Secret Guard and Interrogation

A thousand li east of the Apa Plain, in the Lake Capital of Tenochtitlan, in a dark manor south of the city.

The sun slanted west. Lake Texcoco glittered with rippling light, and the evening prayers echoed through the entire capital, carrying even into the hidden chamber beneath the manor. The mark of the Sun Hummingbird stood in the chamber, reflecting a dim gleam beneath the faint candlelight. And in that shadowed secret room, several figures sat in a circle facing another figure, the long exchange still continuing.

"...Last time, you said the king in the north had enormous Copper Beasts. As long as he lit a fire, the Copper Beasts would spit stone shot and belch smoke, destroying whatever target was before them?"

A cold voice asked calmly. Every word in that voice was steady and composed, without a trace of personal feeling.

"Yes! Yes! The enormous Copper Beasts fired stone shot, and the poor Yorodila Family, right before my eyes, were blasted into pieces by the Copper Beasts' terrifying stone shot. It was too awful, just as awful as our Purple Grass Family..."

Guramo, the Purple Grass Clan Leader, sat crookedly on the mat. His gaze was unfocused, his cheeks flushed, his breathing rather hurried, his expression strangely excited. All the strength in his body seemed to have been drained away, and before his eyes, light and shadow shifted like phantoms. He could not restrain himself. His usual self-discipline had been dissolved, and he always could not help but say something.

The drifting questions came from within the play of light and shadow, and he told everything he knew, without the slightest reservation, every sentence true.

"...You also said there were two kinds of enormous Copper Beasts. One could fire stone shot out to two li and knock