By the Next Noon, We will Fall

Tell the king’s guard that I must see the king.

For the king will make another wrong choice.

The armor-bearer is mischievous,

The king’s men have another plan.

It is not an attack from the outsiders

The enemy is within the palace walls.

By noon, the village gates will crumble,

And our wealth will scatter like dry leaves in the wind.

What we forbade has now been done in broad daylight.

The glory we once celebrated is now old,

A tale the elders whisper with heavy tongues.

Tell him—Amadimma has fallen.

Not by the sword, not by the strength of an enemy,

But by the hands of those who swore to protect it.

For those who led us here have fled with their families,

They set the fire and left us to burn.

I will die by the next noon, but let me speak.

I hold the key to save this city,

Yet I know—I will not be remembered.

But let Amadimma live, let our home

Not be swallowed by the forest.

Nnamdika told me to take gold and stay silent,

But what is gold to a dying man?

Let me speak, for silence profits me nothing.

Let me say what must be said

Before the sun sets on my name.