CHAPTER 117: BETRAYAL

"Come out with your hands up!" shouted Sargento Guzman, while the bayonet-fitted rifles of the escolta aimed at the closed door.

A few soldiers were hugging the walls near the edges of the yard, occasionally risking a peek around the corners to check for enemy movements. Everyone was tense.

Just about twenty meters ahead stood the cluster of houses that formed a perimeter around the presidencia. These were the homes of Buenavista’s small elite—families that had held onto government posts in the far-flung town for decades. For them, it had been practical to live around the seat of power.

This was also the site of a massacre. When the pulajanes overran the town weeks ago, the gobernadorcillo and several principales had been caught in their homes instead of at their haciendas. According to our scouts, the cultists had dragged them out and executed them publicly—some hacked down, others shot, some beaten with farming tools in front of their servants.

Being this close to the presidencia made the soldiers uneasy. Why would enemy fighters not only surrender, but do so right here, when they could have escaped through the back door? It didn’t add up.

I watched the scene unfold from the relative safety of a hut across the street, opposite the bahay-na-bato. In a wayside shed, I sat in a rattan chair, waiting for the shallow wound on my head to stop throbbing.

A soldier stood beside me, assigned to keep an eye on my condition while I rested. I recognized him. He was the same young man who had stayed behind me in Kasily, standing watch while I entered Alicia’s house to clear out pirates. The same soldier who’d torn his undershirt to make a bandage for me after the firefight earlier.

I turned to him. "What’s your name?"

He blinked, surprised by the question. "Jorge Estrada, sir," he replied quietly.

I nodded, letting the name settle into memory.

Then my attention snapped forward again.

Two figures stepped out, prompting more shouting from the soldiers, their rifles tense and ready. Faking a surrender and charging out wouldn’t be beneath the cultists.

But the sunlight dispelled the tension.

The two men were clearly in no shape to fight. One was half-conscious, bleeding heavily from an upper arm wound that had soaked half his torso in red. The other man supported him under one shoulder, limping slightly, a rifle in his free hand held vertically with a white cloth tied to the barrel.

"We’re surrendering!" the conscious one growled, just before one of the soldiers stepped forward and kicked the back of his knee, forcing him down.

"Stop it, soldado!" I raised my voice—not a yell, but enough to be heard. "Bring them here, and treat their wounds, Guzman."

The Sargento gave me a brief look, weighing the order, then barked at the soldiers to bring the captives over.

The escolta moved in. Two soldiers hauled the wounded pair forward, rifles still aimed, hands never relaxing on the stocks. I would’ve preferred a gentler approach, but given what we’d lost—especially the recruit shot behind the well—it would’ve been unrealistic to expect compassion. For all we knew, these were the same men who had killed him.

They brought the prisoners under the shed, placing them on the bamboo deck beside my chair. Estrada stepped forward again, tearing the rest of his undershirt into makeshift bandages. The wounded men were stripped of their outer garments to allow treatment.

I winced as I got a clear view of the half-conscious man’s injury. His arm wound had ruptured badly. The blood was dark, bubbling out in thick pulses. A soldier tried to bind it, but the dressing kept slipping from the soaked flesh. His hands were slick with blood.

Even the man supporting him earlier had gone quiet, watching his comrade cough blood and moan his last. His face was tight with helplessness. He didn’t even try to speak. He just shook his head slowly, as if trying to will it all away.

His reaction surprised me. The cultists we had fought until now were either mad with fanaticism or utterly silent in defeat. But this one looked... human. Shaken. Almost mourning.

Then again, he didn’t look like the typical fanatic we’d seen. His nails were trimmed. His skin was slightly fairer. The dirt on him seemed recent—not something built up from weeks in the jungle.

I adjusted my chair slightly, angling myself to face him. He stared back.

Our eyes met—and we both recognized each other at once.

"Domingo?" I said, narrowing my eyes.

He had grown a short beard, but I remembered him clearly. Domingo Ortega. A sargento from the Cazadores company deployed from Tayabas last year to put down the revolt on the island.

"Don Lardizabal?" he answered, tilting his head.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, confused. A few nearby soldiers turned their attention to our conversation.

The Spanish force sent to Marinduque—including Guardia Civil and local volunteers—had numbered no more than two hundred. Most had been driven off the island by the strength of the local uprising and the hostility of the townsfolk. Some made it to the boats.

Others... had disappeared.

Domingo must’ve been among the latter.

He swallowed. His lips were dry.

I unhooked the bumbong from my belt and handed it to him. He drank it all quickly.

"Recruited by Señor Paras?" I asked.

He wiped his mouth and nodded silently.

"You are a traitor..." Estrada muttered beside me—not loud, but not quiet enough.

Domingo heard him.

"You were traitors first," he shot back. "You betrayed the motherland."

"Aren’t you a Filipino?" Estrada replied, sharper now. "What did Spain ever do for us?"

I closed my eyes briefly. That was the wrong question.

Domingo gave a dry, bitter chuckle.

"What did they do for us?" he echoed, then looked up slowly, his eyes stern. "A system of governance. Roads. Irrigation. Public order. Education. Christianity. Everything you hold dear. Even the very name of these islands."

He paused, then added, "Before Spain, there was no country here. Just warring datus and sultans, ruling their own little corner. Spain brought something bigger... something we could all belong to."

"And now you call it betrayal to remember?"