Authors: Njedeh Anthony
Chapter 25
Chief Vacoura was in his Haku with his Tik
papa, envoy and general. They were all quiet, waiting for something. Vacoura was agitated; he could not sit anymore. He paced around the chamber, rubbing his hands together. Then he abruptly faced the envoy.
“This was all your idea.”
“My Liege, the day has not ended,” the envoy replied.
“How could I have listened to you? My honor will be disintegrated.” Vacoura said.
The envoy glanced at the other two men to bail him out, but all of them pretended not to notice his signal.
“How could I believe a Wovamee would be able to kill a Tikpapa? My useless Tikpapa could not even advise me not to play in troubled water,” the chief continued.
The short Tikpapa tried to explain, but words would not come out of his mouth.
“I don’t understand what is going on. The general was supposed to have thrown out Ihua from the chieftaincy position. The spies we have are no longer sending any messages back to us and to top it all we paid a Wovamee to kill a Tikpapa and I have heard nothing. I feel like killing someone.”
A messenger ran in. “An old beggar requests to see you.”
“Do I look like I am ready to waste my time with an old man?”
“He said I should tell you that he has a gift for you from Obi.”
“You stupid boy, can’t you for once get things right? Send him in.”
The old man came in. He was not as old as he was pretending to be, but he was good at acting it. He bowed to the men in the room, but he was more concerned with the chamber as he surveyed the area with his eyes.
“You don’t have to feel uneasy. Nobody can hear or see anything in this area of my Haku, so I guarantee you maximum discretion.”
“Ihua still refuses to really put me in the picture.”
The old man still felt uneasy talking with the Tikpapa and general in the room, but the envoy was acceptable because he was the contact man.
“Listen to me, I trust these men with my soul, so what you say in front of me you can say in front of them. That’s why they have their positions.”
“That is easy for you to say. Am I not Chief Ihua’s envoy? As I came here, so also any of these men could do the same,” the man replied.
“Are you trying to categorize me with you? You?” the general asked.
Vacoura ignored his general. “You have a point and I am sorry. When next we meet, we do it alone. What do you have to tell me?”
“The elders had already agreed to impeach Ihua and replace him with the general, but as of now the general is nowhere to be found,” the man said. “Ihua came out in public and announced that he would find his general by any means necessary, even if it meant taking him from your Haku.”
Vacoura grinned. “So I killed his general. Continue.”
“His most trusted comrade died with his head in feces.” They all laughed and the Tikpapa asked who it was, even though they made it obvious they knew the answer. “It was Ihua’s Tikpapa.”
“What took you so long before you could report?” Vacoura asked.
“These are war times and I have to be very careful. Also, they are digging this trench between the boundary of Ahoda and Alloida.”
“What trench?” Vacoura faced his envoy. “What trench?”
“My Liege, I am not aware of any trench. I have not been able to get information from Ahoda until now. Their security is tight.”
“Are you deaf? The man said they were building the trench on the boundaries.”
“Chief, I really think it’s the general’s job to scout those areas, not mine,” Vacoura’s envoy said, defending himself
Automatically, everyone in the room faced the general.
“The boundaries between them and us are extremely large and they belong to none of the provinces, so we did not have any cause to check those areas.”
When he finished the statement, everyone was still looking at him. He tried to hide his face, but the rays from all the men touched him. He dropped flat to the ground.
“Forgive me, my Liege. I was incompetent in my duties.”
Vacoura ignored his general and talked with his spy.
“How long have they been digging this trench?”
“Over eight days.”
“How many people are digging it?”
“Most people in the province.”
“How deep and wide is it?”
“It’s the height of a man and about a thousand paces wide.”
“How could you pass through this wide hole without anyone seeing you?”
“That’s why I came at this time of the night and I am disguised.”
“Do you have anything more for me?”
“I heard he has locked up his business associate, the white man. That is about all.”
“The land you require at the Ijeska falls is yours to collect when the war is over. Now go before they realize you are gone.”
Ihua’s envoy bowed and left, walking over the general who was still on the ground.
When the spy had gone, Vacoura gestured to the general to get up.
“Let us review what the envoy spoke of from the beginning,” the chief said, rubbing his chin. “The general is dead, so our initial plans for impeachment can’t hold. Luckily for us the Wovamee killed the Tikpapa, although I felt that was impossible. So they could probably send one of those women to kill my Tikpapa.”
“He was weak, that was why they killed him. Let any of them come near me, I’ll bury my foot in their vagina.”
“Just in case, Envoy, have you settled the Ikaza who got the Wovamee?”
“Yes, I have and I gave him a little extra to let us know if their next hit would be on us.”
“Beautiful. Now why would he lock the white man up?” Vacoura asked the men around him, but they seemed lost. “What kind of people are you? Can’t you ever think of anything?”
“Okay, what does the white man do for Ihua?”
“He engages in trade transaction with Ihua,” the Tikpapa answered.
“What does a foreign trader provide that Ihua does not have?”
“Salt,” the Tikpapa answered.
“Who provides the salt for the whole kingdom?” Vacoura asked the envoy without looking at him.
“Oludu was the major supplier to some provinces and other kingdoms. The white men provide the other provinces their salt, but they don’t come near us. The closest was a group of criminals who were involved in the trade, but they have been eliminated by you,” the envoy replied.
“You used the word was all over. Next you will be telling me we don’t have any salt in the province…or do we?”
“We do, but it can’t last us up to ten days.”
“And you just decided to share it now?”
“At that time I felt it was something we could easily get access to from the white man. We can easily get it from Ogwashi.”
“Ogwashi is in this war because we are in it. They have their problems and we should not burden them with ours.” Vacoura bit his lips then he continued. “Ihua is forcing us to attack before it is time.”
“Let us go now. We are ready for them,” the general shouted.
“It melts my heart to realize that you want to succeed me with this naïve approach to confrontations. Someone should help me. Why are they digging a trench that wide?”
“To prevent us from importing salt,” the envoy answered.
“It goes beyond that,” the chief said.
“They want us to delay the war. With the trench, it makes it more difficult for us to enter Ahoda. With time we are going to get desperate because they have cut our supply of salt,” Tikpapa answered.
“Now the Tikpapa has told us their motive, what do we do?”
“If we stay too long, we fight desperately and stupidly, but if we attack now, we could escape the hindrance that the trench would cause.”
“Finally, you speak like my general. We attack now when they await a war at a later date.”
“But the men are hardly ready for war today,” the envoy reminded him.
“If our men are hardly ready today, then imagine how lost Ihua’s men will be,” the general answered.
“But there is no honor in such an action,” the envoy murmured but everyone ignored him.
“I will go and tell them to start singing the war songs,” the general said.
“No need. That may cause unnecessary attention. Let us go and bring back victory then they will sing the victory song instead.”
They all went preparing for war except the envoy, who was not an Omee and went back to his bed. The dwarfish Tikpapa walked out of the Haku with the men, then he returned under the guise he left something behind. He met Vacoura dressing for battle and asked, “What about Bugadashi?”
The question seemed to have taken the chief by surprise. He took his time before he replied.
“He will stay behind and guard the Haku, with the Omees over here.”
The Tikpapa nodded in agreement and was leaving when the chief called him back.
“Do you think I am being a weak chief by hiding my only son from war?”
“As you said, my Liege, he is your only son.”
“What does he want?”
“What he wants does not matter, only what you say.”
“That was not the question. What does he want?”
“He hungers for battle like any Omee. He hates you for shielding him from the different quests that makes an Omee recognized.”
The chief sighed and the man’s age showed on his face.
“He does not have to go anywhere. We will make him guard the Haku and let him know the seriousness of that position.”
“You and I both know that is the position of coward. When I was younger than he was, I had seen death pass me a hundred times. My son…my only son is not a coward and if he chooses to fight in battle alongside his father, then let it be. But, my friend, this is what you will do for me: I want you to be with him every step he takes during war.”
“That I cannot do. Every man will notice that I am with him and not you, making him a greater coward.”
“Okay, then tell the general to do it. Get out of here. I want to be alone.”
The Tikpapa left, leaving the father to worry about his son.
*
Ahoda’s envoy had climbed over the trench separating the two provinces, but the area was unusually empty. Even though it was late in the day, they had to put people around the vicinity. When he left there were some Omees on guard, so he disguised himself. He was positive they did not recognize him. He did not care anymore; all he wanted to do was just leave this area. He tied his horse far from the trench so there wouldn’t be any connection between him and the trench. As he got to where he kept the horse, it wasn’t there. He then walked farther wondering if he forgot where he left the horse. He walked farther and the dark was making him very nervous. Then they appeared. What scared him was not his recent actions, but the normal fear that he got just seeing one of them, not to mention both bloodthirsty radicals.
Tunde talked with a grin on his handsome face.
“Envoy, I have to admit, if that is a disguise then I ought to look like the King.”
“I was just surveying the area to see if there was anything abnormal going on. I used the disguise so nobody will recognize me.”
“The guards recognized you a thousand paces before you reached the trench,” Ikenna said. “They pretended not to recognize you.”
“Someone even followed you until you met your escort at Alloida,” Tunde added as he was breaking a nut. “By the way, Ihua will be here any minute now.”
The envoy knelt down crying and begging.
“Forgive me. I went see a friend of mine at the…I mean in Alloida, he is extremely sick.”
“Do we look stupid to you?” Tunde asked.
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“Look at you oozing fear in your every word. And you expect us to let you go with those lies.”
“They are preparing to attack as we speak.”
“You are still lying, but anyway my comrade here and I are both men with certain issues to settle, so you have the count of ten to run before we fire,” Ikenna said.
“What do you mean fire?” the envoy asked.
“One…two…three…”
The envoy started running with all his might, deep into the bushes so he could have deflectors.
“Four…five…six…seven…”
The spy ran faster than he ever imagined he could.
“Eight…nine…ten…”
The men fired; both of their arrows hit the envoy at the same spot on his back and the man died. Both men walked toward their prey and admired their work.
“If you look properly you can see my arrow penetrating deeper, but don’t get me wrong, you fired a good shot.”
“Tunde, I think you are mistaken; that arrow you think is yours is mine.”
“I was not referring to that cheap arrow.”
“The only thing cheap here is you.”
“Why don’t we just settle this problem once and for all?” Tunde said, drawing his sword.
Ikenna was just as quick with his sword.