Trouble in Paradise

For a few weeks afterwards things fall into a steady routine. You drill the new guards in the morning, supervise the activities of your Indians in the rest of the daylight hours, and return to your house at night. For once, the encomienda starts to feel real, not like a wild proposal that will never materialize. You feel that your life has finally entered it's true path; nothing could ruin this.

That is, until you are woken up in the middle of the night by the screams. You bolt upright from your sleep, startling Yahima next to you. Dressed only in your nightclothes, you grab your sword and pistol, then head immediately downstairs. At almost the exact time you reach for the front door handle, the door is yanked open. To your relief, it is your trust Diego, looking even worse than you must. His clothes are soaked in sweat, and he smells strongly of body odor, smoke, and gunpowder.

"What the hell is happening?!" you ask in **** confusion, looking over the squat little man at the scene unfolding around you. Huts are on fire, and shadowy figures run every which way, nearly impossible to tell apart in the darkness.

"It is a raid, sir! Caribs are attacking!" Diego exclaims, shouldering his arquebus. He adjust his aim, and fires a single, near-deafening shot off at a figure heading in your direction. It strikes true, and the man falls to the ground, dead immediately. The two of you run through the cloud of powder smoke and inspect the corpse.

"Look here, sir" Diego says above the din of the raid, "this is what they look like, not like ours". You have to admit, you can tell instantly he is not from your encomienda. The scantily-clad warrior's hear is long and wild, unlike the neat bowl shape popular among the Taino. You also notice his war-paint; with this information you should be able to tell them apart and help in the fight.

You and Diego set off together, moving between the blazing straw huts. Your first priority is to link up with friendlies. You find many of the Taino men, armed in the traditional manner, dead on the ground, with relatively few of the outsiders in the same state. It appears that the Caribs are truly as ferocious as you are told. While they are well-suited to fighting their island rivals, you doubt they can match the Spanish warrior elan, honed against skilled foes for almost a millennium. Working together, you and Diego are able to easily dispatch a few bold stragglers. Following the loudest sounds of battle, you find a fierce fight between your new guards and a squad of Caribs. Coming up on the enemy by surprise, your combined attack kills several enemy warriors and sends the others running. Moving on, your group moves from skirmish to skirmish, gaining an overwhelming local advantage. Between the fatigue of battle, the overwhelming acrid smoke of the burning homes, and the blood and sweat soaking your garments, you feels exhausted by the time the battle is over. What Caribs have survived your counter-attack flee into the woods, carrying off whatever and whoever they can. While many of the men, both Spaniard and Taino, want to chase after them, you know that it is a bad idea to chase an enemy with better terrain knowledge under these conditions. Your victory has been hard won, and you don't want it to be overturned by an enemy ambush.

As the battle comes to a close, you organize the survivors to put out the fires. It's hard work, but you save what you can together. With that done, you take stock of your losses with the rising sun. Many Taino men were killed in battle, including the village elder. A handful of the women have also been carried off, along with a fair bit of loot. Your men, on the other hand, while sporting many wounds each, have all survived, likely due to their greater readiness and being located close enough to one another to provide mutual support when the raid started.