King of The World's Edge

by H. Warner Munn

  As we neared the wood, out burst the remnants of that mighty Mia army in close array, like a wounded bear, blood-blind who smites about him in every direction, hoping to kill before he dies.

  Shame was burning them and they meant to make their mark upon us!

  Then our long days of discipline told. Peremptorily my trumpet sang through the shouting, answered shrilly by the war-whistles held by tribunes and centurions, and instantly our whole ragged advance stiffened from a mob into an army, whose even ranks separated, giving room to those behind that they also might shoot. Now, facing the Mias, stood the harrow formation of the quincunx, from which poured such a devastating volley that the attackers shrank back upon themselves. “Stand fast!” I shouted, expecting a rally, but they were beaten. They broke and ran, scattered for the last time.

  A great cry went up from behind me. Man-who-burns-hair plunged past, his face like a fiend’s, dabbled with paint, distorted with hate and fury. Following him, the slave centuries entered the forest, out of formation, obeying no command, hunting, each man for himself like a hungry pack of wolves harrying the fleeing deer, chasing the panic-stricken antlered man-herd.

  Not many returned. In the forest they fought and died, counting death a little thing in the avenging of so many wrongs. A few came back while we were hunting out the bodies of our dead and piling them into a mound for mass burial, outfitting each with weapons and water bottle to be used in the long journey to Mictlampa, Land of the Dead. Others appeared while the priests were writing out the passes which each must have on the journey, in order to go unhindered by precipices and dangerous monsters. All the dogs in camp were killed, that they might precede their masters into the underworld and help them across the last barrier—a broad river.

  How Myrdhinn would have been shocked, could he have seen it!

  I myself was more than a little dismayed at the treatment of our numerous captives. Many were flayed, to the glory of the gods, others killed in unfair combat, being tethered by one foot to a stone, and pitted singly with toy weapons against four fully armed men, while a large basket called “The Cup of Eagles” was completely filled with the hearts taken from those who had been fastened to scaffolds and filled with arrows there that their blood might drip upon the ground as a libation to the gods. And I was one of the gods!

  I was glad that Myrdhinn was away.

  At length these dreadful rites were over, though night came upon us before the heap of bodies was smoothly rounded with well-tamped earth.

  We made tamalli cakes of meal and supped; but there were many, I knew but could not prevent, who had red meat, though it had been long since we had hunted for game.

  In the night I heard a whisper at my hut-entrance. “Tecutli [Lord].” I did not answer, but in the morning found Man-who-burns-hair lying across the opening, the last to return from the harrying.

  He was no longer commander of many, nothing now but a simple centurion, for no more than that number of slaves were now alive to march behind him, but when we moved out of that glade of death and vengeance he bore himself with as proud a carriage as any Caesar at the head of a triumph. One could see that never more could he be a slave. He had bought back his manhood with blood.

  18 The New Kukulcan

  The strength of our enemy in the field was broken, but their spirit was not, and as they fled through the forests singly or in small groups they snarled back their defiance and turned to fight like cornered tree-cats when we came too close.

  We crossed the fertile valley and entered a trackless wilderness between the rivers where we were constantly tormented by unexpected attacks. We never crossed a ford uncontested, never entered a forest opening without hearing atlatl darts whistle across it at our scouts.

  They distressed us immensely and we believed that we were well rid of them when we burst eventually into the cultivated country. It was a disappointment to find that the retreating bands of Mias had devastated the fields of growing gram and vegetables, burned buildings and stores of provisions, and stripped the sections of country in our path bare of anything which might be of use to us.

  Occasionally a slave, skulking amid smoking rums to grub for a morsel of charred food, came and attached himself to our force, hoping for better rations, but we were in bitter plight. There were many hungry days when no one ate and when the weakest lay by the way to rest and follow, if the gods willed, or to die and burden us no more. Thankful then were we that our women were secure in their strong fort at the junction of the rivers.

  Our one thought was to push on and on, to drive through the heart of this country, make our connection with Myrdhinn and the Hodenosaunee, and to rest and eat again. We looked upon the new recruits as thieves, stealing the food out of our mouths; yet had it not been for one of these unwanted men, we might not have been so successful.

  He directed us to a large underground winter storehouse of teocentli, put up in barrels in earthenware, hollow tree-trunks and bark baskets. It had been overlooked by our enemy, and we seized upon the grain with joy, ground it and made tamalli cakes, surely sweeter than ever food had tasted before to any man. Some ground it between stones and, without cooking, mixed the meal with water as we used to treat wheat when marching with the Sixth in Britain, drinking it down to ease the pain of their shriveled insides, before treating that space to more solid food.

  We had enough for both cohorts—yea, and something left over for the next two days, though it was sparingly used.

  From this man we learned that those we followed were massacring all slaves who were too old or too young to fight. Women and babes at the breast had been cut down by these red-handed sons of the Red Land and only those were left alive who swore allegiance to the Empire of Kukulcan. Thus a steadily enlarging force was preceding us in the direction of the Four Cities, though into which one it intended to enter and make a stand against us, we could not guess.

  We could do nothing but follow in its track, so wide a strip of desolation was being made, and we did follow, hoping to come up with them and destroy them; but we never quite managed this, though often we saw flames burst out of buildings just ahead, or came upon butchered slaves still warm, though gone to the Land of the Dead.

  Now we could guess that the Mias felt themselves in desperate straits, though they knew their own plight better than we. We learned from refugees that most of the frontier forts had fallen before the roaring fury that aroused Chichameca had, in its uniting, flung upon them. To the east, we were told the land was overrun with war-parties, acknowledging no master, burning, slaying, looting wherever occasion offered, so that no man’s life was safe, except in the great towns, and fortified cities of refuge.

  And there were rumors that in the North, the Holy City of the Snake had fallen, and no more would the Devourer there engorge herself on hapless slaves; but this I discredited, for I did not believe that all the Hodenosaunee could gather enough power to take that stronghold, providing the countrymen had sought shelter.

  We did not know that Myrdhinn had taken the City of the Snake, gutted it, sparing only women and children of the Mias, though giving quarter to all Tlapallicos who flung down their arms and sought mercy. The People of the Long House had slain the H’menes, torn down the pavilion and altar on the ill-famed Egg and erected there a twenty-foot cross, at Myrdhinn’s orders, and afterward had quitted the city and were now coming to meet us, in all haste.

  Before we found out these things, we came to the southernmost of the Four Cities, the strong walled city of Tlacopan, and sat down outside the walls to make ourselves comfortable in the siege of it; none too soon either, for my men were beginning to murmur at the long wandering and empty bellies and no foe that they could meet to satisfy their numerous grudges upon since that one forest battle.

  Truly, I think that had it not been for my reputation as a living god of war they would not have followed me so far—for, after all, they were only barbarians who were being forced by my will t
o actions foreign to anything in their previous experience. It is a perilous thing to be the midwife when a nation is born.

  If any among us had thought that the reduction of this fortified city would be a simple thing, they had the idea knocked out of them when we first stormed the palisades on all its four sides.

  We learned then what a vast difference there could be in siege-fighting, depending entirely whether Aztlan or Tlapallan was on the inside of the earthworks.

  They let us come on, much as we had enticed our pursuers, then all along the parapets we saw heads popping up, and slingstones began to whiz and whir. Very accurate they were, too, and deadly.

  Most of the front rank went down on my side, I know, and the mortality was high elsewhere, but the battle was carried in close to the walls in the face of a slinging storm of darts, and we tried to set fire to the logs. However, everything being wet from a three-day rain, fortune did not favor us, and being without shelter of any kind we fell back to let nature fight for us.

  Like most of these towns, a double earthwork and palisade led from the fortifications to a nearby river, for the procuring of water. This was a good protection against atlatl darts, which are thrown with an overhand cast and fly in a straight line, but was worthless against the dropping fire of our archers. We made life so miserable for the defenders by maintaining a steady drop of arrows, and by patrolling the river entrance to this path, that finally we were enabled to drive out those holding the gate, and seizing the earthworks we cut the city entirely off from its water supply.

  Days went on, and we knew they must be suffering from thirst, if not from hunger. We, too, were famished, for the fish and game available was not nearly enough and we were living scantily upon gram that the scouts brought in from undestroyed villages and farms.

  Then, one day when we all felt certain that surrender must be near, a wild-eyed scout came hurrying in with the news that a large army was marching upon us to relieve the fort. I knew that at all costs we must be behind the shelter of those walls when the new enemy came up, so I gave over the command to the tribunes, with orders to knock together a number of light ladders, to storm the walls, and make ready to receive us as we fell slowly back upon the town. I sallied out with ten centuries from Aztlan, five from Tolteca, and most of the freed Tlapallicos to be used as light wood-runners to find the enemy, engage him and entice him into a nearby pass where he would be at our mercy beneath falling rock.

  With the works suffering the fiercest attack of the siege, we left them, and not long after, high in the air, lying behind piles of hastily gathered boulders, hidden and waiting all tense for the fight, knowing that after the one sharp blow we must flee, we were praying that we would have a shelter to feel secure in.

  We saw the naked bodies of our savage allies slipping silently among the underbrush in the pass below, and from our eminence could see the van of the enemy closely in pursuit.

  What was this? Here were no antlered Tlapallican helmets! Nowhere slanted the repugnantly flattened brow of a Mia! Instead I saw the single dipping feathers of the Hodenosaunee, Myrdhinn’s own nation! Friends, not foes!

  “Hold your fire,” I shouted, and tumbled headlong to meet them. In no tune I was hugging my old comrades—Valerius, Antoninus, Intinco the Caledonian, Lucius—and gravely shook Myrdhinn’s hand. I felt a strong palm on my shoulder.

  “Atoharo, my brother,” said Hayonwatha.

  And I hugged him in my glee till his ribs creaked against my lorica and I saw that stern face tighten into a grin, for once. Oh, he could laugh, that hero blood-brother of mine, but none but his friends and family ever knew it!

  In haste I brought down my companies, and, mingling, we hurried back to lend a hand in the battle but found that Tlacopan had fallen to my tribunes, who had immediately denied their pledged terms when the Mia weapons had been thrown down. They had allowed all Tlapallicos to retain their weapons and bidden them settle accounts with their former masters.

  The payment was about completed when we arrived, but I had the pleasure of demoting those tribunes to the ranks and raising six of my Valiants to their places, and I would have made Man-who-burns-hair one of them and given him authority over our new Tlapallico recruits, but when I looked for him he was gone from his place, and could not be found among the slain, either within or without the city.

  He did not turn up the next day, so I was reluctantly forced to believe him dead in the forest, but could not hold the march for one centurion; so we razed the palisades and burned the buildings, marching the following day.

  Three nations were we, and numbered over twenty thousand lances, counting our not very dependable Tlapallico allies who were too new to us for me to trust their loyalty if they became too hungry.

  Our destination now was Colhuacan, the City of the Twisting Mound, where Mixcoatl, the Storm Serpent, was worshiped, second only in holiness and sacrifices to the foul City of the Snake. Thither the priest-king Kukulcan had fled, before his city had been taken, and only ten miles away lay the greatest citadel of Tlapal-lan—Miapan, whose earth ramparts were higher and thicker than Hadrian’s Wall.

  We might take Colhuacan, but would it be possible to enter Miapan in another status than that of captive? We marched. We would see.

  Again we were obliged to fight our way, and again we were annoyed in all the familiar manners.

  The season now being far advanced, we dreaded that we might fail because of snows if we were too long delayed, and Myrdhinn and I knew well that if we did fail, such a force would be impossible to bring together again. I wondered if I dared ask the help of sorcery and was on the point of it many times but did not, knowing Myrdhinn’s views upon the matter.

  As we approached the country where Colhuacan lay, we were surprised to find that resistance was growing less instead of greater, and pushed forward cautiously, expecting a trap, but soon resistance died down altogether and we came out of the glades into the cleared land and saw the walls of the city.

  The gates were open and there was an affray there.

  Men ran out and were followed by others, who cut them down; there was rebellion in the city, and the Mias were fleeing from the Tlapallico slaves!

  “Forward, Aztlan!” I cried, and led the way at a run.

  A scarred man I knew came out to meet me. It was Man-who-burns-hair! “Tecutli! Lord Huitzilopochtli!” he hailed exultantly. “Behold your enemy!” And he flung a bleeding head at my feet.

  One glance at the flabby cheeks and pouched eyes was enough, without the ornate golden circlet and antlers for corroboration.

  The family resemblance to the ruler who had once sentenced me to death was strong. It was indeed the Kukulcan, the Mian ruler.

  “How did you do it?” I asked in joyous wonder as we entered the city through a cheering host of armed slaves.

  “Deserted, had myself taken prisoner, talked to the slaves when I was put with them—told of massacred Tlapallicos the Mias left on the road to Tlacopan, told of heroes, of living gods, of the men I led—told of the master who cut the flesh from my back with a copper whip—bade them rise when we knew you were near. Lord, may I lead men again?”

  “You may indeed, and soon shall. It is well done.”

  And that day, in the sacred city of Colhuacan, he was raised to the post of tribune, delighting him greatly, though his glory was overshadowed; for that day, by popular acclaim without a single dissenting voice, Myrdhinn was unanimously chosen the new Kukulcan, and Tlapallan for the first time in all history had a white ruler.

  19 How We Came to Maipan

  As we lay in the shelter of Mian walls, resting, and replacing broken weapons with new, our scouts went out spying upon Miapan and the reports they brought back made me thoughtful. It was almost impregnable. The city-fortress is divided in three parts: the North, Middle and South forts.

  The whole is situated on a plateau three hundred feet above the nearby river, and deep gullies and
ravines surround it like a moat at all points except in the northeast, the only point where the land joins the plateau in a level manner. Here is a great plain, with every tree and bush removed, so that no besieger can find shelter. Here the Mias were wont to hold their sports, as you shall learn.

  Fronting this plain, the walls of the North Fort are at their strongest, being seventy feet thick at the base and twenty-three feet high. On the plain side is a wide and deep moat, filled with water to protect this most exposed portion of Miapan. There is also a moat, more shallow, just inside the wall. This was also filled with water, and sharp stakes were planted in it.

  From this point, the gullies form natural defenses, and the walls are not so high or thick; yet they continue, zigzagging to protect every foot of level ground upon the surface of the plateau. They form a total length of more than three and a half miles, though a straight line from the north to the south walls is less than one mile.

  There are five main gateways, and sixty-eight other gaps in this long wall, each opening being about ten feet wide, and each being protected by a blockhouse reaching out beyond the wall. From these bastions, defenders could enfilade the outside of the ramparts.

  Along the top of the wall ran a sharpened palisade, also with openings for defense, supplied with small wickets, easily closed and easily defended.

  At many spots where the declivity beyond was quite inaccessible, a little platform was either built out or cut into the wall itself. These were sentinel stands and were always occupied, except when under direct fire, thus rendering any surprise attack almost impossible.

  In the North Fort was the military camp, which we must attack from the plain, for the Middle Fort and the South Fort were well protected by deep gullies whose walls were steep and composed of crumbling earth. Trapped in these, we must inevitably perish, even though above us lay only the families of the warriors.

  In the military camp, our first interest, our spies estimated at least forty thousand men awaited us; fully armed, very active, was the report, and constantly drilling.