As soon as Echetadike landed a step on the shrine's threshold, he felt his swollen cheeks go down and his scrotal sac hung full as before.
“Huh-huh-huh”.
He cleared his throat. On realizing he could now freely speak, he gave words to his boiling anger.
“Old one, how could you?” he roared.
Shocked, the chief priest stood dumbfounded.
“You weakened me through my testicles so one of your clan could depose me, eh?”
“Hush,” cautioned the chief priest with a whisper and a hand over his mouth.
Ogbeide's messenger was still at earshot distance. He slowed down a bit and then hastened away.
“Don’t quieten me,” snapped Echetadike. “Oh, so you are ashamed of your action you don’t want people around to hear. I will scream at the roof’s top so everyone in the neighborhood can know what deceitful man you are and spread it around the village and beyond.”
“Echeta, I don’t know what brought about your insinuation. Will you at least calm down and let me talk.”
“No! You fooled me once with your lies. I will really be a fool to let you repeat the same. How could you, the supposed representative of the gods of our land conspire with one man against another? Shame on you, tueh.”
Echetadike spat on the floor of the shrine and stormed out. His hut was many distance away from the shrine. As he trekked, so he talked to himself oblivious of people who passed by. Till he walked into his compound, he was yet to expend his anger. Twilight was approaching. His first son, Uwaifo, of age 15 was playing football with his two other boys; 10 and 12 years respectively. They didn’t need to be told their father was in a tempestuous mood. Like rats at the sight of a cat, they scurried to different corners. His wife was seated at the shed with his first born child; a girl of seventeen years, while she plaited the hair of the last born. They knew better to stay away.
It was only his mother who could meet him half way the compound as he approached.
“My son, what happened?” she asked with anxiety telling in her voice.
“Is it not that useless, lying chief priest?”
“Mechionu gi! How dare you talk that way of the gods' representative?”
“Nne you won’t believe your so called ‘gods’ representative conspired…,”
Echetadike narrated all that took place since he left for Uzumba warriors’ meeting in the morning. As they covered the few steps to the entrance of his hut, his mother pacified and tried disabusing his mind from his unproven claim.
He was a step into his hut when he suddenly felt empty again. Rooted to the spot in shock, his hands went for his scrotal sac and confirmed the void.
“Nne, the chief priest has my testicles again,” he screamed.
“What! How?”
Echetadike dashed in and out with his polished, sharp machete.
“Where are you going to?”
“To the shrine. That old fool doesn’t seem to know what I am capable of. It’s either he returned my testicles or I bring down his head.”
“Aaah, Echeta, do you ever pause to consider the consequences of your actions before taking them? That is a wrong approach to a matter as this.”
By now, Echetadike was few distance away from the compound.
“Wait for me,” his mother called as she ran after him.
The earth under him quaked as he stamped on. All the way to the bend that led to the shrine, his mother could not catch up with him. The chief priest didn’t need the gods to alert him of impending danger. The one-man battalion coming for him announced himself from afar. He remained shiftless on the stool where he sat within.
“Old one, where are you?” called Echetadike as he crossed the weaved palm fronds that formed a boundary about the thatched hut within.
A sudden white light struck. Echetadike came crashing with a thud that upset the dust. He was flat on his back. His mother leapt the rest of the way to him, screaming his name. Kneeling beside him, she shook his still body, but there was no movement. His eyes were wide open, unblinking.
“Great one, please have mercy on the son of thy poor widow. Though he is grown up, he is but a child.”
“Woman, what could a frail, old man like myself could have done to harm a fearsome warrior like Echetadike? The gods had defended their own.”
The Chief priest rose to his feet, sang and dance before the carved idols around him, jingling the small metal bell in his hand.
“Please, Great one, appease the gods on his behalf.”
“Weep not! Except he is not a true, born son of Uzumba will he die. The gods are merciful. They discipline, but not to the point of death.”
Just then, Echetadike's chest rose and descended, his eyes blinked repeatedly, his body convulsed violently. He moved to rouse himself to his feet but couldn’t sit not to talk of stand. With tears, his mother narrated the incidence that led to their coming.
“That was also not my doing,” said the chief priest. “I remember warning your son to let what took place within the shrine to help him maintain silence remain a secret. When he came here running his mouth, shouting at the top of his voice, all efforts to quieten him was to no avail. The walls have ears. Perhaps his words had fallen on one nearby, or had travelled far away and had been picked by the ears of an enemy who decided to afflict him with his testicles. Let me consult the gods to know the exact source of this.”
The Chief priest went into a moment's ritual of breaking a piece of kolanut into four parts and pouring before one of the idols, reeled off some words of incantation as he made marks in a tray bearing white dust.
“Hmmm, can a man insult the gods and go unpunished?” he soon expressed. Echetadike spat in the eyes of the gods, called them liars. They have decided to teach him a lesson. Until he learns to bridle his tongue and tame his anger, his testicles will not return. Until he learns, that the untamed anger of a man does not make up his strength, but in wisdom lies a strength that says 'we live to fight another day', the strength of his manhood will not return.”
By the time the Chief Priest was done relaying the message of the gods, darkness had almost taken over fully from daylight. Echetadike was still too weak to help himself up. His mother had to go get a couple of his kinsmen who helped him.
Back home, his wife moped his bruised back with warm water. Save the groans he uttered while she was at it, Echetadike hadn’t said a word since he returned. The turn of day's event played repeated on his mind. In the morning, he set out as the village's warlord. By evening, he returned a coward of all that ever held the title. Never in the history of Uzumba did any of her warlords cede his position. They either died in their beds or died fighting. Echetadike was soon drown in self-pity and depression he was robbed of appetite.
“My husband, will you rather be alive to keep your household safe, or dead so Mazi Ogbeide and his gang can freely come over and ravish me, your mother, daughters, and make slaves of your sons? Please eat something so you can regain your strength and stay alive, ” Adammah urged.
Echetadike managed to take some morsels of fufu with Egusi soup.
By midnight, with a wide calabash of sacrifice in his hands, Ogbeide was led to the T-junction at the center of the village where the chief priest and few other priests carried out the necessary rituals for his initiation.
At dawn, the village crier went about proclaiming Ogbeide as the new warlord.
QIn the evening, Ogbeide was in his chamber, wrapped up in deep thought. Although he had long been preparing for it, he never expected throwing a challenge at the great Echetadike could be such a walkover. The report of the messenger he sent to the Chief Priest was nothing far from the truth. He couldn’t place his hand on why the old man had seized his testicles.
Knowing Echetadike for who he is, even if he was dying, he couldn’t have possibly given up his position without fighting to the last drop of his blood.
We all thought he was sick.
How stupid.
Like a wounded Lion, he is now deadlier than before.
Having learnt of what later took place at the Shrine, now that Echetadike was weak, Ogbeide would be damned to let him recover fully. A plan formed on his mind. In celebration of his position, rather than wait till fortnight when the warriors met, he sent out emissary to announce meeting the next day.
At the impromptu gathering, Ogbeide was seated at the far front, on the warlord's high stool fully armed and kitted. His thick, throbbing biceps were bound in armlets, the skin cap and waistband that distinguished him from others were in place. Most prominent in his appearance was the sacred tusk hanging down his chest. There was this awe and dread around him. Warriors stepped forward one after the other to pay obeisance, after which census was taken. All the warriors were present except Echetadike. Ogbeide signaled to his right-hand man and whispered into his ear.
A set of four warriors later showed up in Echetadike’s compound. Sighting them from within as they approached, Adammah came out to them, stood at the entrance.
“Greetings to you warriors of our land. To what do we owe this visit?”
“Woman, we are not here because of you. Where is your husband?” responded the leader.
“He is inside, sleeping.”
“Go and wake him up, the warlord requires his presence at the warriors' meeting at once.”
“He is not feeling well. The native doctor told him to get some rest. Please inform Mazi Ogbeide he would visit to speak for himself as soon as he wakes up or when he is fit enough.”
Echetadike was seated in his chair within, boiling with anger as the conversation got to his ears. It was his mother’s continuous plea to let his wife handle the matter that held him down.
“Woman, your husband knows the laws that binds warriors of Uzumba. Except a warrior is dying or dead, he mustn’t miss any meeting. He should have sent a message he is sick. Go in and wake him up or we will be forced to do so ourselves.”
Adammah was still trying to get them to reason with her when the leading warrior shoved her aside. That moment, a tossed Javelin sent the man staggering back in the direction he came. Echetadike launched out with his shield in his hand.
“Here I am, come get me,” he roared.
Echetadike’s Javelin never went out without drawing blood. It penetrated his target on one side and came out the other. He as well as everyone present were shocked to see his target still standing. The javelin only grazed a side of his upper arm and had fallen. The men who were about taking to their heels now stood their ground. With combined force, they turned on him. At the thrust of the rim of his shield at the throat of one man, the upper cut got the man crashing backwards. As blood oozed out of him, so he thrashed till he went still. Echetadike was going for another man when a thick, heavy net came over him. Before he could shake it off, the men gripped the net by its corners and pulled, capturing and dragging him away.
Noise broke out at the warriors meeting as the great Echetadike was being pulled over in net like a criminal. Many wondered what could have warranted such brutish treatment of the immediate past warlord. But when they learnt he fought the men sent to the point of killing one, Echetadike became an offense on their nostrils.
Ogbeide he was glad Echetadike had walked right into his trap. He knew he would resist the men, they would get into a fight in which he would beat them hands down. This would not only be an insult to him, but to the entire gathering, which would justify his being thrown into the dungeon. From there, he would find a way to poison him. What baffled Ogbeide was how Echetadike ended up being caught in a net.
The net was taken off him after he was brought before Ogbeide.
“Draw closer and bend the knee in obeisance.”
As expected, Ogbeide knew he wouldn't. At his signal, his right-hand man drew near for a whisper and dashed off. Echetadike maintained his stance while activities went on around him. All of a sudden, his ears picked a familiar cry. He looked over his shoulder and saw it was that of his wife. She, his mother and children were being led forth by two warriors. On sighting this, Echetadike dropped to his knees. To further humiliate him, Ogbeide ordered him to get on his fours, then he stretched his legs on his back.
“Let the celebration begin,” he announced.
At that, Echetadike’s family showed up--females carrying trays of smoked bush meat, and males; kegs of palm wine. While they walked the midst of the men; serving, Echetadike saw one slapped Adammah's buttocks. That grated on his nerves. With gritted teeth, he held back the anger that rose within like molten magma. Not long after, Ogbeide called his mother to come serve him. This time, all hell was going to break loose. But still, Echetadike kept his cool. Rounds of palm wine were served. Ogbeide stationed Echetadike’s son, Uwaifo by his side with a keg of palm wine who kept refilling his horn as he emptied it.
They were all in high spirits, many in a drunken state. Suddenly, there was a loud cry from afar. Before they knew what was happening, invaders, warriors from one of the neighboring villages that were in subjection to Uzumba fell on them. Their leader went after Uzumba's warlord. Ogbeide roused himself out of stupor. But he was too slow in going for his shield and spear that were at arms-length distance from him. Echetadike was trying to get on his feet when a chopped off head dropped in front of him, it was that of Ogbeide. Beside it was the sacred tusk. Echetadike recalled the divination of the Chief Priest that warned of impending storm that would take his head off his neck.
With the warlord down, at their leader's signal, more invaders lurking in bushes nearby trooped out in their numbers. Pair of men here and there locked in fight, clanging sounds of clashing spears and shields rend the air. Should the people of Uzumba lose the sacred tusk to the enemies, they are doomed to defeat and slavery. Echetadike reached out for it before the invaders' leader could get to it. As soon as his hand touched the Sacred tusk, his testicles returned. Strapping it to his neck, strength and confidence filled him like before.
Many of Uzumba’s warriors laid dead in the pool of their blood. The few left alive fled before the enemies. As they were being chased, one of them looked over his shoulder and saw Echetadike slashing down the opposition from behind. The men were reinvigorated by the sight and the chased became the chaser. They fought onto triumphant victory.
©2021
Eruditegoks
Wow!!! Great story
ReplyDeleteThank you
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