"Praise the Main God! Continue the festival! Drink the divine Blood Wine, and carve the mark of flesh and blood!"
The sacrifice in the bitter cold was cruel and brief. Warm life froze into ice, then burned and melted in the flames. Very soon, cup after cup of icy Blood Wine was placed in the hands of the Deer Tribe captives, and under the supervision of the Kingdom Warriors, they drank it dry. Next, a stinging blood-colored emblem was carved onto their foreheads with a stone knife. It was an eternal mark, as if branded into their very souls.
"Praise the Main God! Our God Huitzilopochtli controls all life and death!..."
The blood-oath festival of conversion was thick with blood that would not disperse, and with green smoke from burning hair. Batch after batch of Deer Tribe captives—some numb, some terrified, some filled with hatred—knelt before the Sacred Fire and the Priests, accepting the mysterious and horrifying Shaman witchcraft. And when that soul-shaking witchcraft was complete, the "Witch God Main God" in the sky seemed to have carried away their souls, and with them all will to resist.
"Praise the Main God! Our God Huitzilopochtli?..."
Batch after batch of Deer Tribe captives rose to their feet with dazed expressions, muttering the Main God's divine name whose meaning they did not know. Their faces were full of bone-deep awe, and a strange, fearful obedience.
Seeing those expressions, Zuwaro, who presided over the sacrifice, lifted the corners of his mouth and nodded inwardly. The Mexica People were skilled at sacrifice, and skilled too at using mysterious, bloody rituals to shake hearts and remake faith!
The way these Deer Tribe captives behaved after the festival was just like the tribes the kingdom had conquered and converted. They were in the first stage, where