Five years had passed since Nnanna and Ego stood before their families and pledged their lives to one another.
They were not among the wealthiest couples in Umudibia. Their compound was modest, and they possessed only what their hard work could provide. Yet anyone who knew them envied their marriage.
They lacked only one thing.
Children.
Everything else was abundant.
Their love had not diminished with time; it had deepened. They had become companions in every sense of the word. Ego served her husband with genuine affection, not because tradition demanded it, but because she loved him. Every meal she prepared, every cloth she washed, every word she spoke carried the tenderness of a woman who cherished the man she had married.
Nnanna loved her no less. He treated her not as a possession but as the queen of his heart. Whatever his hunting brought home belonged to them both. If there was anything his strength, influence, or wealth could provide, Ego never lacked it.
Theirs was a marriage many prayed for.
Only the laughter of children was missing from their compound.
*
That evening marked the fifth anniversary of their marriage.
Ego had risen before sunrise to prepare all of Nnanna's favorite meals. Fresh pounded yam rested beside steaming bowls of spicy soup. Roasted bush meat filled the air with its rich aroma, while fresh palm wine cooled inside a clay pot.
Everything was ready before sunset.
All that remained was her husband.
As darkness settled over Umudibia, Ego sat patiently outside their hut, smiling whenever she heard footsteps in the distance.
Each time, disappointment followed.
The footsteps belonged to someone else.
Hours slipped by.
The moon climbed high above the trees.
Still...
Nnanna did not return.
It was nearly midnight before exhaustion finally overcame her.
She fell asleep beside the untouched meal.
The first rays of morning sunlight warmed her face.
She awoke immediately.
"Nnanna?"
Silence.
The food remained exactly where she had left it.
The sleeping mat inside the hut was untouched.
Her husband had never returned home.
A knot tightened in her chest.
Nnanna sometimes came home late after a difficult hunt.
But never like this.
Never once in five years had he spent an entire night away without sending word through someone.
"This isn't like my husband," she whispered.
"Something is wrong."
She stood quickly.
"The Nnanna I know would never stay away on a day like this."
Her heart sank.
"Something terrible must have happened to him."
Without wasting another moment, Ego hurried to the palace.
*
The Igwe listened quietly as she explained that her husband had disappeared.
The king needed no further persuasion.
Nnanna was not merely another hunter.
He had once been Umudibia's Dimgba, a man respected throughout the surrounding villages.
Immediately, the Igwe summoned able-bodied men.
"Search every path."
"Every stream."
"Every farm."
"Every part of the forest."
"And do not return until Nnanna is found."
The search began at once.
The men searched throughout the day.
They combed the forests.
Crossed streams.
Climbed rocky hills.
Questioned hunters from neighboring villages.
As evening approached...
One of the search parties found him.
He lay beneath the sprawling branches of an ancient iroko tree deep inside the forest.
Motionless.
Silent.
Dead.
The men gathered around him in stunned disbelief.
There was no wound upon his body.
No broken bones.
No scratches suggesting he had struggled against either man or beast.
No puncture marks from a snake.
No evidence of poison.
Nothing.
It was as though life had simply... left him.
Even the oldest hunters could not explain what they saw.
If the gods had struck him down, there would have been unmistakable signs. Among the people of Umudibia, death by divine judgment came with thunder, leaving the victim's body blackened like burnt charcoal.
Nnanna bore no such mark.
To this day, no one could say what truly claimed the life of Umudibia's greatest wrestler.
*
The men cut fresh bamboo and tied together a stretcher with raffia.
With solemn faces, they carried their fallen champion home.
Word traveled faster than they did.
By the time they reached the village, people had already gathered outside his compound.
The moment Ego saw them approaching...
She knew.
She screamed.
Then everything went dark.
She collapsed before they reached the gate.
Her friends rushed to revive her.
When consciousness returned, she crawled toward the stretcher.
She clutched at Nnanna's lifeless body.
"My husband..."
"My husband..."
"My husband..."
Nothing else escaped her lips.
She rolled upon the wet earth, her wrapper loosened, her hair covered with mud and tears.
She neither noticed nor cared.
Grief had consumed her completely.
Her cries continued until her eyes became swollen and red.
But her tears were not shed for Nnanna alone.
She wept for herself.
Like every widow in those days, she already knew the painful road that lay ahead.
If her husband's family accused her of causing his death, she could be forced to drink the water used to wash his corpse as proof of her innocence.
Others were compelled to crawl over their husband's body before the entire community to demonstrate they had no hand in his death.
She would not be permitted to bathe until eight market days had passed.
When that day finally came, she would be led to the river at midnight under strict supervision.
For an entire month, she would be expected to cry loudly enough for the whole village to hear, proving the depth of her sorrow.
Her hair would be shaved by the Umuada, the assembly of married daughters of the clan.
Should the family choose, she might be compelled to marry whichever male relative inherited Nnanna's property, whether his brother or another close kinsman.
And if she died before completing the prescribed mourning period...
Many believed she had followed her husband because of guilt.
Such women were denied honorable burial and cast into the Evil Forest.
These customs filled her with almost as much dread as death itself.
Among those who enforced such traditions most fiercely were often the Umuada.
Though they claimed to protect custom, personal grudges frequently found expression during widowhood rites.
Old disagreements resurfaced.
Jealousies became accusations.
Some widows suffered less because they were innocent than because they were fortunate.
Others suffered simply because someone wished them to.
That day, sorrow settled upon Umudibia like a heavy cloud.
Even nature seemed to mourn.
By evening, dark clouds gathered overhead.
Rain poured without mercy, drumming upon rooftops as though the heavens themselves lamented the passing of their fallen champion.
Once again...
Death had claimed its victory.
Following tradition, Nnanna's body was gently laid upon fresh plantain leaves.
The elders carefully washed him.
When they had finished cleansing his body, they rubbed his skin with camwood, consecrating him for his final journey.
He was then laid inside the hut with his feet facing the entrance—a sign that he was preparing to depart from the world of the living.
Among the Igbo, women were often prepared differently, seated upright before burial and later carried back to their ancestral villages.
But Nnanna's journey would begin here.
As evening fell, Mazi Okoro welcomed mourners into his son's compound.
Kola nuts were broken.
Palm wine was shared.
Libations were poured upon the earth while prayers invited the ancestors to receive Nnanna's spirit and guide him safely into the land beyond.
The wake lasted throughout the night.
Before dawn, hunters fired their guns into the air.
The echoes carried from village to village, announcing that Umudibia had lost one of her finest sons.
Soon afterward, young men buried Nnanna behind his hut.
As was customary, several of his treasured possessions accompanied him into the grave.
Hunters journeyed into the next life with their weapons.
Fishermen with their nets.
Farmers with their tools.
Nnanna was buried with the hunting gun that had fed his family for years.
Wooden planks were carefully arranged above his body before the grave was sealed.
Only a few hours after the burial...
The sky suddenly darkened.
Without warning, a bolt of thunder crashed into the great ube tree standing within the compound.
The mighty tree split apart.
The villagers gasped.
Many believed it was Nnanna's final farewell—
one last sign that his spirit had departed the world of the living and crossed into that of the ancestors.
*
A year later, the second funeral was held.
Unlike the first, it was not a day of mourning but of celebration.
Visitors arrived dressed in their finest wrappers.
Drums echoed across the village.
Songs filled the air.
There was dancing, feasting, and laughter.
For among the people of Umudibia, the second funeral marked not an ending, but a beginning.
It signified that the deceased had completed the journey into the spirit world and had finally taken his rightful place among the honored ancestors, where his spirit would watch over the generations yet to come.