Tahajo, ancient and brittle as the stalks around them, bent over and brushed Atiba's dusty feet. His voice could scarcely be heard above the chorus of crickets. "Tonight, at the first coming of dark, when I could no longer see the lines in the palm of my hand, I sacrificed a cock to Ogun, as a prayer that you succeed."
Atiba looked at him with surprise, secretly annoyed that Tahajo had performed the sacrifice without his knowledge. But the old man had the prerogatives of an elder. "What did the sacrifice foretell?"
"I could not discern, Atiba, in truth I could not. The signs were mixed. But they seemed to hold warning." Concern showed in his aged eyes. "Know that if you do not succeed, there will be no refuge for any of us. Remember what the elders of Ife once warned, when our young men called for a campaign of war against the Fulani in the north. They declared 'The locust can eat, the locust can drink, the locust can go—but where can the grasshopper hide?' We are like grasshoppers, my son, with no compounds or women to return to for shelter if we fail."
"We will not fail." Atiba held up his new machete. Its polished iron glistened in the light of the moon. "Ogun will not turn his face from us."
"Then I pray for you, Atiba." He sighed. "You are surely like the pigeon who feeds among the hawks, fearless of death."
"Tonight, Tahajo, we are the hawks."
"A hawk has talons." The old man looked up at the moon. "What do you have?"
"We will have the claws of a leopard, of steel, before the sun returns." Atiba saluted him in traditional fashion, then turned to Obewole. The tall drummer's arms were heavy with bundles of straw, ready to be fired and hurled among the cane.
"Is everything prepared?"
"The straw is ready." Obewole glanced around at the expectant faces of the men as he stepped forward. "As we are. You alone have the flint."