The Aymara March
"What in the world is that!"
The Incan commander stared at the scene unfolding before him, utterly dumbfounded.
With a deafening roar, the tunnel his men had been digging had just been blasted into oblivion.
The terrified sappers weren't rallying — they were fleeing outright.
"Grab the men, now!"
It had come to the point where he had to send troops not to pursue the enemy, but to catch his own deserters.
And then came worse news: an army was marching up from the south, as if pouncing on them at the perfect moment.
"Break off the siege and regroup — hurry!"
Taking the city before that army arrived now seemed utterly impossible, so he resolved to prepare for a grand pitched battle out here in the wilderness.
Regrouping far from the city, they could see the army advancing from the south.
At its head marched men clad in gleaming armor, and behind them followed an enormous host of people who looked much like themselves.
"What IS that!"
The fate of the city no longer mattered. What stood before him was an army large enough to threaten the Inca Empire itself.
And it was packed to the brim with those gleaming figures the rumors called the gods' warriors.
"Send a messenger at once and form a defensive line!"
Even so, he hesitated. Was retreat the wiser course...?
But if he fled now, he knew with grim certainty that he would be hard-pressed to keep his head upon returning home.
And when the enemy came to a halt before him, he felt it.
We're done for...
A truly staggering number of soldiers had assembled — a force that could only be met by barricading oneself in the capital.
Then the staff-wielding warriors who had been keeping the people in line stepped forward.
"The enemy is about to attack! Raise your shields!"
Weren't they still far short of arrow range? And their position on the high ground gave them a slight advantage in reach, too.
Convinced the enemy was wasting their effort, the commander simply ordered his soldiers to hold their shields steady.
TA-TA-TA-TA-TANG!
Then, as he watched, a cataclysmic crash split the air — and the enemy vanished into smoke.
"AAAAGH!"
"What was that!"
"My hand — my hand's gone!"
"KYAAAH!"
Across the Incan lines, the men holding the shields dropped like mown grass.
The rounds fired from Daehan's weapons were lead balls as thick as two adult fingers.
The Incan shields — mere layers of cloth and wood — stood no chance whatsoever of stopping them.
"What! The shields aren't stopping them!"
"Uuurrrgh..."
Men standing safely behind their shields were falling with fist-sized holes punched clean through their chests.
And the shots still had force to spare — more often than not, they tore through the man behind him as well.
"What is happening! What do we do?"
TANG! TA-TA-TA-TANG!
While he dithered, another volley tore through the ranks, dropping hundreds dead.
Two volleys. Barely thirty seconds had passed.
"AAAAH! RUN!"
"This is the land of the gods!"
"We're all going to die!"
The soldiers went mad all at once. Honestly — who could stay calm watching the comrade beside them lose his head, limbs scattering through the air?
They chewed coca leaves and fought drugged into a frenzy, true — but even that only carried a man so far.
Front line, rear line — it made no difference. The soldiers broke and ran.
"Get out of the way! MOVE!"
"AAAAGH!"
"It's the gods' punishment!"
The drug-induced hallucinations, if anything, made things worse.
"Save me!"
"Don't push!"
Bullets from behind, trampling bodies from ahead — the Incan army collapsed in a single breath.
"KYAAAA!"
"Please, save me!"
The trouble was that the Inca often marched to war with their families in tow, and now the women were being trampled and crushed without mercy.
"Stay back! I said stay back!"
"Husband!"
In the chaos, many swung their weapons at their own comrades, all to protect their families.
"Don't fall back — charge forward instead, you idiots!"
The commanders raged and screamed, but a column that had already begun to collapse could never be restored.
In an instant, with casualties piling up beyond counting, the Incan army disintegrated — literally, utterly.
TA-TA-TA-TA-TANG!
"Advance and fire!"
"ADVANCE!"
Now the Aymara warriors were walking forward as they reloaded, firing as they went.
The countless warriors of the united tribes trailing behind them were all privately thinking the same thing: thank goodness they hadn't fought these men back then.
When the offer of surrender had first come, they had accepted simply because the numbers were overwhelming, and they had followed along half-reluctantly — which meant they had never once witnessed these men in battle.
"Doesn't look like we'll even be needed."
"What in the world are those weapons?"
"I don't see a single arrow, and the men are just dropping dead."
So this was how terrifying gunpowder weapons were. With that monstrous roar, invisible things came flying, and people toppled like leaves in the space of a breath.
Without understanding the weapon, one could only drown in sheer terror.
"Thank goodness..."
"Let's just follow along quietly... Honestly, even the axes they gave us are amazing, aren't they?"
"Right. Time to throw away my stone axe for good."
The Daehan people rarely used swords or spears themselves, and here too, axes were all the rage.
TANG! TA-TA-TA-TANG!
The Aymara army pressed forward, firing without pause.
"Huh?"
"They're running!"
They hadn't advanced far at all when the enemy's ranks crumbled like a sandcastle, men scattering in every direction.
"Everyone, ATTACK!"
"WAAAAAAAH!"
At the order to charge, the whole army surged out at once and swallowed the raggedly fleeing Incan forces whole in moments.
There were those who resisted, and the Aymara suffered casualties of their own — but against the losses the Inca had taken, it was an overwhelming victory.
"Everyone, clear the battlefield!"
This was their homeland, their livelihood — so the people hurried to clear away the corpses and tidy the surroundings.
With so many hands at work, the cleanup was finished in no time.
Then they returned to the fortress and began searching for their families.
"Dad!"
"Oh, thank goodness! You're alive!"
"*Sob*... it was so scary."
"Thank heavens. Thank heavens."
Not a single villager — nor a single Daehan man — had been lost. There were a few wounded, but every one of them had already been treated.
"Usam!"
"Well now? You've been through quite a lot, haven't you?"
Having confirmed that his family and village were safe, Amaru ran straight to Usam.
Seeing him with tears brimming in his eyes for the first time in ages, Usam answered with easy, teasing casualness — the picture of two men completely at ease with each other.
"Thank you. Truly!"
"For what?"
"For protecting the village."
"I told you, didn't I? No matter what happened, I would keep the village safe."
There had been a bit of an incident, but because he had managed to keep his promise to Amaru, Usam felt a small measure of gratitude toward Lee Yung as well. A very small measure.
He had taken one brutal punch from the man, after all — but looking at his friend's smiling face now, even that lingering resentment seemed to dissolve.
"So what happens now?"
"We found a nation, and we gather companions to defend this land. A great many of them."
The Aymara had never founded a nation, living instead in tribe-sized communities.
Then the Inca Empire had pushed them out under the guise of resettlement — and the humiliation of it had burned too bitterly to bear.
"So Wonnam stays Daehan territory, then?"
"Are you joking?"
Watching Amaru flare up, Usam realized his mistake.
The truth was, he had wanted to establish a concession zone here — but though tribes dotted the region, there was no state to negotiate with, so the matter had stalled until now.
"I'd wager you'd hand over half of whatever nation you build if I asked."
"You —!"
In fact, it was Amaru who was angry at the sight of his friend being satisfied with so little.
They had given his people the footing to stand on their own, and they had protected his family. He thought of them as blood brothers, bound closer than any mere alliance.
"So keep helping us, from here on out."
"Of course! You don't even have to ask!"
The two friends embraced and rejoiced, trading words of thanks back and forth for a long while.
"So you're heading north now?"
"That's the plan. We're taking back our land along the shores of that vast lake."
The Aymara had originally lived along the southern shore of the great lake high in the northern plateau.
The lake was enormous, and the fatal mistake had been ceding its northern shore to the Inca. In the end, they had lost the whole of it.
"I'm sorry I can't come with you myself..."
"You're a soldier, aren't you? Besides, the weapons and provisions you've given us are worth more than your sword arm, I'd say."
"Hearing that means a lot."
There was one ironclad rule for everyone stationed at concession zones and overseas ports: never meddle in wars between native peoples.
Take sides, and if the other side won, you could find yourself in a very awkward position indeed.
Of course, a certain degree of autonomy was granted, so minor meddling was tolerated —
Which was exactly why the villagers had been taken into the fortress and placed under protection.
"Is there anything else you need?"
"Cannons would be lovely, truth be told, but they're not much use to us — we'd never haul one up a mountaintop."
Sooner or later they would have to fight a siege against the Inca, and armor or no armor, it would surely cost them dearly.
"Well then — there's something called a Fist Potato. Want to take some with you?"
"What's that?"
"Honestly, they're dangerous, which is why I was holding back on offering them..."
The moment Usam explained Daehan's explosive throwing weapons — the Fist Potato and the Slingshot that launched it — Amaru's eyes went wide.
"You're telling me such a fearsome weapon exists?"
"Used well, I'd say you could win without even fighting a proper battle."
The combination of the Slingshot — effectively a mortar for this era — and the Fist Potato was truly terrifying.
An explosion going off right beside you, followed by the carnage in its wake, was more than enough to shatter an enemy's morale.
And given how dangerous they were, it would mean another stretch of devoted training before they could be used.
"Thank you. Truly!"
"There's nothing more I can give you. Just bring back plenty of gold and silver later. You do understand these are all loans, don't you? If you don't pay them back, I will be in so much trouble."
"BWAAAHAHAHA!"
Amaru absolutely loved watching Usam talk with that comically woebegone face.
There wasn't a single soul among his own tribe he could bare his heart to like this — yet how wonderfully at ease he felt with this friend from a strange land.
For a moment, he offered a silent prayer of thanks to the god who had sent these men to him.
"I suppose I'll have plenty of work to do on your behalf, then?"
"Dead serious. No joke at all! Please — I'm begging you!"
It was half in jest, but half in earnest too.
No one would be formally punished for failing to repay, but he could already feel his ears bleeding at the thought of being summoned and lectured for hours on end.
"Let's do our best — for our children!"
"Hmm? You have a child?"
Usam was certainly exerting himself every night, of course, but perhaps it was his age — no child had come.
And the children Usam spoke of were not his own.
"Didn't you know?"
"Know what?"
"The village has gotten a lot of new children while you've been away."
"Huh? Did refugees come from the neighboring tribes? No, that can't be it — we checked everyone."
Amaru still didn't understand.
"You'll find a great many village maidens are with child."
"WHAT!?"
While the men had been strictly disciplined, no girl dared slip out at night — but with the men suddenly gone, the village maidens had been roaming about freely in the evenings.
And when young men and women wandered the night together, eyes meeting was a matter of moments.
Babies had sprung up all over Wonnam — an astonishing number of them.
"Uuugh..."
"Huh? Rari? What's wrong!"
"I don't know. My stomach feels awful."
"Oh no! Here — drink some Holy Water, quick!"
Lee Yung hurriedly pulled out the Holy Water and handed it to her.
Worry etched across his face, he gently rubbed Rari's back.
"Why would this come on all of a sudden?"
"Don't worry! With Holy Water, every sickness under the sun gets cured. You'll feel better after a little rest."
Right. If it were any ordinary illness, a single bottle of Holy Water would wash it away completely.
"Haah... I want chocolate..."
Something delicious was calling to her mouth.
"I ordered a mountain of it in the next supply run, so just wait — you'll be able to eat it every day!"
"I want it now..."
"Just wait!"
For her sake, droopy and listless as she was, Lee Yung spent the dead of night tearing through his unit's barracks hunting down chocolate.
"Here — it's all I could find. Sorry."
"*Sniff*... thank you."
Shoving chocolate into her mouth and thanking him through her tears, Rari didn't entirely understand herself either. Why on earth was she like this...?
May blessings be upon the four souls of this little family.