The morning light breaks through the dawn, the quiet night retreats from the rising sun, and it is a new day.
When the first ray of sunlight shone on Shulot's face, it seemed to have some kind of resonance with his body, and the young man opened his eyes.
In this age without clocks, the body's rhythm is the most accurate clock. The warriors also woke up one after another, and the village gradually became alive. After a brief wash and some cold food, Shulot said goodbye to the village elders and returned with two hundred warriors.
The mountain road back was winding and rugged, but no more than four or five people wide. It was a dirt path trodden by the grain transport team. The army marched just along the edge of the hill. On both sides are rolling hills and dense trees, with cardinals singing happily on the branches.
Shulot walked in the center of the team, wearing a brown coyote priest uniform with a sturdy little cotton armor underneath. He wears the priest's long-feathered crown. Although it is the simplest type, he is still "tall" and eye-catching in the team. From time to time, birds were attracted by the bright feathers on his head, flew over and circled, and then left with their cries.
After walking for half a day, we were about to enter the patrol range of Camp Otopan, and everyone relaxed a little. Maybe it's because the sun is rising, and the birdsong around seems to be much quieter.
At this time, a small dot flew quickly from the treetops, arrived in an instant, and stopped out of thin air. It stayed in front of Shulot's feather crown, curiously looking at the "thing" in front of him.
It is only slightly larger than a bee, with green body feathers, bright red head feathers, a long beak, and a pair of rapidly flapping wings. Shulot took a closer look and saw that it was a hummingbird.
"The hummingbird is the messenger of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, and the guardian bird of our Mexican people." Bertard said with some joy. "Priest, you are favored by God."
Hulott smiled. The incarnation of Huitzilopochtli is the hummingbird from the south. The hummingbird has an unusual meaning for the Mexicans. But the hummingbird in front of me was obviously attracted by the colorful feathers.
Perhaps because he was a little shy under the gaze of everyone, or because he recognized that the thing in front of him was not a flower or the opposite sex, the hummingbird changed the angle of its wings, turned around on the spot, and then flew straight forward quickly, as if A little red shooting star. After flying forty or fifty meters ahead, the hummingbird seemed to be frightened by something. It suddenly changed its direction and rose straight into the sky.
Xiulote looked slightly dazed. Before he could react, he saw Bertard's expression suddenly change. He quickly glanced left and right at the terrain and suddenly shouted: "Get ready for battle! Be careful!"
Bertard's shout seemed to be a switch. Before he finished speaking, more than a hundred warriors with short hair and curly beards rushed out of the forest fifty meters ahead. These warriors had disheveled hair and were completely shirtless, with tattoos on their chests exposed. Their lower bodies were nothing more than a crotch cloth. They held simple wooden shields in one hand and short spears that shimmered with cold light in the other. They howled like wild beasts from their mouths. Led by the green leather armored warriors, they rushed towards them like crazy beasts.
Bertard immediately raised his shield with his left hand and guarded in front of Shulot. He took off the throwing spear from behind with his right hand and stared straight ahead. The Mexica warriors in front also took their war clubs from behind, held their shields flat, and faced them bravely.
At this time, another exclamation suddenly came from behind Xiulote, "There is someone behind you!". It sounded like the voice of the young warrior Kusola.
Shulot turned his head suddenly and saw six or seven warriors scattered in the forest behind him. They stood up straight from their ambush position to draw the huge 1.45-meter wooden bow in their hands. The arrows shone coldly in the sun. They pointed at Xiulote's position forty or fifty meters away. They paused slightly and took aim without hesitation. of ejaculation.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." The sound of the arrow breaking through the air was connected in a line. In these few tenths of a second, it was impossible to capture the trajectory of the arrow. He could only see the bow string that the ambusher shot empty. Shulot's mind went blank. , too late to make any reaction. At this time, he only had one last thought: "I wonder, can I be reincarnated again in this place far away from the Pyramid of the Moon?"
At the moment when he was distracted, Shulot felt his back suddenly sink, and something pounced on him. He stumbled forward, his center of gravity a little unstable, and then in an instant, several consecutive momentums hit him, directly carrying him away. He fell to the ground, and his sacrificial robes and crown fell into the mud.
He turned over forcefully, holding the body behind his back. In front of him was Kusola's bloody side face. Kusola fell on him, blood flowing like a fountain from his neck. He was unable to make any movement or even a visible expression.
The moment he spotted the archer, he pounced forward and blocked six incoming arrows for Shulot, and one of them missed.
Most of the arrows penetrated deeply into his leather-armored back. And a fatal arrow shot from the back of his neck, piercing his left common carotid artery. The blood loss rate was nearly 100 milliliters per second, and he would die within ten seconds.
The last moment came quickly. Kusola just looked deeply at Shulot with his eyes, and murmured an incomprehensible name: "Kunawa...". Then his eyes turned slightly to the left, showing infinite nostalgia, that is the south of home. Then in the hallucination before death, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, his eyes immediately became distracted, and there was no life left.
Shulot lay half-lying in a daze, as if he were a sculpture. He looked at the dead young warrior. In his mind, Kusola's happy look when he mentioned his family, the smile on his face, and the The desire for a better future in the eyes. Xiulote knew that "Cunawa" was the name of his son, taken from a warrior of the Mexica ancestors, and was also Kusola's last wish.
This was the first warrior to die for Shulot.
The battlefield doesn't stop when someone dies, it demands more blood. Bertard in front turned around eagerly and looked down, patting Hulot's face. The young man turned around and looked over. His expression showed no pain of being hit by an arrow, no fear of life and death, but just a bit of confusion as if he had lost a friend. The vicissitudes of life warrior breathed a sigh of relief, then checked Kusola's breath, and sighed again.
"Guardian Priest!" Bertard shouted to the surrounding warriors with a heavy face. Then he put the shield on Shulot, turned around and ran towards the nearest archer warrior.
More than a dozen followers immediately gathered around and blocked Shulot with their shields and bodies. The rest spread out with shields in hand and pounced on the ambushing warriors.
Bertard was like a running tiger, roaring like a jaguar. His steps followed a small arc of zigzag, and his body was half-bowed. The archer warrior on the opposite side shot two more arrows, both of which were missed in the dirt.
Seeing that he was within twenty steps of the archer, Bertard raised his right hand above his head, holding the spear thrower, and with steady force, he suddenly threw it forward. The spear flew out quickly, drawing a shallow half arc, and puffed. A sound pierced into the chest of the archer warrior, and the sharp spear point emerged from the back.
The warrior instantly lost all strength, his hand loosened, and the bow and arrow fell powerlessly. His body was also pushed backwards by the kinetic energy of throwing the spear, and he sat down and leaned against the hillside. His last movement was to try to cover his violently bleeding chest with his palms, which was obviously in vain. Soon he was motionless.
Bertard no longer paid attention to the warrior he shot, but turned to another archer thirty steps away. While running and accelerating, he took off the war stick from his back and held it with both hands, with the tip of the stick slanting downwards. The archer hurriedly missed two more arrows. Seeing that the two men were only ten steps away, he hurriedly threw away the bow and arrow and went to get the shield and short spear at his feet.
The two of them met, and Bertard turned sideways quickly to avoid the short spear thrust by the archer. Then his strength rose from his legs, and he rotated with force from his waist. His arms accelerated again, and the obsidian war club grazed the shield with great precision. The swing struck the archer on the head. The archer's head immediately turned in an abnormal manner, his neck suddenly bent, and then his body paused and fell sideways.
The fierce fighting lasted only a moment. The unarmored shield and spear warriors with a barbaric aura and the Mexican leather armored shield and stick warriors in front quickly fought with each other, and then fell down at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The unarmored warrior's life was as thin as paper under the blows of the obsidian war club. With the superb martial arts of the warriors, the war sticks dexterously bypassed the shields and scratched across the enemy's shoulders and backs, drawing long wounds. Then within a few moments, the other party lost blood and fell down. The opponent's short spear was also quite powerful, with a metal tip that could pierce the warrior's leather armor, causing casualties to the Mexica warriors.
Seeing that the situation was not going well, the leading warrior on the other side turned around and fled towards the forest. Some Mexican warriors pursued him. Those unarmored warriors seemed to be fighting to the death, but when the Mexican warriors from behind caught up and formed a battle formation, the situation became a one-sided massacre.
Bertard and the elite warriors caught up with the archer warriors behind them and killed them one by one. No one escaped the pursuit of the warrior captain.
The battle ahead was coming to an end. The leading warriors on the opposite side were running away and dying. The last unarmored warrior roared crazily after being surrounded. The great god cursed the Mexica Sun God, and was then cut into pieces by the angry warriors.
By this time, Shulot had returned to normal. He half-knelt in front of the corpse and remained silent. After a long time, he reached out and gently closed Kusola's eyes. Then he picked up the water bag that fell on the ground and put it into the hands of the young warrior, bringing him closer to his family. .
Then Shulot stood up, with sadness in his eyes. He calmly asked about the samurai's casualties.
The ambush in the mountains and forests was short, fast, and intense. More than twenty warriors were killed and fifty or sixty others were injured. Most of the warriors died under the metal short spears of the unarmored warriors, and a few died from the second and third rounds of shooting by the bow and arrow warriors. More than a hundred corpses of unarmored warriors were left on the ground, and the enemy also killed eleven or twelve warriors.
Because the unarmored warriors insulted the Mexica sun god, the warriors did not leave a single person alive.
Bertard examined the unarmored corpses carefully, looking at the tattoos on their chests and backs. These warriors have disheveled hair like savages, and their bodies are covered with shallow scars left by long journeys through the mountains and forests. The most conspicuous thing on them is the abstract feathered serpent engraved with indigo Mayan blue patterns.
"This is a Toltec-Tepanek traitor." Bertard looked at the feathered serpent tattoo and confirmed.
"Toltec-Tepanek rebels?" Xiulote was a little curious. This aspect of history seemed to be rarely mentioned by the city-state.
"The Toltecs once established a huge alliance in the northern part of the Valley of Mexico. The city of Tula, not far north of Tenochtitlan, was their last capital, and the holy city of Teotihuacan where you were born also once It was their capital, and they used Quetzalcoatl, the Quetzalcoatl god, as their main god to rule the world. Later, those who inherited the hegemony of the Toltecs were the Tepanec people on the west bank of Lake Texcoco. They came from the north, merged with the Toltecs, and established the Tepanec Kingdom.”
"But later Quetzalcoatl was exiled, and the war god Huitzilopochtli ruled the world and succeeded the sun god. He became the patron saint of the Mexica people, allowing the ancestors of Mexica to live in Tes A great capital city was built on Lake Coco, and at the same time he promised the ancestors that the Mexica people have the destiny and will become the masters of the entire Mexico! This is the will of God."
"The Toltec-Tepanecs then worshiped the sun god, abandoned their capital, dissolved their alliance, and joined the Mexica. They converted to the sun god and joined the Mexica ancestors. The people intermarried for generations, and then merged together to establish the city-states of Mexica, which can be said to be one of our ancestors."
"The city-states in the west and north of the Valley of Mexico still have many customs left by the Toltecs, such as the grand celebration of Quetzalcoatl Day."
"Some Toltecs missed Quetzalcoatl and pursued him to the east where he left, and then evolved and merged to become the relatively peaceful Nava-Totonac people on the eastern coast."
"Only a small number of Toltec-Tepanek rebels still fanatically believe in Quetzalcoatl, are hostile to the Mexica Alliance, and hide among the Otomi, Mexica, and Tarasco people. They are lingering in the deepest mountain forest at the junction. Speaking of which, the lair of these rebels is indeed not far from here."
Hulot thought of the Quetzalcoatl murals discovered in Teotihuacan, the "Song of Quetzalcoatl" that his grandfather had dedicated to the king, and the New Year celebrations he spent in the city-state. There were indeed Toltecs and people everywhere. The mark of the feathered serpent's faith.
But the history of the Toltecs being fused by the Mexica, as told by Bertard, is like a myth: The sun god fused the two peoples to create an alliance? Intuition told Shulot that there must have been countless bloody battles and battles of faith to complete today's integration and whitewash it with myths. But since the Mexicans were the final winners, he had no intention of exploring the truth.
After confirming the identity of the unarmored warrior, Bertard went to check the body of the archer warrior and saw black and white stripes on the coat under the leather armor.
"This is the warrior of Otomi."
Xiuluo nodded and picked up the wooden bow on the ground. This wooden bow is nearly 1.4 meters long. The bow is very thick. It is still in the shape of a single bow. The bowstring is tight and powerful. Shulot tried to shoot an arrow, and when paired with the metal arrow on the ground, it was very powerful: one hundred steps to kill an unarmored one, fifty steps to break a single layer of cotton armor, and thirty steps to break a double layer of cotton armor.
Shulot's eyes lit up at first. This bow was much stronger than the sling. Soon, he felt scared again. Even if he was wearing leather armor, if he had been shot by several arrows at the same time within forty or fifty meters, he would probably be dead.
"This is the long wooden bow of the Tlaxcala people," Bertard said with certainty.
Finally, the two men continued to examine the short spears with metal spearheads and the metal arrows on the ground.
"The bronze spears and arrows of the Tarascans." The two said at the same time, relatively speechless.
Next, the warriors gathered the equipment and weapons on the ground, chopped off the enemy's heads, and built a small tower on the roadside. Then they collected the bodies of the war dead and buried them in newly dug shallow pits.
Shulot watched silently as Kusola was submerged by the earth. His expression was frozen, with a faint smile. He held a soft water bag in his hand with his wife's remaining wine in it, as if he had returned to a warm home.
"Your son will definitely become a Jaguar warrior." Shulot promised softly, his heart full of sadness, but his face was calm and solemn.
Then, he looked at the city of Otopan two days away to the west, and then looked at the east and south: "The rebels of the Toltecs, the warriors of the Otomi, the long wooden bows of Tlaxcala, and Tara Skor’s Bronze Weapons.”
"It seems that the enemies of the empire have unknowingly reached some kind of alliance!" A hint of uncertainty emerged in Shulot's heart, like the distant dark clouds on the horizon.
