Darkness blanketed the earth in silence, while the shadow of death spread through the depths of the dark, soundless and unseen. In Golden Bay City, the prayers of the divine sacrificial ritual had already ended. At the final celebratory banquet, the Golden Bay Tribe generously opened its storehouses, bringing out its treasured brews and offering them without limit. Many chiefs of the eastern tribes drank themselves into mud-soaked stupors.
After all, the chiefs of the various tribes were all drinking and making merry inside the sacred temple, unwilling to return to camp. If the mid-level headmen and leaders had a few more cups, what did that matter? The Mexica People's thunder was so terrifying that even sturdy Golden Bay City was tottering. No one knew how much longer this ancient Totonac city-state could hold out. They might as well take it one day at a time!
It seemed like revelry born of despair, yet despair arrived sooner than most had expected. Under the cover of night, personal-guard messengers hurried out one after another from the Feathered Serpent Temple, and squads of Golden Bay warriors were mobilized in confusion. The warriors of the Golden Bay Tribe took control of the temple fortresses everywhere, sealed off the roads connecting the various tribal garrisons, and took over the defenses of the western city.
When dawn drew near, morning light brightened at the edge of the sky, like a swaying candleflame. And specks of firelight also appeared outside the western city. In the faint glow of morning, thousands of elite Mexica, clad in dark-green battle armor, approached the city-state in silence like a wolf pack escorting The Sun. Their expressions were cold and stern. They gripped Copper Axes and Copper Spears in their hands, with great bows and Copper Arrows on their backs, ready