The next day was one of the worst I'd ever seen. We found the other company mid-morning and started firing on their skirmishers, beating them back, when suddenly a troop of cavalry came galloping up from the rear of their column and started after us. We got to our horses and mounted up, swinging to meet them, but there were too many. I whistled the command to retreat at the run, thinking to lead them to an ambush point a mile or so back. Instead, they clung to our trail as if on tethers, and we had no chance to turn and counterattack.
I know when I'm outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The enemy commander had specifically brought along this cavalry to hunt us, and hunt us they did, tenaciously. I couldn't give you a detailed account of that day now, it was one long series of running skirmishes. First I split us into our two squads, sending Costa (with Jaime) to the west while my squad went east, both angling south after a time. Our meeting point, arranged as always early that morning in case of trouble, was a small column of rock detached from its cliff, about ten miles southwest.
The split worked as intended. About half of the cavalry went after each of us – but we were still outnumbered. After another bloody skirmish, losing two of my men to six of theirs, I whistled the scatter, and we split into teams of two, long-term partners, each team melting into the brush. We would gather, whoever survived, at the rock column. I signaled Diego to follow me. Alaric had taken off long before, and was circling high overhead, keeping an eye on me. I wouldn't be able to disappear if the enemy knew to watch him, but he was mostly high enough to just be one more hawk.
Up the two of us went, on that big mountain, angling sideways towards the pass high overhead, our horses scrambling through forest and galloping through rocky meadows. I glanced back and counted at least five enemy pounding determinedly after us. By sheer luck, Diego's horse – he'd gotten his former commander's gelding – was nearly as sturdy and game as Diablo, and kept up with effort, but he kept up until we were near the summit.
A bullet whistled past me – far to the side. I glanced back. They weren't gaining on us, but we weren't pulling away, either. I knew that on the far side of the pass, the trail became a switchback, inching down a very steep incline. All they had to do was pull up at the first elbow, and they could pick us off at any number of spots below them. We had to make a stand on this side.
Near the entry to the pass, I spotted a dip in the ground, surrounded by boulders, with a lower table beyond. I jumped off Diablo, grabbing all my weapons, and sent him to the table, Diego copying a beat behind. We slid into the dip and I tossed my spare guns and ammunition belts to Diego along with his former commander's sword, with one word: "Reload." He nodded and set to work, letting me do the firing. I didn't know if I was a better shot than him at that point, but I knew I wouldn't hesitate. I wasn't sure about him.
I crawled between two boulders and peered down. The enemy soldiers – there were now six – had likewise abandoned their horses at the edge of the trees, and were working their way on foot through the rocks, leapfrogging from one to the next. Professionals, I thought.
I got one in my sights and squeezed the trigger, seeing him fall a moment later. "One down, five left." I tossed my rifle to Diego and grabbed one he'd reloaded. Another shot. "Two down, four left." Then I swore – another had joined the hunt. "Five left."
They got better after losing two, and I couldn't get any more clear shots, though I wasted several bullets. Then, "They're coming. Back to back," I told my brother. He nodded grimly, tossed the rifles to one side to clear our feet, picked up a pistol and drew the sword, and met me in the middle.
One of the enemy paused at the lip to take a last shot at us, but I beat him, and he went down. "Four left," I said, then had no more breath to count as they were on us with their swords. I threw away the pistol and drew my dagger with my left hand.
The next minutes were a blur of blades. They were good – but not good enough. One by one, each of them fell at our feet, as my brother and I stood with our backs to each other, and fought them off. I can still remember the feeling of his back against mine, the knowledge that no one would get to me through him, or vice versa.
Finally all was done. We whirled, and panted, and waited for any more for several long minutes, before I crept again to the lip and looked carefully out. Not a man in sight. It was over. I checked Diablo to be sure, but he was munching peacefully on the long grass.
I turned back to see Diego had sat, hard, on a large rock, and I joined him. After a bit, catching our breath, I nudged him. "We still make a terrific team, no?" I asked, reminding him of the times way back in the early days, of Zorro and the kid holding off a group of bandits, he with his sword, me with only a leafless tree branch. I grinned sideways at him.
He nodded back, a half smile peeking through the exhaustion. "I think our roles have reversed, though," he commented, and I shrugged, giving him the point. Then his face fell. "And I'm sorry," he went on, tortured. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to be here."
I sighed. "I know... I know. You want to be back in your world, the world you're trying to create. Where there's no killing, no violence, and the law is supreme, and everyone knows it – and no one is above or outside of it."
He was hurt, insulted, although I hadn't been sarcastic. "And is there something wrong with that?"
"No, nothing. It's just that that world doesn't exist yet. And it won't, until everybody agrees on it. And that won't happen, as long as the Spanish Empire is in charge." I was getting angry now, and I had the shameful urge to throw it in his face. "You thought that Alcalde de Soto was an anomaly, a mistake that would be corrected. Well, he wasn't. He's the face of the Empire, doing exactly what they want and expect him to do, what they have always done. The Empire has been soaked in blood and power and misery for it's entire existence – since the days of Montezuma!"
He was stung, and fired back. "You're Spanish yourself!" and I laughed, a little maliciously.
"No, I'm not," I shot back, enjoying it. "I'm Italian!" And to prove it, I switched tracks in my brain and rattled off a few sentences in Italian to his shocked expression. Switching back to Spanish, I repeated what I'd said. "I understand it perfectly, but speak it like a child. I have no memory of learning it, and I sure as hell never learned it from you. I had to have learned it from my parents. It had to have been my first language. I know that because I didn't understand Spanish when I got my hearing back – I had to learn it then!" A part of my mind was telling me to stop, pull back, this was Diego, why was I yelling at him? But I couldn't stop. "I don't know whether we lived in Marenga or were passing through, but my parents were murdered there along with everyone else by the Spanish army!"
"You don't know that for certain – " he began, but I cut him off again.
"Yes I do!" I yelled, furious now. I pushed off the rock and a few steps away, then whirled to face him. I laid out the facts as I had them from Costa, much as I wrote here before, spitting the names of the regiment and its evil commander at him with something close to relish. "You never found out about it, but I did!" I finished. I stopped then and turned away, breathing hard, trying to get myself back under control, and get back to the point. "I'm Italian by birth, and Mexican by choice!" I threw it at him. "Why? Because when I found out where I came from, I could have left. I could have made my way to Italy and tried to find something, some family, some home, but I didn't. I stayed, and I fought. Against the Empire. Why?" I stopped again and dropped my voice, low and intense.
"Because I believe in your world too. I believe that world could happen. I believe Mexico could be that world – like Jaime does. But it won't be – it can't be – until the Empire is no longer in command. And I'm sorry – I am really, truly sorry – but that simply will not happen until enough blood has been spilled. Until the cost of them staying is high enough to choke them. That's the way of empires, and armies. You have to make the cost too high for them." I took a deep breath. "I have spilled my share of that blood, God knows, and I will pay for it, in this life or the next. And yes, it bothers me. It weighs on me in the night, all the men I've killed. I know how many that is, I can't escape it. They are my cross to bear. The fact that I picked that cross up knowingly and willingly does not make it any lighter." I was near tears now. "But I did pick it up. And I will continue to carry it, until it is done."
With that, I turned around and walked away to stand at the edge of the dip again, staring out into the sky above the valley below. I caught sight of Alaric as I stood there, smoothly winging his way up the slope to me. When he reached the circle I put out my fist to catch him. I stroked his chest feathers a few times, trying to calm down, then put him on my shoulder. As I did, I heard Diego behind me give a low, bitter laugh, and whirled around again to glare at him.
He held up a hand to stop me. "I'm laughing at myself, not you." He shook his head, snorting again – the bitterest sound I'd ever heard from him. "All these months, years, I've been using all I have just to survive. I can't even manage to think straight. And you just put about six heavy things on me all at once – and I can't even deal properly with any one of them."
The sight of him sitting there, deflated and demeaned, the man who I had nearly worshiped in my youth, punctured my fury. I snorted a rueful laugh and shrugged an apology.
"I'm trying," he said softly. "I just need a few days. Can you give me that?"
"You already have it," I reminded him. And a few minutes later, we gathered up our weapons and horses, and started making our way to the meeting point.