"Prophet Teacher, what is 'smallpox'?..."
"Cuitlahuac, where did you see that word?"
"Ah! It was in that scroll you keep writing whenever you have time. The picture book with tiny people and animals, organs and bones, and strange cells... The word 'smallpox' keeps appearing right at the start, and you even drew a red circle around it, with mysterious spotted little people beside it..."
"Oh, so it was the Book of Plague. Cuitlahuac, have you been sneaking looks at my scrolls again?"
"Uh! You left it spread open on the desk, and you never said we couldn't look!... I only glanced at it a few times. I couldn't recognize a lot of the words, but those little people in the pictures were really eerie, and so many of them were bleeding. Teacher, elder brother... is this a mysterious book of witchcraft? Can you teach us witchcraft?... Or don't teach them, just teach me alone? I'll definitely study hard!..."
"Cuitlahuac, if we learn, we learn together! We're all the prophet's disciples, and all of royal blood. On what grounds do you get to learn alone?"
"Teotlalpanquetzal, on what grounds? On the grounds that I'm the strongest! Count any one of you—you still can't beat me!"
"That's because you're the oldest! You're already nineteen, and we're only fifteen or sixteen!"
"Even when I was fifteen, you still couldn't beat me!..."
"Shh! Teacher has picked up the teaching club. Stop arguing! If you keep arguing, you'll get beaten..."
"!!..."
October on the Mexican Plateau had no cold wind, but instead sunlight as warm as spring and brilliantly blooming tropical flowers. The Alliance's great army camp stretched on and on among the rolling mountains and valleys, and the siege of Yodzocahi had already lasted more than two years. The royal tent and banners upon