Kill Now, Die Later

Before long, the Eze emerged and beckoned Nnanyi and his son to a bamboo canopy, where the council was already seated.
‘Ta bu gbo, echi di eme. Mgbe onye teta ula bu otutut ya. We are awake now—we must act.’
The man speaking cradled his machete, hilt in one hand and a sharpening stone in the other. The proverb he invoked was the Ogbi way of saying a stitch in time saves nine; in the context of war, it was a call to strike first and to strike fast.
‘If we give them time, they will overwhelm us,’ another man said. ‘He is right. We must strike while the iron still burns, lest it cool and cannot be bent.’
‘Ndewo,’ Nnanyi greeted, and all eyes turned to him. ‘How many of you have actually been to Onicha, Benin, or any other taken kingdom?’ He waited, knowing full well no hands would be raised. He sighed. ‘I have been there with my son.’ His eyes met Anyi’s for a moment, then returned to the man who had spoken.
‘As an eye that has seen, I will tell you what is at stake. You may then decide when to strike or whether to sleep.’ Nnanyi moved to the centre of the gathering and faced the Eze, who sat at its heart.
‘When you go to places like Onicha, you will find Ogbis who are no longer Ogbis. After all, the wise Ape Men taught us: Ana eme Ogbi eme, ada abu Ogbi abu—Ogbi is something we do, not something we are.’
Faces creased in confusion as mutters swelled into noise.
‘In Onicha you will find an Ogbi Obi that takes orders from pig-men. You will find Ogbis who sit by and watch sacred rocks being destroyed and trees that once shaded the ancestors cut down. You will find blue-eyed Ogbis and Ogbis who insist that their Jezus is the son of Amadioha—or even that he is Amadioha made flesh. They call him Jezu, nwa Amadi—Jezu, the Son of Amadi. I heard all this as I passed their public Xrist shrines’
‘Alu!’ The men shook their heads, clicked their fingers and spat on the ground.
‘But you haven’t’ even heard the first of it,’ Nnanyi said, settling them. ‘The courts no longer have Nzes or Ozos as we know them. Instead, they have lawyers, defendants and prosecutors, selected only because they have read the law. Can you imagine? They had a boy who could not even marry most of my daughters preside over my case.’
‘And what was your crime, Nnanyi?’ the Eze asked.
‘I tried to protect the stone library. I attacked a pig-man who was destroying it with wicked fire.’
‘And what was the verdict?’ the Eze pressed.
‘Between death and exile… well, here I am.’
The murmurs fell to a chilling silence.
‘What do you mean—death? They would kill you? That is part of their law?’
‘These pig-men are not like you and me. Life and death mean nothing to them. Our lives are merely an inconvenience, something in their way. Yet what I do not understand is why they are doing this. If they want the land, why not just kill us all and take it? What is this need to turn us blue—to make us like them?’
A new round of murmurs rippled through the crowd.
‘So, as a man who has seen with his own two eyes, what do you suggest we do, ogbu’agu?’ the Eze asked Nnanyi once more.
Nnanyi turned and faced the council.
‘I don’t know how much you can see by moonlight.’ He showed them the wound at his side, still healing under the d’bia’s charcoal-grey paste.
‘I got this from a pig-man, and there is much more where that came from. This d’bia-ogwu is from their lands—let her tell you how they operate. She has told me much on our journey.’
Nnanyi ushered the healer forward, and she began to speak.
‘They are not coming here—they are already here. Those who call themselves priests are the spies who gather information to tell their army when a kingdom is ripe. As you know, they have been harvesting in the west, north, south, and east. Some soldiers sneak in as priests and lie in wait. Their armies lie hidden in the bush where they make camp. They may have even poisoned the river. They have spies in every land.’
Each man searched the faces of his brothers for a betrayer.
‘Children of Eke, it is only a matter of time. It could be tonight, tomorrow, or the day after. But I assure you, the war is inevitable.’ She retreated the same way she emerged.
Anyi felt his chest heaving with panic and his palms dripping with sweat. Images from his dreams of war kept projecting in his mind—frames becoming ever clearer even though he was awake. The blue-eyed Anyi he always met at the end pushed him back into reality. He debated whether to share his dreams with the council, whether he could stomach the shame of it all—for himself and his father—and the possibility of them thinking him the betrayer. Perhaps he would share it with Onyi first. He thought of slipping out of the meeting to find her, but quickly dismissed it. Not at this meeting, where all the male enders and first-born sons were busy discussing war.
‘Left to me,’ Nnanyi voice now boomed, ‘I say tonight is as ripe as any other night. We know where they have settled. Let us take the war to them before they bring it to us. No mercy.’
‘Gbam!’ the man from earlier sounded his agreement. Anyi caught his arm in the moonlight, and surely a swing of his blade could cut a man’s head clean off.
‘I say we move in silence. No need for the ekwe drum of war. We simply mask for battle and move. All it takes is a single day to send one message, and their soldiers will start to swarm. If they already have an army stationed in Onicha, they might as well be on the ground here. We are made less safe every time the sun rises.’ No one else spoke after Nnanyi.
The Eze let out a deep sigh. Then he asked the gathering, ‘All in favour?’
There was not a single hand that did not reach for the sky.
The meeting ended with an agreement: kill them all and kill them now. All that was missing was a viable plan.
‘We shall strike before the first cock crows, at the dark hours of dawn—without mercy or remorse. Let every male who has been initiated be ready. First-borns will lead the charge into the pig-men’s quarters. We know they have about three outposts for their priests. They have soldiers, but not nearly enough to defeat every first-born and father in Ekpe.’
The group nodded, and Nnanyi continued.
‘Second-borns will remain in the town and watch the streets. We cannot leave our markets and sacred spaces unprotected. Even if spies exist among us, they could not have corrupted all the second sons of Eke.’
Keen eyes watched on, no one daring to interrupt.
‘The third-borns and below will stay at home, armed—though it should not come to that. But this is my attack plan to cover all bases.’
‘It will be done as you have spoken. We are lucky to have a mind like
yours, Nnanyi. History will not forget you. Your son will never forsake you.’
It was the man from earlier with the blade.
The rest agreed with words and gestures, and shortly after, each returned to their homes to prepare for the moment.
‘Spread this plan only in whispers. Word cannot get to them before we strike. Sharpen your blade and spear. Wear your scariest mask.’ Nnanyi paused. ‘Grab a gun if you have one, and ready your heart for what must be done.’ With these final words, the crowd dispersed. Anyi and his father lingered a little longer—the older man for a private conversation with the Eze, and Anyi, to sneak off to the huts in search of Onyi.
‘You can’t enter here now.’ A young woman blocked him at the entrance.
‘I want to see Onyi. I have to tell her about what is coming.’
‘Are you deaf, or stupid, or both? I said you can’t enter here,’ the woman repeated.
Anyi paused. ‘Okay, can she come out then? I can wait under the mango tree there.’
The woman shook her head.
‘No. Onyi is in her oge-nso. Do you know what that means?’
Anyi scratched his head. He knew the words meant a period of purification. But how did it affect Onyi and his ability to see her?
‘I… I don’t really understand,’ Anyi spoke like a mouse.
‘Ona egbu okukor,’ the young woman pointed out.
Anyi remembered the d’bia’s words about killing a chicken and how it made girls become women.
‘But I still don't understand. Why is she killing a chicken at this time, and who is going to eat it? Isn’t it too late?’
The woman broke out in laughter, causing her beaded necklace to swing.
‘You think that is what it means for a woman to kill a chicken? Do you have sisters?’
Anyi had sisters—perhaps too many. His father had not been able to father a son for years until Anyi arrived. The way they lived, he was hardly involved in their affairs, and they hardly in his. Still, he knew that for strange reasons, certain weeks passed when the women were away and some were not allowed to cook at all. He had supposed they were off buying goods in the market. Now he was learning it was the time for killing chickens.
‘You are a man now, are you?’ the woman asked.
When she stepped from the shadows, her resemblance to her sister hit him. In many ways, she was simply a taller, fuller Onyi.
‘Yes. I have been initiated,’ Anyi replied, unsure why she was asking.
‘Do you know how women are initiated into womanhood?’
‘I know it has to do with bleeding. Is Onyi being cut?’ His ears strained for any sound that might betray Onyi’s pain.
‘Onyi is not being cut. Some Ogbis do it, but it is not our way in Eke. She is bleeding from the inside, as Nne Eke intended. It means that she can now carry children if she lies with a man.’
Anyi blinked, trying not to let his confusion show. His father had once mentioned something about lying with women and how it was not the same as him sharing a bed with small Ozi.
‘You mean to say if I lie with her now, she will become pregnant? Why do you speak like rats run?’
‘Because I cannot be the one to teach you these things. If you know, you know. And if you do not, you must learn on your own. Perhaps your sister or your mother will be better suited to explain. But for tonight, this is as far as you will come to seeing Onyi. She started a few days ago, so perhaps by tomorrow the chicken will have bled out, and you can ask her for yourself what it is to kill a chicken.’
Anyi accepted the final words from Onyi’s older sister and made his way back to the canopy where his father still spoke with the Eze.
‘Great Priest-Guide, if I am to be honest, I have accepted my fate—our fate,’ Nnanyi was saying, ‘I have only chosen to die standing on my feet and not lying on my back like so many too quick to surrender. They save lives, but they kill history.’
Onyi’s father scratched his grey beard.
‘Everyone with half an eye for visions says the same thing: our end is inevitable, our cause lost from the beginning. Even non-seers are dreaming of Armageddon. They speak of fireballs raining from the sky, streets turned into rivers of blood, limbs torn from bodies, and fathers taken from sons.’
Nnanyi glanced at Anyi. This is not how you die, the d’bia’s words echoed in his mind. Ever since they rolled off the old woman’s tongue, a shadow had haunted him. Part of him longed to know exactly what she had seen, to prepare himself for when the hour came. Yet another part thought it a secret best left in the d’bia’s dream. If Amadioha wished him to know, he would dream it himself. He did not want to smell death before tasting it. He wanted instead to walk into it, spit in its eye, and dare it to do its worst. To know the place or hour would rob him of that.
‘Seers say what seers see,’ Nnanyi murmured, to himself and to Anyi. ‘I must rest now. If we are to attack before the first cock-crow, I need to be ready.’
‘But you ate still healing,’ the Eze pointed out, eyeing the gash at the warrior’s side.
‘There will be enough time for healing. For now, it is time for killing.’
‘Very well.’ The Eze turned to the d’bia, ‘Will you stay with us for the night? There is much I want to ask you about Onicha and what has happened there.’
‘It will be my honour, Eze Eke.’
With that, Anyi and his father left the Eze’s presence and made their way home. On the road masked guards still loitered the corners, but they did not trouble them.
‘They are probably watching for pig-men,’ Nnanyi noted.
‘Are you not afraid of dying, Nnanyi?’ Anyi blurted.
His father let out a long, weary sigh.
‘I am only afraid to die needlessly. You see, my son, the value of time lies not only in its length but also in its use. To have lived a single moment as a hero is better than to have lived a thousand years as a coward.’
Anyi weighed the question: was he a hero or a coward? Thinking of death terrified him so much that he would trade his brown eyes for blue to save his life. In his fear he encountered this truth, but with its irony—he would rather die than admit it. A coward’s death, he thought. But was he not too young to be called to a hero’s work? Nnanyi already had sons and daughters to outlive him. He, on the other hand, had achieved nothing.
‘But is it not okay to play the coward sometimes, even if only to survive?’ Anyi asked. By now they were at the entrance of their obi.
‘We do not choose when and where our principles and truths apply. There is no worse coward than he who claims he acts so today because he has plans of bravery tomorrow. But I have had enough of this talk of death.’ He turned to look at his son. ‘You must be ready before the first cock-crow, and when the moment comes, I do not want you to hesitate. Do you understand?’
Anyi nodded but said nothing.
The test of manhood was one thing—this was something else entirely. Anyi wondered if he had it in him, if he had war in him. His father, the man who had brought him into this world, was a warrior, skilled with blades and, as he had only recently learned, guns too. He pictured himself standing over one of the pig-men priests as they slept. In his mind’s eye they lay in their flowing white robes, their arched hats still on their heads. When the moment comes I do not want you to hesitate. He drove the blade into a throat, blood spurting to soak the garment red. He tore himself away from the vision.
‘Hey Anyi!’ Small Ozi’s voice rang out from a window. Akpi’s followed shortly after: ‘You are back! Come and tell us how it went. What is Onicha like? We want to hear your stories. Did you see the stone library?’
The innocence in their voices warmed his heart, carrying him back to a time in his own life that now felt like a thousand seasons ago. He walked into the hut knowing that where he had witnessed horror, he would paint for them adventure.