Chapter 292: Garganta del Diablo

At last, with the coming of morning, the leader emerged from the cover of the bushes.

The fortress had awakened. Where silence and death had ruled the night before, there was now movement—orderly, purposeful. Merchants approached in small groups, leading mules burdened with supplies; farmers and laborers passed through the gates in a steady current. Voices rose and fell in the ordinary cadence of trade and routine.

Keeping his head low, the leader joined them.

His poncho, torn from the night’s escape, and the dirt smeared across his face lent him the appearance of a common tenant farmer. No man gave him a second glance. Among these people—worn, burdened, and intent upon their own affairs—he was unremarkable.

He observed, however, that most of the farmers moved inward, toward the fortress, rather than away from it. A few patrols still lingered along the approaches, watchful despite the daylight. To turn against the flow would invite notice; a lone man departing while others entered would stand out at once.

He had no choice but to follow.

Without pause, he bent, lifted a small sack of grain that another farmer had set aside, and slung it over his shoulder. Adjusting the strap with deliberate care, he fell into step among the others, his posture adopting the weary stoop of labor.

Thus concealed, he passed through the gates of what the locals called Garganta del Diablo.

As he moved, his eyes—trained under the discipline of the Jesuits’ finest scouts—began their work.

While the other porters muttered beneath the weight of their burdens, he measured.

The walls rose high and firm, fashioned from a grey, unyielding cement that recalled the strength of Roman works. They possessed the ordered geometry of Spanish coastal fortifications, yet lacked the decay of age. Everything here was recent—deliberate, precise, and adapted to the heavy rains and shifting earth of the Andes.

Within the courtyard, his glance swept swiftly, though never so sharply as to betray its purpose.

The garrison was smaller than he might have expected.

Seventy soldiers in total, by his estimation. Among them, ten bore the unmistakable bearing of seasoned Europeans—Germans, no doubt, the Prussian core. The remaining sixty, mestizo infantry, stood with a discipline that exceeded any provincial militia he had encountered. There was order here—not merely imposed, but learned.

Along the ramparts, he noted the artillery.

Heavy cannons stood in careful placement, their lines clean, their condition well maintained. Nearby, racks of muskets rested beneath simple coverings. These were not the crude, familiar arms of the colonies. Their form suggested European origin—Prussian, perhaps—but altered, refined for endurance in this damp and elevated climate.

Then his gaze rose—and stilled.

A sentry stood upon a high platform overlooking the yard. Yet it was not the man himself that held the leader’s attention, but the weapon in his hands.

It was no musket.

The barrel was long and slender, the craftsmanship evident even at a distance. Its lines bore resemblance to Italian designs, yet there was something different in its finish—less ornamental, more practical. It was a rifle, and not a rare piece, but one of several.

A chill passed through him.

So… that is what Killed Rodrigo last night

The realization struck with quiet force.

Their design had rested upon a simple assumption—that Carlos’s men relied upon smoothbore muskets, inaccurate beyond short distance. The plan had been to strike from afar, to hunt without being hunted.

But this—this changed the balance entirely.

Rifled barrels meant precision. It meant knowledge—of distance, of trajectory, of the subtle laws that governed the flight of a ball. Against such weapons, concealment alone would not suffice. They would not be unseen observers; they would be marked, measured, and brought down before steel could ever be drawn… perhaps even before their lines could be formed.

He kept his head lowered, adjusting the sack upon his shoulder, though his thoughts moved swiftly.

He recalled then certain fragments of rumor—whispers that had circulated before the fall of the Boquerón. There had been an assassination attempt against the aunt of Ezequiel, known as one of the most loyal followers of Bishop Esteban. The operation, if the reports were to be believed, had ended in failure. Most of the men had been captured… and worse, they had lost their rifles.

At the time, such details had seemed of little consequence—another failed strike among many.

Now, they assumed a far graver significance.

He had not expected Carlos’s faction to copy such weapons with such speed.

Which could mean only one thing.

Somewhere within the circles allied to Francisco, there must be men of uncommon skill—artisans, engineers, or soldiers—capable not merely of understanding these arms, but of reproducing and adapting them to their own conditions.

The thought settled heavily upon him.

“Move it, you lot! We have not the whole day to squander!”

The merchant master barked the order sharply, waving the porters toward the exit once the last of the supplies had been unloaded into the central yard.

He lingered a moment as the men formed their line to depart. His eyes narrowed. He counted once—then again. A faint crease formed upon his brow.

There was one more man than there had been at the morning tally.

The leader felt the shift at once. A bead of sweat traced slowly down his temple beneath the grime. He kept his posture unchanged, his gaze lowered, though his pulse quickened. If the man spoke—if he called the guards—this place would become his grave.

The merchant’s eyes rested briefly upon him: a figure of dirt and weariness, indistinguishable from the rest.

Beyond them, the Prussian guards stood at ease, their strange rifles held with quiet familiarity.

The merchant hesitated.

He knew well what such a report would bring—detainment, inspection, confiscation. A single suspicion could cost him the entire caravan, his goods, and perhaps more besides.

His jaw tightened. Then he spat upon the ground and turned away.

“Out,” he snapped, louder now. “All of you. Before the General decides we move too slow and taxes us for the very air we breathe.”

The line moved at once.

At the gate, a pair of officers oversaw the departure. Payment was made without ceremony—a small pouch of coin passed into the merchant’s hand. The man exhaled, tension leaving him in a single breath, and gestured for his people to continue.

They departed together, passing from the ordered discipline of the fortress into the growing streets beyond.

Only once they had gone some distance—far enough for the walls to recede behind them—did the leader begin to drift from the group. It was done without haste, without drawing the eye. A step slower here, a turn taken there, until he was no longer among them.

The merchant, upon reaching a large warehouse recently constructed under Carlos’s direction, cast a brief glance behind. The extra man—if indeed he had been there—was nowhere to be seen.

He frowned, then dismissed the thought with a rough gesture.

“Come,” he called to his men. “We have yet to send the spirits to the carriages bound for Río Negro.”

The matter, to him, was finished.

The leader moved quickly thereafter, though never so quickly as to invite notice.

He inquired in low tones, careful in his choice of words, seeking the poorest quarter of Medellín. In any city, he knew, the slums offered the surest refuge. Disorder bred anonymity; poverty concealed men better than any forest.

Or so he believed.

He passed through the streets expecting the familiar signs—narrow alleys choked with refuse, beggars lining the walls, lawless corners where authority thinned and vanished.

Instead, he found something altogether different.

The city was growing—rapidly, almost unnaturally so. New structures rose beside old ones, streets extended outward, and yet the chaos that ought to accompany such expansion was… absent.

He walked farther, toward the edges, searching still for decay—for neglect.

None revealed itself.

What he found instead unsettled him more than any disorder might have done.

In the territories of Ezequiel, poverty was a tool—a condition imposed, maintained, and wielded to control the many. But here… here it had been transformed into something else entirely.

Most of the incoming migrants, he soon gathered, were not left to wander or decay within the city. They were granted land—promptly and with purpose—sent outward to cultivate the surrounding territory. In this manner, the population remained dispersed, productive, and bound to the land, rather than concentrated into the festering poverty that plagued other colonial towns.

Those who remained within Medellín were not idle. They were absorbed.

Carlos’s vast warehouses and manufactories drew them in, assigning even the unskilled a place within the chain of supply that fed Rionegro. There was labor for all—simple, repetitive, unremarkable perhaps, yet sufficient to prevent the growth of desperation.

The most dangerous class—the idle, the rootless—had been all but erased.

General Krugger’s press gangs ensured as much. Any man without a visible trade was swiftly “offered” instruction within the barracks. Few mistook the nature of such generosity. Even the laziest among the populace found employment as porters, helpers, or laborers, driven less by ambition than by fear. To be marked as a vagabond was to invite forced enlistment under the harsh discipline of Prussian officers.

It was a system at once efficient and severe.

The leader moved through it with growing unease.

As he passed along one of the broader streets, an elderly woman, seated near the entrance of a modest dwelling, fixed him with a sharp and inquisitive gaze.

“Sir,” she called, her tone neither hostile nor warm, but firm, “should you not be at work? Why do you walk about idle? You are not some vagabond, I trust?”

The words struck him with quiet force.

A chill passed along his spine. If she spoke further—if she summoned attention—his disguise would unravel at once.

Yet he did not hesitate.

“Forgive me, madam,” he replied, inclining his head with practiced humility. “My wife has taken ill. I feared she might suffer unattended, and so I requested an hour or two after my shift to see to her. I return now, having assured myself of her condition.”

The woman studied him closely, her brow furrowed, as though weighing both his words and his manner.

At length, her expression softened.

“Well,” she said with a small sigh, “it is better that it be so. A man must attend to his household.” She shook her head faintly, though not in disapproval. “Since Carlos came, all have taken to their duties with uncommon spirit. Even my own son—lazy creature that he was—now runs about helping his uncle keep the tavern in order.”

Her tone brightened as she spoke, a quiet pride entering her voice.

She went on at some length, speaking of the changes she had witnessed—the growth from a modest village into something approaching a true city, the increase in trade, the greater flow of silver, and the abundance of work where once there had been little. Yet not all was without fault; she complained, too, of the river, whose waters had begun to carry an unpleasant odor with the city’s expansion.

The leader listened, nodding where required, offering brief replies when expected.

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