THE KING HAS NO HEIR

Like every other village, Umuenyi village was founded by seven brothers, by names Okorie, Ikem, Obiora, Maduka, Menkiti, Agu, and Agaba who settled peacefully in a place, the brothers made a promise to themselves to stay united no matter what, for generations to come, each of them swore an oath of allegiance and protection of one another using the tusk of an elephant as a symbol of authority. The mighty animal was slain by the combined effort of all the brothers, except the youngest Agaba, who had no hunting skills then. They promised to look out for each other and they crowned Okorie the king who promised to rule in just and fairness and protect his brothers from the threat of the neighboring village because they are so united and orderly when it comes to the ruling, there hardly was any dispute or quarrel among these brothers.The brothers swore that the tusk of the elephant should remain with the oldest male of the seven brothers alive and if the tusk as the symbol of authority was to leave a family, another family with the eldest male in the community is to hold on to the tusk, he blows it seven times to attract everyone in the market square and without any dispute is declared king. The challenge, therefore, lies on the loins of the brother who is the first to produce a male child. Till today no family is successful in giving birth to healthy young males in duo as the maduka family, who retains the tusk long after the reign of okorie, Ikem, and obiora who held it just once. Maduka royal family has successfully kept this task for more than seven seasons and is still holding on to it, yet there is no quarrel because the gods have chosen to bless the village with peace and abundant wealth as a result of their peaceful coordination.These families have significant roles they play for each other and they divided these roles among themselves according to their area of specialization. Among the seven brothers the famous ones at the top of wealth and affluence are the family of Okorie, Ikem, Obiora, and menkiti these are the top four families yet there was no envy and there was no hate among any member of the family heads. Rather they pray for the gods to favor them with the blessing and elevate them to guide other members of the family. This has been going on from generation to generation. The seventh son in the lineage of maduka known as Obiagu Maduka is currently the king of Umuenyi proudly holding on to the tusk and will someday hand it over to one of his sons. He is deeply worried because none of his sons is a worthy successor by his calculations; none are fit to be king. King Maduka kept the four famous families at his beckon; he did so to monitor which of the family is likely to take the mantle of leadership. He will happily die and dine with the gods if power shifts from his hands to a more worthy and compassionate male head than to give it to any of his sons. His heart is weary because deep in his heart he knew such actions such as aversion of the crown from his bloodline will break his forefather's promise and would indeed anger the gods who will withdraw their favor on Umuenyi, so he gently watched day by day as the children grow into young vibrant men. The more they grow, the more his heart grew weary, he is seeing the loopholes in his sons, they are not fit to be kings.King Maduka is married to two wives. The first wife Obiagelli gave birth to three daughters Chinasa, Nkem, and Ego, and a son Kamdili who is more of a nuisance and a hard-headed rascal, all he does is look for trouble. He is twenty years of age, he is vibrant, though not the strongest so to say but he so much loved to mix cruelty with his strength and employ such in tormenting young girls to his pleasure. He often tried to sleep with almost a reasonable amount of girls who are not interested in his advances because he is not gentle and good-looking. He became crueler when he discovered he had a rival who equally matches him in both strength and bravery. While the king's second wife Tata is the king's favorite, she has given birth to only one son called Obieze who unlike Kamdili is gentle, kind, shy, and weak but was loved by the community. He is eighteen years of age and has his mother's heart, people would often say to the hearing of the king who would pretend to hear none of it, "what good is a male if he's not aggressive, he can't notch a bow and arrow, talk more of going on hunts, he can't woo a woman, he can't work in the farm he has no strength at all, all he does is hang around his mother's kitchen, and sing" which by the way annoys the king. He has no interest in politics or town meetings, he is only found in the company of girls gossiping, the father will watch him, sipping on a sweet palm wine with a grimace on his face. Maybe he needs more time to grow up but when he is ripe enough to be initiated into manhood why is he even sitting around girls, he gently looked up and shook his head sadly "this boy is a waste of my seed." The king grumbled.

The family of Okorie consists of Mr. Obinna Okorie, who is a man of peace and the counselor to the king on delicate and private issues concerning how matters of the community are carried out. He is the prime minister and Nkem okorie was his wife who was earlier angry with Ichie ikechukwu Ikem whose daughters fought her daughter on the stream. She is a businesswoman on a small scale, she sold clothes, jigida, and makeup to the women of umuenyi. Their second son junior was adopted by the early white missionaries who came to Umuenyi for trade and had offered the boy scholarship to further his studies to the disapproval of umuenyi villagers who concluded that Obinna Okorie must be out of his senses to give his son to the white walkers to go and learn the white man's witchcraft and how to speak through his nose.

The villagers concluded that Obinna knew that young junior cannot be king since Adanna came out first, that he had long lost hope in the race for kingship and he loved money so much he sold his son to the white men. Adanna their only daughter appeared physically stronger than junior but very beautiful, she was so strong and peculiar, people would say that Adanna was the crafty and greedy one, that the gods made a mistake in giving her strength and energy meant for her and junior. Junior wasn't the only boy Okorie had, the last born Mezie is almost three years old much loved and pampered by everyone. Adanna is almost a woman at seventeen she knows quite a lot for her age and junior is just twelve years who loved the ways of the white men, he learned how to read and write and ride bicycles, and at the end of the day, he concluded he wanted to be like them. The family of Ikem is very wealthy, he is the head of the family who rivaled Obinna Okorie the prime minister for a short while, trying to use the money to buy his way to the king's council, however, the people voted and ruled verdict and Obinna Okorie became the prime minister. Clearing money is not everything he is a big commercial farmer and has acquired numerous farmlands and had large acres of land, he had four wives and they all failed to give him a male child. He has exhausted his strength after being the father of five girls. Each of his wives had a child except his first and favorite wife Mrs. Ngozi Ikem, who is also a businesswoman. She sells food items on a large scale and had given birth to two girls while other wives gave birth to a girl each. Ichie never loved any of his children, he only wanted a son, since his wives failed to give him one, the community didn't care about the women under his roof nor did Ichie show them any concern and care. They weren't particularly known, they mostly stayed indoors, cooking and warming his bed when necessary. He barely even knew the names of his daughters except for the first two Ofunneka and Kosy whom he choose to refer to as "vermins" after all he had automatically lost the battle of the kingship long since his father Nwokeoma failed to give birth to him on time and even if he did so what? Who would succeed him now? Ofunneka and Kosy both nineteen and seventeen respectively would not stay out of trouble, they have approached legitimate years of womanhood and seemed to adopt a wayward behavior to taunt their father and that was how he automatically knew their names, they bring him so much pain anytime he sets eye on them. The two girls were notorious in the community, Kosy is beautiful but proud-headed and troublesome, she loves the adventures of seeking love, she later fell in love with the great hunter's son who is the most handsome, charming, and bravest lad in the community has ever produced Azikiwe known as Ziki.

Ziki was a tall dark and energetic young man, with dark afro hair giving him the looks of a casanova and when it comes to working he has brute strength he is very strong and vibrant. The overwhelming fact that he was hard-working, smart, and kind to everyone made him a lovable personality.

He has an infectious smile that throws the girls of the village off-balance, he was every young lady's desire.

Even the King is fond of the young man. The day he heard Ziki and kamdili clashed on a hunting trip and a heated argument resulted about who killed the leopard disturbing the community, after much investigation, he found out from a reliable source that Ziki wrestled the leopard down and struck it, just as the leopard was gasping for his last breath, Kamdili appeared from nowhere, shoved Ziki aside, lifted the dying leopard with all his might with a scream of fury and bashed its headfirst to the ground and claimed he killed it single-handedly. The king knew his son as a liar and a glory stealer, he awarded Ziki land and Kamdili went about the village in fury, spreading false tales of how he killed the leopard when he saw no one bought the story, he dashed into the forest and killed a snake to reclaim his glory but the king was not impressed. That same week, Ziki struck again, single-handedly, and killed another beast; a wild boar disturbing the community at night, this time kamdili was filled with hatred for Ziki.After Kosy failed to win Ziki's love she became so disturbed and extremely rude to almost anyone around her until she found out that Ziki shared his game with Adanna and didn't bother to offer her any meat. She told ofunneka who prescribed a heavy beating to anyone snatching away her sister's love and that led to the fight with Adanna on her way to the stream to fetch water.Ofunneka was not in love with anyone,e in particular, she just loved the attention and gives herself up to feel the warmth of any worthy young man she desires at the moment. She is always found in the company of different men, as she would always say "as my heart leads me I follow" her father hated her.The family of Obiora is another well-known family, which consists of Mr. Ekwueme Obiora who is respectable because of his role as the high chief security to Igwe. He is in charge of weaponry and security affairs; this was handed over to him by his late father Okwanyelu, Mrs. Chiogo his wife, a respectable woman in the society who is the president of the women association. Mrs. Chiogo beat the king's wives to it in gathering the women to herself, even the words of the great queen of umuenyi obiagelli hold no water as far as the affairs of the women in the village are concerned, they respect the queen but they obey and heed Mrs. Chiogo Obiora more.Mrs. Chiogo Obiora has two children Somto and Nneka; both are non-identical twins aged sixteen years of age. Nnenna came out beautiful, vibrant, and ambitious like her mom while Somto came out to be a young fine lad, although he is not the strongest he participates in games and meetings, is always willing to learn, and tries too hard to impress his father hoping to gain his blessing and wealth as the only man of the house next to his father. The next family is the family of Menkiti who has succeeded in producing a fine lineage of the strongest male in Umuenyi, royalty or no royalty, the gods have blessed the loins of their forefathers till this very day with strength, each generation never fails to produce gladiators and fighters, it ran in their genes. It is not in a Menkiti to back down from a fight or run from a scene of trouble. The father of the house is known as Uwagu the leopard killer, he taught his only son the arts and craft of hunting and trained him to fight, his wife died giving birth to Ziki and since then he refused to marry another, he raised the boy alone till he became sixteen years of age and at nineteen Ziki left his father's house to settle on his own after accumulating wealth from the animals he killed and sold. He is more successful in a hunt than his father. He has his mother's facial features. He is a charmer, very brave, and the strongest boy in the community he is a young gladiator who represents Umuenyi at wrestling competitions and never lost. He came back home, a champion for the third consecutive time. It was only once that Umuenyi lost in the finals because he and kamdilli reached the semifinals and politics got in the way, he had to wrestle a real warrior twice his size and age, the warrior who eliminated Ziki was known by the name Iroko, nobody ever once threw him down, he is called the one who never reaches the ground but on that fateful day ziki threw him down once and he threw Ziki twice to end his reign as champion. The next day Iroko got disqualified. It was secretly planned to make kamdilli reach the finals as the representative of Umuenyi, at the end of the day the King paid handsomely to the next village because Kamdilli is no match for his formidable opponent who in the villagers' opinion is Ziki's match. That fateful day Kamdili dances around the arena, only to be humiliated. The King's son was sent flying in the air, he landed badly and you could hear a sickening thud as Kamdili landed on the floor. A new champion emerged from the nine villages by name of Olumba a boy who indeed is a colossus he looked too grown for his age. He is only eighteen years of age. The humiliation Umuenyi received from Aguiyi will never be forgotten that day, after he had defeated Kamdili, pumped his chest a few times and pointed at Ziki, and finally proceeded to feed Kamdili the heir to the Umuenyi throne with sands, the elders kept screaming and pleading at Oluma who suddenly went deaf and refuse to budge. The competition was carried out once every seven seasons and it's the only way youths can participate, to show which village has the strongest and finest warriors. It brings harmony and unity among the nine villages, this time around the competition was an abject failure because a fight broke out between Umuenyi and Aguiyi village. Fifteen lives of young men were lost from both villages seven from umuenyi and eight from Aguiyi Then they came to a final resolution to make peace. To this day trouble and tension still looms between the two villages they are already in disagreement on who owns the stream that lies between the border demarcating Umuenyi and Aguiyi. Uwago loved his son and saw him as his greatest accomplishment and the King secretly loved Ziki and he is planning to shift the royalty away from his family. He thought Umuenyi needed a leader like Ziki, he had concluded that his sons are failures. In a desperate attempt for Uwago not to miss his dear bo,y he recently remarried a woman outside his clan a woman by name of Amara. She conceived and gave birth to another boy by name of Emelie, who is also as strong as Ziki when he was younger.The rest of the family the Agaba and Agu family are almost silent, they are introverts and show no interest in mantel for leadership, the males from the Agaba family are small scale farmers and blacksmiths while the Agu family make fine archers and weapons the two families had no interests on the crown. Other families are settlers from other communities whose lands were invaded and damaged by the civil war. They show deep loyal towards the royal families, they are contented with being followers they are not decision-makers but instead take orders from the original inhabitants of Umuenyi village.