Finding East

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By noon the boy arrived the mouth of the grove. His eyes were dizzy, his vision unstable as the trees in front of him, as though having been stirred by some strong wind, appeared to dart gently sideways. But there was no wind. All that there was, was a dense and desolate sea of wild trees hinting at a vast unknown. He was searching for East, for the home on the lower planes, for Ndida. The sun was directly overhead, its burning rays sweeping across the hills in a steady stream. He knew he was lost, but for him, at that moment, were more pressing concerns. His stomach growled once again. He felt his sheepskin sac once again. The last ration of guavas were yet unripe and undoubtedly as sour as the grapes he’d eaten two days ago, and from which he’d acquired a running stomach.

The event was still as fresh as a dove in his mind, and yet without inhibitions he dug into his sac for a guava, but just then, from amidst a particular set of stout trees emerged a low, almost subdued cackle. The boy, usually quick and alert to the workings of the wild, but this time overwhelmed and distracted, froze at his feet and watched as a clan of hyenas slowly began to make their way out of the forest, each one of them cackling and jeering. His right hand was still in his sac, a pair of guavas equally frozen at the tip of his fingers. He knew better than to look away. Better to face death in the face than to die no differently from the common prey. From all angles the hyenas began to encircle him, each one of them cackling louder than the next.

The boy still hadn’t moved. And as the hyenas neared an unexpected thought began to fill his mind. Before that moment, from his heels all the way up to the crown of his head, he felt the steady flow of dread build, and with it all the usual accompanying sensations. But now without warning, either in consent to the fatal blow that fate appeared to have dealt him, or perhaps merely out of exhaustion, the boy felt a sudden stillness wash over him. And in that stillness, he thought of his mother, but this time, rather than dwell on the events of the recent past, of her trial and eventual burning at the village square, he saw, in his mind’s eye, for the first time, an image of her he had no clear recollection of. It was as though, without any will of his, his mother had wandered the broken landscapes of his heart, and without warning, had stirred in him an unintended apparition. He still was determined not to move, and so kept his gaze fixed on the still jeering beasts when, equally sudden, the hyenas stopped in their tracks as what seemed like a dark cloud began to stretch across the sky, casting a blanket of shadow on the fields. Both boy and beast stood fixed on the spot. The hyenas, as if suspicious of a ploy by the boy to distract them, kept their gaze on him, each one of them cackling and threatening to attack but somehow refraining themselves as the shadows grew denser. It was towards the end of December, and so the boy knew better than to expect rainfall in the harmattan.

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Soon the sun was no longer overhead, neither was it across the horizons but hidden somewhere behind the immense, foreboding blanket which, like broken ceilings was starting to draw even closer to the fields. One of the older hyenas was the first to look upwards. And with an unexpected, timid cry, it made to retrace its steps, but instead met the unassuming resistance of a younger beast behind it. Just then, as it made to return its gaze upwards, as if to confirm what it had initially seen, from amidst the clouds came descending, with unmatched force, a raven with its feet aimed directly at his face. Once the bird had landed, it planted its beak further into the hyena’s bleeding eyes, digging the sturdy ball of tissue into its socket before fleeing just in time to return for another blow.

The aerial assault had begun.

Raven after raven, each one of them charging like a bolt of lightning against the enemy. Following their captain they first launched feet wise into the faces of the larger predators. The smaller ones, those of whom had not yet fled the scene, were rather picked up and displaced, some of them dashed against the trunks of large trees, some of them thrown from heights against their bigger compatriots. Out there in the fields was a violent clash of shrieks and cackles. This was not war. Neither the boy nor the hyenas — not even the ravens knew this, for behind this aerial attack stood a lore both sacred and ancient. Adaptation. A science the boy would not come to learn until he arrived Ndida. But now he’d taken refuge atop the branches of a large oak tree from where he watched the onslaught. There was only one way East — through the forest. And so while the first constable, consisting of about a hundred ravens, launched their offensive against the disoriented hyenas, a second group of nearly a thousand plunged like a dark, swift cloud into the inner recesses of the jungle for a quick reconnaissance. As they moved, the terrestrial shook. Both prey and predator, all of them scampering, all of them united by fear of what seemed to them a force of nature in action. Back at the front the hyenas were as yet uncoordinated, but fueled by venomous rage latched out uncontrollably at the enemy and suffered each time. Again this was not war. There were no equals. By now half the hyenas had lost their eyes and were roaming about in anguished circles. The lesson was however still lost on the other half. They continued to claw at their enemy, until eventually, by sheer chance one of the ravens fell to the ground as three hyenas reflexively made to pounce on it, but just in time, the first constable reemerged from the forests to rescue their comrades. A third constable, consisting of five ravens, still hadn’t landed throughout the duration of this battle. They were Seers. Grand Ravens marked by their hollow eyes. The lore holds that in the brief window between the end of the harmattan and the start of the rainy season, they could see time flow in all directions, but could never interfere. Ndida was still a long way off and already, the sun had slowly begun to descend westwards. Recognizing this, the birds rallied round and, with little efforts dissipated the rest of the hyenas.

All the while the boy watched from atop the oak tree, partly afraid, partly confused at the ensuing scene. The crime for which his mother had been accused was this: she had no soul. Multiple witnesses had come against her. All of them citing this or that instance when, against tradition they’d seen her warg into a crow or lamb or butterfly. Mere speculations borne from fear. Her fortune had merely misaligned, and in a series of poor judgments, she’d found herself caught in a conspiracy.

By the time the hyenas had all been vanquished and the path through the forest made secure, the ravens came twirling in their numbers around the oak tree, so that the boy instinctively got their message. It was past four in the afternoon and soon dusk would begin to set over the hills. The boy climbed down the tree. Again the birds broke in three constables, the first group heading out ahead of him, the second gathered in a cloud above him; and the third, the Seers, positioned remotely from the other two. And so, trusting in the guidance of this unusual legion of avian warriors, the boy, with new found courage, matched eastwards.

Dedicated to Chidi…