The Palm Patriarch and the Southern Tecos

"After them! Hurry, after them! Catch that red-haired barbarian chieftain! I'll make his skull into a wine cup!"

The hills rose and fell, forests scattered across them, yellow leaves whirling through the air. The valiant Palm clan chief Zotor shouted in excitement, running like the wind through the hills. He led from the front, dressed in leather armor, with more than three hundred family warriors in relentless pursuit.

Behind the Palm chief were hundreds upon thousands of Apatzingan warriors, their formation loose as they came after them like a long snake. Ahead of him, more than a hundred red-haired barbarians were fleeing in panic. Among them, one man wore a wolfskin robe and kept glancing back in terror. He was actually a rare Dog-kin chieftain, a big fish who commanded several thousand barbarian soldiers.

"Quick! Quick! Rush up from both sides! Drive them toward the valley!"

Zotor had chased them for a long while when joy suddenly appeared on his face. This area lay north of Apatzingan City, and he knew the terrain before him all too well. A mile or two ahead was a sunken valley. It looked very deep, but there was no way out inside, only steep cliff walls that could not possibly be climbed in haste. So long as he drove this band of barbarians into the valley and the warriors behind him blocked the mouth, the red-haired barbarian chieftain would have only a dead road ahead!

"Good! Good! Stay on their tails and kill your way into the valley!"

The red-haired barbarians ahead fled in disorder, pausing slightly at the valley mouth as if hesitating. But the Palm warriors on both flanks sped forward, and the barbarians were still forced into the valley. The valiant Palm clan chief Zotor was overjoyed. Personally leading three hundred