Year 10 of the SuaChie Calendar, Tlaxcala Territory.
[WARNING: SCENE +18, CONTAINS GORE]
The noon sun, now an unrelenting witness, stained the dust of the Tlaxcalan village red as the Mexica charge broke like a storm of obsidian. Cuitláhuac, the blood of his first victim still warm on his macana, felt the collective rage of his men as a shared pulse: two fallen—the novice Cuauhtli and the veteran Xipilli—had ignited a frenzy that no longer distinguished tactics from pure slaughter.
"For our brothers!" he roared from the center, his voice swallowed by the initial clangor of metal against metal.
The 38 warriors had split into four fronts—east, west, south, north—like the closing fingers of a claw. The air filled with the coppery stench of fresh blood, mingled with the acrid smoke of burning huts; the cries of children pierced the chaos like arrows, and the ground trembled beneath boots and bare feet.
Cuitláhuac advanced through the south, his macana raised high, but his eyes shifted north, where a group of eight Mexica surrounded six Tlaxcalan warriors protecting a cluster of families huddled behind them.
In the Northern Field.
Tlacotl, the 18-year-old who had survived the initial ambush, led the encirclement, his chest heaving with furious gasps. His seven companions formed an irregular semi-circle, their macanas dripping the blood of the fallen guards, their painted faces contorted in a thirst for vengeance.
"You will not escape!" Tlacotl growled, his voice hoarse, as he struck his shield with his macana, a menacing rhythm echoing in the tight air. The Mexica swayed back and forth, shouting insults—"Tlaxcalan dogs! Your hearts for Huitzilopochtli!"—their bloodshot eyes gleaming with an animal hunger.
Facing them, the six Tlaxcalan warriors stood like a living wall, bronze spears trembling in calloused hands, hardened leather shields raised. Behind them, women hugged sobbing children, elders murmured prayers to Camaxtli with broken voices; the warriors' faces were masks of pure anguish—moist eyes fixed on wives, daughters, fathers—the weight of their families a chain around their chests.
Neither side advanced; the tension was an invisible knot, the hot wind laden with sweat and fear.
Suddenly, two Tlaxcalans—brothers, by their identical, dirt-stained tunics—charged with desperate impetus, spears low, a guttural roar escaping their throats: "For our mothers!" The Mexica tensed, shields raised, macanas ready—Tlacotl blinked, surprised by the sheer audacity.
"Get them!" he ordered, but the Tlaxcalans executed a clever feint, zigzagging between smoking huts toward the northern edge.
"Pursue them!" Tlacotl barked, and two Mexica—he himself and a robust man named Itzcoatl, 25 years old—leapt in pursuit, boots trampling crushed maize. The hunting cries filled the air: "Don't run, cowards!"
The chase wound between cracked adobe walls, shadows lengthened by the sun. Itzcoatl hurled his spear from ten paces, the shaft whistling; it grazed the shoulder of the lead Tlaxcalan, tearing a muffled cry from him, but failed to bring him down. The pursued separated again in a narrow alley, one turning left and the other, right—a subtle trap.
Itzcoatl, gasping, spun right alone, macana ready.
"Come here, rat!" he spat, but upon rounding the corner, the Tlaxcalan was waiting in ambush, bronze knife flashing. The man sprang like a coyote; the blade aimed straight for the chest. Itzcoatl instinctively dodged, twisting his torso—but not enough. The tip sank into his right ribs, a scorching fire exploding in his flank.
"Agh!" he howled, a cry that ripped the air, hot blood soaking his padded tunic.
He staggered, hand pressing the wound, while the Tlaxcalan retreated to finish him. Tlacotl, alerted by the shriek, ran toward the sound, heart hammering. "Itzcoatl!" He arrived, gasping: his companion was on his knees, bleeding out into a red puddle, his pale face contorted in agony.
The Tlaxcalan raised the knife again, eyes fierce. Tlacotl swung his macana in a savage arc straight for the enemy's neck—crack—blood splattering his face, arms, and the adobe. The Tlaxcalan gurgled, his eyes losing light in a final flicker of rage, his body collapsing with a wet thud. The scene was horrifying: arterial blood pumping in arcs, flies already buzzing.
Itzcoatl, his voice a weak thread, looked at Tlacotl with glassy eyes. "Avenge me... guard my family in Tenochtitlan..."
"I will guard them," Tlacotl promised.
Itzcoatl coughed blood, then whispered urgently: "Behind you!"
Tlacotl whirled in fury, the second Tlaxcalan charging from his blind side, spear raised. With a primal roar—"Die!"—Tlacotl snatched up Itzcoatl's fallen spear and plunged it into the attacker's belly, the blade slicing through flesh with a wet shuck.
The Tlaxcalan arched, a moan escaping before he collapsed. Tlacotl, rage boiling like lava, with no time for tears, ran back to the northern front, the blood of strangers dripping from his macana.
His six companions, having struck down two more Tlaxcalan warriors in the lull, saw him arrive covered in red, his frame rigid.
"Itzcoatl is dead!" Tlacotl barked, his voice broken yet fierce. Their faces hardened—collective wrath burning brighter.
"Finish them!" they roared in unison, lunging like a pack.
The four remaining Tlaxcalans, two elders and three women, rose in desperation, clutching what remained: broken spears, knives, even sticks.
"Protect the children!" cried one woman, her voice trembling but resolute, as she pulled away to guide a handful of youngsters toward a hidden alley—their small feet kicking up blood-soaked dust, their sobs muffled.
The Mexica made no distinction: macanas whistled, cleaving necks, abdomens, and legs. A grey-bearded Tlaxcalan elder, 60 years old, drove his knife into the thigh of a Mexica before taking a blow to the head that split him open like a melon.
"For Camaxtli!" he gasped, falling.
A young woman, mother of three, fought with tooth and nail, clawing at a Mexica's face until a spear pierced her shoulder—she continued to struggle, desperation lending her superhuman strength, killing a novice with a lucky slash before collapsing.
The Tlaxcalan warriors struck down 2 more Mexica—one with his throat cut, another with shattered ribs—their bravery born from the knowledge that they were already dead, each blow a farewell to their loved ones.
Five minutes of hell: blood dominated the northern ground, red pools reflecting the sun, shouts and echoes reverberating like broken drums. Bodies intertwined, steaming entrails, flies buzzing in open mouths.
The four victorious Mexica—Tlacotl and three others—stood gasping over the pile, their faces not triumphant but grim, a bitter victory for the eight total fallen. One, a veteran named Quetzal, saw movement: a Tlaxcalan woman, 30 years old, agonizing, dragging herself with a leg severed to the bone and her stomach ripped open, pinkish entrails showing.
She murmured prayers—"Camaxtli, protect my Ixtli..."—words of farewell to her escaped son, tears carving streaks through dust and blood. Quetzal, residual anger burning, approached by reflex, macana raised. He knelt, listening to her gasp.
"Your pleas will not be heard," he spat, his voice cold as obsidian. "Huitzilopochtli is with us. Soon your son will suffer... just like your entire village."
The woman looked at him in horror, her agony doubled—physical pain and a broken soul—she tried to beg: "Please... he is only a child..."
But Quetzal stood up, his eyes hard. "He will soon join you."
He raised the macana with brutal force, bringing it down upon her neck—an audible crunch, bones parting, blood exploding in jets that splashed his tunic, face, and the earth around them. The sensation flooded his hand: soft flesh yielding, bone splintering like dry wood, an exquisite tremor of power that left him gasping. The body convulsed once, then stilled, the head nearly severed.
Tlacotl watched the scene, his anger unsated.
"Enough!" he barked, pointing south where Cuitláhuac roared orders.
The north was clean—the families dead, save for the escaped children—but the entire village burned on the other fronts. Nevertheless, they could not join them, they could not allow the children to escape, and so they decided to capture them.
The red dust of the Tlaxcalan village rose in suffocating clouds as the four remaining Mexica warriors—Tlacotl in the lead, flanked by three veterans whose macanas still dripped blood—trotted eastward with a disciplined pace, neither rushed nor sluggish. Cuitláhuac's orders echoed in their minds like war drums: "All must die... No survivors."
The air blazed with the sun, heavy with the metallic stench of the recent butchery, and their boots crunched over crushed maize rows.
Tlacotl whistled between his teeth, a sharp, mocking sound that cut the tense silence; another roared like an enraged jaguar, mimicking the forest beasts the Tlaxcalans so feared. "Run, rat! We'll smell you out!" spat a third, his voice hoarse with accumulated rage, while the fourth beat his shield with his macana, a hypnotic rhythm that accelerated their pulses.
Urgency burned in their chests—they knew the escaped children could venture into Tlaxcalan territory, seek help, alert Ocotelolco.
"They won't escape," Tlacotl thought, his painted face hardened, the salty taste of sweat mingling with the splashes of others' blood on his lips. Fresh tracks marked the path: tiny footprints beside an irregular drag-mark—the wounded woman guiding the youngsters.
...
[WARNING: SCENE +21, CONTAINS GORE INVOLVING MINORS
The following scene is highly realistic and includes customary acts executed by the involved cultures.
PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION]
...
They ran a quarter of a league, the terrain ascending toward a hill dotted with mesquite trees, until a dusty clearing revealed the scene: six of their comrades, macanas raised, surrounding the woman and the eight remaining children.
The woman, in her thirties, knelt with an arm severed at the elbow, blood spurting in weak pulses that soaked her tattered tunic; her face was a shattered mask, cheeks streaked with tears and dirt, swollen eyes fixed on her children.
The children wept and pleaded, their high voices piercing the air: "Please, sirs! We are only children!"
One, a five-year-old, slipped between Mexica legs, but a spear flew whistling and impaled him through the back—the shaft drove through his small body, pinning him to the ground like an insect.
His scream echoed, heart-rending, diminishing to gurgling moans as blood flowed down the shaft, dripping uniformly onto the dust, forming symmetrical pools that reflected the relentless sun.
Another child, aged seven, ran zigzagging; two spears found him, one in the leg, the other in the torso—he fell, kicking weakly, his voice a shriek that died out in gurgles, his vitality collapsing like a punctured wineskin.
The woman tried to plead again, her voice broken by sobs: "No... my last ones... by Camaxtli, leave them!"
Her desperate eyes locked onto a six-year-old boy, her youngest son, huddled trembling behind her. But the Mexica did not listen; the cuts were precise—a slash across a girl's neck, a blow to a boy's temple—with no compassion in their hardened faces.
Tlacotl arrived first, gasping, and caught that maternal glance toward the boy. The accumulated rage—for Itzcoatl, for Xipilli, for the unexpected losses—mixed with a dark cruelty that chilled his gut.
"You!" he roared, seizing the boy by the arm amidst his screams and the mother's wails.
The little one kicked: "Mother! No!"
Tlacotl raised the macana with one hand, the obsidian edge flashing, and brought it down in a brutal cut across the chest—a wet crack, ribs splintering. He thrust his hand into the steaming cavity, tearing out the still-fiercely-beating heart, arteries bursting in hot streams that splashed his arm. The boy convulsed once, eyes glazed over, and then stilled, the tiny heart throbbing in Tlacotl's palm.
The woman shrieked stridently, an inhuman sound that tore the air: "Ixtli! Nooo!"
Her face burned—rage, pain, absolute sorrow—veins swollen in her neck, tears flowing like rivers. Seeing her son die broke her spiritually; the blood loss from her arm hastened the collapse. She slumped forward, a death rattle escaping her throat, her eyes fixed on Ixtli's body.
Blood loss or a broken heart?
The Mexica did not care; one warrior spat: "Pathetic."
The group's leader—a 30-year-old veteran named Nacochtli—looked at Tlacotl, wiping his macana on a dead child's tunic.
"Your company?" he asked, his voice neutral but tense, expecting bad news. Tlacotl shook his head, jaw clenched, speechless—the image of the beating heart still burned in his mind, a bitter euphoria mixed with emptiness.
"Enough," Nacochtli growled. "To the south. Cuitláhuac waits."
...
[END OF SCENE +21
WARNING: SCENE +18, CONTAINS GORE]
In the South.
The terrain descended toward a dry ravine flanked by thorny prickly pears (nopales), where Cuitláhuac and his nine remaining warriors had cornered the last Tlaxcalans: seven exhausted warriors, fifteen women, ten elders, and a dozen children huddled behind them.
The sun beat down mercilessly, the air vibrating with the buzz of flies drawn by fresh blood; the stench of sweat, fear, and viscera hung heavy. Cuitláhuac felt the battle's pulse in his temples—the two initial deaths had taught him caution; they wanted an impeccable victory, no more casualties.
"Surround them," he ordered, his voice low and controlled, signaling positions. His men advanced, shouting, roaring like beasts, whistling sharply to break the enemy's morale. It worked: the Tlaxcalans trembled, faces pale, hands gripping the bronze spears with white knuckles. "Your gods forsake you!" howled a Mexica, his shield struck rhythmically.
Then, the youngest Tlaxcalan warrior—a 17-year-old boy, thin and wide-eyed with terror—broke away from the group, kneeling before the Mexica with open arms.
"Take me as a slave! Only me!" he pleaded, his voice cracking, head bowed low.
His companions cried out: "Traitor! Idiot!"—they knew the shift in Mexica tactics; there would be no sacrifices, only death. Cuitláhuac raised an eyebrow, calculating.
The nearest Mexica, a stocky man named Tezozomoc, approached, feigning sympathy: "Poor whelp... come."
His face twisted into a wolfish sneer as he came within range. He swung his macana in a fluid arc—a whistle of air cutting the heat—the blade reflecting in the young man's eyes like slow lightning. The boy's face contorted in pure desperation, pupils dilated, a whimper escaping: "No... please..."
The impact stopped the whistle: a dry crack on the neck, vertebrae splintering, arterial blood spraying the ground in an arc. Gurgling, bubbling, agonizing moans—the last sound he heard before collapsing, his head dangling at an impossible angle.
The Tlaxcalans' suspicions were confirmed; they roared: "For our children!"
They armed children with small knives and charged in a desperate wave, spears low, eyes bloodshot with suicidal fury. The skirmish lasted barely five minutes: macanas striking bronze, muffled screams, bodies falling.
A woman, seeing her eight-year-old son stabbed, gained superhuman strength and plunged her knife into a Mexica's neck—the man gurgled, falling atop her, their blood mixing.
Cuitláhuac drove his macana into an elder, feeling ribs yield; another warrior beheaded an armed child.
In the end, the ground was adorned with Tlaxcalan bodies—faces frozen in defiance—plus one unfortunate Mexica.
"Move out!" Cuitláhuac ordered, his voice sharp, pointing to smoke in the east and west. "The other fronts wait."
5 minutes later.
Cuitláhuac gathered the survivors in the ravaged central square, smoking huts releasing black columns into the twilight sky. Out of forty, thirty remained—faces stained, armor torn, eyes hollowed not by victory but by bitter fatigue.
"We expected fewer losses," Cuitláhuac thought, his pulse calming as he counted heads. The Tlaxcalans lay around a hundred strong, but the Mexica price was high, unexpected.
"Rejoice," he told his men, his voice steady to hide his doubt. "It was a great battle, and Huitzilopochtli watched us throughout."
The silence that followed was far from the initial high spirits.
"Sweep up the rest," Cuitláhuac ordered, noticing their dampened morale.
The collective fury roared, and they charged to the east and west fronts, where similar groups cornered stragglers.
Twenty minutes of chaos: screams of agony piercing the air, blood splashing the prickly pears, Mexica cheers drowning out sobs. A Tlaxcalan child stabbed while fleeing; an elderly woman slit praying; warriors finished off with spears.
In the end, twenty-seven Mexica stood over the dead village—all inhabitants massacred, smoke rising like a macabre offering.
"Mission accomplished," Cuitláhuac murmured, but his face hardened, grim as stone. He had to warn Moctezuma and, his uncle, Ahuízotl: the Suaza weapons had changed warfare; they must rethink their plans or suffer terrible losses.
"Kill the agonizing!" he commanded, his voice sharp. His men obeyed—macanas descending on gasping throats, moans extinguished.
"Depart now! We return to Tenochtitlan!" Cuitláhuac ordered once finished.
The warriors obeyed, worried by his somber expression—"Poor performance?" one whispered.
.
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[A/N: CHPATER COMPLETED
Hello everyone.
First, I apologize for this scene, but many have commented that it wasn't realistic. I explained my reasons for why the narrative hadn't taken this direction until now: Chuta's age, but since he's approaching 12, it's time.
However, I want to say that of these scenes, there will only be a couple on each battlefield; it won't be common, and generally there won't be children involved.
On the other hand, views have decreased significantly; it may be due to these types of episodes, so I'll try returning to the regular episodes.
UFD: Smallpox was one of the most devastating diseases, but Europeans introduced a number of other diseases to which the indigenous populations of the Americas had no prior immunity. Among the most notable are measles, typhus, influenza, and many others.
However, the effects of these illnesses could have been mitigated with more advanced health and disease management techniques.
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Read my other novels.
#The Walking Dead: Vision of the Future (Chapter 85)
#The Walking Dead: Emily's Metamorphosis (Chapter 32) (INTERMITTENT)
#The Walking Dead: Patient 0 - Lyra File (Chapter 11) (INTERMITTENT)
You can find them on my profile.]