Guerrilla Warfare

The rainy season departed on an unremarkable night. The next morning, when sunlight cleaved the darkness and clear skies returned to the heavens, the people erupted in jubilant cheers.

The camp surrounding the city quickly grew busy. The warriors could finally take out their moldy clothes and hang them in the sun. Piles of slightly moldy Tortillas were also spread out before the storehouses.

On the nearby hills, sturdy warriors sat cross-legged amid lush grass. They enjoyed the pleasant sunlight while staring mournfully at the wooden boards in their hands, struggling to follow Xolotl in learning the terrifying art of "writing."

Xolotl glanced over the number of people on the grass and sighed softly. He set down his wooden board and spoke to Bertad beside him.

"Food supplies in the camp have not been very sufficient lately. With the rain soaking everything, it seems many warriors have fallen ill and taken to their beds."

Bertad looked around and nodded in agreement.

"The rainy season is damp, and disease breeds easily. Over the past few months, two or three hundred warriors in the royal main camp have fallen ill from being unaccustomed to the climate and soil. The other two city-state camps are only worse. Fortunately, among the warriors following you, only two have had upset stomachs. They probably ate moldy Tortillas."

Xolotl nodded without speaking, then looked worriedly into the distance. The City-State Warriors' camp lay there, along with the Teotihuacan legion led by his father. He did not know how they were faring.

"Priest, you truly have Divine Revelation. The ritual of boiling water before drinking it has indeed worked."

Bertad pointed at the fire used for boiling water, then spoke to Xolotl with admiration.

Hearing this, Xolotl smiled helplessly. At first, he had told the warriors following him that they needed to boil their drinking water to reduce illnesses during the rainy season.

But in this age, without metal tools, gathering firewood and starting fires was truly exhausting work. The warriors were unwilling to spend several hours merely to drink hot water.

In the end, he could only borrow the authority of myth and tell his followers, "Death God Xolotl bears the duty of guarding the Sun, and he will show mercy to those who pray with flame." Only through religious ritual had he barely managed to establish the habit of drinking boiled water among them.

"The rainy season has finally ended. From now on, food transport and losses will improve greatly. Everyone will be able to eat their fill of Tortillas."

After some thought, Xolotl smiled and encouraged the followers beside him, whose faces were still wan despite their persistence in learning.

"Come, keep studying. You are all the pillars of the Alliance!"

Yet the arrival of the dry season did not make everything better. Normal food transport lasted less than two weeks, and by late November, reports repeatedly arrived of grain convoys being attacked.

Several days later, Avet and Xolotl once again sat cross-legged opposite each other in a small hut. Bertad sat behind Xolotl, listening quietly.

"Two days ago, a hundred-man grain transport unit was attacked. One hundred Militia—none escaped. They all died."

Avet wore a grave expression as he delivered the latest news.

"The Militia corpses had all been stripped of their clothing. They were likely impoverished Otomi Highlanders."

"This is already the second time this week. Last time, the Militia had their heads cut off and piled into a pyramid as a warning, while their clothing was left intact. That should have been an Otomi People warrior unit."

Bertad added calmly.

"It seems a large number of Otomi People have infiltrated the mountain forests behind us."

Xolotl nodded, lost in thought.

"Do our camp's food reserves still hold?"

"At normal consumption, the camp's food can last another three months."

Avet smiled faintly, showing no particular concern.

"The food situation is not urgent for now. In these green yet barren mountain forests, without villages that can provide supplies, no large force can be maintained for long. At present, these small Otomi groups can only disrupt the army's food transport and slow it down. With their current strength, they still cannot cut off our food routes."

Xolotl nodded in agreement. Many warriors were stationed along the supply route in the rear. The rear forces of over a hundred thousand men were still effectively maintaining the supply line for seventy thousand elite troops.

"Avet, but this is a very ominous sign."

After thinking for a while, Xolotl asked seriously.

"Where exactly are these attackers coming from?"

"Most of the hostile warriors and nearly all the Militia should come from the two states of Guamare and Pamus. Scouts have discovered that Otomi villages throughout this region have recently seen chiefs and nobles raising levies."

These past days, Avet had once again taken charge of the army's intelligence work. However, Totek still concurrently held responsibility for the guards, who truly controlled armed force.

"A small number of warriors may come from the more distant western Tekaicos State, as well as the northern highlands near the Coahuila Wasteland. Though the Otomi city-states there are weak and distant, they can still send warrior units of around a hundred men to support the Mountain City of their ancestral land."

Hearing this, Xolotl nodded slightly. Tekaicos lay more than a month's journey west of Otopan, where Guamar Dog-kin and Otomi Dog-kin lived together. Farther west lay the lands of the northern Teske people. At this time, the powerful Tarasco Kingdom was campaigning against the loosely united Tecos Tribal Alliance there.

Coahuila marked the boundary of the Wasteland, several hundred li north of Otopan Mountain City. It was filled with desolate gravel plains and barren plateaus, inhabited by countless nomadic Chichimec Dog-kin, nearly the edge of the Mesoamerican world. Beyond the Coahuila Wasteland to the north lay the Texas grasslands, where bison could be caught and the tribes of North America roamed and hunted.

"The army has besieged the city for more than two months. The Otomi People of every region have finally responded."

After brief consideration, Xolotl asked again.

"Does Commander-in-Chief Totek have any plan to deal with this?"

"From Suiqiu City in Xilotepec to Otopan Mountain City is nearly twenty days' travel. The forty thousand Alliance Militia stationed along the route can maintain logistical transport, but their face-to-face fighting strength is not worth much. Commander-in-Chief Totek intends to draw two thousand Alliance Warriors from the city-states at each end. Then he will divide them into forty hundred-man units to search for the attackers."

Xolotl thought for a while, then raised his head and looked at Bertad beside him.

"Bertad, can you lead a twenty-man unit and join the search for the Otomi units? We need to understand exactly how the Otomi People fight in the mountains. Be careful in battle, gather more information. It will be useful later."

Bertad did not hesitate. He lowered his head and saluted calmly.

"Praise the Sun! I am willing to fight for you. Leave it all to me!"

Thus, brutal strangling battles in the woods soon began. Most Mexica Warrior units returned empty-handed from their searches. But whenever a small number of warrior units encountered the enemy, the result was a fight to the death amid the trees. In the shadowy forest, the corpses of warriors and Militia lay beneath towering pines. At such times, there was no longer any difference between them. Blood nourished the soft earth, making the plants grow ever more luxuriantly.

Over a month of mountain forest raids and searches, more than a dozen Jaguar Warriors were lost, over four hundred warriors died, and another five or six hundred were wounded. Otomi losses were only a little more than twice that number, and most were Militia.

The losses in this kind of forest raiding war were actually comparable to those of a large-scale campaign! After tallying the casualties, King Tizoc was both furious and uneasy. The rage of the Mexica Warriors burned fiercely—most of it directed at the enemy, and a small part reserved for their king.

A month later, when Xolotl saw Bertad again, the warrior as strong as a Jaguar still wore a calm expression. Only, there was now a bandaged mark on his shoulder.

Xolotl was somewhat startled by this. Throughout the Mexica Alliance, if the incomparably valiant Totek was excluded, Bertad and Olorosh were almost the two strongest warriors he had ever seen. He grew nervous and showed concern for his foremost warrior.

"Bertad, how is your wound?"

"Main God's protection! It is nothing serious. An Otomi hunter ambushed me with an arrow from a hunting bow. I have already applied medicinal powder."

Bertad shook his head. As he spoke of the fighting in the jungle, his expression turned somewhat grave.

"The situation is not encouraging. The mountain forests give the Otomi People far too much help!"

"Otomi Militia and hunters set many different traps. For example, they dig a pit, plant sharpened wooden stakes at the bottom, build a frame of branches over it, then cover it with a thin layer of dirt and turf. Once someone steps on it and the weight becomes too great, the branches break. If Mexica Warriors are careless, they fall in, impaling their legs and feet or even dying on the spot."

"There is another kind of forked wooden spike hidden among leaves and grass. One end is tied by a rope to a bent large branch or sapling. Then the Otomi People lure warriors into pursuit. Once the warriors touch the rope stretched across the ground, the mechanism is triggered. The branch snaps back with the forked spike, like a Jaguar striking with all its strength! The force of those spikes is great enough to pierce a human body and Leather Armor."

"Compared to that, I would rather encounter Otomi warriors. Those warriors prefer face-to-face slaughter, so they are not as dangerous."

Bertad smiled openly and gave his conclusion.

"In the mountain forests, Otomi mountain militia can be used as half a warrior. And a small number of exceptional hunters can use the complex terrain, becoming as terrifying as Jaguar Warriors."

"The forests scatter our powerful formations. Heavy Obsidian War Clubs consume too much stamina. By comparison, the crude Stone Spears of the Otomi Militia are more agile. All kinds of forest traps can ignore the protection of Leather Armor and erase the gap in martial skill. Familiarity with the terrain also allows the Otomi People to conserve more strength and seek better opportunities."

At last, Bertad's expression hardened, and he spoke bluntly.

"We cannot keep wearing ourselves down against the Otomi People in the forests! In the forests, the sacrifice of warriors is too cheap. As long as we reach open ground and fight a large-scale frontal battle, one Mexica Warrior regiment can easily defeat more than five times as many Otomi Militia, with casualties ten times lower than in the forests!"

Hearing this, Xolotl fell silent in thought. He realized that the powerful Alliance legions had, in truth, fallen into the most primitive form of mountain guerrilla warfare.

This kind of mountain guerrilla warfare weakened an elite enemy's fighting strength while greatly enhancing the combat power of highlanders familiar with the terrain, much like the troublesome Swiss highlanders and Boers of South Africa in history. Guerrilla warfare allowed the weaker side to inflict casualties on an opponent vastly superior in combat strength at a ratio that was not quite so vastly unequal.

"I agree. The battlefield must change!"

Xolotl answered in agreement. Yet the power to decide the course of war was not actually in his hands.

The two were seriously analyzing tactics when Avet hurried over. He stretched out a hand, naturally grabbed Xolotl by the arm, and smiled.

"King Tizoc has summoned a council. Let us hurry over!"