The drums weren't real.
Not yet.
But the forest pulsed like they were.
A rhythm beneath the roots. A heartbeat in the branches.
War was coming.
Caesar stood beneath the old tree. The one where glyphs had been etched generations ago — long before they meant anything. Before they were more than shapes in dirt. Now, they were law. Memory. Warning.
— war.
He traced it again with his knuckle. Not to redraw it. Just to feel the edge.
Rocket crouched nearby, sharpening a spear that didn't need sharpening. Not anymore.
Ash, restless, paced near the firepit, eyeing the younger apes as they trained. His expression was tight. Controlled. But something in his shoulders gave away the storm inside.
Maurice approached from the eastern ridge, his fur streaked with mist and age, but his presence as steady as the stone beneath their feet. He moved slower these days — not from weakness, but from caution.
"Scouts returned," he signed.
Caesar nodded.
"How many?"
"Three humans. Six guns. One truck. One antenna. South road."
"Military?"
Maurice shook his head.
"Worse. Survivors. Desperate ones."
Caesar stared into the trees.
The south road was too close.
They had warned the humans before. Let them flee. Let them live.
But now?
Now the humans came not with fear — but fire.
Rocket stood.
"Strike first?" he asked.
Caesar didn't answer.
Not yet.
The south camp was barely holding together.
Makeshift tents. Mud-slicked paths. Guns that jammed when the cold set in.
Colonel Lander didn't care.
He stood before a table inside the only structure with a roof — an abandoned ranger station stripped of windows, doors, and insulation.
Maps. Radios. Ammo.
He barked orders without raising his voice.
"Fuel. Rations. Position the thermal scope along the ridge. Anyone not in uniform gets flagged."
Sorenson entered, rain dripping from his sleeves.
"We lost the drone feed."
Lander didn't blink.
"Then we move on foot."
Sorenson hesitated. "Sir… they killed Koba. With precision. That means—"
"I know what it means."
"They're organized."
"No. They're led."
Lander turned toward the shattered window, staring into the dark.
"And if Caesar's really alive, we don't wait."
Sorenson lowered his head.
"Yes, sir."
That night, Caesar summoned only five.
Rocket. Maurice. Ash. Lake. Palefoot.
They met in silence beneath the broken overhang where the rain couldn't reach them. The stars were hidden, but the firelight flickered across their faces like ancient omens.
Caesar began with a single glyph in the dirt:
𐍶 — truth.
Then another:
𐍺 — last.
He stood.
"This is no longer about survival."
The others listened.
"It's about future."
He turned to Rocket.
"You will lead the first team. Scout the ridge. No deaths unless provoked."
Rocket nodded.
To Ash:
"Protect the young. The mothers. Guard the old paths. If the humans try to circle, hold them."
Ash clenched his jaw and signed:
"Until death."
Maurice stepped forward.
"War is not just weapons. It is memory. Fear. Legacy. What do we become if we burn everything?"
Caesar looked at him for a long time.
Then replied:
"We become what we must… so they never cage us again."
At dawn, the apes moved.
Silent shadows through the trees.
No drums. No banners.
Only the glyphs carved into their skin, their weapons, their minds.
The humans didn't hear them coming.
Not yet.
But they would.
The leaves were wet. Not from rain — that had stopped an hour ago — but from the slow, creeping breath of dawn. Mist slithered between trees like smoke from an old fire, a whisper of the world before.
Rocket moved through it like muscle with a purpose. His back was hunched, arms swinging low, eyes cutting through the fog with the cold focus of someone who'd already buried too many friends. Beside him, Palefoot didn't breathe louder than the trees. They were brothers in motion now — scout and shadow.
The ridge they approached overlooked the human outpost. From here, the scars of fire and machine were plain.
Bulldozed trees. Burned grass. Fence posts still smoldering.
A message.
The humans weren't here to survive. They were here to claim.
Rocket didn't growl. Didn't curse. Just signed:
"Count heads."
Palefoot climbed. Fast. Quiet. When he returned, his hands shook as he spoke in gesture.
"Twelve. Two trucks. One heavy weapon."
Rocket's jaw clenched.
No civilians.
All soldiers.
He signed back.
"No move until signal. Caesar watches."
Caesar did watch.
From high above the valley, near the edge of the old power line clearing, he stood with Maurice, cloaked in brush. The air smelled of wet iron — gun oil and rust. It carried through the trees like rot.
Below, the humans were waking.
One man lit a fire too early. Another stumbled half-drunk to relieve himself.
Caesar didn't blink.
These weren't trained killers.
But desperate ones could still pull a trigger.
Maurice touched his arm gently.
"Fear makes them reckless."
"Reckless makes them dangerous," Caesar signed.
They fell into silence.
Below, the humans began moving faster. Building something. Reinforcing barricades. Setting traps.
"Do they know we watch?" Maurice asked.
"No. But they feel us."
Caesar looked up. Past the trees. Toward the sky still pale with fog.
"They always do."
At camp, Lake stood before the younger apes, watching them practice their stances.
Spears. Stones. Slings.
She corrected a gorilla's footing, then signed to a young orangutan fumbling with a bow.
"Strength is not only in arms. But eyes. Mind. Calm."
Ash passed by, nodding once. His section guarded the northern edge — the old game trail that had once led to a ranger's tower, now reduced to stone and bone.
Ash didn't like waiting.
He never had.
But Caesar had made it clear: not yet.
Hold the line.
Protect the roots.
Watch for smoke.
The smoke came faster than expected.
By midday, it poured from the eastern edge — not an attack, not yet — but a test. A fire set by the humans to draw them out. To see if the apes would charge.
But they didn't.
They moved in formation. Dug new lines. Tightened the perimeter.
And when Palefoot returned from the ridge, panting and soaked with sweat, his news brought stillness.
"They're building towers."
Maurice frowned. "To climb?"
"No. To see."
Observation posts.
Eyes in the sky.
If the humans could see into the forest, they could map the terrain.
Caesar stared toward the east for a long time.
Then signed:
"Burn them before they rise."
Rocket nodded.
The raid was silent.
Three apes. One path.
No sounds.
They struck at dusk — when the sun melted into orange behind the mountains, casting long shadows through the clearing.
The towers were still scaffolds — wood and wire, not yet complete.
Rocket struck first.
He toppled one with a kick to the base post, sending it crashing in a slow, splintered fall. Palefoot lit the second with oil-soaked moss. Flames danced up like a scream that couldn't be heard.
The third?
Lake climbed it herself — not to destroy, but to place a glyph.
𐍵 — line.
𐍶 — truth.
𐍺 — last.
The message was clear:
This was where peace ended.
When Caesar returned to camp that night, the others awaited him.
Ash stood with arms crossed, Lake beside him. Maurice near the fire, his gaze low.
Rocket arrived second, face streaked with soot.
Palefoot last, limping slightly, but grinning.
Caesar looked at each of them.
Signed once.
"Ready?"
Each nodded.
Each signed back a different word.
"Always." — Rocket.
"Now." — Ash.
"Together." — Maurice.
"Fire." — Palefoot.
"Forward." — Lake.
Then Caesar turned toward the stone wall at the center of camp.
Etched there, faint beneath layers of moss and soot, were glyphs left by Bright Eyes — his mother. From another time. Another war.
He added his own.
— begin.
Because now, there was no going back.