In the morning, when I came out of our tent, I almost fell over all the baskets. Baskets of deformed tomatoes, grainy salt, a bottle of perfume, oils, boiled lizard eggs, and other things. “They gave what they could,” Luyu said. Someone must have given an eye pencil, for she’d lined her eyes with bright blue and penciled in a blue mole on her cheek. She’d also put on two green beaded bracelets, one for each wrist. I picked up the bottle of oil and sniffed it. It smelled strongly of cactus flowers. I rubbed some on my neck and went to our capture station. I flipped it on.

“I hope this doesn’t attract anyone,” I said.

“It probably will,” Luyu said. “But everyone around here, maybe even in the Seven Rivers towns, knows about what you did yesterday. One version or another.”

I nodded, watching the bag fill with cool water. “Is that a bad thing?”

Luyu shrugged. “It’s the least of our worries. Plus your mother already got the ball rolling.”

CHAPTER 55

THE KINGDOM OF THE SEVEN RIVERS and its seven large towns, Chassa, Durfa, Suntown, Sahara, Ronsi, Wa-wa, and Zin, very poetic names for such a corrupted place. Each hugs a river and all the rivers meet in the center to make a large lake, like a spider with a missing limb. The lake had no name because no one knew what lived at its bottom. Back in Jwahir, no one would believe such a body of water was possible. Durfa, my father’s town, sits closest to this mysterious lake. According to Luyu’s map, it was the first Seven Rivers town we’d intersect.

The borders of the kingdom were not blocked off by walls or juju, nor were they definite. You knew you were in it when you were in it. You became immediately aware of the scrutiny, the eyes. Not by soldiers or any of that sort, but by the Nuru people. Officials patrolled the area, but the people policed themselves.

There once were small Okeke villages between the towns and along the rivers. When we got there, these villages were nearly empty. The few remaining Okeke were being driven out. On the west side of the Seven Rivers, all these villages had been taken over. The slow exodus was on the eastern side, just east of Chassa and Durfa, the two wealthiest, most prestigious towns. These towns ironically had the greatest need for Okeke labor. With the Okeke gone, Nuru laborers from the poorer towns like Zin and Ronsi would do the work.

We heard what was happening before we saw it because we had to walk up a hill. Gadi, the village of Aro ’s birth, was being destroyed. We peaked above the dry grass and saw terrible things. To our right, a woman was fighting two Nuru men who kicked her and tore at her garments. The same thing was happening to the left. There was a loud crack and an Okeke man running by fell. A Nuru and Okeke man rolled on the ground fighting. It was the Nurus in control of things here. That was clear.

We looked at each other, eyes wide, nostrils flared, mouths open.

We dropped all that we carried and ran into the chaos. Yes, even Luyu. There are gaps in my memory of what happened next. I remember Mwita running and a Nuru man pointing a gun at his back. I threw myself on the man. He dropped his gun. He tried to get ahold of me. I kicked back, pushing myself into the wilderness like it was the water. I could see him swiping at where my own body had been. Mwita ran off. I leaped after him, still in the wilderness. So that man, who would have killed Mwita, I did not kill.

Mwita and I had discussed how we would never flat out succumb to the violence people, Nuru and Okeke alike, believed Ewu were prone to by nature. Here, we went against all of that. We became exactly what people believed we were. But our reasons for using violence were not rooted in being Ewu. And Luyu shared that same purpose. She was a pure Okeke woman of the most docile blood according to the Great Book.

I remember giving my clothes to Mwita and then changing and shifting into things, growing claws and tiger’s teeth. I remember weaving between the physical world and the wilderness as if they were land and water. I knocked men off women, their penises still erect and slick with blood and wetness. I fought men with knives and guns. There were many Nuru soldiers and few Okeke ones, I fought both, helping whoever was unarmed. I took bullets into myself, expelled them, and moved on. I closed up my own stab and bite wounds. I smelled blood, sweat, semen, saliva, tears, urine, feces, sand, and smoke with the nostrils of various beasts. That is the little I remember.

We didn’t stop what was happening there but we allowed several Okeke to escape. And I pushed to the ground and healed as many Nuru people as I could subdue. Those men then cowered in corners, appalled at what they’d done only moments ago. In a few minutes, they would begin to help the wounded, Nuru and Okeke. They would put out the fires. Then they would try to stop those other Nurus who were happily killing Okekes. And then these healed Nurus would be killed by their own blood-crazed people.

When I came back to myself I was pulling Luyu into a hut. Its thatch roof was burning. Moments later, Mwita threw himself in with us. He gave me my clothes and I quickly dressed. Both he and Luyu carried guns. Not far ahead, it continued-the screaming, fighting, killing. Breathing heavily, we looked at each other.

“We can’t stop this,” Mwita finally said.

“We have to stop this,” Luyu said at the same time.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

From nearby a man shouted and another man screamed. The fire on the roof above us was spreading. “Once we find Daib, I think we’ll know what to do,” I said.

From then on, we snuck about. It was hard to do. The Nurus had suppressed the weak rebellion and now they were simply torturing people. The screeching mixed with the laughter and grunts of the torturers made my stomach turn. But somehow we got past it all and found ourselves faced with a spectacular sight.

Just behind the last group of huts were tall green stalks of corn. Hundreds and hundreds of them, a whole field of them. It was nothing nearly as breathtaking as the place my mother had shown me but it was still amazing to my desert-born eyes. My mother grew corn when we were in the desert and there were gardens of it in Jwahir but never this much. A breeze sent a whisper through the plants. It was a lovely sound. It sounded like peace, growth, bounty, and that hint of hope. Each plant was heavy with perfect ears of corn, ready to harvest. What an opportune time for the Nurus swoop in. The planning of General Daib, no doubt.

We’d left all of our travel things behind. Luckily, Luyu kept her portable in her pocket. We used its map to make our way through the cornfield. Durfa was on the other side. We moved quickly and stopped only once to yank and eat some corn. After walking for a half hour, we heard voices. We dropped down.

“I’ll go see,” I said, shrugging my clothes off.

Mwita took my arm. “Be careful,” he said. “It’ll be hard to locate us in this field.”

“Put my rapa on top of the stalks,” I said. I quickly changed into a vulture and flew off. The cornfield was huge but it was easy to locate the source of the voices. Less than a half mile away, in the middle of the cornfield was a hut.

I landed as quietly as I could on the edge of its thatch roof. I counted eight Okeke men in tattered clothes. Two had long black oily guns strapped to their backs.

“We should still go,” one was saying.

“Those aren’t our orders,” another insisted, looking frustrated.

I took off, flying high to get the lay of the land. The cornfield was flanked by the towns of Durfa on the west side, Gadi on the east, and the lake with no name on the south. I saw what I wanted to make sure of when I flew higher. No more hills. From here on, the land was flat.

With the rapa on the top of the corn stalks, it was easy to find Luyu and Mwita. “Rebels,” I told them as I put my clothes back on. “Not far. Maybe they can tell us where to find Daib.”