CHAPTER 126: BLAME

"I swear your ear did not look like that when I last saw you," I remarked, thoughtfully.

I sat comfortably on a tree stump in one of the sheds at the edge of the población. From where I was, I could see the cogon fields—peaceful now, still beneath the moonlight. The town had returned to its usual nightly hush, its disturbers either dead, captured, or fled.

Their commander knelt before me.

He was one of those who had scrambled for the boats after their assault collapsed in chaos. Eduardo, ever alert, had sprung awake at the first gunshots, boarded the Garay warship moored at the beach, and gave chase just in time.

The small fishing vessels that carried the attackers upriver were no match for the Moro swivel cannons. The four-pounder hadn’t even been used—it would have been overkill.

Capitan Gabriel Sadiwa was among the unlucky few who survived. Or perhaps, the lucky few—depending on how one viewed fate. "Bloodied" was putting it mildly. He had lost fingers on his right hand, most of his right ear, and sustained burns across the left side of his body and face.

He had fancied himself a Heneral. On the charred remains of his white uniform were shoulder patches bearing a crude golden star—an imitation of my own bars. The soldiers had taken his pistol and handed it to Dimalanta, his saber to Lorenzo, his fine boots to Eduardo. As for the battered but functional brass spyglass, I had taken the liberty of placing it in my own satchel for safekeeping.

He was soaked to the bone, shivering where he knelt in the dirt. I couldn’t tell whether he trembled from the cold or from fear. Likely both.

"I hope you’re not right-handed," I said, casually. "Otherwise, you won’t be able to write your last letter to your loved ones."

A few soldiers chuckled.

"Meeh... mee... mercy... Heneral..." Gabriel Sadiwa stammered, his teeth clattering with every syllable.

I shook my head slowly. The image of our escolta’s bodies, strewn across the ground floor of the presidencia, flared once more in my memory. Any trace of pity was smothered by the memory.

"No... no mercy, Capitan," I said coldly.

"Mercy is for gentlemen," I added with a smirk. "Not for turncoats. And certainly not for cultists."

He crawled an inch forward, but Lorenzo’s newly claimed saber blocked his path. He froze.

"I’m no cultist, Heneral," Sadiwa gasped, blood bubbling at his lips. "You know that. You didn’t see red bands on my men. I... I swear it."

More blood trickled from his cracked mouth—whether from his lips or his lungs, I couldn’t say.

"Mercy... like the one I showed Don Suarez... your soldiers in Santa Cruz," he sputtered. "I could have killed them. But I didn’t."

I clenched my jaw.

"Those men trusted you as their officer," I said through gritted teeth. "If they hadn’t... if they hadn’t believed in you, you wouldn’t have lived long enough to regret your treachery."

"That wasn’t mercy, Gabriel," I snapped. "That was betrayal. And it won’t save you."

He began to sob then. Whether from pain or despair, I didn’t care. He was broken. His pride, his body, and his delusions—all burned down to ash.

"Please... you can have everything I own," he begged. "My family’s land, their loyalty. All of it. I’ll swear it. Just... don’t..."

I stood.

The whining grew louder as I walked away.

"You’ll hang in Boac," I said over my shoulder, "together with Paras."

---

The next morning found the small town of Buenavista, which used to be one of the most uneventful places in the archipelago, scarred and bloodied by two battles that had happened in a single day.

After last night’s battle, not only the town’s interior but also its exterior had seen dead. Sadiwa’s counterattack had inflicted no losses on our troops, but forty-seven more enemy combatants were found dead or languishing on the grass and mud.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the town was abandoned after all the blood that tainted its soil.

The better part of the morning was spent digging a mass grave for the enemy dead.

Our dead, on the other hand, would be transported to Boac to be afforded a service in the cathedral and a few days’ wake for their loved ones.

To be transported with them to the cabecera would be our prisoners, who had ballooned to nearly thirty after last night’s surrenders and the early morning sweep for deserters in the nearby barrios.

They needed to be placed somewhere secure before we pushed for Torrijos, with Buenavista filled with Pulajanes sympathizers.

I was there when the prisoners were pushed out of the presidencia’s storeroom to line up in the plaza. Half of them were Pulajanes and half of them Sadiwa’s men. They were easy to distinguish—the former wearing red bands, while the latter wore white uniforms.

So, it immediately stood out when a few prisoners did not look to belong to either team, not wearing red bands nor white jackets.

On my horse, I promptly looked down to the side, to Sargento Guzman. The sergeant nervously swallowed and looked away.

"Why are Teniente Medina and the Cazadores among the prisoners?" I snapped at him, keeping my voice low.

"Well... Heneral... they are technically... among the enemy combatants," he reasoned, not able to hold eye contact. "And you said you’d only spare their lives... not spare them from imprisonment..."

I huffed and dismounted, dragging the sergeant further away from the lined-up prisoners to keep our conversation to ourselves. Dimalanta who came with me followed with a cautious expression.

"These men are the reason why yesterday’s battle ended within two hours instead of stretching to a day-long slog," I said.

Sargento Guzman looked unconvinced. Instead, he grew more composed. "But weren’t they also the reason the battle stretched nearly to two hours instead of the cultists folding within minutes like Sadiwa’s men last night?"

"I am sure you also know this, Heneral. The Pulajanes could not have mounted a defense as organized as what we faced without help from the Cazadores. Not only that... weren’t they the ones who killed Mercader—the recruit who was pinned with Kadete Roque?" he continued,.

Dimalanta listened silently, worried that the conversation would escalate.

"Well... if you want someone to blame... then you should blame me, Sargento," I replied. "It was I who brought us all here, fed our newly trained recruits to these bloodthirsty, crazed cultists. It was I who foolishly charged into the presidencia and got your friends in the escolta killed."

I paused, huffing. "If you must point your finger at someone... you point at me."

Guzman did not respond. An awkward silence ensued.

I realized my error—a too passionate defense of people I had only met yesterday, when the soldiers killed had been with us through thick and thin. I should have been gentler.

"I will release them at once, Heneral," he responded quietly, moments later, before stepping away.