The storm that had threatened finally broke, but the true tempest was within the barracks. The confrontation with the Egba warrior, Adewale, had been a stone thrown into the still pond of their unit, and the ripples were now crashing into each other, creating turbulent, conflicting currents. The political divide that Nawi had witnessed in the sterile, scented air of the council chamber had seeped under their door, a poisonous fog that tainted every interaction.
The air in the long hall, usually smelling of clean straw, leather oil, and the faint, musky scent of their sleeping bodies, now felt charged, thick with unspoken arguments. The easy camaraderie forged in the mud of the ravine and the blood of Gbeka had hardened into something brittle. The shared identity of "Mino" was cracking under the weight of "what for?"
It began subtly. During evening weapon maintenance, Zevi, her brow furrowed in concentration, had murmured, "The Egba warrior had a point about the cost. A siege would be a gamble."
Mosi, polishing her spearhead with aggressive strokes, had snorted. "A gamble worth taking. Glory is never cheap. His 'defiance' is just the barking of a chained dog."
Asu, mending a tear in her shield's leather strap, had looked up, her calm voice a buffer. "There is no glory in starving outside a wall, Mosi. The Commander's way is wiser."
"Wiser?" Mosi had shot back, her eyes flashing. "Or weaker? She argues like a merchant, not a warrior."
The words hung in the air, a direct challenge to the core of their leadership. No one had responded, but a line had been drawn.
The tension escalated a few days later during a grueling session of shield drills under the oppressive, white-hot sun. The air was a physical weight, shimmering over the dusty yard, carrying the scent of their own exertion and the dry, cracked earth. Adesuwa had them practicing a new, complex maneuver, a rotating shield wall that required absolute trust and synchronization.
Nawi, Asu, and Zevi moved together, their shields interlocking, their steps in time. But Mosi was a fraction of a second off, her movements jarringly aggressive, her shield bashing into Zevi's with a loud crack instead of sliding seamlessly alongside it.
"Again!" Adesuwa barked, her voice raspy from the dust. "Synchronize! You are one body!"
They reset. This time, as they pivoted, Mosi's shield slammed hard into Nawi's, the impact jarring her teeth. It was no accident.
"Your mind is not here, Reaper," Mosi hissed, her voice low enough that only Nawi could hear. "It is back in the council chamber, sympathizing with the enemy."
Nawi's focus, that hard-won calm, fractured. "I see the enemy clearly," she retorted, her voice tight. "I see someone who confuses brutality for strength."
Mosi's lip curled. "And I see someone who has gone soft listening to the whispers of politicians and the lies of captives. You have forgotten what we are. We are the claw of the leopard. We are not meant to question what the leopard hunts."
"Enough!" Adesuwa's voice cut between them like a blade. "Your personal debate is a cancer in this unit! The next one to speak out of turn spends the night on the thorn barrier! Now, AGAIN!"
They finished the drill in a seething, silent fury. The schism was no longer hidden. It was a open wound, festering in the heat.
That night, the dam broke completely. They were eating their evening meal—a bland porridge of millet—sitting in their usual circle on the barracks floor. The single oil lamp cast long, dancing shadows that seemed to exaggerate the tension in their postures.
The conversation, stilted at first, turned to the upcoming minor raid their unit was assigned to—a punitive expedition against a village that had harbored Oyo fugitives. It was a straightforward, Gbehanzin-style action.
"It is a clean mission," Zevi said, her tone analytical. "A show of force. It will please the General and his faction."
"It is a waste of our training," Nawi found herself saying, the words out before she could stop them. She was tired, her spirit raw from the constant internal conflict. "Terrorizing a village of farmers to prove a point to the warhawks. It is what we did to Gbeka. It is what was done to Keti. We are just… continuing the wheel."
A profound silence fell. The name of her village, spoken aloud for the first time in this context, was a bomb. It made her pain, her history, a tangible thing in the room.
Mosi slowly set her bowl down. The clay clicked against the hard earth, a final, ominous sound.
"So," Mosi said, her voice dangerously quiet. "There it is. The river-rat finally shows her true colors. You do not see yourself as Mino. You see yourself as a victim. Still."
"That is not what she said," Asu interjected, her gentle voice firm.
"Isn't it?" Mosi stood up, her shadow looming over Nawi. "You mourn your village? Your family? Join the line, Nawi. We have all lost something. We have all had our old selves burned away. The difference is, the rest of us embraced the fire. We let it forge us into something greater. You… you cling to the ashes. You weep over the charred wood while the rest of us are building a new house."
Her words were venomous, each one aimed to maim. "You sit in council and your eyes go soft for an Egba dog who would slit your throat without a second thought. You question our Customs. You question our wars. You are a crack in our shield wall. A rotten thread in our weave."
Nawi stood to face her, the cold fury she had learned to control now a glacier grinding through her veins. "I question waste. I question stupidity. Gbehanzin would march us into a meat-grinder for his own glory, and you would cheer because you are too stupid to see anything but the next fight. That isn't strength, Mosi. It is a sickness."
Mosi took a step forward, her fists clenched. The other recruits watched, frozen, the air thick with the scent of impending violence and cold porridge.
"You call me stupid?" Mosi snarled. "I am the one who remembers our purpose! We are warriors! Our job is to fight, to kill, to conquer! Not to ponder the 'morals' of it like some priestess! Your friend Afi has filled your head with poison. You are becoming one of the Doves, cooing about peace and trade while the hawks circle."
"And what will you do when there is no one left to fight, Mosi?" Nawi shot back, her voice rising. "When the kingdom has crushed every enemy and turns its hunger inward? What will your glorious purpose be then?"
"Enough!"
The shout came from Zevi. She had also risen, her face pale but her eyes blazing with a different kind of fire—the fire of a commander seeing her unit disintegrate. "This ends now," she said, her voice cutting with a authority that silenced them both. "We are Mino. Our strength is in our unity. This… this bickering makes us weaker than the most raw recruit."
She looked from Nawi's frozen mask of anger to Mosi's heated glare. "Mosi, your loyalty to our martial tradition is noted. Nawi, your… questioning… comes from a place of caring for the unit's survival. But you are both tearing us apart. The enemy is not in this room."
"But it is," Nawi whispered, the fight draining out of her, leaving a hollow exhaustion. "The enemy is the thought that this," she gestured between herself and Mosi, "doesn't matter. That we are just weapons, to be aimed and fired without a thought. That is the enemy. And it has already won in you, Mosi. It has made you its perfect, unthinking tool."
The truth of it landed with a sickening finality. Mosi looked as if she had been struck. The insult was not to her strength, but to her mind, her very selfhood. Without another word, she turned on her heel, grabbed her sleeping mat, and dragged it to the farthest, darkest corner of the barracks, establishing a new, hostile territory.
The unit was shattered. The sisterhood, forged in shared pain and triumph, had splintered along the same fault lines that divided the kingdom itself. That night, the barracks were silent, but it was no longer the comfortable silence of exhaustion. It was the cold, brittle silence of a grave. The once-unified heartbeat of their unit had fractured into two angry, discordant rhythms. And Nawi knew, with a sinking certainty, that some breaks could never be healed.