The Double Duel

The sun rose early on the day of The War. It was like it knew what was to happen under its light that morning. The Balogun had sent word that we would march at first light and march at first light we did. This was the war to end all the battles we had been fighting at Ile Odo for the past twenty five years.  
Ile Odo had lived on her own for centuries and had her life peaceful. The land was fertile, the people progressed and were happy, and everyone adhered strictly to the laws handed to us by the patron goddess, Yemoja. We had lived in peace and had only a few internal conflicts which we settled at the shrine of the goddess. Only a few Ile Odo indigenes ever travelled out of our community to visit other places, so when news first came that we would get unwanted visitors, it was not taken seriously.

My people had fought wars in the past but I only knew this as a result of the legends passed from generation to generation, likewise almost every Ile Odo indigene still breathing. My people had not been to war in over one hundred years. We had the blood of warriors running through our veins but we had never experienced first hand battle. At least, not until twenty five years ago.

By the time the conflict reported got to our land, it was too late to defend it. Our land was attacked and looted, people were killed and derogatorily, many were taken as slaves. I was born, five years into the saddest time of our history.  
As far as we knew, the only contact we had had with fighting was in the legends we were told. We resorted to praying to the several gods to aide us and bring peace and restoration to the land. The priest in charge of the Ifa shrine was the one who got the revelation of the root of our problems. He said, the Ifa had told him that it was our people from a neighboring village, Ilu Ọdàlẹ, influenced by foreigners who worshipped The God, who had been attacking us.

We had heard of these foreigners before. It was said that they had come from the sea, riding metal horses that moved on the water. A few of our people who had travelled had said they looked like sick humans, whose skins had lost all color. Some said it was like they applied the white powder that we rubbed on babies' buttocks, on their skins, and beneath it. They were white as ghosts and people looking like that should not be alive in the first place. It was said that these people came with something called religion and had a story about their God, who sent his son to die for the sins of humans rather than forgive them anyway. These people called our Yemoja perverse and said we worshipped darkness. They said Yemoja was evil.

Everyone was bewildered when we heard all this. It sounded strange. How could people with no color in their skin, people who looked like the dead, now come and say that our Yemoja was evil. Yemoja who protected us from evil spirits? She who blessed our women with children? Blessed the land with water and taught our people the right form of sorcery? She was the one these people who they said talked through their noses called evil? It confused me. If they believed their way was better, why then did they kill our men, rape our women and take people as slaves. This could not be right. Yemoja would never permit such evil acts.

My people became angry and started to train with the guidance of the òrìsà, Ọya and Ogún. Soon we were able to defend our land and reduce the taking of our people to slavery. At twelve, I was already being trained as part of the ẹgbẹ jagunjagun òrìsà, and by sixteen I had my first real battle. That day I would never forget. I killed six men and three women - and vomited badly after it ended because, I loved trouble but taking a life was something totally different - and they all looked like me. Skin as brown as the earth. So the colorless people did not even come by themselves to fight their own battles? Stupid cowards letting others fight their battles. It was ridiculous.

Now twenty five years since the first invasion, they had declared a final battle. The war to end everything. Whoever wins today would be the one to choose what happens to the other. When this news came, our community head, Baálé Ogunbiyi, and his chiefs took it to the seven priests and seven priestesses of Ile Odo and their various oracles supported going to battle.

As we marched to the field of battle, all parts of the twenty years of my life that I could remember, flashed before my eyes. I never knew my father; he was killed during one of the earliest raids of our community. Everyone said he died well because he fought off the two beasts that tried to rape my mother, five months pregnant with me, with a single knife. They said he ripped their privates from their bodies and slit their throats. Then he took on a man that was twice his size, which allowed Mother enough time to escape. After the day's raid, the people came back to see his corpse with a long slash in the middle of its face and one arm missing.

Mother died during childbirth. They said she was never the same after seeing Father's dead body and knowing he had died for her. So she had no strength to push me out of her before she died. The midwife had to cut her belly open to take me out. Our Baálé had the duty of taking over parenting for children of my circumstance, and after divining he chose that I should be raised by the sect that worshipped the goddess Oya.


---


The sun was steadily rising and growing warmer. Everyone that could fight was there on the battlefield. Baálé Ogunbiyi was at the head of the front lines, followed by the seven priests and priestesses. Everyone was armed with what they knew how to use best; bows and arrows, or swords and shields, or shields and spears, or knives longer than the ones we used in the kitchens but shorter than swords. I was armed with a spear and shield leaving my favorite weapons; the knives, in sheaths on my waist. I never knew how to shoot a bow and arrow. My hands and eyes just refused to work with each other to get the coordination needed to handle it.  
We had been standing for a while when we heard it. The sound of marching unlike anything I had ever heard. It sounded like seven thousand warriors and my people that could fight were only about three thousand. It was a long time before we were able to see the front lines of their army. I could have sworn that more than half of them were on horses. My entire community could not boast of five hundred horses and here were these people, with what could easily be numbered at four thousand. My mouth hung open like a spoilt door. These Ọdàlẹ people meant to wipe us from the face of the earth.

It took a while for their army to march and settle into their positions. It was really disturbing to see the number of our own people in the opposing army. There was no single no-color person in the army. So, all they needed to do was convince our brothers and sisters and not come themselves to fight? Cowards. Yemoja had told us through her priestess that we would face an army of our distant brothers and sisters from different lands and here they were, guffawing and looking like butchers, fighting against us for people who had no right to change their beliefs.

Their horses neighed as the last of them settled into their positions. I gripped the spear in my hand with all the strength I had and watched as the sun slowly took its course in the sky. From what my adopted mother, Mamalawo Ọya told me, the leaders of the armies would have to meet first to see if there could be a way the war could be settled without an all out battle.

After I was sent to ibi ààbò Ọya, the Mamalawo in charge of the Oya Shrine, Ìyá Ifabunmi, whom we all called Ìyá, took me in. She looked like she was just over forty-five, and she was one of the strongest warriors in all of Ile Odo. Ìyá was one of the most curious people in Ile Odo. It was rumored that only initiates and very old people knew of her true age and origins because she was born at the ibi ààbò and lived there her whole life. Ìyá said she heard about how my father had died saving my mother, and how she believed his blood surely flowed in my veins. She began to train me as soon as I could hold a spoon and properly direct food into my mouth without spilling it.

Ọya loved chaos and I did too. Ìyá had said I caused trouble the way Ọya's storms caused disruption so, learning how to fight came easily to me. I loved facing off with the other children of Ọya that lived at the ibi ààbò. Most of the time, I came out of fights with a bloodied back and a black eye but I never left my opponent without a mark. Be it teeth, nails, or a weapon, I drew blood whenever I fought one of them.  
Ìyá taught me to use the knives since I was naturally drawn to them. I was a small child, so my strength came with my speed. The shield and spear slowed me down, but Ìyá made sure I knew how to use them, as a second choice. During sparring sessions at our ilẹ ikẹkọ, she made me use the shield and spear because like she said, "attacking is not the only way to fight, we have to defend to win sometimes".

It was during one of such lessons that she taught me about the rules of engagement in war. It was possible for two warring sides to pick warriors from specific òrìsà and pit them against each other, instead of the entire armies going on with an all out battle involving hundreds and thousands.

If the village worshipped twelve òrìsà, the best warriors from each òrìsà were picked and pitted against the best warriors from the other village's òrìsà. At times, there would not be balance because a village may worship fewer òrìsà than the other, and their warriors would be disadvantaged with numbers. However, the two parties may decide to agree on a specific number of warriors to make it balanced.

Baálé Ogunbiyi rode towards the meeting point at the center of the battlefield, accompanied by the head priestesses and priests of the òrìsà Ogún and Oya; the principal warrior god and goddess. The five of them looked majestic in their battle clothes and their faces wore the most concentration I had ever seen in all my life. The leaders from the other army met them halfway and their parley began.

It seemed like it lasted for longer than the actual time that it took. The look on Ìyá's face was unreadable. I felt the parley didn't go well until, "Eyin omo Ilẹ Odo, e gbo temi," Baálé Ogunbiyi's voice came ringing, asking us all Ilẹ Odo children to listen to him. Our army went silent. Likewise the other army. They had reached a conclusion on how the matter would be settled; it would be a double duel.

"Children of Ilẹ Odo, children of the òrìsà, children of the gods, listen to me…" he said again in Yoruba, his voice thick like the drums of war the children of Ogún and Sango played "…Today, here and now, we stand our ground in a final attempt to fight for our pride and freedom. For twenty five years, these people have attacked and humiliated us. They have killed our fathers, mothers, wives, children, taken us as slaves, orphaned us even before we were born, taken our peace away. The gods gave us strength to fight back, and we have. Now, we are here at the final battle to settle all scores and our gods are here with us. Are they not?"

"Yes, they are," we all screamed in reply to his question, banging spears on shields and striking drums till they sounded like thunder. Baálé Ogunbiyi raised his hands and the noise quieted down. I felt the rush of Ọya's power in my veins. I was ready to fight off a hundred men.

"Yes! Our gods are here with us. We asked them and they told us to go to battle. Here we are, because we trust them and we know they will fight right beside us today. Now, the parley is done and they will choose two of their best warriors to represent them, likewise us. We have decided and the choices will be from the houses of the warrior deities, Ogún and Ọya".  
My ears prickled. It was no surprise that they chose to pick from our house. It was things like this that we had been trained for, all our lives. But sparring at the Ilẹ ikẹkọ was different from this. There, we only sparred in order to train but whoever would be chosen here would be fighting to the death. Suddenly, the thought of having the fate of the entire village on two people's shoulders felt scary.

"Enitan. Enitan, come over here" Ìyá's voice jolted me back from my thoughts. That was my name being called. I had been chosen.


---


The walk from the front lines to the center of the battlefield was both the longest and scariest I had ever walked. This was no normal sparring session like we had at the Ilẹ ikẹkọ, here, I had to kill. However, I longed for battle and even if I was scared, I wanted to fight. For myself, for my people, for Ọya.  
They had picked Akinmade to represent the shrine of Ogún. As we walked side by side, I noticed the scars on the sides of his arms, how deep they looked. I wondered how deep the fresh wounds must have been. His head hair was short and he had several cowries tied into it. The way he gripped the sword in his hand, his hands showing veins and his sweating skin reminded me of training.

The Ọdàlẹ army chose two fighters. No! These two were beasts. The boy who wore his hair in braids and wore a red skirt to cover his loins to show he was from the Sango shrine, must have been two heads taller than Akinmade. He looked like something carved from stone and his eyes were bloodshot. The scars on his body suggested appearance in former battles.

The girl had markings that looked like the wind on her arms, markings that I could not recognise. She must have belonged to a deity native to wherever she had come from. The girl was taller than I was and broader. On both her wrists, she wore enchanted ilẹkẹ that shone bright blue and spinned in opposite directions. She was not taking chances. Even with her imposing physique, she was wearing her charms before the fight even started. She resembled some of those pit fighters who fight to the death, in matches organised by shady men. On her chest were the smallest breasts I had ever seen on a girl her age. It seemed like she had used whatever was supposed to develop her breasts, to develop muscles.  
Two priests, one from each army, rode up to us to tell us how the fight would happen. The boys were to fight each other while the girl and I simultaneously fought. It meant that if one person fell, the other two could join up and fight the remaining survivor.

I was scared by now. As I looked at the girl, my bare feet grew cold standing on the warm earth. I had only thought of myself. I had not thought of who I would be fighting. Now, standing in front of this girl, I felt small. The sword in her hand looked like an extension of her arm and the way she looked at me, with joy in her eyes, suggested that it was not the first time that she had done this.

The priest drew back and we were instructed to take our fighting stance. I said a silent prayer to Ọya and packed my hair up with the single piece of ankara that Ìyá said she tore from the wrapper that my mother was wearing, the day she died. It was customary for the priests and priestesses of each shrine to rip into several pieces, the final clothes on the last parent of a child who became an orphan before the age of three. If they died without any clothes on their body, a piece of cloth was chosen from the ones in their home.

I do not know where the horn to signal the start of the brawl sounded from, but the next thing I knew was that I was on the floor, my spear knocked out of my hand and my shield inches away from my grasp. It was her laughter that brought me back. She was in her element. Fighting brought her joy. She went on and on about how my people had chosen a weakling to fight her.

The girl ran with so much force, the ground shook. She jumped and thrust her sword toward me. Reflexively, I grasped my shield and blocked her jab. The look on her face seemed like she was impressed. Bloody arrogant beast. I rolled like an orange and picked my spear from where it lay. We were facing each other now and it was the first chance I had for a look at how Akinmade was doing.

The boys looked like two lions standing on their hind legs, with swords in hand, instead of paws. The boy was fast and strong but Akinmade was just as fast. He deflected blows, strikes and jabs with a combination of movement of his sword and shield. He was being pushed, but he quickly saw an opening. The boy raised his sword to strike but Akinmade, like a cat, slid on his knees in the sand, deflecting the strike and slashing with his own sword. As he regained his standing position, his sword was stained with blood and a long bleeding slash was on the boy's thigh.

"Arrgh" came a roar from where I stood as the girl reminded me to face her. She was coming at me already and I was a little late trying to block her blow. The tip of her sword planted a long cut in my left bicep. It was not too deep, but it was already bleeding. The blood shook something in my head. This was a fight. One where I had to survive in order to be called the winner. I had killed before, I could do it again.

I rushed at her and she laughed as she deflected my spear's jab, but she was slow. Her push put me behind her and I made a twirling movement as I went low, the lower part of my spear lodged in my armpit with my arm holding the upper part and cut her just below her calf. She did not see it coming and for the first time she had a surprised look in her eyes.

The grunts from the boys were becoming louder and the blood from all four of us had become more than just a little. The girl had given me three new cuts, another on my left hand and two on my back. I also gifted her with another above her right eye and a long one on her right thigh. The thrusting, deflecting and counter attacking continued for sometime, until a deafening scream came from the other boy.

We turned to look at them and the sight we were met with, put a surprised look on the girl's face too. Akinmade's sword was implanted deep inside the boy's chest, it was coming out of the other side. Blood spurted from the boy's mouth and he lost hold of his sword. Akinmade then pushed the sword further in and made a twisting motion. The boy fell to his knees and our army was cheering like a thunderstorm. But the shouts were drowned out by what happened next, because I did not expect it.

The girl dashed towards them and before I could understand why, she had already cut a big gash into the side of Akinmade's arm. She kicked him from the boy's body and as he fell, she was on him again. Akinmade was faster though. He rolled off before she could settle, grabbed the other boy's shield with his still good arm and winced as he tried without success, to lift the arm the girl had cut which just dangled uselessly by his side. He blocked a few strikes but he was thrown to the ground anyway.

As she raised her sword to deliver what seemed to be the final blow, my legs moved and I ran. I rammed into her and we fell. My hands were empty, as I had dumped my spear and shield when I broke into the run. Hers now were too. She kicked my abdomen with so much force that the wind was knocked out of me. Then she picked up Akinmade's shield, walked up to him where he lay helpless, stood over him and roared.

"You killed Okiki,…" she bellowed in Yoruba "…you killed my heart. Now I kill you. Now you die by your weapon". Her words ended with the descent of the steel shield, its contact with something that sounded like the cracking of a fallen watermelon and cries of horror from my army.

As I stood, what I saw brought fire to the tips of my fingers. Akinmade's head was there, cracked open by his own shield and being disrespected by the laughter of the one who had brought him such a fate. I looked at Okiki and noticed the girl was correct. He was dead too. Akinmade's sword was still fixed in his chest and his eyes were still open, facing the sky but seeing nothing. I had to fight this beast of a girl myself. If I had to be like Akinmade, I would. Even if it meant dying, I would kill this girl too.

"Girl, what is your name? I want to know the name of the one I slay" she thundered, looking like an enraged bull. She picked Okiki's shield beside Akinmade's still body, grabbed her sword and came for me. Her first strike created a dent in my shield which I had run to recover from where I had tossed it and the next one made my knees buckle.

Her army was cheering madly and I knew if I did not fight now with all I had, I would surely die. The only thing was, I wasn't ready to meet Ọya at the gates of the afterlife. I planned to fight and win beside her, on the battlefield.

Blood oozed from my wounds as I tried to think of what to do next. The girl laughed maniacally, probably wondering why I was standing there doing nothing. It was time. Time to use the knives, my birth weapons. I threw the shield, drew my knives, then slashed my left palm and let the blood drop to the ground. It was a ritual that Ìyá taught us. Blood holds the secrets of the transcendental powers, the idán the gods had blessed us with and since Ọya also is the goddess of death and rebirth, she empowers through sacrifice of blood.

As I spoke the last of the incantation, I felt energy flow into me from the very earth. Everything around me looked bright and sharper. It was like my eyes had been washed clean, like one washes clothes at the stream. I knew Ọya was there with me. The goddess had given her hand, just as I asked.  
"My name is Enitan" I shouted at her, my Yoruba sounding like music from a palace bard. I held my knives, one inward and the other facing outward. I took my stance and waited for her move.

"And mine is Adeoti, prepare for the afterlife".  
She ran and I ran too. I slid beneath her swinging sword and slashed one of her ankles in the process. She was fast though. The flat end of her sword met my head with a sickening crunch and my vision became blurred for a few moments. I quickly rose to my feet, trying to make sense of my environment. She did not have the luxury of waiting. Even with her injured ankle, Adeoti moved fast. She swung her sword, missing my head only by a few inches.

I jumped and tried to stamp her sternum but she blocked with her shield, making her move back. I saw an opening and did not wait. I ran, jumped high, my two knives above my head as I made for her chest with force. My knives met with her shield and the points where they hit were dented when I drew my weapons back.

Adeoti drew back and her eyes looked possessed. The blue markings on her hands were glowing much more brightly now. The ilẹkẹ on her wrists were spinning violently. She was drawing from the idán in her blood. I was sure whatever deity she worshipped was responding to her. I slashed my right palm in response too. If she was asking for help from her god, I needed help from mine too.

"Gẹgẹ bi ẹjẹ mi ti ṣubu si ilẹ, bẹẹ naa ni agbara yoo goke si mi. Bi mo ṣe fi apakan mi fun ọ Ọya oriṣa mi, fun mi lati ṣẹgun ija yii". I felt the burst of idán flow through me and energy that I had never felt before enveloped me. Adeoti was glowing like a blue firefly and the ilẹkẹ on her wrists were spinning so fast, I could not see a single bead.

As soon as I completed my incantation, I took off towards her. She stood her ground. When I got to her and we made contact, she planted her feet in the ground and raised me with her shield, then threw me over her head. Her shield hit my sternum and as I gasped for breath, she stood over me, knocked my knives from my hands, sat on my chest and raised her shield. "Now you die. For me, for Okiki, for my people".

The raising of her shield was the mistake she made. I drew my legs in and removed my last knife from its sheath, hidden in my shoe. It was the knife my father used to fight off the men who tried to rape mother. Ìyá gave it to me. The knife found its way into her right hip and armpit before she even had time to be surprised. She got off me, her hand on her armpit applying pressure to stop the bleeding.

I quickly got up, picked her shield and slammed the broad end on her chest. She fell, sprawled on the ground like a bird shot from the sky. I sat on her abdomen and noticed for the first time, blood from one of the cuts she gave me just above my breasts flowing to my navel. As I raised my knife to end her, I looked at her face again. Adeoti was beautiful. The markings on her hands were glowing brighter than I had seen them glow and tears were in her eyes.

The tears in my eyes fell as I buried my knife into her chest. I heard her gasp once and watched as the light began to fade from the markings on her hands. She smiled at me before the last of the light flickered out and the ilẹkẹ on her wrists stopped spinning. When I tore my eyes from her hands and looked back to her face, it was the eyes of the ghost of the girl I had killed that stared back at me unseeing. Then something gave way in my chest and I fell to the ground, sprawled beside her. I had won.


---


The rest of what happened went by quickly. After falling to the floor, some Ile Odo warriors ran to me to take me from beside Adeoti's body. I heard Ìyá shouting for a healer to fix my injuries. After fixing a few of my injuries with idán, the next thing I heard was the sound of running feet, pounding hooves and a mighty clash of swords.

The healer dragged me to the area of the battlefield where our army was in control. Shields were stuck in the ground around us to protect us from the fight coming towards us. I could not understand why we were still fighting. Had they not said that there would be no war after one army's chosen warriors won the double duel? The Ọdàlẹ army had broken the rule of engagement. They attacked first and my people responded.

The healer was bent over me, drawing the ashe in her blood to perform idán to mend my wounds. She looked very focused despite the disturbances happening around us. Warriors from the house of Ọya were positioned by the shields surrounding us, fighting off enemy warriors and trying to keep us safe. I saw two of them get cut down and the remaining three stood their ground to protect us. To protect me.

Her hands had just gotten to the long cut above my breasts when an arrow pierced her neck, entering through the left and jutted out through the other side. She fell flat on me and the blood that poured from her mouth and neck bathed my face and chest. The fight had gotten to me after all.

I drew the knives identical to mine, from the sheath on her waist and started to fight. I sliced open the throat of the first warrior that engaged me and stuck one of my knives into the skull of the next. I looked around for the children from my ibi ààbò and most importantly, Ìyá. I killed three more warriors before I saw her.

Her flowing white hair was swinging from side to side while bodies dropped all around her. The markings on her body were glowing bright white and she moved like the wind of the warrior goddess, spinning and killing and dropping warriors like hurricanes drop trees and huts.

As I ran towards her, I saw the Sango priest with his axes using his idán to draw thunder from the skies and then a group of about twenty warriors fell dead before him as he used the bolts to strike them. Beside him was Baálé Ogunbiyi fighting like a lion, throwing, pulling, spinning his staff and fighting off enemy warriors.

When I got to her, I saw blood flowing from her arms and the side of her head but she kept fighting. I joined. We communicated without even opening our mouths and fought like dancers with a lot of practice. Nothing could stand a chance against us.

The fight continued for a long time and the bodies of warriors from both armies littered the battlefield. It was while Ìyá and I were fighting off a man who was dressed in the regalia of the Sango shrine that we heard it. The bellowing of horns, horns that were not our army's. The fighting paused and in that moment, the remaining warriors on the Ọdàlẹ side withdrew to their side of the battlefield.

Their numbers had reduced drastically. If they numbered over seven thousand at the start of the battle, they had become less than half of that at the time of the regrouping. The gods were with us. We had lost a lot of warriors too: Baálé Ogunbiyi's wife had been killed, we had lost four priests and two priestesses and close to a thousand warriors.

The need for a regrouping was what they could have never planned for. Our numbers were smaller. They had better numbers but we had a better case in the presence of the gods and goddesses. Esu, the divine messenger must have taken our pleas to the gods in a most convincing manner.

The Ọdàlẹ did not waste time. They quickly began to take positions and group in formations to fight again. This would be the last straw. We would not have it anymore. Baálé Ogunbiyi screamed for the surviving priests and priestesses to come to him. They formed a circle and began to talk hurriedly. Immediately they concluded whatever it was that they discussed about, they broke the circle and Ìyá and the Sango priestess, walked forward.

The Sango priestess held her metal oshe - Sango's twin celt axe - close to her chest as she danced and sang a song of the initiates. Ìyá was also taking soft dancing steps as she raised her hands above her head and with her knife sliced across her palm. That was when I understood. They were performing the esin òrìsà ritual.

Ìyá told us about the ritual once. An initiate took steps that allowed their orisa to possess them and work through their body. She said initiates could do it if needed but it was not every time they survived it. Ìyá would say "if the gods find your human shell worthy of entering, it may well be the last time you take breath".

Ìyá was calling for me. She had fallen while trying to perform the ritual. She had grown too weak. Quickly, I ran to her and helped her to her feet. She held both of my hands in hers and said "I need your strength because you connected to Ọya during the double duel. The channel you used is still open. Lend me your strength, merge with me and let us end this battle".

As Ìyá grabbed my hand to start the incantation, I looked to Adunni, the Sango priestess and my mouth opened in awe. Above her head was a mass of very thick cloud like it had been plucked from the heavens and fixed there. The cloud sparked with lightning and roared with thunder. Adunni's feet were no longer on the earth. She hovered in the air, her eyes were blood red and the oshe which she gripped in her hand was pointed at the Ọdàlẹ army. I Ifaced Ìyá and joined in the incantation.

"Nipa agbaraẹjẹyii, wa lo ikarahun eniyan mi Ọya."
"Nipa agbara ẹjẹ yii, wa lo ikarahun eniyan mi Ọya."  
"Nipa agbara ẹjẹ yii, wa lo ikarahun eniyan mi Ọya."

The power that flowed through me as we cast the incantation was on a level I had never experienced. It felt like Ìyá and I became one. I could see almost everything in her head, almost everything in her heart, almost everything she had ever been through. We walked side by side in one another's life and felt everything the other had ever felt. We became a pair of eyes, a single heart, a single mind, one body.

We lifted from the ground, raised by a tornado created by Ọya's winds of change. I saw her, Ọya in all of her magnificence. She was inside us. We had become her. We moved the tornado towards the Ọdàlẹ army and Adunni made her cloud to merge with the tornado. The destruction was on such a scale that we had never heard previously. The Ọdàlẹ warriors shot arrows at us but failed to hit their target every time they tried.

The destruction continued until we had wiped more than half of what was left of them. As the tornado and thunder moved in on the rest of them, I saw through Ọya's eyes that an altar had been erected and the remaining warriors had their faces buried in the ground as they prostrated in front of the gods. Ọya paused, as well as Sango. The chaos stopped, the tornado vanished, the bolts of thunder seized. Ọya and Sango looked at one another through our human eyes while still in the air, then they spoke.

"A ti dariji. Pada si ile ki o ma ṣe gbe ohun ija si awọn eniyan wọnyi mọ" they said in unison. We have forgiven. Go back home and never pick arms against these people again.

Shouts of thanks rang through the Ọdàlẹ army as they immediately picked their weapons, began to gather their dead and turned to leave. All five of us floated back to our army where prayers of thanks and songs of praise were been raised. The gods looked at us one more time, descended and as soon as our feet touched the ground, they left our bodies.  
Adunni stood her ground, raised her oshe and gave a roar of victory to which our army replied with fervour. I was on the ground, separated from Ìyá who laid helpless. I quickly crawled to her, sat, positioned her head on my lap and gently talked to her. She opened her eyes weakly and coughed twice.  
"Did we win?" She asked weakly.

"Yes! Ìyá, we won" I answered with tears in my eyes. By now, Baálé Ogunbiyi and the rest of the surviving priests and priestesses had surrounded us.

"Tell me because when three was one and one was three, I was the weakest part. I knew nothing of what was happening. Is the victory absolute?" She asked again.

"Yes! Ìyá, it is absolute" I replied again.

"Then I can rest now. Take care, fight and live long Enitan, daughter of my daughter's daughter".

The revelation hit me like a mace. That was what I had seen when we merged. That was the part I did not understand. She was my great grand mother. That was why she picked me as hers. She had picked her blood. The markings on her body flowed from her and passed on to me. The pain in my chest spread to the rest of my body as I held the only mother I had ever known, screamed in anguish and watched her breathe her last.