Ambush

Morning light cleaved through dawn, and the still night retreated before the Morning Sun. It was another new day.

When the first ray of sunlight fell upon Xolotl's face, as if it resonated with his body somehow, the youth opened his eyes.

In this age without clocks, the body's rhythm was the most accurate timepiece. The warriors also woke one after another, and the village gradually stirred to life. After a simple wash and some cold food, Xolotl bade farewell to the village elder and led two hundred warriors back.

The mountain road home twisted and turned, barely wide enough for four or five people abreast. It was a muddy trail stamped out by grain convoys. The army advanced along the edge of the hills. Rolling ridges and dense trees lay on both sides, while Red Sparrows sang merrily from the branches.

Xolotl walked in the center of the column, wearing a brown Earth Wolf Priest's robe over a sturdy light Cotton Armor. He wore the priest's long feathered crown. Though it was the simplest kind, it still made him conspicuously "tall" among the ranks. Birds were often drawn by the bright feathers atop his head, flying over to circle him before chirping away.

After traveling for half a day, they were about to enter the patrol range of the Otopan camp, and everyone relaxed somewhat. Perhaps because the Sun had risen high, even the birdsong around them seemed much quieter.

At that moment, a tiny swift speck flew from the treetops. It arrived in an instant, then stopped in midair before Xolotl's feathered crown, curiously examining the "thing" before it.

It was only a little larger than a bee, with green body feathers, bright red head feathers, a long beak, and a pair of wings beating at tremendous speed. Xolotl looked closely and saw that it was a light, lively Hummingbird.

"The Hummingbird is the messenger of Huitzilopochtli, the God of War. It is the guardian bird of us Mexica People."

Bertad was delighted at the sight.

"Priest, the Hummingbird is hovering before you. You have received the gods' favor!"

At that, Xolotl smiled. Huitzilopochtli's incarnation was the southern Hummingbird, and Hummingbirds held an extraordinary meaning for the Mexica People. Yet this Hummingbird had clearly been drawn here by the colorful feathers.

Perhaps embarrassed by everyone's gaze, or perhaps having recognized that the thing before it was neither flower nor mate, the Hummingbird changed the angle of its wings. It actually turned around in place, then shot straight ahead at blinding speed. Like a red meteor, it darted through the forest. But after flying forty or fifty meters ahead, it seemed to be startled by something. It suddenly reversed direction and soared straight into the sky.

Xolotl watched in slight bewilderment. Before he could react, he saw Bertad's expression change sharply. Bertad swiftly swept his eyes over the terrain on both sides, his heart tightening at once, before he let out a fierce shout.

"Prepare for battle! Watch out!"

Bertad's cry was like a switch. Before his voice had faded, more than a hundred tribal warriors with short hair and tangled beards burst from the mountain forest fifty meters ahead. These warriors had wild hair, bare upper bodies that displayed tattoos across their chests, and nothing but Loincloths below, like Wildmen of the mountains. They held crude wooden shields in one hand and Short Spears gleaming with cold light in the other, howling like beasts. Then, led by several warriors in green Leather Armor, they charged like maddened animals.

Bertad immediately raised his Shield in his left hand and guarded Xolotl from the front. With his right, he took a throwing spear from his back and stared ahead with utter focus. The Mexica Warriors in front also drew their War Clubs from their backs, held their Shields level, and bravely met the charge.

At that moment, a startled cry suddenly rose from behind Xolotl. "Enemies behind us!" It sounded like the young warrior Kusola.

Xolotl whipped around and saw six or seven scattered warriors suddenly emerge from the forest to the side and behind them. They rose straight from their ambush positions, drew massive Wooden Bows nearly one and a half meters long, and aimed at Xolotl thirty paces away. Their arrowheads glinted in the sunlight. After pausing briefly to aim, they released without hesitation.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sound of arrows tearing through the air joined into a single line, like the low murmur of death. In those fractions of a second, there was no way to catch the arrows' paths. He could only see the empty bowstrings of the ambushers. Xolotl's mind went blank. He had no time to make any response. At that moment, only one final thought remained in his mind.

Main God, protect me! So far from the Pyramid of the Moon, can I still be reborn again?

In that blank instant, Xolotl suddenly felt a heavy impact on his back. Something had thrown itself onto him. He staggered forward, his balance wavering, followed by several successive impacts that knocked him directly to the ground. His priestly robes and feathered crown both fell into the mud.

He strained to turn over and supported the body on his back. Before him was Kusola's bloodied profile. Kusola lay sprawled across him, blood gushing from his neck like a fountain. He no longer had the strength to make any movement, not even enough to show a clear expression.

The instant he spotted the archers, he had lunged forward and barely blocked six incoming Feathered Arrows for Xolotl. One more had missed.

Most of the Feathered Arrows had sunk deeply into the back protected by his Leather Armor. One fatal Feathered Arrow had entered through the back of his neck and severed his left common carotid artery. His blood loss was nearly a hundred milliliters per second. He would die within ten seconds.

The final moment came quickly. Kusola merely fixed his vacant eyes deeply on Xolotl's for one last look, his lips murmuring a name too faint to hear clearly.

"Kunawa..."

Then his eyes shifted slightly left, revealing boundless longing as he gazed south, toward home. In the hallucination before death, the corners of his lips lifted slightly. His gaze immediately scattered, and all life left him.

Xolotl sat half-reclined in a daze, like a statue. Looking at the dead young warrior, he still saw Kusola's joyful expression from yesterday when he had spoken of his family, the smile overflowing across his face, and the longing in his eyes for a beautiful future. Xolotl knew that "Kunawa" was his son's name, taken from a warrior among the Mexica ancestors. It had also been Kusola's final hope.

This was the first warrior to die for Xolotl.

The cruel, bloody battlefield never stopped for one person's death. It demanded more blood, like a sacrificial rite thirsting for blood. Bertad urgently turned back from the front and looked down. He patted Xolotl's cheek, and the youth turned to look at him. There was no pain of having been struck by an arrow on his face, no lingering terror after brushing death. There was only the dazed confusion of someone frightened and bereft of a friend. The weathered warrior breathed a sigh of relief. He then checked Kusola's breath and let out a soft sigh.

"Form up and protect the priest!"

Bertad's expression was grave as he swiftly shouted to the warriors around him. Then he placed his Shield over Xolotl's body to cover him and turned to run toward the nearest Archer Warrior.

More than ten accompanying Alliance Warriors immediately gathered around. With their Shields and bodies, they completely blocked Xolotl from view. The remaining warriors spread out with Shields in hand and charged toward the ambushing enemies.

Bertad ran like a tiger or leopard, letting out the wild roar of a Jaguar. His steps followed a small zigzag arc, his body half-crouched as he darted nimbly across the wilderness. The opposing archers fired two more arrows, both missing into the mud. Soon, he closed within twenty paces of the archers, gripped his spear-thrower in his right hand, and swiftly raised it above his head. Then his arm snapped forward, hurling the spear with all his strength!

A throwing spear shot forth, tracing a shallow arc before piercing the Archer Warrior's chest with a wet thud! The sharp spearhead burst through his back. The warrior instantly lost all strength, his fingers loosening as bow and arrows fell helplessly away. Driven by the massive force of the spear, his pierced body was carried backward, toppling onto the hillside behind him. He stretched out a hand in vain, trying to cover his violently bleeding chest, without even time to cry out. Yet it was clearly futile. Within a few breaths, he became like a gradually reddening statue, frozen motionless.

Bertad did not spare another glance for the warrior he had struck. The moment he threw, he had known whether the man would live or die. His eyes sharpened as he looked toward another ambushing archer thirty paces away, his feet darting forward like a leopard's. As he accelerated, he pulled a War Club from his back and gripped it with both hands. Its tip angled downward, exposing the sharp Obsidian blades. The archer frantically fired two more arrows into empty air. Seeing that only ten paces remained between them, he hurriedly threw down his bow and reached for the Shield and Short Spear at his feet.

"Die!"

As the two met, Bertad nimbly sidestepped the Short Spear thrust by the archer. Then his powerful strength rose from his legs, his waist twisted with force, and both arms accelerated once more. The Obsidian War Club grazed past the Shield and smashed into the archer's head with tremendous precision. The archer's face became a mangled blur of blood and flesh, his head twisting at an unnatural angle as his neck sharply bent.

Crack!

A crisp sound of breaking bone rang out. The standing corpse spun half a circle before slanting helplessly to the ground.

The fierce slaughter lasted only a short while. Ahead, the savage unarmored shield-and-spear warriors and the leather-armored Mexica shield-and-club warriors blended together like mud and blood, locked in brutal close combat and falling at a visible rate.

Under the slashing blows of the Obsidian War Clubs, the lives of the attacking tribal warriors were as thin as paper. The War Clubs flashed and fell, nimbly slipping around Shields to cut across shoulders and backs unprotected by armor, opening long wounds. Within only a few breaths, the struck tribal warriors would lose massive amounts of blood and collapse. Yet the enemy Short Spears were also quite formidable. Their metal spearheads could pierce the warriors' Leather Armor, and they killed several Mexica Warriors as well.

After a brief bitter battle, the enemy warrior leader saw that the tide had turned against him and fled into the mountain forest. More than ten Mexica Warriors chased after him in fury. The unarmored tribal warriors, however, had something of the spirit of fighting to the death and never fled in rout. But when the Mexica Warriors from the rear caught up and formed a battle line, the situation became a one-sided massacre.

"Come with me! Catch and kill every archer who ambushed us from behind!"

The elite warriors raced through the forest, caught the fleeing archers in the rear, and killed them one by one. No one escaped the Captain of Warriors' pursuit. The battle at the front was also nearing its end. The leading enemy warriors had either fled or died. The final few tribal warriors, surrounded on all sides, let out desperate, frenzied roars. They loudly cursed the Mexica People's Sun God before being hacked into pieces by the enraged warriors.

By then, Xolotl had recovered himself. He knelt halfway before the cold corpse in silence. After a long while, he reached out and gently closed Kusola's eyes. Then, still wordless, Xolotl picked up the fallen waterskin and placed it in the young warrior's hand, so that he would be a little closer to his family.

"May the Main God guide your soul to the peaceful Divine Kingdom!"

After praying softly for a while, Xolotl finally stood, sorrow in his eyes. He took a deep breath and calmly asked the warriors about the casualties.

This ambush in the mountain forest had lasted only two or three short intervals, yet it had been exceptionally cruel and fierce. More than twenty Alliance Warriors had died, and fifty or sixty had been wounded. Most of the warriors had been killed by the tribal warriors' metal Short Spears, while a few had died under the Archer Warriors' arrows. Across the blood-soaked grass lay more than a hundred tribal warrior corpses, along with more than ten strangely dressed ambushing warriors.

Because the tribal warriors had cursed the Mexica Sun God, the Alliance Warriors left no survivors.

Bertad carefully examined the unarmored corpses, inspecting the tattoos on their chests and backs. These warriors wore their hair loose like Wildmen, their bodies covered in faint scars left by long journeys through the mountain forests. Most conspicuous of all were the strange tattoos etched in Indigo Dye Maya Blue. After studying them carefully, Xolotl found that they resembled the ancient, abstract Feathered Serpents in the murals of the Holy City's temples.

"These are Toltec-Tepanec rebels, hostile tribes unwilling to join our Mexica Alliance."

Bertad studied the Feathered Serpent tattoos for a moment before answering with certainty.

"Toltec-Tepanec rebels? Toltec People? Aren't they the ancestors the Alliance claims as its own?"

Hearing that name, Xolotl was curious. The city-state priests seemed rarely to mention this history.

"Yes. The ancient and glorious Toltec People were the rulers of the highlands in the Third Era. They once established a vast tribal Alliance in the northern valley. Tula, not far north of Tenochtitlan, was their final capital, while Teotihuacan, the Holy City where you were born, Priest, was once their most important sacred city of worship. They revered Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent God, as the Main God who ruled the world. Later, at the end of that era, the powerful Toltec Alliance collapsed. The ones who inherited the Toltec People's hegemony were the rising Tepanec tribes."

"The Tepanec People were hunter-gatherer tribes who came south from the Wasteland. They migrated from the northern Wasteland, merged with the conquered Toltec People, and opened the age of the Fourth Era. They established city-states on the western shore of Lake Texcoco, formed the Tepanec Alliance, and became the overlords of the entire highland and valley. Their hegemony lasted two hundred years, until seventy years ago, when we Mexica People rose up, and then came the rest of the story..."

"Cough! According to the Alliance priests, the Feathered Serpent God of old was exiled by the gods, while Huitzilopochtli, the God of War, came to rule the world and succeeded to the Sun God's honored throne. He is the Guardian Deity of us Mexica People, and He allowed the Mexica ancestors to establish a great capital upon Lake Texcoco! He also promised our ancestors that the Mexica People possess Heaven's mandate and will surely become the masters of the entire Mexican highlands! This is the will of the gods, and it is the future destined to come to pass!"

"Called by the Main God, the Tepanec People submitted to the Sun God, abandoned their capital, dissolved their Alliance, and joined the Mexica People. They converted to the Sun God and intermarried with the Mexica ancestors generation after generation, blending together like blood and water. They merged into the Mexica tribes and founded Mexica city-states. They can be called one of our ancestors!"

"Even now, many city-states west and north of the Valley of Mexico retain customs left behind by the Toltec People, such as the grand celebrations of Feathered Serpent Day. Some Toltec People missed the Feathered Serpent God and followed the eastern path of His departure. After changing and merging, they became the present Coastal Tribes of the eastern coast, the Totonac People."

"Only a small number of Toltec-Tepanec rebels still fanatically believe in the Feathered Serpent God. They are hostile to the Mexica Alliance and hide in the deepest mountain forests at the borderlands of the Otomi People, Mexica People, and Tarasco, like Wild Rabbits barely clinging to life. Come to think of it, the lair of these rebels truly is not far from here..."

Xolotl recalled the Feathered Serpent God murals discovered in Teotihuacan, the Feathered Serpent's Song his grandfather had presented to the king, and the New Year celebrations he had spent in the city-state. Indeed, traces of the Toltec People and Feathered Serpent worship could be found everywhere.

Yet Bertad's account of how the Tepanec People had merged into the Mexica People was like a myth: the Sun God had merged two peoples to create the Alliance? Xolotl's instincts told him that countless storms of blood, battles of faith, and violent slaughter must have been needed to create the union of today. These surviving Mountain Tribes were naturally losers of that slaughter, enemies left behind by their ancestors. But since the Mexica People were the final victors and had adorned history with myth, he had no desire to seek out the truth of those years.

Having identified the tribal warriors, Bertad went to inspect the corpses of the Archer Warriors. Soon, his eyes narrowed as he saw black-and-white striped patterns on the tunics beneath their Leather Armor.

"Main God witness! These are warriors of the Otomi People!"

Xolotl nodded and picked up a Wooden Bow from the ground. This Wooden Bow was nearly one and a half meters long, its body exceptionally thick. It was still a simple self-bow, with a taut and powerful bowstring. Xolotl tried firing an arrow. Paired with the metal arrows from the ground, its power was formidable: at eighty paces, it could wound an unarmored man; at fifty paces, it could pierce a single layer of padded Cotton Armor; at thirty paces, it could pierce two layers of padded Cotton Armor.

Xolotl's eyes first lit up. This bow was far stronger than a sling. Then a wave of lingering fear followed. Though he wore Leather Armor, if he had been struck by several arrows at thirty paces, he would likely have been doomed as well.

Bertad inspected it briefly. Seeing the form of the Wooden Bow, he spoke with certainty.

"Main God witness! These are the long Wooden Bows of the Tlaxcalan!"

Finally, the two inspected together the Short Spears with metal spearheads and the metal arrows on the ground.

"Main God witness! These are the Copper Spears and Copper Arrows of Tarasco!"

The two looked at each other, both left speechless. Tepanec rebels in the western mountains, Otomi warriors fighting in the northwest, their eastern nemesis Tlaxcala, and hostile Tarasco in the west—traces of all these enemies of the Alliance had appeared here!

"Main God protect us! Bertad, let us first clear the battlefield and hold a simple rite for the fallen warriors!"

"Yes, Priest!"

Next, the warriors gathered the equipment and weapons from the ground, cut off the enemies' heads, and piled them into small towers beside the road. Then all the fallen Alliance corpses were buried in newly dug shallow pits. Funeral songs rose and fell, as commonplace as death itself across these highlands and mountain forests.

"Kusola, you died for the Main God. Your soul will go to the red Divine Kingdom!"

Xolotl murmured softly as he watched Kusola's corpse gradually swallowed by the earth. On the blood-red face of the corpse rested a faint, frozen smile, like the setting Sun amid evening clouds. In his callused hand, he held the soft waterskin. Inside was still the wine his wife had left him, as though he had returned to a warm home.

"Main God witness! Your son will surely become a Jaguar Warrior!"

Xolotl softly promised, making his vow. At that moment, his heart was full of grief, but his face was calm and solemn. Then he looked toward Otopan City, two days westward, and then toward the east and south. A sense of foreboding gradually rose in his heart, like distant rain-season clouds on the horizon that were steadily drawing near.

"Toltec rebels, Otomi warriors, Tlaxcalan long Wooden Bows, and Tarasco copper weapons."

"Main God! It seems that the enemies of the empire have already, without anyone noticing, formed some kind of alliance!"