toward the murmurous noise to the south, where the fighting had finally wound down, and where I supposed our army would be disentangling the resultant confusion. Halfway there, I met the members of my own company, as Blood Glutton was collecting them from their various overnight stations to march them back to the main body of the army.
'Fogbound!' shouted the cuachic. 'How dared you desert your post? Where have you—?' Then his roaring stopped, but his mouth stayed open, and his eyes opened almost as wide. 'May I be damned to Mictlan! Look what my most treasured student has brought! I must inform the commander Xococ!' And he dashed away.
My fellow soldiers regarded me and my trophy with awe and envy. One of them said, 'I will help you carry him, Fogbound.'
'No!' I gasped, the only breath I could spare. No one else would claim a share of the credit for my exploit.
And so I—bearing the sullen Jaguar Knight, trailed by the jubilant Cozcatl, escorted by Xococ and Blood Glutton proudly striding on either side of me—finally came to the main body of both armies, at the place where the battle had ended. A tall pole bore the flag of surrender which the Texcalteca had raised: a square of wide gold mesh, like a gilded piece of fishnet.
The scene was not of celebration or even tranquil enjoyment of victory. Most of those warriors of both sides who had not been wounded, or were only trivially wounded, lay about in postures of extreme exhaustion. Others, both Acolhua and Texcalteca, were not lying still but writhing and contorting, as they variously screamed or moaned a ragged chorus of 'Yya, yyaha, yya ayya ouiya,' while the physicians moved among them with their medicines and ointments, and the priests with their mumbles. A few ablebodied men were assisting the doctors, while others went about collecting scattered weapons, dead bodies, and detached parts of bodies: hands, arms, legs, even heads. It would have been difficult for a stranger to tell which of the men in that wasteland of carnage were the victors and which the vanquished. Over all hung the commingled smell of blood, sweat, body dirt, urine, and feces.
Weaving as I walked, I peered about, looking for someone in authority to whom I might deliver my captive. But the word had got there before me. I was suddenly confronted by the chief of all the chiefs. Nezahualpili himself. He was garbed as a Uey-Tlatoani should be—in cloak—but under that he wore the feathered and quilted armor of an Eagle Knight, and it was spattered with blood spots. He had not just stood aloof in command, but had joined in the fighting himself. Xococ and Blood Glutton respectfully dropped several steps behind me as Nezahualpili greeted me with a raised hand.
I eased my captive down to the ground, made a tired gesture of presentation, and said, with the last of my breath, 'My lord, this—this is my—well-beloved son.'
'And this,' the knight said with irony, nodding up at me, 'this is my revered father. Mixpantzinco, Lord Speaker.
'Well done, young Mixtli,' said the commander. 'Ximopanolti, Jaguar Knight Tlaui-Colotl.'
'I greet you, old enemy,' said my prisoner to my lord. 'This is the first time we have met outside the frenzy of battle.'
'And the last time, it appears,' said the Uey-Tlatoani, kneeling down companionably beside him. 'A pity. I shall miss you. Those were some wondrous duels we had, you and I. Indeed, I looked forward to the one that would not be inconclusively ended by the intervention of our underlings.' He sighed. 'It is sometimes as saddening to lose a worthy foe as to lose a good friend.'
I listened to that exchange in some amazement. It had not earlier occurred to me to notice the device worked in feathers on my prisoner's shield: Tlaui-Colotl. The name, Armed Scorpion, meant nothing to me, but obviously it was famous in the world of professional soldiers. Tlaui-Colotl was one of those knights of whom I have spoken: a man whose renown was such that it devolved upon the man who finally bested him.
Armed Scorpion said to Nezahualpili: 'I slew four of your knights, old enemy, to fight free of your cursed ambush. Two Eagles, a Jaguar, and an Arrow. But if I had known what my tonali had in store'—he threw me a look of amused disdain—'I would have let one of them take me.'
'You will fight other knights before you die,' the Revered Speaker told him, consolingly. 'I will see to that. Now let us ease your injuries.' He turned and shouted to a doctor working on a man nearby.
'Only a moment, my lord,' said the doctor. He was bent over an Acolhuatl warrior whose nose had been sliced off, but fortunately recovered, though somewhat mashed and muddy from having been much trodden upon. The surgeon was sewing it back onto the hole in the soldier's face, using a maguey thorn for a needle and one of his own long hairs for a thread. The replacement looked more hideous than the hole. Then the doctor hastily slathered the nose with a paste of salted honey, and came scurrying to my prisoner.
'Undo those thongs on his legs,' he said to a soldier assistant, and to another, 'Scoop out from the fire yonder a basin of the hottest coals.' Armed Scorpion's stumps began slowly to bleed again, then to spurt, and they were gushing by the time the assistant came bearing a wide, shallow bowl of white-hot embers, over which small flames flickered.
'My lord physician,' Cozcatl said helpfully, 'here are his feet.'
The doctor grunted in exasperation. 'Take them away. Feet cannot be stuck back on like blobs of noses.' To the wounded man he said, 'One at a time or both at once?'
'As you will,' Armed Scorpion said indifferently. He had never once cried out or whimpered with pain, and he did not then, as the doctor took one of his stumps in each hand and plunged both their raw ends into the dish of glowing coals. Cozcatl turned and fled the sight. The blood sizzled and made a pink cloud of stinking steam. The flesh crackled and made a blue smoke that was less offensive. Armed Scorpion regarded the process as calmly as did the physician, who lifted the now charred and blackened leg ends out of the coals. The searing had sealed off the slashed vessels, and no more blood flowed. The doctor liberally applied to the stumps a healing salve: beeswax mixed with the yolks of birds' eggs, the juice of alder bark and of the barbasco root. Then he stood up and reported, 'The man is in no danger of dying, my lord, but it will be some days before he recovers from the weakness of having lost so much blood.'
Nezahualpili said, 'Let there be a noble's litter prepared for him. The eminent Armed Scorpion will lead the column of captives.' Then he turned to Xococ, regarded him coldly, and said:
'We Acolhua lost many men today, and more will die of their injuries before we see home again. The enemy lost about the same, but the surviving prisoners are almost as many as our surviving warriors. To the number of thousands. Your Revered Speaker Ahuitzotl should be pleased at the work we have done for him and his god. If he and Chimalpopoca of Tlacopan had sent genuine armies of full strength, we might well have gone on to vanquish the entire land of Texcala.' He shrugged. 'Ah, well. How many captives did your Mexica take?'
Knight Xococ shuffled his feet, coughed, pointed to Armed Scorpion, and mumbled, 'My lord, you are looking at the only one. Perhaps the Tecpaneca took a few stragglers, I do not know yet. But of the Mexica'—he motioned at me—'only this yaoquizqui...'
'No longer a yaoquizqui, as you well know,' Nezahualpili said tartly. 'His first capture makes him an iyac in rank. And this single captive—you heard him say he slew four Acolhua knights today. Let me tell you: Armed Scorpion has never troubled to count his victims of lesser rank than knight. But he has probably accounted for hundreds of Acolhua, Mexica, and Tecpaneca in his time.'
Blood Glutton was sufficiently impressed to murmur, 'Fogbound is a hero in truth.'
'No,' I said. 'It was not really my sword stroke, but a stroke of fortune, and I could not have done it without Cozcatl, and—'
'But it happened,' Nezahualpili said, silencing me. To Xococ he continued, 'Your Revered Speaker may wish to reward the young man with something higher than iyac rank. In this engagement he alone has upheld the Mexica reputation for valor and initiative. I suggest that you present him in person to Ahuitzotl, along with a letter which I myself will write.'
'As you command, my lord,' said Xococ, almost literally kissing the earth. 'We are very proud of our Fogbound.'
'Then call him by some other name! Now, enough of this loitering about. Get your troops in order, Xococ. I appoint you and them the Swallowers and Swaddlers. Move!'
Xococ took that like a slap in the face, which it was, but he and Blood Glutton obediently went off at a trot. As I have told earlier, the Swaddlers were those who either tied or took charge of the prisoners so that none escaped. The Swallowers went about the whole area of battle and beyond, seeking out and knifing to death those of the wounded who were beyond relief. When that was done, they heaped and burned the bodies, allies and enemies
