The forest swallowed them whole.
It began where the beaten path ended, where even the bravest hunters turned back and whispered charms to ward off wandering spirits. No moonlight reached this place; the trees rose like pillars of an ancient temple, their crowns interwoven in a vault of black leaves. Every step cracked on a carpet of dead things—fallen leaves, brittle bones, husks of forgotten offerings. The air was thick, old, damp with the breath of the earth.
Here, silence was not absence of sound. It was presence—dense, sentient, pressing against their ears until the thud of their own hearts felt like trespass.
The Madawaki moved ahead with a hand on his blade, though even his iron frame seemed small under these towering shadows. Behind him came Idris ,his jaw clenched tight, eyes darting to every flicker in the gloom. The Makama walked slower, leaning on his carved staff, lips murmuring old verses for unseen ears.
And then there was the King.
He walked barefoot, his white wrapper trailing like a pale wound against the black earth. His chest gleamed under a wash of chalk and camwood, painted in coiling sigils of power. Cowries clinked softly on the cords around his neck, and between his teeth, a green palm frond quivered with each breath—a sign of surrender before the unseen.His crown of gold and bronze lay abandoned in camp; before the gods of the grove, there were no kings.
Last came the priest, his frame thin as the staff he bore. He held the staff of consecration, its tip wound with cowries, feathers, and a single strip of blood-red cloth that fluttered though there was no wind. His body smeared in ash and chalk until he looked like a ghost wrenched from the earth.
No one spoke. No one dared. The forest spoke enough. It whispered in the hiss of leaves. It moaned in the creak of branches heavy with charms—fetish bundles of feathers, blood-dark beads, and skulls long gone gray. They passed a tree hung with twelve masks, their hollow eyes turned downward as if in judgment. Idris spat thrice and touched his amulet. The Madawaki muttered a prayer in his throat that tasted like iron.
Then the path ended.
Before them yawned the Grove of Azhari.
It was not vast, but it felt endless. A ring of colossal trees leaned inward, their roots knotted like the spines of beasts, their trunks tattooed with sigils burned into the bark. At the grove's heart lay a pool, black as polished stone, and from its surface rose a pale shimmer like moonlight trapped beneath water. This was the Heart of the Oracle of Aumakhu, a place where men entered living and often left hollow.
Even the bravest whispered prayers before stepping foot here. For Aumakhu was no gentle spirit. It was an old hunger, a god that gave nothing without taking, a voice that bent kings until their bones broke.
The priest struck the earth three times with his staff.
Gbooom
Gbooom.
Gbooom.
The sound rolled like distant thunder, and the air grew heavy, thick enough to taste.
"Only the chosen may enter the circle," His voice was a rasp, older than his body, scraping like dry leaves across stone. "The king, and the mouth of the gods." He warned.
The Madawaki dropped to one knee, fist to earth. Idris bowed low, his forehead brushing the soil. The Makama sank to the roots of an ancient iroko, his face veiled in shadow. None dared look up as the king stepped forward, palm frond between his teeth, the white chalk gleaming on his skin like frozen fire.
The priest moved beside him, rattles clashing, he raised his staff high, its cowries clattering like teeth, and began to chant. His voice was low, a growl pulled from the earth's marrow. The words slid like oil, thick with meaning too old for men to remember.
"Aumakhu, mai shan rai, mai shan haske, mai tsotsar jinin masu tsoro waɗanda suka karya alkawari. Ka saurari kiran nan, wannan halitta ta zo ta rantse, ba za ta bijire wa hukunci ba. Jini ya zama ruwa, ruwa ya zama jini. Sarkin sarakuna, ka kwace ransa."
[Aumakhu, taker of life, taker of light, he who drains the blood of cowards who break their vows. Hear this call. This being has come to swear and will not defy judgement. Blood becomes water, water becomes blood. King of kings, seize his soul.]
The last word fell like a hammer and then the earth hummed in confirmation.
It began as a faint tremor underfoot, then grew until the roots themselves seemed to throb like veins. The pool rippled, spilling silver rings across its surface, and the light within it swelled, brighter, sharper, until it burst in a bloom of mist that curled upward in twisting spirals.
The mist thickened, coalesced, until it shaped a figure—a being wrought of light and shadow, neither male nor female, faceless yet impossibly aware. Its limbs flowed like smoke, its head crowned with antler-like spires of fire. When it spoke, its voice was a thousand voices, layered and eternal, carrying the weight of forgotten empires.
"ASKIA ISHAQ," it said. The name shuddered through the grove like a drumbeat under the skin. "SON OF BLOOD AND CLAY. YOU STAND WHERE MEN BREAK AND GODS FEED. WHY DO YOU TRESPASS?"
The king knelt, pressing his palms into the earth. The palm frond trembled between his teeth as he spat it out and let his voice fall heavy as stone.
"For my people," he said. His breath curled in the cold light. "For Uzazzu. For all that stands under the sun in my name."
The Oracle tilted its head, and the pool boiled as if with laughter. "VICTORY HAS TEETH. WHAT WILL YOU GIVE?"
"I will give all," the king said. His eyes burned with a desperate fire that outshone fear. "My blood. My breath. My name. My flesh to the vultures and my soul to the dark. Let Uzazzu stand, though I fall."
The Oracle's voice rippled, and the thousand whispers became a single, searing note.
"THEN HEAR.
THE THRONE SHALL LIVE, BUT NOT WITH THE BLOOD THAT NOW WARMS IT.
WHEN THE DRUMS OF VICTORY BEAT, YOUR HEART SHALL BEAT NO MORE.
DO YOU SWEAR TO THE BINDING?"
"I swear."
The ground split like a wound. From the fissure crawled roots slick with sap that glowed like molten gold. They twisted up his arms, sank into his flesh. He did not cry out, but his jaw clenched so tight blood slicked his teeth. The chalk on his chest cracked as the roots etched symbols into his skin—sigils that pulsed with the same cruel light as the spring.
"SO BE IT," the Oracle intoned. "THE SPEAR SHALL DRINK YOUR HEART, AND THE EARTH SHALL CLAIM YOUR BONES. BUT UZAZZU WILL ENDURE."
The roots tore free. The king collapsed to his knees, his breath ragged, his blood dripping into the pool like dark petals on water. Behind him, the priest's chant rose to a frenzy, drowning the groans of the trees and the hiss of the wind.
The Oracle's voice grew louder, thrumming with power. "YOU WILL FIND THE ENEMY'S HEART IN THE SHADOW OF THE DESERT SCORPION. STRIKE SWIFTLY, WITH THE IRON OF YOUR PEOPLE, AND THE SILENCE OF THE NIGHT. YOU WILL KNOW THE PATH WHEN THE DESERT WIND WHISPERS OF FIRE."
Above the pool, the Oracle lingered one heartbeat longer, then dissolved into mist, leaving only silence—thick, merciless, and eternal.
The king staggered to his feet. His skin was carved with burning marks, his eyes hollow with something beyond pain. He did not speak. He only turned, and when he walked past the circle, the men fell prostrate, for in his face they saw both their salvation and their doom.