Aztec Eternals

The morning light breaks the dawn, the quiet night retreats from the rising sun, and it is another new day.

When the first ray of sunlight shone on Shulot's face, as if it had some kind of echo with his body, the boy opened his eyes.

In this age without clocks, the rhythm of the body 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 bid farewell to the village elders and returned with two hundred warriors.

The mountain road on the way back was winding and rugged, but only four or five people wide, this is the dirt path stepped by the food transport team. The army marched along the edge of the hill. On both sides are rolling hills and dense trees, and cardinals are singing cheerfully on the branches.

Xiulot walked in the center of the team, wearing a brown coyote priest uniform with a sturdy little cotton armor inside. He wears the priest's long feather crown, although it is the simplest type, it 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 cries.

After walking for half a day, they were about to enter the patrol area of ​​the Ottopan camp, and everyone relaxed a little. Maybe because the sun is high, the birdsong around seems to be much smaller.

At this time, a swift little dot flew over from the treetops, arrived in an instant, and then stopped out of thin air, staying in front of Shulott's feather crown, curiously looking at the "thing" in front of him.

It is only slightly bigger than a bee, with green body feathers, bright red head feathers, long beak, and a pair of rapidly flapping wings. Xiuluo took a closer look, and it turned out to be a hummingbird.

"The hummingbird is the messenger of the god of war, Vitzilopochtli, and the guardian bird of our Mexica." Bertard was a little happy. "Priest, you are favored by God."

Shulot smiled. The incarnation of Vitzilopochtelli is the hummingbird from the south. The hummingbird has an unusual meaning to the Mexica. But the hummingbirds in front of them are obviously attracted by the colorful feathers.

Maybe it was a little shy from being looked at by everyone, or because it recognized that the things in front of it were not flowers or the opposite sex, the hummingbird changed the angle of its wings, turned around on the spot, and then flew straight forward quickly, like A little red shooting star. After flying 40 to 50 meters ahead, the hummingbird seemed to be frightened by something, suddenly changed direction, and pulled straight up to the sky.

Shulot looked in a daze, and before he could react, he saw Berthard's complexion suddenly changed, he quickly glanced left and right at the terrain, and shouted suddenly: "Ready for battle! Be careful!"

Berthard's shout seemed to be a switch. Before he could finish speaking, more than a hundred short-haired and bearded soldiers rushed out of the forest fifty meters ahead. These warriors were disheveled, their upper bodies were completely barebacked, showing the tattoos on their chests, and their lower bodies were nothing more than a loincloth. They held a simple wooden shield in one hand, and a short spear that shone with cold light in the other. They howled like beasts. Led by a warrior in green leather armor, he rushed forward like a wild beast.

Berthard immediately raised the shield with his left hand, guarding in front of Shulot, took the spear from behind with his right hand, and stared at the front with all his attention. The Mexica warriors in front also took their batons from behind, held their shields flat, and bravely met them.

At this time, another exclamation suddenly came from behind Shulot, "There is someone behind!". It sounded like the voice of the young samurai Kushora.

Shulot turned his head abruptly, only to see six or seven scattered warriors suddenly appearing in the forest behind him. They stood up straight from their ambush positions so that they could draw the huge wooden bow measuring 1.45 meters in their hands. The arrows gleamed coldly in the sun, and aimed at Xiulot's position thirty steps away. They paused slightly to aim without hesitation. shoot out.

"Swoosh, whoosh, whoosh." The sound of the arrow piercing through the air was connected in a line. During this few tenths of a second, the trajectory of the arrow could not be captured, and only the bowstrings shot by the ambushers were seen. Shulot's mind went blank. , too late to make any reaction. At this moment, he only had one last thought: "I don't know, can I be reincarnated in this place far away from the Pyramid of the Moon?"

At the moment when he was distracted, Shulot felt his back suddenly sank, something threw himself on him, his feet staggered forward, his center of gravity was a little unstable, and then several consecutive impulses came directly to him. He fell to the ground, and the sacrificial robe and feather crown fell into the mud together.

He turned over vigorously, supporting the body behind him, and in front of him was Kusola's bloody side face. Cussola threw himself on top of him, blood gushing from his neck like a fountain. He was already unable to make any movements, not even an obvious expression.

The moment he found the archer, he pounced forward and blocked six feathered arrows for Shulot, and one of them missed.

Most of the feathered arrows went deep into his leather-clad back. And a deadly feathered arrow shot from the back of his neck, pierced his left common carotid artery, the blood loss rate was nearly 100 milliliters per second, and he would die within ten seconds.

The final moment came soon, and Kusola just looked at Shulot deeply with his eyes, and murmured an unidentifiable name: "Kunawa". Then the eyeballs turned slightly to the left, showing infinite nostalgia, that is the south of home. Immediately, in the hallucination before death, the corners of the mouth were slightly raised, the eyes immediately became slack, and there was no life anymore.

Shulot lay half-lying blankly, like a sculpture. He looked at the dead young warrior, and his mind was still from yesterday. Cusola's happy expression when he mentioned the family, the smile on his face, and The desire for a better future in the eyes. Shulot knew that "Kunawa" was his son's name, taken from a warrior of the Mexica ancestors, and it was also the last hope of Cusola.

This is the first samurai who died for Shulot.

The battlefield doesn't stop with someone's death, it needs more blood. Berthard in front of him eagerly turned around and looked down, and patted Shulot's face. The young man looked over in a blink of an eye. His expression did not show the pain of being hit by an arrow, nor the fear of life and death, but a little dazed 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 expression. Then he put the shield on Shulot, turned around and ran towards the nearest archer warrior.

More than a dozen followers immediately surrounded Shulot with their shields and bodies. The rest spread out with shields and rushed towards the ambushing warriors.

Bertard was like a running tiger and leopard, with the roar of a jaguar in his mouth. His steps followed a zigzag of small arcs, his body was half arched, and the archer warrior opposite him shot two more arrows, both of which missed in the mud.

Seeing that the archer was approaching within twenty steps, Berthard raised his right hand above his head, held the spear-throwing device, and with steady force, he threw it forward suddenly, and the spear-throwing flew out quickly, drawing a shallow half-arc, puffing With a sound, it pierced into the chest of the archer warrior, and the sharp spear tip protruded from the back.

The samurai lost all strength in an instant, his hand loosened, and the bow and arrow fell weakly. His body was also thrown backward by the kinetic energy of the spear, and he sat leaning against the hillside. His last attempt, apparently futile, was to cover his violently bleeding chest with his palm. Soon, he was motionless.

Berthard didn't care about the samurai he shot, but turned to another archer thirty steps away. As he ran to speed up, he took off the battle stick from behind, held it in both hands, and the tip of the stick slanted downward. The archer hurriedly shot two more arrows, seeing that they were only ten steps away, he threw away the bow and arrow in a hurry, and went to get the shield and short spear under his feet.

When the two met, Berthard turned sideways nimbly, avoiding the short spear stabbed by the archer, then the power rose from the legs, the waist rotated forcefully, and the arms accelerated again, the obsidian baton grazed the shield, vigorously and precisely slapped the archer on the head. The archer's head immediately deflected in an abnormal posture, his neck suddenly bent, and then his body paused, and he fell obliquely.

After only a moment of fierce fighting, the unarmored shield spear warrior and the Mexica leather armor shield spear warrior in front of them fought with each other quickly, and then fell down at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Unarmored warriors are as thin as paper under the slashing blows of obsidian clubs. Under the superb martial arts skills of the warriors, the baton dexterously bypassed the shield, scratched the enemy's shoulders, and pulled out long wounds. Then, within a moment, the other party lost blood and fell down. The opponent's short spear is also quite powerful, with a metal pointed tip, which can pierce the leather armor of the warrior, causing casualties of the Mexica warrior.

Seeing that the momentum was not good, the leading warrior on the opposite side turned around and fled into the forest. Some Mexica warriors chased after him. Those unarmored fighters looked like they were fighting to the death, but when the Mexica warriors in the rear caught up and formed a battle formation, the situation became a one-sided massacre.

Bertard and the elite warriors chased after the bow and arrow warriors and killed them one by one. No one escaped from the pursuit of the warrior chief.

The battle ahead also came to an end, and the leading warriors on the opposite side fled and died. The last unarmored warrior howled wildly after being surrounded. The great god cursed the sun god of the Mexica, and was then chopped to pieces by the angry warriors.

At this time, Xiulot had returned to normal. He half-kneeled in front of the corpse, silent for a long time, stretched out his hand, gently closed Kusola's eyes, then picked up the water bag that fell on the ground, and stuffed 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 casualties of the warriors.

The ambush in the mountains was short, fast, and intense. More than 20 warriors were killed and fifty or sixty were injured. Most of the samurai died from the metal short spears of unarmored warriors, and a few died from the second and third rounds of shooting by bow and arrow warriors. The corpses of more than a hundred unarmored soldiers were left on the ground, and the enemy also killed eleven or twelve warriors.

Because the unarmored warriors insulted the Mexica sun god, not a single warrior was left alive.

Bertard scrutinized the unarmored corpses, looking at the tattoos on their chests and backs. These warriors are disheveled like savages, and their bodies are covered with shallow scars from long-term travel in the mountains and forests. The most conspicuous thing on their bodies is the abstract feathered snake carved with indigo Mayan blue patterns.

"This is a rebel from Toltec-Tepanek." Bertard affirmed after looking at the feathered snake tattoo.

"The rebels of Toltec-Tepanek?" Xiulot was a little curious, as the history of this aspect seemed to be rarely mentioned by the city-state.

"The Toltecs once established a large alliance in the northern part of the Valley of Mexico. The city of Tula, not far north of Tenochtitlan, was their last capital, and Teotihuacan, the holy city where you were born, was once It is their capital, and they take Kechalcoatl, the feathered snake god, as the main god to rule the world. Later, the Tepanek people on the west bank of Lake Texkoko will inherit the hegemony of the Toltecs. They came from the north, merged with the Toltecs, and established the kingdom of Tepanek."

"But then Feathered Serpent was exiled, and the war god Vitzilopochtli ruled the world and succeeded the sun god. He became the patron saint of the Mexica, and let the ancestors of Mexica live in Tes A great capital city was built on Lake Coco, and at the same time, it was promised to the ancestors: the Mexica have the destiny and will become the masters of the whole Mexico! This is the will of God.”

"The Toltec-Tepanek then worshiped the sun god, abandoned their capital city, dissolved their alliance, and joined the Mexica. They converted to the sun god, and the ancestors of the Mexica The peoples intermarried from generation to generation, and then fused together to establish the city-states of Mexico, which can be said to be one of our ancestors."

"Now the city-states in the west and north of the Mexico Valley still have many customs left by the Toltecs, such as the grand celebration of Feathered Serpent Day."

"Part of the Toltecs miss the Feathered Serpent God, chased after him to the east, and then evolved and merged to become the relatively peaceful Nahua-Totonak people on the eastern coast."

"There are only a small number of Toltec-Tepanek rebels who fanatically believe in Feathered Serpent, are hostile to the Mexica Alliance, and hide in the Otomi, Mexica, and Tarasco I linger in the deepest mountain forest at the junction. Speaking of which, the lair of these traitors is indeed not far from here."

Schlott thought of the frescoes of the Feathered Serpent found in Teotihuacan, the "Song of the Feathered Serpent" that his grandfather had dedicated to the king, and the New Year celebrations spent in the city-state. Indeed, there were Toltecs and Seal of Feathered Serpent Faith.

However, the history of the integration of the Topaneks by the Mexica, as told by Bertard, is like a myth: the sun god fused the two nations to create an alliance? His intuition told Xiulot that there must have been countless bloody storms and fights of faith to complete today's fusion, and it was whitewashed with mythology. But since Mexica is the final winner, he has no intention of exploring the truth of the year.

After confirming the identity of the unarmored warrior, Bertard went to check the bow and arrow warrior's body again, and saw black and white stripes on the small jacket under the leather armor.

"This is Otomi's samurai."

Xiu Luo nodded and picked up the wooden bow on the ground. This wooden bow is nearly 1.4 meters long, and the bow body is very thick. It is still in the shape of a single bow, and the bowstring is tight and powerful. Shulot tried to shoot an arrow, paired with a metal arrow on the ground, it was very powerful: 90 steps to kill no armor, 50 steps to break a single layer of cotton armor, and 30 steps to break through a double layer of cotton armor.

Shulot's eyes lit up first, this bow is much stronger than the sling. Soon after, I was afraid again. Even if I was wearing leather armor, if I was shot by several arrows at the same time at the thirty paces just now, I'm afraid I would be dead.

"This is the long wooden bow of the Tlaxcalans," Bertard assured.

Finally, the two continued to check the short spear with the metal tip and the metal arrow on the ground.

"Bronze spears and arrows of the Tarascos," said the two at the same time, relatively silent.

Next, the warriors packed up the equipment and weapons on the ground, cut off the heads of the enemies, and built small towers on the side of the road. Then they packed up the bodies of the war dead and buried them in the newly dug shallow pits.

Shulot silently watched Kusola being submerged by the earth, his expression was frozen, with a faint smile, and a soft water bag in his hand, which contained his wife's residual wine, as if he had returned to a warm home.

"Your son will definitely become a jaguar warrior." Shulot promised softly, his heart was full of sadness, but his face was calm and solemn.

Then he looked to the west at the city of Ottopan, two days away, and to the east and south: "The rebels of Toltec, the warriors of Otomi, the long wooden bows of Tlaxcala, and Tara Sko's brass weapon."

"It seems that the enemies of the empire have unknowingly reached a certain kind of alliance!" A trace of ominousness emerged in Shulot's heart, like a dark cloud far away in the sky.