AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS
Black wings, black tidings. This was the old saying. An omen, that much was true. Most would prefer to avert their eyes as soon as the caws of the large bird carried on the wind, not willing to be burdened with whatever sorrow it brought along with it. But in this case, the message could not be avoided.
King Jide was dead, there was no hiding from it. This sorrowful news would be far reaching, festering in the hearts and minds of many. There was no denying the misery that would befall the realm. All would mourn with the knowledge that the realm had never before seen, and never would again see a man of such stature walk upon the soil of this accursed earth. All that was left was the memory of his greatness. And his sons.
Sons that would be left with the bitter taste of vengeance on their lips. Sons that would be prepared to bring this fragile kingdom to ruin and put it to the torch to appease their unquenchable desire to see those responsible pay in blood. And blood is exactly what the realm would see; spilt from the guilty and the innocent alike.
King Jide had been the only obstacle stemming the kingdom from teetering on the edge of anarchy, and now, nothing could prevent the tide that would burst and flow forth, consuming all in its wake. His life’s work had been to unify the tribes and provinces under one crown. Those hopes had been dashed the moment his blood had mixed with the soil of Ife. And now, all that could be expected was many more years of unrest in the realm.
Upon Jide’s death, ravens had taken to the sky, perhaps prompted by the gods, to bear word of what had been witnessed in the ancient city of kings. The birds had scattered to the furthest regions of the realm. And dark tidings travel fast. Many had perceived the birds as a sign of dread, and those gifted with the sight had interpreted the display of dark wings as the passing of something, or someone, significant. Before long, word of the events in Ife had surfaced, and the realm held its breath in anticipation of the worst.
Each of Jide’s sons had reacted to the news differently; Toju had been enraged at the folly of his father, who he blamed for being the architect of his own demise by placing his trust in lesser men and not holding a tighter rein on his subjects. He was still indignant at the fact that Jide had welcomed the displaced and destitute into their capital city with open arms, throwing caution to the wind, allowing the tainted amongst them to infiltrate their very foundation and feed on it from the inside. But his anger had slowly been tempered by his new wife, princess of the royal courts of the Hausa, and the distractions of his recently won title – the prince of two kingdoms. A title never claimed by any of his forebears or anointed princes before him, and one that came with great responsibility.
This placated him somewhat, but he was plagued by moments of deep sadness that could only be sated in battle, causing him to push himself further than any warrior prince should ever be allowed to, sometimes to the point of recklessness. With the strength of his spear, he continued to capture new lands for his adopted people and further establish a name for himself as the fearless prince from the south. Ogun’s hand, however, had always been upon him as he also expanded his own empire in the far northern territories.
Niran had been devastated by the loss of the greatest monarch of a generation, and an even better father. The kingdom had lost a bastion of society, one who inspired countless individuals and gave them hope and the means to write their own destiny. He swore anew to bear his father’s torch with dignity and honour in the best way he could by following in his footsteps and fighting to try and mend the fracture that had befallen the kingdom. He would stop at nothing to fulfil his father’s ambition of uniting all the tribes under one throne and the house of the Adelanis.
He had continued his campaigns deeper into the eastern provinces and had been rewarded with a firm grip in the region. In so doing, many more spears had sworn their allegiance to him, swelling his ever-growing army, and proclaiming him as the true heir to the throne. His name spread across the lands as if carried by swarming locusts. But his conquests had not been without difficulty as the river tribes of the southeastern provinces had not taken kindly to the prospect of another Yoruba monarch, and vicious battles had continued to rage over these lands, with both sides bitterly fighting to secure and expand into the imaginary borders set by their forebears. However, Niran’s influence was strong and with the combined might of the Igbo tribesmen, it remained but a question of time until total dominance of the region would be assured.
Enitan, on the other hand, burned inside. He cared not about inheritance nor titles and the riches and power that accompanied them. He burned with a desire to cleanse this so-called kingdom and visit his vengeance on everyone, to a man, that bore the same blood of those that betrayed his house and stole everything that he had ever known and held dear. His heart was consumed by loss and a slow flame that was at the edge of exploding into a raging inferno at the thought or mere mention of the fate of his father.
His disposition had not always been so. He was once a carefree child, only concerned with adventure and mischief. Playful, affectionate, and inquisitive. But all that had changed; his innocence had been stolen, replaced by the image of the horrors he had witnessed during the sack and destruction of his home, and from the hardship he had endured when he was forced to flee Ife and seek solace with the last remnants of his family in the western city of Ogun.
Now, his eyes did not only burn with the image of his city, Ile-Ife, aflame, but also with the fire of retribution. His sorrow, anger and fears now served as a conduit for the will of the gods, and one god in particular. Shango.
Without truly understanding his actions, he had sworn himself to Shango, his protector, the deity that had taken a keen interest in the young prince and set him on the path to realising his destiny in the world of men.
He gave himself over to the god, and with his so doing, his childhood innocence slowly ebbed away into the recesses of his subconscious. Slowly fading was the playful boy, bright-eyed and eager to explore the world. In his place was a shell, hard and cold, with a brittle temperament to match.
But the gods are fickle. Their desires and motives are only known to them and change more frequently than the passing seasons. Shango, however, truly loved this child, and there was a saying – If the gods so love a man, no feat desired by that man was unachievable.
In the centre of it all was Olise. He sat on a throne he had built on the ruin of the old city. A throne that was soaked in blood and erected on the bones of the people. He had silenced all his opposition in the surrounding provinces and struck fear in the hearts of all his new subjects. He created a far-reaching network of spies and cutthroats that worked from the shadows, weeding out would-be perpetrators of treasonous acts that threatened his rule. He vanquished whole cities and everywhere his warriors marched, they brought fire and death along with them. No one dared to voice their contempt for his reign.
The west, by and large, was under his control, with only a handful of cities and towns that remained defiant, including the province of Ogun, where Enitan had sought refuge. But this didn’t matter to him. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the region yielded. They didn’t possess the military might or resources to match his vast and ever-growing empire, which continued to build in strength with every passing moon. Not only that, but his mother, Ekaete, ever the master that pulled the threads from the shadows, continued to exert her influence, and support for the traitor king never waned.
However, deep down, Olise was embroiled in an internal battle, one that weighed heavily on his conscience. His dreams were haunted by the memory of his brother, King Jide, and the fate he had written for him. Everywhere he turned he saw Jide’s face, with the same accusing eyes and the expression of sorrow mixed with pity he had worn the night Olise had passed judgement on him and put him to the axe. The sound of Jide’s voice uttering those final words – “He who laughs last laughs the hardest”, still lingered in the halls of his memory. He had never truly wanted him dead, only for him to suffer and live with the knowledge that the throne had been taken by the better man, one more deserving to be called the king of the tribes.
Now, the crown he had coveted for decades left him with a sense of emptiness, a black gaping hole that slowly diminished his will to rule, tainting all his accomplishments. He drank more and spent his days wallowing in self-pity, seeking comfort in the company of bed warmers. To further compound his growing apathy, he had lost the closest people to him; Dimeji, his ever-loyal blood-guard and Ogie, the former commander of his army, both falling to the spears of Jide’s allies. He was now surrounded by fools, who only stood by his side out of fear or their self-interest to raise their station in the realm. He would sooner see them all stripped of their newly found titles and lands, and hanged for good measure, but Ekaete had vehemently persuaded him of the importance of maintaining old, and forging new, alliances, which he reluctantly entertained. For now.
All was not lost, however, as he still possessed a handful of warriors that he could trust. These were high-ranking commanders in his army that had survived the battle of the tribes, and they carried out his bidding; they were his blades in the dark, as he referred to them. They spoke with his authority, not that of Ekaete, and their loyalty was to him alone. These warriors were his inner circle, men that had earned his respect through the passage of battle, a baptism in blood of sorts, and were ever eager to appease his every whim.
But now there was a new threat from the east. One that threatened to challenge the very essence of his stolen crown with the potential to have a rippling effect in the kingdom and embolden the hearts of those that would sooner see him dethroned. This was the only thing that drove him forward, his only motivation, which he embraced wholeheartedly. He thrived on challenges, anything that ignited a fire under his feet. After all, he was a warrior. One that believed that all he needed was a blade in his hand, and he could take whatsoever he desired, not least something that he believed belonged to him by right of birth.
He would seek out this so-called prince of royal blood and put an end to the rumours for good. Besides, it was time he brought the River-lands to heel. The decades-long enmity they had towards him for spilling the blood of one of their greatest sons; the warrior Abasi, had not been forgotten, and the chiefs of this region had openly expressed their intentions not to rest until Olise’s blood was spilt in return. Olise would oblige them, but it would not be his blood that would spill. He would personally see to it that all the rebellious River chiefs and their allies were scratched from the history of the tribes, banished to antiquity like the ancient names of those that roamed the lands before them. By the time he was done with them, they would be but a memory, a mere smudge under the great heel of time.
He planned to use this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Maybe that would restore his passion to rule and forever cement his name as one of the greatest rulers to have ever sat upon the throne.
Yes. The stones would be cast, and the future of the tribes would be written by his hand and his alone, not that of his mother, Ekaete, or by some pretender claiming to possess the blood of kings. No. The scrolls of history would tell the tale of the great deeds and the conquests of one man, Olise Adelani. The one and true king of the realm. And he would carve out his own destiny in blood.
