Then the first of the crocodiles entered Aduwura. Like a scaly green tide, the giant reptiles attacked the tuyobene. Huge jaws closed on writhing gray forms, tearing them in half. Silently, the tuyobene fought back, fastening their doglike fangs on the throats of the crocodiles and rending scale-armored hides with their razor-sharp claws. The dead of Aduwura were trampled into the mire as the supernatural battled mindlessly against the untamed.
One of the tuyobene detached itself from the maelstrom and rushed toward the abosonnan. As it approached the shrine, the creature rose to its hind legs. Then it wavered, changed, stretched until the lean form of Ishigbi stood naked in the firelight. Mchawi radiated from her skin in a faint nimbus. Neither crocodile nor tuyobene dared to approach her.
“Brother!” she shouted stridently. “Do you think to hide in the shrine of these people’s puny gods? Come out and face me, or I will burn you, and your gods with you! I will burn you with Mungu’s Spear, as you once burned me!”
Kipchoge emerged from the abosonnan. In his hands, he carried the images of Mawu-Lesa, still linked by the long, wooden chain.
“Sister, it was Mungu who hurled his spear at you, not I,” he said calmly. “And my mchawi is still alive in me, for all that I have denied it. I have called the crocodiles to put an end to your tuyobene.”
“As I will put an end to you!” Ishigbi snarled.
“For the sake of vengeance, you have corrupted the souls of a people’s ancestors,” Kipchoge said, anger showing for the first time. “My people! No mganga, not even Kambui, would have committed so heinous a crime. Sister, you have finally taught me the meaning of hate ...”
“Worth it, worth it to see your suffering ... and your end!”
Then she dropped to all fours, and became a lioness. Like a tawny tongue of flame, she launched herself at Kipchoge’s throat. Yet with a swiftness belying his age, Kipchoge sidestepped the lioness’ leap and looped the chained god-images around her throat. But he was unable to maintain his grip. She landed a few paces away from him.
Kipchoge rose. Before he could move further, the lioness caught him across his ribs with a swipe of her paw. Bones broke; Kipchoge fell. Yet no outcry of pain escaped his lips, even as the lioness opened his belly with another slash of her claws. Her jaws gaped wide, poised to drive gleaming fangs into Kipchoge’s face. Kipchoge smiled ...
Suddenly, the lioness screeched in pain. She rolled frantically along the ground, clawing vainly at the Mawu-Lesa imaged looped around her throat. For a fleeting moment, her shape altered: limbs lengthening, head shifting to quasi-human form. Then the abortive transformation faded, and it was the face of a lioness glared in feral hatred at the smiling face of Kipchoge.
“Sister, have you not guessed what I’ve done?” he said.
With one hand, he pulled aside his slashed garments. At the center of his chest was a wound that had not been inflicted by the lioness.
“Sister, I am already dead,” he said. “In the shrine, I bled my soul into Mawu-Lesa. Their power is bound to me. This body is only a husk; it serves me as the tuyobene serve you. Do you feel Mawu-Lesa destroying you, Ishigbi? Are the gods of the Akan still ‘puny’?”
Then the body of Kipchoge collapsed: eyes closed, lips still smiling. The lioness writhed and mewled, her struggles growing progressively weaker. And around them, the crocodiles and tuyobene warred savagely for possession of a city of the dead ...
WHEN THE SURVIVORS of Aduwura reached the garrison of the Ashonti soldiers, few believed their garbled tales of terror. But when the akuapem and diviner both confirmed the gruesome account, the commander of the soldiers decided to send a hundred armsmen to free Aduwura from the grasp of Ishigbi’s creatures. Of those who had fled Aduwura, only Ekupanin, Kofi and Salifah ventured to accompany the troops.
The sun rode high in the sky when the group arrived in Aduwura. Cautiously, spears upraised behind the protection of metal shields, the Ashonti soldiers advanced into the city.
They found no life in Aduwura other than the crocodiles that retreated sullenly before the soldiers’ spears, and the carrion-flies that infested dismembered corpses ... or what was left of them after the crocodiles had finished with them. Of the tuyobene, there was no sign.
Near the abosonnan, the searchers found two bodies strangely undisturbed by crocodiles or flies. One was Kipchoge. A serene smile was fixed on his stiffened face. The other was a naked woman of an age with the healer. Despite the grimace of pain and the burn-scars that distorted the woman’s features, the resemblance between her and Kipchoge was unmistakable.
The twin images of Mawu-Lesa lay near the woman. Part of the broken chain between the statues was looped around the woman’s neck.
At the sight of Kipchoge’s corpse, Salifah tore the front of her garment and fell howling to her knees. Ekupanin, Kofi and the commander of the soldiers conferred in hushed tones. Shaken though they were, they yet agreed swiftly upon the things that needed to be done. The commander spoke to his troops ...
They dragged the mourning Salifah away from her husband. Later, she would die of grief. They recovered the Washer-of-Souls from the abosonnan. The object was still sacred, even though the Mawu-Lesa carvings were now profaned. They placed the Mawu-Lesa images in the abosonnan, along with the bodies of Kipchoge and Ishigbi. They razed the shrine, leaving only a pile of rubble, which they set on fire.
Then they tore down the houses of Aduwura, and burned them as well. Never again would the Yam Festival be celebrated there. Never again would Kwomo’s drum-poems be heard, for Kwomo was dead. They speared the crocodiles. They burned the Spirit Grove and slew the dik-diks, for they were defiled, and therefore
