Thud, thud, thud!
Boom—bang!
"For the Main God! Storm the city! Kill!"
"The Divine King has given his order! Break the city-state, and the spices, cacao, gold, silver, and feathers—the royal house will not take a single scrap! All of it will be rewarded to the Alliance warriors!"
"Roar! Scale the walls! Scale the walls!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The warm wind of the seventh month blew across the blood-soaked battlefield of Frog Water City. This Zapotec city-state in the mountains was already tottering under the Alliance's siege. Hurled fire jars and fire bombs kept setting the wooden buildings in the city alight; loosed arrows and crossbow bolts shot fiercely through the Noble Warriors inside. This important Oaxaca stronghold, which had hoped to defend itself by relying on the mountain pass's strategic terrain, had clearly overestimated its geographical advantage and underestimated the Alliance's siegecraft. Like every Zapotec city-state before it, it was about to meet its final destruction!
In truth, unless it was a mountain-top fortress like Tlaxcala's Cloud Snake Mountain City or the Mixtec Yodzocahi—strongholds perched high among the clouds and unafraid of any siege weapon—any other city-state in Mesoamerica, so long as it could be attacked by force, could not resist the Alliance army for long. The gap between the two sides in equipment, morale, and experience was simply too great.
"I salute you, supreme Prince! Ao Bao will take his people north now!"
"Farewell, my lord. This... this humble servant obeys your command and goes north. I will surely follow your will, my lord, and exhaust myself unto death."
"Mm. May the Main God bless you! May you arrive soon in the fertile lands of Cuba, prevent and treat the smallpox plague, and cultivate the vaccine scabs for variolation!"
"Yes! We obey Your Highness's King's Order!"
The rainy