radical. Tribes defended. They did not pursue. Pursuit required tactics, scouting, logistics — the early skeletons of war.
A silent moment stretched — then one hunter tapped his staff once in agreement.
Then another.
Then another.
Unanimous.
The elder declared:
"Then we will hunt."
The system chimed.
New Quest Unlocked:
Hunt the Slaver Warband
Objective: Neutralize or repel raider force
Reward: +Territory Influence, +Martial Prestige, +Military Experience
And under it:
Leadership Opportunity:
Suggest tactics to Primary Commander?
(Indirection recommended due to current age)
I smiled.
Even the system knew I was an infant general trapped in a baby body.
The Suggestion
While hunters prepared to march, Baba kneeled, checking spears by touch. I tapped his wrist twice — our signal for listen.
Then I pointed at the bone knife, then at the blood-blackened snow where the slaver died, then toward the forest.
Baba paused.
"Follow blood?"
I shook my head.
Pointed again: weapon → blood → forest → crouch low.
Baba frowned, thinking.
Then his face changed.
"Track them," he whispered.
Exactly.
Slavers would not scatter. They would regroup where the rest of their camp lay — with their leader, supplies, and the real threat: the buyer.
If we tracked them instead of waiting, we could strike before they gathered numbers.
Baba stood and repeated the idea to the council.
They tested the concept verbally, tapping staff rhythms as if feeling the shape of the strategy.
Finally, the elder declared:
"Then we track. Then we kill."
The system rewarded me immediately:
Strategy Recognized: Pursuit Warfare
+Tactical Insight
+Influence (Minor)
Then:
Reputation Gained: Baba's Strange Child (+3)**
Effect: Tribe begins attributing strategic thoughts to you silently.
Perception is the currency of loyalty.
March to War
The hunters left at dusk. The tribe watched them vanish into frost and fog, spears raised, senses sharpened.
Baba led at the front. I remained behind — too young to join — but not useless.
As the hunters disappeared, I whispered to myself in my old voice:
"These are not battles. These are prologues."
The first empire in a blind world did not begin with coronation.
It began with a hunt.