Nezahualpili's surprise envelopment. The roar of drums was joined by the long wails and honks and bleats of the conch trumpets, then the whole noise began slowly to diminish, as the musicians led the decoy part of the army away from me, along the line of march toward the river and the waiting enemy.
What with the rainclouds practically within arm's reach overhead, the day did not begin with anything like a sunrise, but it was by then perceptibly lighter. Light enough, anyway, for me to see that the shrub behind which I had sat hunched all night was only a wizened, nearly leafless huixachi, which would not adequately have hidden a ground squirrel. I would have to seek a better place to lurk, and I still had plenty of time to do so. I got up creakily, carrying my maquahuitl and dragging my spear so it was not visible above the surrounding scrub, and I moved off in a sort of crouching lope.
What I could not tell you, even to this day, reverend friars, not even if you were to put me to the Inquisitorial persuasions, is why I went in the direction I did. To find other concealment, I could have moved backward or to either side, and still have been within hailing distance of the others of my company. But where I went was forward, eastward, toward the place where the battle would soon commence. I can only presume that something inside me was telling me, 'You are on the fringe of your first war, Dark Cloud, perhaps the only war you will ever be engaged in. It would be a pity to stay on the fringe, a pity not to experience as much of it as you can.'
However, I did not get near the river where the Acolhua confronted the Texcalteca. I did not even hear sounds of battle until the Acolhua, as Nezahualpili had hoped, rushed after them in full force. Then I heard the bellow and whoop of war cries, the shrieks and curses of wounded men, and, above all, the whistling of arrows and warbling of flung javelins. All our mock weapons at school, harmlessly blunted, had made no distinctive noise. But what I heard now were real missiles, pointed and bladed with keen obsidian, and, as if they exulted in their intent and ability to deal death, they sang as they flew through the air. Ever afterward, whenever I drew a history that included a battle, I always pictured the arrows, spears, and javelins accompanied by the curly symbol that means singing.
I never got closer than the noise of the battle—first coming from my right front, where the armies had met at the river, then progressing farther to my right, as the Acolhua fled and the Texcalteca gave chase. Then Nezahualpili's signal drums abruptly boomed for the corridor to close its walls, and the tumult of battle sounds multiplied and increased in volume: the brittle clash of weapons against weapons, the thuds of jaguar grunts, eagle screams, owl hoots. I could envision the Acolhua trying to restrain their own blows and thrusts, while the Texcalteca desperately fought with all their strength and skill, and with no compunction against killing.
I wished I could see it, for it would have been an instructive exhibition of the Acolhua's fighting skills. By the nature of the battle, theirs had to be the greater art. But there was rolling land between me and the battle site, and shrubbery and clumps of trees, and the gray curtain of rain, and of course my own nearsightedness. I might have tried to go nearer, but I was interrupted by a hesitant tap on my shoulder.
Still in my protective crouch, I whirled and leveled my spear, and almost skewered Cozcatl before I recognized him. The boy stood, also hunched over, with a warning finger to his lips. With the breath I had gasped in, I hissed out, 'Cozcatl, curse you! What are you doing here?'
He whispered, 'Following you, master. I have been near you all the night. I thought you might need a better pair of eyes.'
'Impertinent pest! I have not yet—
'No, master, not yet,' he said. 'But now, yes, you do. One of the enemy approaches. He would have seen you before you could see him.'
'What? An enemy?' I hunkered even lower.
'Yes, master. A Jaguar Knight in full regalia. He must have fought his way out of the ambush.' Cozcatl risked raising his head far enough for a quick look. 'I think he hopes to circle around and fall upon our men again from an unexpected direction.'
'Look again,' I said urgently. 'Tell me exactly where he is and where he is headed.'
The little slave bobbed up and down again and said, 'He is perhaps forty longpaces to your left front, master. He is moving slowly, bent over, though he does not appear to be wounded, merely cautious. If he continues as he goes, he will pass between two trees that stand ten long paces directly to your front.'
With those directions, a blind man could have managed the interception. I said, 'I am going to those trees. You stay here and keep a discreet eye on him. If he notices my movement, you will know it. Give me a shout and then run for the rear.'
I left my spear and my overmantle lying there, and took only my maquahuitl. Squirming almost as close to the ground as a snake does, I moved ahead until the trees loomed out of the rain. The two trees stood amid an undergrowth of high grass and low shrubs, through which an almost imperceptible deer trail had been lightly trampled. I had to assume that the fugitive Texcaltecatl was following that trail. I heard no warning call from Cozcatl, so I had got into position unobserved. I squatted on my heels at the base of one tree, keeping it between me and the man's approach. Holding my maquahuitl with both fists, I brought it back behind my shoulder, parallel to the ground, and held it poised.
Through the drizzle sound of the rain, I heard only the faintest rustle of grass and twigs. Then a muddy foot in a muddy sandal, its sole rimmed with jaguar claws, was set down on the ground directly in front of my hiding place. A moment later, the second foot stood beside it. The man, now sheltered between the trees, must have risked standing fully upright to look about and get his bearings.
I swung the obsidian-edged sword as I had once swung at a nopali trunk, and the knight seemed to hang in the air for an instant before he crashed full length on the ground. His feet in their sandals stayed where they were, severed above the ankles. I was on him in one bound, kicking away the maquahuitl he still grasped, and laying the blunt point of my own against his throat, and panting the ritual words spoken by a captor to his captive. In my time, we did not say anything so crude as, 'You are my prisoner.' We always said courteously, as I said to the fallen knight, 'You are my beloved son.'
He snarled viciously, 'Then bear witness! I curse all the gods and all their get!' But that outburst was understandable. After all, he was a knight of the elite Jaguar order, and he had been cut down—in his own one moment of carelessness—by a young, obviously new and untried soldier of the lowly yaoquizqui rank. I knew that, had we met face to face, he could have minced me at his leisure, sliver by sliver. He knew it too, and his face was purple and his teeth grated together. But at last his rage ebbed to resignation, and he replied with the traditional words of surrender, 'You are my revered father.'
I lifted my weapon from his neck and he sat up, to gaze stonily at the blood gushing from his leg stumps and at his two feet still standing patiently, almost unbloodied, side by side on the deer trail ahead of him. The knight's jaguar costume, though rain-drenched and mud-smeared, was still a handsome thing. The dappled skin which depended from the fierce helmet head was fashioned so that the animal's front legs served as sleeves, coming down the man's arms so that the claws rattled at his wrists. His fall had not broken the strap which held his brightly feathered round shield to his left forearm.
There was another rustling in the brush, and Cozcatl joined us, saying quietly but proudly, 'My master has taken his first war prisoner, all unaided.'
'And I do not want him to die,' I said, still panting—from excitement, not exertion. 'He is bleeding badly.'
'Perhaps the stumps could be tied off,' the man suggested, in the heavily accented Nahuatl of Texcala.
Cozcatl quickly unbound the leather thongs of his sandals and I tied one tightly around each of my prisoner's legs, just below the knee. The bleeding dwindled to an oozing. I stood up between the trees and looked and listened, as the knight had done. I was somewhat surprised at what I heard—which was not much. The uproar of battle to the south had diminished to no more than a hubbub like that of a crowded marketplace, a babble interspersed with shouted commands. Obviously, during my little skirmish, the main battle had been concluded.
I said to the glum warrior, meaning it for condolence, 'You are not the only captive, my beloved son. It appears that your whole army has been defeated.' He only grunted. 'Now I will take you to have your wounds tended. I think I can carry you.'
'Yes, I weigh less now,' he said sardonically.
I bent down with my back to him and took his shortened legs under my arms. He looped his arms around my neck, and his blazoned shield covered my chest as if it had been my own. Cozcatl had already brought my mantle and spear; now he collected my wicker shield and my blood-stained maquahuitl. Tucking those things under his arms, he picked up an amputated foot in either hand and followed me as I moved off through the rain. I trudged
