"Mighty Rain God!"
Surrounded by several hundred warriors, Yunshi Kawa, the military chief of Huamuxtitlan, stood on the east bank of the great river. He narrowed his eyes, avoiding the glaring sunset in the west, and carefully studied the longboats on the river.
"What... are those?"
"Chief Yunshi, those should be the boats of the Aztec Tiger People."
The veteran scout Chiao lowered his head and answered respectfully.
"The day before yesterday, I saw these boats being dragged along, moving over the water."
"What? There are actually boats that big!"
Yunshi Kawa's eyes went wide. He raised a hand and measured in front of him, estimating the length of the longboats.
"At least twelve men long! Ten times the size of a canoe!"
A man's length was roughly 1.5 meters. Twelve men made 18 meters. The canoes of the mountain tribes were rather small, and for the sake of being hauled ashore easily, they were usually only two meters long.
"Ears, aren't the Aztec Tiger People from the north skilled at fighting on foot? How can they build such sacred great boats?"
Yunshi Kawa gripped his long spear, utterly astonished. The People of the Rain revered the Rain God, and boats on the water were likewise an important symbol of faith to them.
In the legends, after the Feathered Serpent father-god and the Rain God mother-goddess joined together, he committed a great wrong and rode a serpent boat to the great lake in the east. And the Maya, who possessed great boats and believed in the Feathered Serpent, had always maintained fairly good relations with the Mixtec states of the southern coast, with frequent trade between them. In prosperous Black Altar City, merchant ships of the coastal Maya often passed through the boundless southern great lake, bringing rare top-grade Turquoise