Ekwulu in the next few years built his army of mercenaries and became a warlord in his new home. He became feared among neighbors, and established relationships with Nkwerre people and even married from there. He expanded his land and made a huge encroachment into the Evil Forest of Isumeh.
Ekwulu did not stop there. He continued his expansionist movement until the defunct tent of Udobuaku became a part of his new-found village and much more. Right there in the tent of Udobuaku, he built his own house and created the boundary. Sometimes, people fall in love with odd places that once gave their lives meanings.
After four years, Ekwulu shortened the size of the remaining part of the Evil Forest and made it a circle of farming land for his new-found home. However, he chose to keep the interior part of the Evil Forest intact. The trees were still standing, and represented their ancient values, only that now, it was controlled by one whose life was saved in it. This became a problem when Isumeh planned a war against them because they had no place to discard their twin babies, and people with chronic ailments believed to have been inflicted by their Gods.
The build-ups of the war were massive. Isumeh reached out to Nkwerre for assistance against the team of Ekwulu. The day the warriors of Nkwerre came around to invade the land of Ekwulu, they met a certain woman who spoke the Nkwerre dialect to them. Her name was Ojiru. ''Ebee ka unu na aga, umunne m- where are you going, my brothers?'' Ojiru asked while looking in-between them to see if she could recognize anyone among them.
Luckily, she found not just one, but two. Anyansi, and Onyia, her cousin. ''Dada-senior aunt, what are you doing here this dark evening?'' Onyia asked, with his full armor on him. ''This is our farm,'' Ojiru replied, turned and pointed towards the uphill part. ''And those huts are Ekwulu's, my husband,'' she continued, while beckoning on her co-wife and cousin Ureaku to come closer.
''Is that Ureaku, my first wife?'' Anyansi screamed. Ureaku laughed out loud as she started coming closer. ''Yes, Anyansi. You are right, my brother. My cousin's husband, Ekwulu, later came, and married me. I have children for him after six years in Nkwerre without a child. You are a good man. I understand your fear as an only child of his parents, and I decided to make it easier for you. That was why I left as your wife. I think, my father told you my reason too,'' responded, as she stood right in front of Anyasi and his co-warriors. Nothing melts the heart of a warrior like truth birthed into confidence with the choicest of words. What a lucky day.
Anyansi, the former husband of Ureaku, was the commander of the dreaded warriors. Brothers were erroneously sent to wipe out the family of their sisters. This was beyond heart to engage in.
These confessions had thawed the hardened minds of the warriors; they now asked to see Ekwulu himself. Ojiru led them home to see him, but he was nowhere to be found. He had taken the fallen leaves of a banana mat as his hood, or rather, a thicket. But he was alertly listening to their discussions.
His wives kept all the over forty warriors glued to their seats as they continued going in and coming out of their respective huts, fetching drinking water for them. The reception hut had become, once more, that day, what it was known for, a place to host visitors, and not where to write with human blood as they had intended. In less than two hours, roasted yam tubers with fresh palm oil adorned with utazi leaves were dished out for them.
Ojiru went inside their husband's chamber, and brought kegs of palm wine for them. Ekwulu's earlopes were following all the sounds around his house. When they had enough of the drink, and all doubts cleared, Ekwulu made a sudden appearance in their midst. It was all cheers as Ekwulu introduced himself to his impromptu august visitors as all the warriors led down their war instruments for the bold, shrewd and eye-blazing sight of an ayari- child born with albinism, that Ekwulu was.
He went inside his inner room, brought kola nut and alligator pepper, to formally welcome his visitors. ''I know there is an Isumeh man here among you that gives you directions to my abode, right?'' Ekwulu asked. Everybody pointed at Nliam. Nliam was a son of Isumeh who directed the horde. ''Oji abiana- here is kola nut'' He said to Nliam first, before he showed it to his visitors from Nkwerre as they now seemed.
It was in their culture to first show kola nuts to the nearest relative before showing the same to others; although not to be shown to a woman, even if she is coming from the nearest of the man in blood, or from the nearest place to his bedroom. It was a strong culture among Igbo republics.
Kola nuts have threaded this exclusive path for eons of years in central Igbo culture. Its presentation to the public is in itself an act of veneration, and in this veneration, a cotyledon, or some pieces of it, are thrown out on the ground as an act of giving back to the source, and to those who use this very source as their shelter. These are their ancestors, and ultimately, their earth mother who, to them, shares her own life with all the plants, and allowed them to thrive on her, for the sustenance of man and his environment.
In their republics also, the mountain meat of cows you killed to host a guest means nothing when compared to the value they placed on kola nuts. If they had gone without a kola nut, it would be entered into their oral archive that the day they visited Ekwulu not even a kola was given to them. That tiny tropical fruit has a life of its own among the Igbos. And a well-bred Igbo man like Ekwulu couldn't have come short of the values of his kind.
At this time, the warriors of Isumeh who had laid siege around the nearby bushes had started coming to Ekwulu's compound. A few seconds after their arrival, the mercenary warriors of Ekwulu, who had been positioned in different places since a priest friend of Ekwulu, came and warned him of impending war, started coming slowly, down to Ekwulu's house. It became a gathering of who is who in warfare, just suddenly and it meant well for all involved.
When they were about to leave, Ekwulu took permission to clarify one, or maybe, two, standing up. ''My brother, Nliam, and my in-laws of Nkwerre. I did not take any land of the Isumeh people. I am in blood and heart Isumeh. I was born like others, but others chose the Evil Forest for me, Ekwulu. I am in no doubt the son of Ononiru from the Uyom kindred of Isumeh village. My father's house is not that far from here. I was born a twin and was brought to die in the cold, chilling forest this place used to be. I survived it, but my twin brother didn't. ''I was saved by a woman who was chased out to here, to die of her leprosy. Her name was Udobuaku'' Ekwulu said, blinking his eyes courageously, in order not to betray his person as a man. Heads turned.
''Udobuaku, the woman that I was told that her medicines cured my mother of leprosy when she nearly died of it?'' Akpamgbo asked, curiously. Akpamgbo was among the warriors of Nkwerre. ''Yes, you are right. I was told she traveled everywhere she could save people from leprosy. Now, I survived, but not all were lucky. Having survived the booked death stationed against my life, it would be foolish of me if I did not beautify the place that preserved my life when humans saw me as good as dead. I took over this place not through war, but through understanding. Instead of dumping twins to die here, bring them to me, Ekwulu.
''I am the first survivor of their fated struggle. I have to live for them because I was saved first to save them. If you want me to come to your houses to pick them up whenever they are born, I will happily do that'' Ekwulu said, passionately. Heads turned wildly.
The words of Ekwulu came as a shock to everybody, including some of his own warriors. Nliam was irritatedly shocked. ''I am very afraid now; a twin?'' Nliam asked. ''Yes, a twin; and there is blood still running in my veins as all of us here'' Ekwulu replied, brazenly. ''If the Gods refused to kill you as a child, and you grew to utter these words, you are my brother, Ekwulu,'' Nliam said, ''You are our in-law, Ekwulu'' the warriors of Nkwerre said, almost in unison. It was all hugging and handshaking till they all left, albeit with some nostalgic feelings.
However, in the house that was Ekwulu's, the shock a group of two women received was intense, and its cold-wax was still unfrozen. They were Ojiru and Ureaku. On the night of same day, Ekwulu gathered his family and told them the details of his odyssey. It was a night of mixed feelings, of tears, laughter and goosebumps. Ekwulu had arrived. Not just among Isumeh but among his household, because truth untold makes us strangers in our own house as long as we know it, but we choose to hide it.
Two days after the averted invasion of Ekwulu's new land, he gathered his war mercenaries, and recruited more. He chose four out of them and made them the Guards of the Evil Forest of Isumeh, saddled with the responsibility of safeguarding the land that deemed him worthy to live, as a human being he was. Their primary duties were: saving the lives of twins brought in to die, and giving a deserving burial for those who had chronic ailments that were brought in to die on their own. For them, Ekwulu built tents to house them until they died. Some survived, and went home when Ekwulu employed the services of a great herbalist from Arobulo who was attending to them while he gradually learned.
Something happened after two years of reform that took place around Isumeh's Evil Forest. The people of Ogbanigbo sent spies to report home about happenings in the Evil Forest, and the entire Isumeh village. Their oral history has it that the man Ogbanigbo was the grandfather of Isumeh. Isumeh was the first child of Akuiru, who was the first daughter of Ogbanigbo. Akuiru married a stranger called Isi from the far-away land of Aboka, who had settled in the land Ogbanigbo discovered with his mercenaries many years ago. Isi grew up in Ogbanigbo with his siblings who later traveled back home to Aboka. But he stayed behind because his father-in-law gave him a portion of the land to live on, and grow their crops. They had a son named Umeh and three daughters.
Umeh made sure all his daughters were married in Aboka, with the thought of being closer to them if he traveled back home permanently any time in the future. This he never accomplished because his days were not long. He died a sudden death. The land started bearing Isumeh by their descendants through Umeh, who married four wives and had nineteen children, and eight were men.
However, the story of the Ogbanigbo land of present-day Isumeh was an evergreen recitational folktale among the Ogbanigbo people, and some on the part of Isumeh held such view. This even looked close to the truth because the Abokaigbo Festival that was celebrated in Aboka still had a replica of it in Isumeh.
When Ogbanigbo heard that the Evil Forest situated in Isumeh had been defiled and desecrated by Ekwulu, a man of twin birth, they became embittered and sought to teach Ekwulu a lesson to take to ancestors of Aboka. The Evil Forest of Isumeh was a historic place in the history anal of Ogbanigbo. It was a place where, according to a version of their history, Ogbanigbo's brother Emegwa revolted against his senior brother who wanted to advance further south into Imekwe village.
Imekwe was the home of Emegwa's first wife, who had a daughter for him before they separated. His revolt against his brother, Ogbanigbo, angered the first men of the group known as the Ogbanigbo Warriors. They eliminated him, but in anger that they were yet to understand, Ogbanigbo ordered that Imekwe should be left untouched.
Years later, the unforgiving Ogbanigbo groomed a team out of his many warriors. Their assignment, they later found out, was to eliminate all his first men who had murdered his younger brother, Emegwa, without his authorization.
The shedding of the blood of a brother in the former Ibiam forest made the land abandoned and uncultivated from generation to generation, and in later generations, became a land that was called the Evil Forest- ajo obia, where things they saw as evil were thrown into. It was the same forest where Ogbanigbo people were dumping their own parks of evil, which, after all, were mainly chronically sick people, and twin babies.
Ekwulu was lucky to have been told about the spies sent by Ogbanigbo people. He invaded them with his team at the peak of their market day, ahia orie Ogba. His men pursued them down to the River Amaeze. It was from the banks of the River Amaeze that the Ogbanigbo men started sorting for understanding, to bring about a truce between them and Isumeh.
Finally, peace was achieved, and more lands were ceded to Isumeh, including Ibiam land that was now the Evil Forest. After all, the Isumehs were their offspring. Sometimes, victory has a way of dusting up history for the peace of he that won it.
After this victory by the men of Ekwulu, the Isumeh people, whether it was out of fear or understanding or knowledge of divination, ordered the stoppage of the killing of twins. After all, it was a twin son of theirs that established their peace. This was also adopted in Ogbanigbo and the Isumeh's Evil Forest became a consented land publicly given to Ekwulu in perpetuity.
Yes, the reflections and memories packed in the head of Ekwulu were enough to deny him sleep and more of it. As he laid back on his bed, nothing but joy, appreciation and dicey memories of fear, luck, tenacity and destiny were wet enough to bring down an ocean of tears down his old cheeks, except the pain he had in his heart that his son, Dunuora, couldn't understand how love had kept him all through the hardest Conundrums of his particular existence.
However, like a loving father, he traveled down to his maternal home to reunite with his son, but his son chose to run away to avoid a meeting with him. He spent four days in Uzoigbo kindren of Isumeh, waiting to have a closure with his son, but his son was not interested in meeting him. He went to Uyom kindred and made some libation beside the grave of Ononiru, and left for his new home. He died a few days after this journey.