For three days, the silence held. It was a thick, woolly silence that stuffed the ears and pressed down on the shoulders of every villager in Keti. The cheerful morning symphony of weaver birds was gone, replaced by a few, isolated chirps that felt hesitant, almost apologetic. The air itself seemed to have thickened, losing its usual playful breezes, hanging heavy and still, as if the world were holding its breath. The Harvest Sun, once a symbol of golden abundance, now felt like a great, unblinking eye.
Nawi found her eyes constantly drawn to the northern tree line. Every rustle in the elephant grass, every snap of a twig from the trappers returning from the forest, sent a jolt through her, a cold trickle of fear that had nothing to do with the morning chill. She carried the water pot with a new urgency, her walks to the stream now a tense, vigilant scouting mission rather than a quiet escape. She observed everything—the way the light fell through the leaves, the patterns of the animal tracks, the direction of the wind—not with a naturalist's curiosity, but with a soldier's desperate need for intelligence.
Her father, Kwame, and the other men had spent the days sharpening their machetes and hunting spears. The familiar, rhythmic shhh-shink, shhh-shink of whetstone on steel was the new heartbeat of the village, a grim, metallic counterpoint to the absent birdsong. They had reinforced the village's low wooden palisade, adding sharpened stakes and thorny brush to its base. It was a gesture of defiance, but to Nawi, watching them work, it looked tragically flimsy, like a child's fort against a real storm.
On the fourth morning, the silence broke.
It did not break with a shout, or a war cry, or a thunder of drums. It broke with the sound of a single, terrified bleat from the goat pen, followed by a sharp, guttural yelp that was cut off with sickening finality.
Nawi was outside, helping her mother stack firewood. She froze, a rough piece of acacia wood clutched in her hands. Her eyes met Ama's. In her mother's face, she saw her own sudden, ice-cold dread reflected back at her.
Then the world exploded.
It was as if the forest itself had spat out a wave of living, roaring darkness. One moment, the tree line was still and green. The next, it was teeming with figures. They did not run; they flowed, a coordinated, terrifying tide of muscle and purpose. They were preceded by a swarm of arrows that hissed through the air like angry hornets, thudding into thatched roofs, the compound walls, and with soft, terrible thumps, into the bodies of the village men who had been standing watch.
A scream went up, high and thin, piercing the sudden chaos. It was followed by others, a cacophony of terror that shattered the morning.
"Dahomey!" someone shrieked, the word a death knell.
Nawi stood paralysed, her mind refusing to process the scene. The attackers were a vision from a fever dream. Some were men, tall and fierce, their bodies gleaming with sweat and oil, their faces set in masks of brutal efficiency. They wielded heavy clubs and long, cruel-looking spears.
But it was the women who stole the breath from Nawi's lungs.
The Agojie.
They were not the towering giants of her imagination. They were of varying heights and builds, but they moved with a unified, lethal grace that was more frightening than any monstrous size. Their bodies were clad in simple fighting tunics, but some had bands of iron or brass around their arms and necks that caught the sun with a dull, deadly glint. Their faces were not painted with terrifying symbols, but their expressions were utterly devoid of emotion—focused, calm, and utterly merciless. In their hands, they held short, heavy machetes and knives, and some carried bows, notching and firing arrows with a speed that seemed impossible.
This was the Iron Storm. Not a weather event, but a man-made, woman-made cataclysm of flesh and steel.
"NAWI!"
Her mother's scream was a raw, physical force that broke her trance. Ama dropped the firewood and lunged for her, grabbing her arm with a grip that felt like iron. "The hut! Now! Get Binta!"
The compound was a maelstrom of confusion and horror. People were running in every direction, their movements frantic and uncoordinated. A man—Mr. Adjo, their neighbour—stumbled past, an arrow protruding from his thigh, his face a mask of shock and pain. The air, once sweet with frangipani and woodsmoke, was now thick with the coppery stench of blood, the acrid tang of fear-sweat, and the choking dust kicked up by dozens of scrambling feet.
Nawi let her mother pull her towards their hut. Her heart was a frantic, trapped bird beating against her ribs. Her senses were overloaded. She saw the flash of a machete, the arc of blood spraying in a fine mist. She heard the sickening crunch of wood as a door was splintered, the guttural shouts of the attackers in a language she didn't understand, the piercing, desperate wails of the women and children. She smelled the reek of spilled entrails, a foul, organic smell that made her gorge rise.
They burst into the hut. Binta was crouched in the corner, her small body trembling violently, her eyes wide with a terror so profound it was silent.
"Mama?" she whimpered, her voice a tiny, broken thing.
Ama didn't answer with words. She moved with a frantic, fierce energy, shoving their sleeping mats aside and scraping at the hard-packed earth floor with her bare hands. "Help me!" she barked at Nawi.
Nawi dropped to her knees, her fingers clawing at the dirt. She understood. The hiding hole. A small, secret space dug beneath the floor for precious grains, or for moments like this. Her nails tore and bled, but she felt no pain, only a desperate, driving urgency.
From outside, the sounds of fighting intensified. She heard her father's voice, roaring in defiance, then a clash of metal, a cry of pain—whose, she couldn't tell. The sound was a hot knife in her soul.
"In! Get in!" Ama commanded, as the shallow, cramped space was revealed. She grabbed Binta and practically shoved the small, limp girl into the darkness. Then she turned to Nawi, her eyes burning with a ferocious love. "You too. Now. Do not make a sound. No matter what you hear. Do you understand me? No matter what!"
"Mama, no! You come too!" Nawi pleaded, grabbing her mother's arm.
Ama's face was a tragic mask of resolve. "There is no room. And if I am not out there, they will look harder in here." She cupped Nawi's face, her rough, calloused hands surprisingly gentle for a fleeting second. "You are the stubborn one. You are the observer. You survive. You protect your sister. That is your work now."
With a strength born of sheer will, she pushed Nawi into the hole after Binta. The space was impossibly small, a cold, dark, dirt-walled tomb that smelled of old earth and desperation. Nawi's body was curled around Binta's, who was shaking uncontrollably, her silent tears soaking into Nawi's shift.
Just as Ama began to drag the mat back over the opening, a shadow fell across the hut's doorway.
Nawi, through the narrow crack left by the mat, saw a figure silhouetted against the hellish orange light of the burning village. It was an Agojie warrior. She was not tall, but her presence filled the entire doorway. Her muscles were defined and powerful under her dark skin. In one hand, she held a machete, its blade dark and wet. Her eyes, cold and assessing, swept the hut and landed on Ama, who had frozen, her body positioned to block the hiding place.
The warrior did not speak. She simply took a step inside.
Ama stood her ground, her hands empty, her body a shield. "There is nothing for you here," she said, her voice low and steady, though Nawi could see the tremor in her legs. "Take our yams. Take our goats. Leave."
The Agojie's gaze was unnervingly direct. It was not filled with rage or hatred, but with a dispassionate analysis, like a butcher assessing a calf. She seemed to find Ama's defiance… noteworthy, but irrelevant.
From outside, a sharp, commanding voice called out in Fon, the language of Dahomey. The warrior in the doorway tilted her head slightly, listening, then gave a short, sharp reply without turning around. Her eyes never left Ama.
In that split second of distraction, Ama moved. She grabbed the heavy clay water pot from beside the door and swung it with all her might at the warrior's head.
It was a brave, desperate, and utterly futile act.
The Agojie warrior moved with the speed of a striking cobra. She didn't flinch or step back. She simply shifted her weight, her free hand snapping up to block the pot. The vessel shattered against her forearm, water exploding everywhere, but the warrior's arm didn't even seem to buckle. With the same, fluid motion, her other hand, the one holding the machete, came around in a short, brutal arc.
The sound was not the clean slice Nawi had imagined from Sefu's stories. It was a wet, chopping thud.
Ama's eyes widened in shock. A single, soft gasp escaped her lips. Then she crumpled to the floor, a dark, spreading stain blooming across her chest.
Nawi's own breath stopped. The world narrowed to that crack in the mat, to the sight of her mother's still form, to the warrior standing over her, wiping her blade clean on a fold of her tunic with a practised, unhurried motion. There was no triumph in the warrior's face, no remorse. It was a task that had been completed. Efficient. Clean.
A high, thin whimper started in Binta's throat. Nawi, acting on an instinct deeper than thought, clamped her hand over her sister's mouth, pulling her tighter into the darkness. She pressed her own face into the cool, damp earth, trying to stifle the silent scream that was tearing its way up from her own lungs. Her body was rigid, every muscle locked in a spasm of agony and terror. The coppery smell of her mother's blood now filled the hut, a scent that would be seared into her memory forever.
The Agojie warrior took one last, slow look around the hut. Her sharp eyes scanned the shadows, the piles of mats, the overturned stools. For a heart-stopping moment, Nawi was certain those eyes paused on the slightly disturbed mat covering their hiding place. She could feel the warrior's gaze like a physical pressure.
But then, a shout came from outside, and the warrior turned and strode out, disappearing back into the chaos, leaving only the scent of blood and the profound, echoing silence of death in her wake.
Nawi did not know how long they lay there. Time lost all meaning. It was measured only in the frantic hammering of her heart and the hot, silent tears that streamed down her face, mingling with the dirt. Binta had gone limp in her arms, lost in a state of shock beyond tears.
The sounds from outside began to change. The clash of weapons and the screams of battle faded, replaced by other, more methodical, more horrifying sounds. The low, guttural commands of the raiders. The weeping and pleading of the captured. The crackle of fire as more huts were put to the torch. The sharp, percussive crack of a whip and a cry of pain.
They were rounding people up.
Nawi's mind, numb with grief, began to stir. Her mother's last words echoed in her skull. You survive. You protect your sister. This hole was no longer safety. It was a trap. If they were found here, they would be dragged out. If they weren't, they would be left to starve, or the fire would find them.
She had to move. She had to think. The stubborn core of her, the part that argued with her mother and observed the world, began to fight its way through the paralyzing grief.
Slowly, painfully, she shifted. She put her eye back to the crack.
The compound yard was a vision of hell. The morning sun, now higher in the sky, shone a cruel, clear light on the devastation. Thatch roofs smouldered, sending thick, grey columns of smoke into the sky, staining the brilliant blue. Bodies lay where they had fallen—villagers, and a few of the raiders. The earth was churned to mud and stained dark with blood. The familiar, homely scents of Keti were utterly erased, replaced by a stench of smoke, death, and despair.
The survivors—mostly women, children, and a few younger men—were being herded into the centre of the village by the Dahomean soldiers. Their hands were being bound with rough rope. Nawi saw Sefu, his face a mask of blood and dirt, being shoved into the growing group. She saw old man Kofi, standing tall and silent amidst the weeping, his face a stone mask of sorrow.
Her eyes scanned for her father. She saw him then, near the broken gate. He was on his knees, his hands bound behind his back. One of his arms hung at a grotesque angle, and a deep gash on his forehead bled freely down his face. But he was alive. His eyes were open, and they were scanning the ruins of his home, a devastation so profound it seemed to have hollowed him out.
A new figure strode into the centre of the compound. She was an Agojie, but different from the one who had killed her mother. She was taller, with an aura of command that made the other warriors subtly straighten as she passed. She wore a necklace of animal teeth and a single, heavy iron bracelet carved with the image of a lion. This, Nawi knew with a cold certainty, was an officer. The one Sefu's father had called the Lioness.
Her gaze swept over the captives, assessing, calculating. She spoke a few quiet words to a male soldier beside her, her voice a low, carrying contralto that cut through the ambient noise without needing to shout.
"Search the huts again," the officer said in Fon, a language Nawi didn't understand but whose meaning was chillingly clear from the context. "The Mino will flush out any rats hiding in the walls. Check for cellars and hiding holes. The King's fields are hungry."
The order was relayed, and a new wave of activity began. Soldiers and Agojie started moving back towards the huts, their search now more systematic, more thorough.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through Nawi. They were going to be found. This dark hole was about to become their grave.
"Binta," she whispered, her voice raspy and alien to her own ears. "Binta, we have to go. Now."
Binta didn't respond. She was catatonic, lost in a world of terror.
There was no time. Nawi made a decision. It was a desperate, crazy gamble, but staying was certain death.
"I'm sorry, little one," she whispered, and she began to push at the mat above them. It shifted, letting in a blinding slash of smoky daylight. The sounds of the outside world—the cries, the crackling fire, the harsh voices—rushed in, loud and terrifying.
She scrambled out of the hole, her muscles screaming in protest after being cramped for so long. The smell of blood and smoke was overwhelming. She didn't look at her mother's body. She couldn't. If she looked, she would shatter.
She turned and reached back into the hole, grabbing Binta under the arms. Her sister was a dead weight. "Binta, please!" Nawi begged, straining to pull her out. "You have to help me!"
Just then, a shadow fell over them.
Nawi looked up, her heart freezing in her chest.
It was the same Agojie warrior who had killed her mother. She stood in the doorway again, her expression unchanged, but her eyes held a flicker of what might have been… interest. She had returned to complete her search.
Their eyes met. Nawi saw her own reflection in the warrior's dark, impenetrable gaze: a terrified girl, covered in dirt and tears, clinging to her helpless sister.
The warrior took a step forward.
"No!" Nawi screamed, the word ripped from the depths of her soul. She positioned herself in front of the hole, where Binta was still half-in, half-out, her arms spread in a pathetic, hopeless gesture of protection. "You can't have her!"
The warrior didn't even break stride. She was upon Nawi in two swift steps. Nawi swung a wild, clumsy fist, but the warrior caught her wrist as easily as swatting a fly. The grip was like a iron manacle, crushing and absolute. With a casual, almost effortless motion, she threw Nawi sideways.
Nawi crashed into the wall of the hut, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs. Stars exploded in her vision. She slid to the floor, gasping, helpless.
She could only watch as the warrior leaned down, and with that same terrifying efficiency, pulled Binta the rest of the way out of the hiding hole. Binta finally found her voice, letting out a high, piercing shriek of pure terror.
"Leave her alone!" Nawi croaked, trying to push herself up, but her body wouldn't obey.
The warrior ignored her. She slung Binta, who was kicking and screaming, over her shoulder as if she were a sack of grain. She then turned her gaze back to Nawi. For a long, horrifying moment, she simply looked at her, assessing her age, her health, her spirit. Nawi stared back, her vision blurred with tears and rage, her breath coming in ragged sobs.
The warrior made a decision. She stepped towards Nawi, her free hand reaching down.
This was it. The killing blow. Nawi squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the cold bite of the machete.
But it didn't come. Instead, the warrior's hand grabbed a handful of Nawi's hair and the neck of her shift. With a grunt of effort, she hauled her to her feet and began to drag her, stumbling and half-blind, out of the hut.
The transition from the dim, blood-soaked interior to the blinding, chaotic yard was disorienting. The sounds and smells assaulted her anew. She was being dragged towards the group of captives. She saw the faces of her neighbours, their eyes wide with pity and terror as they saw her.
The warrior shoved her forward, and Nawi fell to her knees in the dirt beside Sefu. A male soldier immediately grabbed her wrists and began to bind them tightly with coarse, chafing rope. On her other side, the Agojie warrior dumped a sobbing, hysterical Binta onto the ground. Another child was shoved against Binta, and their bindings were linked together.
Nawi looked up, her eyes searching for the warrior who had captured them. The woman was already turning away, her task complete, her face as unreadable as stone. She was reporting to the officer, the Lioness, who listened, her sharp eyes flicking to Nawi and Binta for a moment before moving on.
There was no malice in their actions. There was no cruelty for its own sake. That was the most terrifying thing of all. It was a harvest. They were the crop. The Agojie were simply reapers, methodical, efficient, and utterly detached.
Nawi's father, Kwame, from across the compound, saw his daughters. A broken sound, half-groan, half-sob, escaped his lips. He struggled against his bonds, his eyes locked on Nawi's. In them, she saw a universe of agony, of failed protection, of a love that was now utterly powerless.
Nawi held his gaze. The tears were still streaming down her face, but something else was rising through the shock and the grief. It was a cold, hard knot of resolve. She had failed to protect her mother. She had failed to hide her sister. But she was still alive. Binta was still alive.
The Agojie officer raised her hand and gave a short, sharp command.
The soldiers began to move, prodding the captives to their feet with the butts of their spears. The line began to lurch forward, out through the shattered gate of Keti, away from the smouldering ruins of their homes, away from the bodies of their loved ones lying in the dust.
Nawi stumbled, her bound hands making it difficult to keep her balance. She looked back only once. She saw the blackened skeletons of the huts, the bodies of the fallen, and the lone, still form of her mother, just visible through the doorway of their home. The Harvest Sun, high in the sky now, shone down on it all with a terrible, indifferent beauty.
Then she turned her face forward, towards the north, towards the dark, waiting forest. The world of cassava and yam, of pounding rhythms and her mother's voice, was gone. It had been erased in a single, brutal morning. In its place was a new world, a world of rope and iron, of dust and despair, of a relentless, marching column.
She felt Sefu's shoulder brush against hers. She felt Binta's small, tethered hand bump against her leg. She was a prisoner. She was a slave. But she was also Nawi. Stubborn. Observant.
And as she was marched into the shadows of the trees, the first seeds of a new, terrifying kind of fierceness took root in the scorched earth of her heart.