The last echo of the horns still dragged through the hills, but it was now a weak lament beneath the roar of a new reality. The sound that dominated everything was a swelling rumble coming from the slopes: the heavy, disordered trampling of hundreds of boots, the dry, brutal snap of branches being stepped on and broken, and, louder than everything, the guttural, almost animalistic shouts of the bandeirantes descending toward the valley. The dawn air, which minutes before smelled of fresh dew and damp earth, now carried a suffocating mixture: dust kicked up by the rush, the metallic, cold smell of fear, and a distant note of smoke.

  Pedro and Nzambi burst into the clearing of the rendezvous point panting, their clothes torn by thorns, faces smeared with soot and sweat. The scene they found was one of fragile, desperate relief. About thirty people huddled in a clearing. They were surviving scouts, some with arms bound in strips of cloth soaked in blood, others with empty, lost gazes, all with faces marked by the soot of campfires forcibly extinguished and eyes wide with adrenaline.

  A tense silence hung for a second when Pedro appeared. Then, a corporal in a torn uniform, a man named Arlindo with a fresh burn on his arm, broke away from the group. His voice came out hoarse but laden with an urgent need for command.

  "Pedro! Thank God you're alive!" He swallowed hard, his eyes blinking rapidly. "Ensign Matias... the lieutenant commanding the border... that arrow. The devil's arrow got him when he was trying to coordinate the retreat from the central garrison. It was fast. He didn't..."

  Arlindo didn't need to finish. The weight of the news fell over the clearing like a stone. Pedro felt a cold vacuum open in his stomach. Matias was experienced, cautious. If he had fallen...

  The corporal continued, his voice taking on a pleading tone. "You're the senior corporal here, Pedro. The most experienced. And everyone..." He made a broad gesture, encompassing the exhausted faces now turning toward them—men and women, regular soldiers and a few specials. "...everyone here knows what you're capable of. With the ice magic, with your level head. We need orders. Please, assume command."

  Pedro swept his gaze over the group. He saw no challenge in their faces, only a silent, deep assent, a surrender to the brutal necessity of the moment. They saw in him not just a corporal, but hope, the most powerful adept in that condemned piece of forest. The responsibility settled on his shoulders with a physical weight.

  He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the panic-charged air, trying to find a center of calm.

  "Alright, Arlindo." His voice came out firmer than he expected. "First: what's the concrete situation? What do we know?"

  Corporal Arlindo closed his eyes for a moment, organizing the horror into facts.

  "Three of the five garrisons were overrun before they could even fire a shot back. It wasn't an attack, it was a... a slaughter. The bandeirantes aren't asking questions, aren't capturing. They're eliminating anyone they find. It's a cleaning operation, Pedro."

  A murmur of terror ran through the group. Pedro raised a hand, imposing silence.

  "Understood." He puffed out his chest, projecting his voice so everyone by the creek bed could hear. "Listen, everyone! Whisper has already left. Right at this moment, she is on her way to Headquarters, seeking reinforcements. Help will arrive! Until then, our mission is one thing only: survive. We will conduct a strategic, orderly retreat. It's not cowardice, it's intelligence. We weren't prepared to contain a large-scale invasion like this; our function was to deal with small groups, not an organized militia. But I swear to you: every inch of ground we are retreating from today, we will retake tomorrow, with interest!"

  He saw the message hit. Some faces momentarily eased, shoulders hunched by flight straightened a little. There was a plan. There was hope. The feeling of blind panic gave way to a sharp but manageable fear.

  The feeling lasted less than ten seconds.

  A sound started low, like distant thunder, but quickly morphed into a deep, guttural roar that seemed to come from the very bowels of the nearest hill. All eyes turned east. At the top of the rise, against the sky beginning to lighten, a huge, irregular mass broke loose. It was a rock, but the size of a small house, dislodged by some brutal force. It rolled, gaining speed, bouncing and crushing smaller trees like twigs, and its deadly course was unmistakable: straight for the center of the huddled clearing.

  The alert cry died in many throats. There was no time.

  "GET DOWN!" a female voice shouted, not in panic, but in command.

  It was then that Pedro noticed a separate group near the creek bank. Five women, dressed in the dark green uniforms of the Specialized Forces Corps, were already in position. At their center, holding a dark wooden staff with both hands, was Corporal Tainá. Her eyes were closed, her feet firm on the damp earth.

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  "NOW!" Tainá ordered.

  The five women, in perfect sync, raised their staffs and drove them into the ground with a sharp, powerful blow.

  THOOM.

  The impact wasn't just physical. A wave of earthen energy, almost visible as a distortion in the air, radiated from them. The earth under everyone's feet shook and, with a deep roar, rose up. It wasn't a jerky movement, but fluid, as if the ground were a mass being pulled upward by giant hands. A curved, thick wall of earth, stone, and roots erupted from the ground, forming a protective dome over the entire clearing at the exact moment the colossal rock struck.

  The impact was deafening.

  CRAAAAAAAAACK!

  The rock disintegrated against the barrier in an explosion of sharp fragments and dust. The earthen dome trembled, fine cracks appearing on its surface, but it held firm. A rain of gravel and fine earth fell over the huddled group, mixing with the dust of the destroyed rock. The air inside the dome instantly became thick, hard to breathe, full of the acrid smell of churned earth and stone dust.

  Pedro, coughing, ran toward Tainá. The five women maintained their positions, muscles tense, sweat streaming from their temples. The earth gem embedded in the tip of Tainá's staff pulsed with a dull brown light.

  "Tainá! By all the spirits, it's good that you and your team are intact!" said Pedro, his voice muffled by the contained echo inside the dome.

  Tainá didn't open her eyes. The concentration on her face was absolute.

  "My whole team is composed of earth adepts," she spoke, the words coming out through gritted teeth. "Thanks to the training and even the study at school and the theories of Carlos and Tassi, we evolved. We learned that earth isn't just a piece of ground. It's a living body, connected. We learned to... to listen to it. To feel the vibrations, the weight upon it. That's how we felt the attack coming. We felt the footsteps on the hill before the rock rolled. And this barrier..." She paused, taking a deep breath, and the dome seemed to solidify a bit more. "...is dense. We compacted every particle. Not even that devil arrow, if it's out there, will penetrate this easily. But..."

  She finally opened her eyes and looked directly at Pedro. The fatigue and worry were there, but also a terrible clarity.

  "...but don't feel relieved yet, Pedro. While we maintain the dome, our connection extends. And what we're feeling out there isn't good. It's hundreds of footsteps. They're moving, spreading out. We're surrounded. What are your orders, commander?"

  The title, said without irony, burned in Pedro. He looked at his own hand, where his small ice dagger rested. The bluish gem seemed cold and inexpressive. He gripped it, as if contact with the ice could freeze his own doubt.

  Survive. How? A dome is a prison. A trap. We need movement, escape. But how do we get out of this without being gunned down like rabbits?

  His mind raced to the tactics he'd seen, to the abilities he knew.

  "Tainá," he asked, a spark of hope in his voice. "Can you do what Tassi does? Move us through the earth, like a mole? Take us to safety through a tunnel?"

  Tainá shook her head, an expression of frustration crossing her face.

  "We haven't reached that level yet. What Tassi does... it's like dancing with the world itself. We still only know how to raise walls and feel the ground. We can hold this dome for... half an hour, at most. After that, fatigue will break our concentration and the structure will collapse."

  Half an hour. The deadline echoed in Pedro's head like a bell. Half an hour to find a way out of the encirclement. His eyes scanned the frightened faces inside the earthen shelter—regular soldiers with muskets, a few people with small fire or water gems, and the five earth specialists, already at their limit.

  Then, the answer came. Not as a flash of genius, but as the only piece that fit the desperate puzzle. It wasn't about waiting. It was about creating an opening.

  He turned to the group, and when he spoke, his voice was no longer that of a soldier assuming responsibility, but of a commander giving his first battle order.

  "Attention, everyone!" His voice cut through the dusty air. "Regular Forces Corps! Check your weapons. Load your muskets to the muzzle. Prepare to fire in volley, on command. Aim at any men you see."

  He paused, letting the order sink in. The soldiers began to move, the familiar sounds of musket loading—the clinking of the powder flask, the grating of the ramrod—filling the stifling space.

  "And Specialized Forces Corps!" he continued, looking at Tainá and her women, and then at the other few adepts of different elements. "Prepare your gems. Fire, water, ice... whatever you have. You will be our spearhead."

  He walked to the curved wall of the dome, placing his hand on the cold, rough earth.

  "Tainá," he said, his voice low but firm. "In one minute, on my command, you and your team will drop the dome. Not all at once. Open a gap on the west side, the one facing the Republic. Just enough for a quick exit."

  Tainá's eyes widened. "But they'll see us! They'll fire on us!"

  "Exactly," Pedro replied, a cold plan forming in his words. "They'll see the opening and will concentrate on it. That's what we want. The moment the dome starts to open, all muskets fire one volley to the east, toward the hills they came from. Create confusion, sparks, shout! Make it look like our main escape is a feint, and that the real attack comes from there."

  He clenched his hand into a fist, a thin frost forming on his knuckles.

  "Meanwhile, we—the specials and I—go out through the west. We're not going to run and hide. We're going to attack. A quick, brutal strike to punch a hole in their line. We'll freeze the ground to trip them, blind them with mist, whatever it takes. As soon as the path is open, Tainá, you and the regulars come out behind us. And then... we run. Everyone. Not west in a straight line, but south, along the creek bed, where the vegetation is denser. Understood?"

  There was a loaded silence. It was a suicidal plan. It was brilliant. It was the only chance.

  Tainá smiled, a fierce, tired smile. "Understood, commander."

  Pedro raised the ice dagger. The gem began to glow with a pale blue light, and a cold mist emanated from the blade.

  "One minute!" he announced, and the air inside the dome turned icy, charged with the silent electricity that precedes a storm. "Prepare yourselves!"