The Unbroken Reed - A Mesoamerican TL

[Shahrasayr]

THE UNBROKEN REED: INTRODUCTION

Flowers spring along songs in Mexico and Tlatelolco,
in the hearts of warriors and wise men.

We know it is true
that we must perish,
for we are mortal men.
You, our Blessed Progenitor,
you have ordained it.

We follow your command,
and work these blessings
into immutable reeds.
We are mortal men.
But your gifts are so much more.

- poem in dedication to Ce Acatl Topitzin Quetzalcóatl, anonymous c. 1480 CE
​

Excerpt from The Shields of the West: The Birth of Iron in Mesoamerica, Diego de Valladolid-Portilla;

“...No one is sure as to what exact decade that iron work in came to the fore in Mesoamerica, let alone the year. One Codex of Sahagún mentions that the lords of Cholula were presented with gifts of ‘immutable and dark silver’ as early as 1370 CE. The latest accounts claim that it was only in the reign of Montezuma II that iron and small amounts of steel became common place among the Aztec toolkit. However scholarly consensus puts the date of the Mexica being introduced to iron around 1478 following Axayactl’s capture and sacrifice by the Tarascan Purépecha. Historians still are unsure as to how the Tarascan state managed to fast track through the Bronze Age within half a century, something that took the majority of Old World civilisations a millennium to do. While finding traces of tin among copper objects from classical and medieval Mesoamerica is common, the advent of an abundance of pure bronze objects ranging from hatchets to headdresses starting in the 1390s seems to point at chance discovery of Bronze by a single person which was then further replicated in rapid succession by fellow smiths. But what seems even more fantastic is the possibility that the same man who started the Bronze Age in Mesoamerica also kickstarted the Iron Age and may have been on the path to refining steel working. Xumatzipiri, or as his name translates The Cloud of Flames, is a semi-historical personage amongst the Purépecha who upon divine revelation managed to become the greatest Smith in the world and was the first to discover iron upon his forge. While this may seem fanciful the seals and glyphs of a cloud in fire on at least 5% of all findings in Michoacán can only help further this theory. The Aztecs, for all their pride, also managed to jump in on this legend and proclaimed that such a personage was actually sent by Quetzalcóatl from Aztlan to humble the Mexica for their brashness under Axayacatl and the nameless man spent many days and nights upon the great Toltec ruin of the pyramid of the moon in Teotihuacan where he finally found how to work this great ore. While Nahuatl legends do not give his name, going as far as refusing to give this stranger one, they do confer upon him a title; Cemiacacatl or the Eternal Reed. Interestingly this title shares its name with one of the noble house of de Xiqetenque’s favoured relics, an all steel dart that was gifted to them by Montezuma II himself. What’s even more interesting is that this dart upon its tip holds the glyph of a cloud wreathed in flame. To me this indicates that even if Xumatzipiri does not hold up to historicity a school of design based around the legend came to dominate and completely change the Mesoamerican way of life within a century...”

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For all of the people who have read my other TLs such as Ai Orsa or After Tarain (supposedly a TLIAW) or even my ASB Scholar Titanica you all should see a pattern emerging: I’m not good at finishing off what I start . However as I find myself once again gain a small time to write I’ve noticed that I don’t currently feel like writing a narrative style TL and actually want to see a piece of writing by myself finished.

I have always had an interest in New World cultures and while what I had learned until recently was restricted to Andean cultures, doing a course on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico and reading Bernal Diaz’s writings alongside Cortes’ political manueverings has had me enraptured. Learning that the Tarascans had an advanced understanding of copper working as well as an immense availability of good quality tin via a few university papers left me dumbfounded as to how Bronze working never picked up.

So without further ado let the butterfly net that is the Atlantic Ocean come undone as due to some more intense politicking by Velazquez, Cortes’ expedition sets out two years later than it did OTL with more Horsemen but missing figures like Sandoval (who actually married into a rich family and has settled down in Santa Domingo) and Aguilar (the other one)...

 

[Shahrasayr]

THE UNBROKEN REED: CHAPTER I

The traditions of war and Huitzilopochtli’s discipline
​

The start of Iron Age metallurgy in Mesoamerica propelled the lands of the Aztec Empire into a new age. The legendary Xumatzpiri, comparable to Leonardo Da Vinci in his brilliance and as a disciple of the various craftsmen gods of the pre- Columbian era, was able to teach his disciples how to work steel using the intense geothermal forges of Tarasca. However such tools were few and far between with a ratio one object of steel to thirty bronze and ten iron objects being found in 15th century caches and digs. Due to this disparity in content it is safe to say that the layered ‘five-tear’ steel that was used to craft macahuitls was never used for daily tools and even specialist steel tools like chisels were often made from iron.


So what was so important about iron weaponry other than it being deadly? The important effect stemmed not from iron itself but its ‘predecessor’ bronze. During its earliest days the iron weaponry of the Tarascans was able to cut through swathes and droves of invading Aztecs under Axayacatl. However the metaphorical edge to such weaponry began to dull as a few decades later the Triple Alliance also got hold of such weaponry. But what truly put the warriors of Tenochtitlan at the apex of Mesoamerica once more was their coatzehuayo or ‘snake scale’. Akin to the ancient Roman Lorica Squamata in its scalene design, coatzehuayo was cheap to make and lighter than the hard to find iron. As the bronze cubes were attached onto stretched out deer’s hide another layer could be added on top for extra protection for the higher class warriors. Draped in this new innovation and with their darts tipped with bronze rather than the obsidian of yore the Aztecs more invincible than ever.


This was heralded by the invasion of the Zapotec city-states under Montezuma II which caused another effect which the first forgers of bronze in 14th century Tarasca could not have foreseen. The effects actually began because of the immense efficiency of metal tools. Plots and the like began to vastly improve the output of grain along Lake Texcoco. Tenochtitlan had always been an immense city, with even conservative estimates putting its population in 1480 around 150,000 people, not even including the cities that surrounded it. Higher estimates easily valued the combined population of Tenochtitlan and its sisters at 270,000. By the year 1500 CE this had grown to 300,000. So the tlaotani of Tenochtitlan now had a dilemma. His younger half-brother Opochtzin was far more popular among the nobles than himself, the past two Golden decades had seem to come to an end as a recent famine heralded the return of the cyclical and fickle harvests. That’s when an opportunity in the form of Zapotec rebellions presented themselves. Seeing that this might have been his one chance to restore order and claim martial prestige for himself Montezuma attacked the Zapotecs. In Sahagún’s Codices the campaign is described as violent and ruthless, comparable to what the Thirty Years War had been in Europe. It is also the first instance of the Aztecs trying a strategem that was not common in Mesoamerica; total warfare. More often than not wars in pre-Columbian Mexico were about obtaining captives for religious sacrifice, a belief system that had persisted despite Ce Acatl Topitzin’s best attempts. This was not the case in the Zapotec Wars.


Rural villages were razed and many minor towns were forced to be completely abandoned to escape Montezuma’s advances. It is said that Montezuma also had a far more sinister motive in mind when he did this. These villages were vital in supply lines and by making supplies scarce he could seperate the wheat from the chaff amongst his forces and thus when the campaigns were over only the most hardy would return to their professions and by extension only the deserving would be fed and survive. This all came to a head when after a four month long siege Zaachila, the capital of the Zapotecas, fell to the Mexicans and half the city was looted and razed. Quickly many other Zapotec cities capitulated in hopes of surviving the war unscathed. However to the horror of the Zapotec chieftains the Aztec emissaries and captains would allow their troops to run amok in the surrendered cities and commit rapine plunder regardless of any agreed peace treaty. A mass exodus began as the Zapotecs fled their traditional lands to go eastwards into dense jungle. In many places these refugees joined by refugees from the apocalyptic and dilapidated Mayan cities stuck in their constant internecine squabbling, forming a Great Migrating Caravan of human outcasts in search for a new home as their vanquishes had been all those years ago. In fact so many Zapotecs escaped eastwards that lands in the region were left highly desolate and depopulated following the war with reports claiming one was more likely to engage in conversation with the beasts of the forest rather than a fellow human. Giving what would be called Oaxaca in another time the name Amotleinatl or ‘The Place with Nothing Near the Waters’, Montezuma crowned that as his own personal domain before beginning to make preparations of return to Tenochtitlan. This was when the Emperor of the Mexica saw another opportunity to get rid of the many troubles that irked him and plagued his domain. In reward for their service during the conquest many Aztec soldiers were encouraged to bring their families from the Valley of Mexico and take lands in the Valley of Oaxaca. In folk songs of the Nahuatl this migration is called the ‘Compassionate Escape’ in comparison to the Aztec’s legendary ‘Cruel Escape’ from Aztlan and Sahgún documents that over five years nearly 35,000 people migrated to Oaxaca. How does he know these numbers you ask? It is actually due to the first instance of an Aztec census in the civilian sense. The new Nahuatl city of Huaxyacac was established and the now much smaller Zaachila was rechristened in Nahuatl as Zaxotlcan [1] so to document these newly established settlements the priests of Quetzalcoatl held a feast. At the feast the patriarch of every household was encouraged to give one gold piece for every two free mouths he had to feed beneath his roof. In return he would get one howler monkey between every two mouths. This give and take ensured that the statistics were largely accurate and detailed for the administrators of the empire. The demographics of southern Mexico were changed as the Valley became predominantly Nahuatl and for the first time the Aztecs faced something unprecedented; they could no longer treat the rest of their empire as a simple harvest for captives and a sponge to squeeze wealth out of. Now in distant lands there were fellow Mexica who were as descended from the refugees of Aztlan as those in Tenochtitlan were. Opochtzin was sent to govern these provinces alongside Montezuma’s favourite son Chimalpopoca so that the Emperor could always keep an eye on his worryingly popular sibling.


And what of the Zapotecs who fled east, deep into jungles where eagles and jaguars the size of houses roamed, where the gods themselves only stepped when they wished to raise the sun using the blood of the devoted? Well that’s a story for later. Ten years after Montezuma II finished his conquest of the Zapotecs at the age of 48, strange reports started streaming in. Great leviathans of wood were seen off the coast of Tabasco. The men of the Emperor Charles of the House of Habsburg under contract by the Captain Hernańdo Cortés had come to see the tales of rich cities of gold and opulence without belief for themselves. The Spaniards had arrived.

The strangers arrive in Tabasco
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Excerpt from the Triumph and Conquest of New Spain by Felix Machado-Saldaña and Bernal Diaz;

“... and thus as the gifts of gold and beads were finally given to us by the cacique Manabes and the Captain finished his great oratory about our lord Don Carlos and we baptised the native prince in the waters of our Lord Jesus Christ, I can finally declare my reader, we had arrived in the American continent. Our first settlement of visit was the great town whose original name I have forgotten but we christened Las Ciudad de Doña Mariana. While no larger than a village by our standards, the local caciques told as that they ruled the near surrounding lands of Tabasco and thus in the year 1521 and on the eve of St. George’s Day we managed to make our first contact with Indians of the anew World. Armed and wary, our captain had finally managed to muster 643 men for the expedition alongside 7 young maids to hold our camp duties such as washing and the preparation of our meals, two cooks to instruct them in how to do so and a cartographer by the name of Carlos de Valladolid.

I still remember how the locals reacted when we dismounted our steeds from our ships. They ran in terror as the twenty or so men who each owned a horse rode them out. They came back within minutes and began placing trinkets of gold and beads at the feet of the riders, the oldest crones coming forth to place fruits and beans unlike those we had ever seen. Cortes tried to console them through Aguilar and while it took a day in the end the captain’s words rung through. Later that night I asked Aguilar what was the reason of the Indians’ urgency. He replied that the Indios that the Tabascans thought that our steeds were some sort of vile creatures holding half a body of man and half of a deer, not unlike the Hellene myths of yore. Fearing that we would consume them unless placated by the sweetest of honeys they asked their saintly mothers to save them, the crones who had come out to feed our horses. Aguilar also said that in his own time as a captive in the Yucatan he had never end witnessed a horse or even a beast of burden. While bucks, dogs and screaming apes were aplenty there was little to no sign of any sort of horse and thus the Friar hypothesised that no such creatures had ever lived here as the extreme heat would have been unbearable for them. Now I encourage you, as my readers, to forgive the Tabascans and other locals for their cowardly reactions. Were any of us to witness with our eyes a chimera like the ones Jason and his crew faced, we too fouls be filled with fear if not resort to idolatry like these wretched pagans do.

I must mention however that not all of the crew were as compassionate in their dealings as me. Juan-Antonio de Casamuelles, a jocular fellow with a talent for petty mischief, decided to trick the Indians. He told them that while the horse and man were seperate beasts as Cortes had said but the animals themselves were violent and used to tear into flesh. While this jest was harmless enough during our first three days at Doñanas as it kept the Indios away from our camp where they may have had the opportunity to pilfer from us, it slowly grew out of hand till the point that the lightest whinny of a steed would send the village into uproar and disturb our sleep. This continued until a soldier by the name of Bartolomeo la Blancos trapped a Tabascan youth in the Horse penand the youth fainted in terror. The local caciques grew worried and soon food only came sporadically to us, those serving running away as soon as they set down the meal so as to not be captured by the foreigners. This infuriated Cortes and when he found out he called up La Blancos, who was reprimanded by Padre Aguilar and fined thirteen pesos for being a nuisance, also so having his arquebusier privileges revoked and being demoted to a regular linesman despit his noble birth. When Cortes had finished admonishing young Blancos a native messenger came running in, panting hard. Aguilar received him despite his insolence but the only words that he could make out were ‘plucking’, ‘petals, ‘north’ and ‘unbent silver’. In the end it was not Aguilar who managed to pass us the message but Doña Marina, the most precious of maidens Manabes had gifted us and a talented translator who knew both the tongue of the Tabascans and its environs as well as that of Aguilar’s Yucatan. She told us to arm ourselves. Spring was upon these western lands and fires were being lit across the jungle. A bloody conflict was about to happen before our very eyes...”

​

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[1] The actual Aztec place name in OTL was Teotzapotlan. However the incoming migrating Nahuatl peoples simply chose to adopt the native name for the city instead in ITTL due to mixing with the conquered Zapotecs.

​

 

[Shahrasayr]

THE UNBROKEN REED: CHAPTER II

The procession of warriors of many kins.
​

Three years prior to the arrival of the Spanish in Mesoamerica there had been one great societal change among the Triple Alliance that would forever change the future of not only the western hemisphere but the world over. Montezuma's conquest of the Zapotecs had been conducted in an unprecedented way. The sheer lack of captives captured for the sacrificial rites had been extremely disheartening for the priesthood and the annihilation-style war had left many grumbling for two reasons; the currency of captives was the method for social mobility within the Aztecs and the sacrificial nature of captives was essential for the Nahuatl faith. The former was due to the title of 'quauhpilli' or 'eagle-noble' that was conferred on common soldiers who managed to perform par excellence in campaigns. Due its nature as a non-hereditary title many have drawn comparisons between middle and late Western European knighthood, particularly English and Swabian, and the conference of quauhpilli. However there was one glaring difference. The nature of quauhpilli meant that instantly their descendants were more than free commoners and usually the grant of wealth and title meant that often quauhpillis would marry into the old nobility due to their ritual admission and sometimes even establish their own dynasties upon the alteptl city-states, something that rankled the noses of many of the old nobles. Many of the macehualtin free commoners who had most likely been able to take so many captives was because they had studied in the normal telpochcalli school's special classes alongside the third and fourth sons of nobility, a couple in more egalitarian cities like Colhuacan even being raised to the calmecac schools of the pipiltzin noble youths. For them to be denied the rank of quauhpilli was not only treacherous but also heretical because the priests of Huitzilopotchli often gave battlefield sacraments that raised them. Yet Montezuma did just this. On what the Codex Sahagun lists as 10 Ocelotl 1 Coatl Tecuilhuitontotli 1 Acatl or the 4th of July 1519 Anno Domini the Imperial Decree had come that the Huetlaotani Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin had proclaimed that the title of quauhpilli was no longer to be issued and all of the 317 titles issued were to be revoked. Suffice to say no one was pleased. [1]


Even though Aztecs were paramount during Montezuma's day and were the foremost military, cultural and political power in Mesoamerica there was a problem. Ever since Axacayatl's Alexandrine [2] defeat the Emperors had gradually implemented policies that intended to reign in the power that was lost by Axacayatl upon his retreat and Tizoc during his ineffectual rule. During Tizoc's rule altepls siezed to pay more than token tribute, they nearly barricaded their Aztec governors and their families within the palace-precincts, the forces of the army fell ever further in the hands of newly quauhpillis and more major pipiltzi nobles. While Montezuma's uncle Ahuitzotl did much to assuage the public trust in the legitimacy of the Huetlatoani of Tenohctitlan with the conquest of Xoconochco and many other regions the man himself was reclusive and concentrated on maintaining his aviaries and restoring the dilapidated state of the temples within Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco themselves. While Montezuma's namesake had started the reforms of his empire by instating the quauhpilli, Xocoyotzin took to finishing this centralising by abolishing one of the primary methods of social mobility in the empire. Regardless to say this wasn't taken to very well. All of the 317 ordained men gathered in the temple of Xolotl in Huaxyacac during what was described to Sahagun as "...the death throes of Autumn..." and declared themselves beholden to the dog-headed god of misfortune. Due to their placement in what had within four years become the twin of Tenochtitlan across the empire they declared themselves the dark twins of their brothers in the valley of Mexico, just as Xolotl was the dark twin of Quetzalcoatl. Placing at their head a would-be-quauhpilli named Yayauhqui who was winged by his brother-in-lawthe wealthy pulque farmer Mazapiltzin and fellow would-be-quauhpilli Xiuhcoatl. These men whipped up righteous fervour among the Mexica that had migrated to Huaxyacac. Today it had been them denied their birthright and perhaps it was justified that Huitzilopotchli needn't any more to be born of the eagle. But what if the huetlaotani were to decry the pipiltzin? Axacayatl had but three decades ago proclaimed before his death that the title of teucuhtzin was no longer inheritable and would be bequeathed by a tlaotani to his city's nobles. Such infringements were not an 'if' but a 'when'. It was dangerous to do this when Opochtzin could have had him arrested for treason at anytime. But the order never came. Perhaps Opochtzin never found out. Perhaps he thought that the quauhpilli had planned to install him as huetlaotani. It didn't matter in the end. Standing in the shining new marketplace of his city Yayauhqui won over the hearts of many with his oratory, especially those that counted. The pipiltzin of the city, few as they were due to the youth of the settlement, swore their arms for this rebellion. But that was not all. His oratory had attracted a different attention. That of the priests of Tezcatlipoca.


If the worship of Xolotl was seen as strange and queer for the Aztecs then the worship of Tezcatlipoca was honoured and respected. Often treated with just as much reverence as Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs and the patron of the Mixtecs the worship of the Jaguar God was well esteemed throughout the empire. Alongside Huitzilopotchli, Texcarlipoca the Lord of Earthquakes was the only other deity afforded an elite military band of warriors like the Ocelotl jaguar warriors. Despite this the priesthood of Tezcalipoca was not pleased with the state of affairs of the Aztec Empire. The war against the Zapoteca had not yielded enough sacrifices nor had the Emperor made clear any inclination for declaring a Flower War against Tlaxcala or Teotitlan, the few captives going to the Lord of the Sun and the Feathered Serpent’s temples or even the Imperial Dowager’s favoured deity Xochipilli as celebrations for Montezuma's victories. Even worse was the open hand offered to the ancestral enemy of Tlaxcala as Montezuma offered them a place as a Tocatzontetl [3] of the Aztecs in return for one final push against Teotitlan as Nahuatl brethren the two old enemies united to take down the Zapotec tlaotani that ruled the honest Nahuatl there and defiled the holy site by naming it as Xaquija. They even went as far as exchanging the idols of each other's patron deities as hostages; the Aztecs received the Cloud Serpent of the Tlaxcalans whereas they received the Feathered Serpent. This was the final step that pushed it too far for the tlamacazqui of Tezcalipoca's priesthood to the brink. The Emperor no longer deserved their support. That now belonged to Yayahqui. Over the course of the next five months the most trusted segments of the Jaguar Warrior lodges were gathered. Being the elite of the Triple Alliance's forces they were often armed with iron while some of their officers were even armed with steel. Sahagun reported about how Yayahqui and a few more of the war-council of Xoloteca were armed with 'single-plate steel upon their torsos' not unlike that forged in Tarasca. While bronze remained the common man's weapon of choice there was a large amount of iron weaponry amongst the rebels as for eight months prior to the rebellion the Xoloteca payed the Tarascans for many shipments of their famed weaponry which was becoming more common in Tarascan lands as they mined ever deeper and refined Xumatzpiri’s techniques, incorporating it into every day life as its powerful qualities were applied to mundane objects like nails. How did the rebels pay for this? They stopped paying their taxes and before a sound of rebellion could be payed off corrupt officials conspired with the Xoloteca and betrayed the Emperor’s brother, allowing him to be captured. Opochtzin was sacrificed to Tezcatlipoca within hours of his arrest, something which the priests delighted in. The blood of a tlaotani's relative was powerful enough to make up for atleast a little of Montezuma's damage.

This treacherous action was done for two reasons; to get their required weapons from the Tarascans without a growingly suspicious governor about the strange number of Purepecha caravans that were so far from home as well as to lure a high ranking teucuhtzin from Tenochtitlan down to Huaxyacac to inquire about the ever decreasing reports coming back. And within a month of the final g delivered by the Purepecha one such official arrived by the Huetlatoani Montezuma's command. Montezuma believed that this was simply his rebellious brother acting up again and had wanted to admonish him back in the capital before the entire court. He demanded that atleast 80% of the missing tribute be payed back should the 10,000 man strong force marching down come and burn the city to the ground. This was all the opportunity they needed. The followers of Xolotl seized the teucuhtzin and atleast five of his aides and sacrificed him to the dog-headed lord, letting six more escape. Right around that time the Jaguar Warriors of Zaxotlcan descended upon the rest of the small garrison and the Eagle Warriors as they butchered them in their sleep. Chimalpopoca was among the casualties and the seventeen year old youth was sacrificed as well to Xolotl and Texcatlipoca in equal measures, half in stupor as he was made drunk on pulque. Sahagún wrote that many of his informants said that “...Xolotl surely must have had a feast in those times. Dogs rarely get the meat of a beast, let alone the flesh of man.” Within three days war horns were sounded as Xiuhcoatl marched into the city to bolster the Ocelotl and raised the bleeding-maw-hound glyph of the Xoloteca rebels. A civil war had begun.

The first actions of the rebels was to use their bases in the Valley of Huaxa to attack the tributary Mixtec town of Sahayuca, known as Cuilahpan to the Nahua. Numbering 80,000 strong their sudden attack had left the Montezuma's forces on the backfoot. Timing it so that they would have the assistance during their revolt, the Xoloteca capture of Cuilahpan coincided within a week with the Tarascan armies streaming through. Always smaller in numbers compared to their enemies in the Triple Alliance the Tarascans came with much better equipment. Nearly one in every three Tarascans was equipped with an iron blade and ironically the lamellar-like coatzehuayo of the Aztecs was also much more evenly distributed among the 200,000 Purepecha warriors of the Tarascan kingdom. The first half of these soldiers led the traditional attack throw the deadly passes and causeways in the command of a Tarascan prince. However the second half marched all the way to the mouth of the river Atoyac where they established a town and left a contingent of 3,000 men to defend it, naming it Juataxamiri or the Bitter Mountain.This half was led by Shanarani Auarani, Cazonci of Tarsca. From there the army set out along the coast and marched till Cihuatlan. The walls of Cihuatlan weren't high due its nature as a resort town and given that the Aztecs had kicked the Tarascans and their Otomi nomads out of this area near forty years ago no one expected a large attack here since Ahuizotl had depopulated the Atoyac towns and villages. In a mirror of Montezuma's own policies (some might say even in his image) little mercy was given to the 4,000 soldiers guarding the town. Cihuatlan was once again given its proper name of Zihuatanejo and the armies of the Purepecha marched forth prouder than ever. With the rebels gaining ever more steam in the south and the Tarascan attack going off without a flaw the situation seemed dire for the Triple Alliance. Even before Montezuma had gotten news about the death of his beloved son and his troubling brother more troubles began to surface. His favourite concubine Nenetl had taken ill and his half-Totonac chief wife Nehcalohtli was overseeing and smoothing relations with their northern subjects. To make matters worse the city of Cholula was up to its usual antics and had also seized to pay tribute.The Emperor in his sorrow retired to his chambers and shut his chamber doors shut. It would have seemed to the outsider that Tenochtitlan was about fall apart at its seams, with the teeth of many about to sink into this dying animal...

The ever treacherous Jaguar Warrior prepares to strike down his once ally.​

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[1] This actually happened in OTL. Many historians believe that one of the primary reasons that Montezuma was so appreciative of the Spanish arrival and worked actively to get them on his side was because this reform. Given the bad light in which Sahgun's noble informants paint Montezuma one can assume that these scions of lesser Aztec nobility that survived the conquest wouldn't have looked too kindly upon the man that had tried to take their title and birthright away from them. The fact ITTL Axayacatl was sacrificed by the Tarascans doesn't help the prestige of Tenochtitlan.

[2] Like Pyrrhic, our favourite Macedonian ITTL has become an adjective to describe a death after a 'campaign' (or really doing anything you love) from ignominious causes. How does this relate to Axacayatl you ask? Well what people don't know ITTL is that Axacayatl was already dead from an infected wound before being sacrificed.

[3] Literally 'to bury hair together'. Long flowing hair symbolized warlike humours that were untempered among the Nahuatl. To symbolize this new found peace of 'equals' as Tizoc had to do with the Tarascans both the shaving of both the ciuahtlatoani of alteptls happened. Preferably they were the second wives of the rulers.

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Alright guys I'm going to cut it off here for this chapter. What do y'all think about the length. Too short? Too long? I'm still experimenting with non-direct narrative styles and if its the latter I'll post part II B for a day before merging it into a single post so readers get alerted. As always please comment and critique I appreciate it a lot. Especially if someone is an expert on the Purepecha language please do feel free to correct my noun and name crafting. I only have a basic hold of Nahuatl and I'm completely beholden to Wikipedia and the internet fore Purepecha.

 

[Shahrasayr]

THE UNBROKEN REED: CHAPTER III

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… and they would have as well if the gods themselves didn’t intervene. Or at least one god in particular.


Omeototl had long been an esoteric god amongst the elite of Tenochtitlan. His origins are steeped in mystery and the priests of Huitzilopotchli did never take kindly to his worship so historians can only speculate as to the nature of this strange deity. With a murky past and unknown rites, the original codices of the Cult of Omeototl were long gone by the time the Spanish first graced the realms of the Mexica with their presence. Yet scholarly consensus seems to fall upon a birth from the Hero Twins of the Maya, bought by Maya traders from Tikal who came to trade for the ever precious iron of the west. A deity that rejected the need for sacrifice and instead demanded slow bloodletting and a concentration upon one’s deeds or quauh, literally meaning eagle. This association came from the belief that all beings had two wings, the Bleeding Wing and the Gleaming Wing. But unlike the many world religions which requested the destruction of their respective ‘Bleeding Wing’, the darker side of the human condition, the worship of Olmeototl commanded one to find temperance within the two. Extrapolating from the many creation myths of the Mexica and their kinsmen, they proclaimed that Ce Acatl Topitzin Quetzalcóatl, the ancient Toltec Prince was the first to truly get his quauh to soar and was Olmeototl’s first disciple. By the time of the Xolotl War the cult had had spread like wildfire through the calmecac schools of the nobility and the young, impressionable students had set up their own mysteries and initiation rites into the Cult of Olmeototl no matter the beatings and interrogations held by their schoolmasters and occasional priest from the great temple.


The duality of Olmeototl and the cult’s origins meant that twins were especially revered among the worshippers. At any one time two twins were chosen as the custodians of the idol of Olmeototl, one representing the purity of man and the other the shadow cast by it. And from this would the Triple Alliance be saved, their saviours coming in the form of two twins from the Imperial family; Quauhtemoc and Aztlacatl. The two were reported by Sahagún to have been exactly as their positions described:


“Of the two Quauhtemoc was a bright and cheery lad who appeared as the Gleaming Custodian that would start and end all ceremonies to represent the only two times being can truly feel happiness in their life: upon their birth and upon their passing. Aztlacatl on the other hand was said to have been possessed by a reckless, violence and passion. His ceremonies burned into the minds of those that attended and the maxims espoused by him whipped the Mexicans into a frenzy that was yet unseen…”


With the Empire under attack from all sides, the Xoloteca in rebellion, the Tarasca invading, the Mixteca infuriated that the Emperor could not liberate their cities, the Totonacs having drifted from their vassalage to Tenochtitlan and the Tlaxcalans already looking to renege on their newly founded alliance to their old enemies it seemed as if the end of Azteca dominance was over. In the month following the Emperor’s retirement and disgraceful cowardice the armies of the empire suffered from mass desertion after they faced defeat after defeat at the hands of Shanarani Aurani’s regrouped forces. After the Complet conquest of the Atoyac the Tarasca had crossed over into the homelands of the Nahua and razed many towns into the ground while taking what remained of their populations back as slaves and captives. The Purepecha armies still numbered over 190,000 strong. The few, if any, casualties that Aurani’s armies suffered had been in the initial crossing of the Atoyac and the siege at Zihuatzanezo. The Xoloteca numbers were even more vast and encompassing a larger strata of armed and angry macehualtin with access to arms stolen from the corpses of Azteca garrisons. The numbers of the Ocelotl also swelled as the Jaguar Warriors armed their new recruits with the ever vital iron arms and armour of their betrayed Eagle brethren.


Within the capital itself there were riots as many demanded the Emperor who had changed the order of things to also face the repercussions for doing so. However city guards apprehended many and they were driven up the steps of the Great Temple of Huitzilopochtli to be sacrificed. Tlatelolco’s tlaotani, a distant cousin of Motecuhzuma, had come to request his liege to try and step out of the palace and reassure the people. The man however was foolish enough to do so with a one-hundred man guard in tow. While he thought this would reassure the Emperor and his men were ultimately ordered to ritually offer their maces in direct service he had not made this clear enough upon entry to the city and a minor altercation between his leading captain and the head of the city guard led to the Tlatelolcans being massacred and the tlaotani’s capture followed by sacrifice by the priests of Huitzilopotchli. Now a core member of the Triple Alliance had been alienated from offering support and with it warriors for the war. Many felt disheartened at this state of affairs and began to leave the environs of the Lake Texococo cities to try and migrate further afield. It was one thing to die at the hands of rightfully wronged fellow Mexica. It was another to suffer anihalation at the hands of the savage Tarasca and their Otomi hounds.


Recognising things were growing evermore dire the priesthood of the city announced a grand match of the Mesoamerican ball game to placate the masses. Two teams of all-star players that had been victors and survivors over ten times were assembled. The grand arena at the foot of the palace was filled completely as seats were fought over and many chose to even stand on the precipice of the walls of the arena. Even though a fifth of the city had evacuated what they saw as a hopeless situation, those that remained were willing to distract themselves, if only for a moment, from the approaching dangers. Even though the Emperor was nowhere to be seen the crowds went wild when the priests opened the game. Hours passed in the intense match and each side scored hoop after hoop till one player nudged one player out of the way causing him to crash to the floor. Such violence was not uncommon in the game but what followed next was. The player, named Mazapiltzin just like the Xoloteca rebel, brought his foot down upon the knee of his opponent while the latter was rising. The sheer force of it inverted it and the player let out a howl of pain. No one was exactly sure what happened next but before the match organisers could react boos went out and people began to stream onto the field for Mazapiltzin’s head. In response the players supporters went down into the field to support and defend him. The entire thing devolved into a bloody and violent riot which the guards were unable to maintain. Some of them joined in themselves hacking away at the supporters of opposing teams who disagreed with their version of events. Helplessly the priests watched on as the entire situation devolved into a bloody torrent of violence.


What happened next is much more clear yet just as mysterious at the same time. Many priests began to fall from their pulpits and risked stands to their deaths and severe injuries in the field below. The glyphs of a two-winged skull rose over the arena and onto the main platform emerged one of the Twin Custodians of Olmeototl. While codices are unsure on which one it was many suspect Aztlan presented himself before the masses, given that apparently his voice (no doubt reinforced by the many soldiers loyal to the Cult beginning to stream in) carried across the arena. The gist of it seemed to be that the Emperor was not to blame for the state of the empire but the high priests who had gone mad with the power afforded to them. He insisted they would sacrifice a hundred children to the gods but were too greedy and impious to give even a drop of their own blood.


The words of the Custodian of Olmeototl took effect. Within minutes thousands of men, bruised, bloody and in a frenzy were chanting whatever words that came to them, some even going for unintelligible shouts. But gradually the crescendo came to one maxim:


Nemiti omo huecaletl. Nemiti omo toteotzin. Omotac Excan Tlahtoloyan. [1]


The brothers had now found their army. Even with the loss of a great amount of their population the forged of Tenochtitlan and its allies went into overdrive. Thousands of sets of coatzehuayo went into production. While far from being as ornate nor as sturdy as previous sets of armour due to substituting the alloy with more copper than regularly used as well as spreading small amounts of iron into the mixtures rather than commissioning special iron pieces from master blacksmiths large amounts of these sets could reach soldiers. By the end of spring the men had been raised, armed and trained in whatever capacity and time was possible, numbering barely 350,000 strong. A large majority of these were inexperienced young boys who hadn’t even finished their final years in their local telpochcalli schools. Yet all of them were armed and armoured to some extent. What little experienced soldiers remained were composed of the 40,000 or so Totonac tribesmen and skirmishers that the Lady Necahlohtli had brought back with her after successful negotiations. And even then 10,000 of them were left to guard the city alongside the 8,924 Imperial soldiers to a head that remained fighting as they had slowly fought minor battle as throughout the empire. These were the remnants of a force of over 650,000 warriors from across the empire that had been losing siege after siege and battle after battle with little success and even less guidance from the capital in the form of adept commanders. The nepotism of the Aztec higher nobility that had caused this war was the very same nepotism that was continuing to cut at them as very few quauhpilli officers remained even before Motecuhzuma’s ban. And the long period of peace in the heartlands and decentralised nature of the empire meant that the tributary altepetls were not subject to the rigours of the telpochcalli schoolsand thus produced few adept commanders. So with no other options available, what men escaped these shameful defeats made their way back to the metropole for a last stand. But it didn’t matter now. The Imperial forces had been given a second wind in the form of the Twins and the Totonac reinforcements.


On the day that the Christians would have known as 12th April 1518 the forces of the Triple Alliance marched out under the command of the Olmeototl Twins and under the blessings of the Lady Necalohtli, with two superior enemies marching towards the capital. According to the reports that scouts had given the enemy’s Otomi vanguard hunters had been sighted but three days ride from Tenochtitlan, which could only mean the rest weren’t far behind…

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A little update for y’all. The Aztecs are down but not out for the count.

Edit: Almost forgot

[1] The Great House (of Quetzalcoatl’s Chosen Peoples) lives. Our Lord’s Spirit lives. The Triple Alliance rises.