The moons waxed and waned, each one bringing subtle changes to our lives like the shifting patterns of clouds before a storm. I spent cowries freely – more than most farmers would see in many harvests – bringing in teachers from villages as far as three days' walk away. Each was chosen carefully, not just for their skills but for their ability to keep secrets. As Amadi often said, a man's silence could be bought, but only if he had something worth losing.

The herb woman from Abankiti spoke little, taught much, and left with a heavy pouch of cowries. Her weathered face and gentle hands revealed a lifetime of knowledge, enough to be worth a new herd of goats. Mairo absorbed everything like parched earth drinking rain, her natural affinity for healing making the deception feel less like a lie with each passing day.

For Rimi, we found a master weaver from Aguobodo, a woman whose fingers danced across threads like spirits through morning mist. The cowries I paid her made her eyes widen, but the oath she swore was binding – sealed with both blood and cola nut.

"You're burning through your savings like dried grass in harmattan," Amadi observed one morning, eyes narrowing as his machete whistled past my ear. "What's so special about these girls that you're willing to risk everything?"

I twisted away, my own blade catching the dawn light. "What better use for it? Besides—" I ducked under his swing, "—money won't matter if the Onowu discovers the truth."

Each dawn, the clash of machetes echoed through the compound, mingling with labored breaths and the hiss of morning dew. We moved from blades to spears, then to bows, pushing until our muscles screamed. The calluses on our hands grew thicker, and old scars from our younger days began to shine again with fresh purpose.

"Your form is sloppy," I would tell Amadi.

"Your footwork is worse," he would reply, before trying to sweep my legs out from under me.

Inside the compound, Mairo and Rimi's voices began to change. The strange accents of their homeland softened, replaced by the rhythms and tones of our language. They stopped translating in their heads before speaking. Words flowed more naturally, and with them came laughter – something I hadn't even realized had been missing before.

"Orji," Mairo called one evening – my name now falling from her lips as naturally as if she'd been born speaking it – "taste this medicine and tell me if it's bitter enough."

"Last time I tasted your medicine, I couldn't feel my tongue for two days," I replied, but drank it anyway. The trust between us had grown as sturdy as an iroko tree.

Rimi's fingers grew rough with calluses of her own, though from thread rather than weapons. She would often sit in the evening light, practicing her weaving while watching Amadi and me spar. "Your left side is open again," she would call out, never looking up from her work.

But beneath our daily routines lay a current of tension, like the stillness before a storm. I would catch Amadi scanning the treeline during our practices, his eyes sharp as a hawk's. The Onowu's silence was too complete, too patient.

"He's waiting," Amadi said one day, wiping sweat from his brow. "Men like him don't forgive being humiliated before their king. He won't stop until he finds a reason to end you, Orji. And when he does, he won't come alone."

I wiped sweat from my brow, watching Mairo and Rimi going about their tasks in the compound. They moved differently now – more confident, more at home. The sight filled me with both pride and fear.

"Then let him wait," I replied, standing to begin another round. "When he comes, we'll be ready."

Amadi grinned, raising his machete. "If you can ever fix that sloppy guard of yours."

We moved into our fighting stances as the sun climbed higher, our shadows shortening beneath us. In the compound, Mairo crushed herbs while Rimi worked her loom, and life continued its careful dance between preparation and pretense. We were building something here – skills, trust, strength, family – even as we waited for the day it might all be tested.

The question wasn't if the Onowu would move against us, but when. And when that day came, I needed to be ready to protect what had become more precious to me than the reclusive life and solitude I had hoped to protect: this fragile new family forged in secrets and survival.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎

The sun was setting as Amadi and I sat beneath the udala tree, nursing our bruises from training. From the compound, we could hear Mairo grinding herbs while teaching Rimi a song from Obiako – their voices carrying through the evening air.

Amadi took a long drink from his gourd before speaking. "The girls... they never ask how a simple farmer moves like a shadow and fights like a demon?"

I smiled wryly, stretching a sore muscle. "They're too busy learning to be who we claimed they are to question who I am."

"Hmm." Amadi studied the calluses on his palms – old hardened ridges that no amount of vigilante work in Obiako could explain. "Sometimes I forget that farmer is not your first trade."

"Nor was vigilante yours," I replied quietly.

Amadi's laugh was low and without humor. "Ah, Onoka." He shook his head. "Remember that merchant who tried to cheat us? Hired us to kill his rival then refused to pay?"

"As I recall, we ended up working for the rival instead. Paid us double."

"Triple," Amadi corrected. "And that was just two teenage boys, barely old enough to take titles." He paused, his voice growing serious. "You know, all these years... I've never asked again."

I tensed slightly, knowing what he meant.

"Your village," he continued carefully. "The banishment. Even when you found me half-dead from fever in Onoka, took me in, made me your brother in all but blood... I never asked again why."

The old familiar weight settled in my chest. "And I've never told you."

"Didn't need to." Amadi shrugged. "The skills you taught me, the life we carved out – that was enough. Two masterless boys becoming the most feared sellswords in twenty-eight villages." He grinned. "Though I doubt the noble head of vigilantes in Obiako should speak of such things."

"Just as a simple farmer shouldn't know fifteen ways to kill a man with a farming hoe?"

We both chuckled, the sound carrying years of shared memories.

"You know," Amadi said after a while, "when you said you were done, that you wanted to plant yams instead of taking lives... I thought you were possessed by a strange spirit."

"But you came with me anyway."

"Of course I did, you fool." He tossed a small stone at me. "Though I still don't understand how you chose farming."

I caught the stone, turning it over in my hands. "In Onoka, we took lives. Here, I can grow things instead. Maybe..." I hesitated. "Maybe it balances something in the world."

Amadi was quiet for a moment. "And now you harbor two strange girls, risk your life before the Igwe for them..." He shook his head. "The deadly shadow of Onoka, growing yams and protecting strays."

"Says the feared bounty hunter who now leads village watches and escorts old women to market."

"Life is strange," Amadi mused. "Twenty-three rainy seasons of blood and steel, and now look at us. Respectable men of Obiako." His tone turned serious again. "But those skills... I'm glad we never let them rust. The Onowu—"

"Will make his move eventually," I finished. "And when he does..."

"The shadows of Onoka will be ready." Amadi stood, brushing dirt from his wrapper. "Though perhaps we don't tell your girls that their protective farmer once commanded a price higher than ten years of yam harvests."

From the compound, Mairo's voice called out that food was ready. I stood as well, clasping Amadi's shoulder briefly – a gesture that carried the weight of our shared past.

"Some secrets," I said quietly, "are better left in Onoka."

"Like whatever drove you from your first village?" Amadi's question wasn't really a question.

I just smiled sadly and started walking toward the compound, where my new life waited with steaming bowls of food and trust I prayed I would never have to break.

Behind me, Amadi sighed and followed, both of us leaving the ghosts of our past in the gathering darkness beneath the udala tree.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Drop a vote, leave a comment, and perhaps even share with a friend. ִ ࣪𖤐