Bound by ancestry - Chapter 11: Chapter 11

The road to Okigwe was long and uneven, winding through farmlands and ridges where the mist never truly lifted. It was said that the hills there could hold sound for days, repeating whispers of travelers long after they’d passed. To the Circle, this made it a place of caution. But it was also a place of memory—and memory was sacred.
Adaeze led the procession, her steps guided more by instinct than direction. Her dreams the night before had shown her a bell made of bone, hanging from the tallest tree in the oldest hill. The bell was silent. Cracked. But even broken, it carried power.
As they approached the first hill, they were met by silence. A different silence from Orlu—this one felt thick, like layers of unspoken truth pressed into the soil.
“There’s something buried here,” Chidubem said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Not just something,” Uzochi replied, stepping beside them. “Someone.”
They set camp near a dry stream and waited. That night, as fire flickered, an old woman appeared by the edge of the light. No one had seen her approach.
“Are you the memory keepers?” she asked.
Adaeze stood. “We are.”
The woman nodded. “Then you must hear the hill.”
She turned and walked into the dark. Without hesitation, Adaeze followed, staff in hand. Chidubem and the others came too, lighting their path with lanterns that flickered against the wind.
At the peak of the hill, they found it—the bell from Adaeze’s dream. It hung from the branch of a lone tree, half buried in moss. Beneath it, a grave covered in stone.
The woman knelt. “This is the grave of Oduenyi. The first bell keeper. He rang the truth into the hills, and the Obiri silenced him.”
Adaeze approached the grave. “Why did you bring us here?”
“Because his echo never faded. Only slept.”
Adaeze placed the staff against the tree. The air trembled. The bell, though cracked, rang once.
And the earth responded.
The grave split. A wind burst outward, filled with whispers.
Chidubem fell to his knees. He could hear them—voices layered over one another. Children. Elders. Warriors. All saying the same thing.
“Wake the hill. Tell our names.”
They lit a fire at the top and began to chant. Not in a single language, but many—fragments of dialects lost to time. Each syllable brought light to the hill. Each name spoken stitched a piece of history back into the world.
The bell rang again.
And in the forest below, people stirred. Drawn by the sound, villagers came with torches, led by the same old woman, who now walked tall and straight.
“I am Oduenyi’s granddaughter,” she said. “I was waiting for the Circle.”
The villagers surrounded the grave, hands joined, eyes wide.
“You must help us reclaim the Echoing Hills,” Adaeze said. “Not for power, but for truth.”
They agreed.
By morning, the first of the broken shrines had been uncovered. Children helped sweep the stone paths. Elders wept as they placed their palms on carvings they hadn’t seen in decades.
The hills sang again.
And deep below the earth, in chambers long hidden, other bells began to stir.
The Obiri heard it too.
Far in their fortress carved from petrified wood and ash, they grew restless. One of them, a figure known only as Nwokeoji—the Old One—stepped before a basin of black water.
“The Circle spreads,” he said.
Another hissed. “Then we must break it.”
“No,” Nwokeoji whispered. “We must test it.”
He raised his hand. From the water, a shape emerged—half human, half shadow.
“Go to them,” he said. “Bring doubt. Bring division.”
Back in the hills, Adaeze suddenly gasped. Her chest burned. The pendant grew cold.
Chidubem caught her. “What is it?”
“Something is coming,” she said. “Not to fight. To deceive.”
The Circle prepared.
The hill was awake.
But so was the enemy.