Aztec Civilization: Destiny to Conquer America!
Chapter 729 - 393: Palm Clan Leader and the Southern Tekos People

Chapter 729: Chapter 393: Palm Clan Leader and the Southern Tekos People

"Chase! Chase him fast! Catch that red-haired savage chieftain! I want his skull made into a drinking cup!"

The hills undulated, the forest scattered, the yellow leaves danced in the air. The courageous Palm Clan Leader, Zotol, roared excitedly, running like the wind through the hills. He led his troops, clad in leather armor, with over three hundred Samurai following closely behind.

Behind the Palm Clan Leader, hundreds of Apachigan warriors loosely formed a long snake-like line, swiftly catching up. In front of him, more than a hundred red-haired savages were fleeing in panic. Among them, one wore a wolf robe and kept looking back in fear. It turned out he was a rare Canine Descendant Chieftain, commanding thousands of savage soldiers.

"Quick! Quick! Attack from both sides! Drive them into the valley!"

Zotol had chased them for a long while, suddenly his face lit up with joy. This area was north of Apachigan City, and he was very familiar with the terrain. Just a mile or two ahead was a sunken valley. The valley looked deep, with no way out, only steep cliffs that were impossible to scale in haste. By driving these savages into the valley and having the warriors block its entrance, the red-haired savage chieftain would have nowhere to run!

"Good! Good! Chase their tails and storm into the valley!"

The red-haired savages ran frantically towards the valley, pausing briefly at the entrance as if hesitating. But the Palm warriors accelerated from both sides, and the savages were still forced into the valley. The courageous Palm Clan Leader, Zotol, was overjoyed, personally leading three hundred skilled trusted aides, eager to chase down and kill.

"Haha! Savages truly are savages, flashy on the outside but collapsing at a touch!"

Zotol entered the valley, laughing heartily.

Thousands from the Royal Army had moved south, he gathered heavy forces and held firm in Apachigan City, only to have savages from the Northern Land come. These savages wore cotton armor and wielded bamboo longbows, moving swiftly and without any samurai’s honor. They simply looked at the fortified Apachigan City, not challenging or attacking it, but directly scattered, pillaging across the hundred miles of Apa Plain nearby.

Zotol had waited in the city for half a month, until the area outside the city was ablaze with signals and squads of looting savages everywhere. Several southwestern nobility’s fortified villages had been conquered by the savages, all the men killed, and families taken northward, only a few somehow escaping to come sobbing into the city.

Even the Tecos Tribe, a hundred miles to the south, had several households attacked, and three clans of a thousand people each were wiped out. The "Shield" Great Chief, Kimari, immediately sent envoys, requesting the Zicao Family to send troops to encircle and kill these roaming Northern savages.

Kimari was a great Chieftain of the Tecos, from the southern Apachigan part of the Coahuayana Mountain Region, leading a tribe of twenty thousand with five thousand warriors. He had familial ties with the Palm Family. The families of the Palm Clan took refuge in the southern Tecos tribes. This time, invited to lead troops, as the alliance leader of the southern mountain Tecos tribes, Kimari was the only reinforcement the Palm Family could hope for.

The Palm Family had a longstanding presence on the edge of the mountains, historically intermarrying and interacting with the southern Tecos tribes, giving Zotol a deep understanding of the southern Tecos people. He knew that based on their areas of concentration, the southern Tecos people could roughly be divided into the west, southwest, and southeast.

The western Tecos tribes were concentrated in the Colima (today Colima) Mountain Region west of Zicao County, populous with a wide influence. They established their ancestral Fire River City on the mountain plain. In the local language, "Colima" means both "land of the volcano" and "place where water bends," hence it’s also known as Fire River City. It boasted a huge smoking volcano, fertile volcanic ash plains, and the Ameca River (Rio Armeria) connecting northward with the Chapala Lake Region and flowing south into Endless Lake.

Fire River City was nestled among mountains, five hundred miles from Apachigan City. With Fire River City as the center, west and south to Endless Lake, east to the western borders of Zicao County, the edge of the Apa Plain to the north, and the southern Chapala Lake Region... this five hundred miles east-west and three hundred miles north-south mountain area was entirely comprised of loosely organized Tecos tribes.

Facing the continuous expansion of the former Tarasco regime, the western Tecos tribes were forced to form a Tribal Alliance, including mountain barbarians, controlling a total population close to two hundred thousand. They had several large tribes, each tens of thousands strong, repelling the attacks of the old Tarasco regime for decades until they nominally submitted to the kingdom. And the Alliance leader, the strongest Colima Great Chief, even sent his daughter to intermarry with the former Tarasco Royal Family, producing a prince with Divine Bloodline from both sides.

Before Zotol raised his troops, he too had sent envoys to Fire River City asking for help, but there had been no response. The western tribes were too distant, and the Colima Great Chief’s attitude was unclear, seemingly unwilling to rashly provoke the powerful northern king.

The southwestern Tecos tribes were concentrated in the Coahuayana Mountain Region southwest of Zicao County, with the Coahuayana Valley as the core, where they established the small Coahuayana City (today Coalcomán). Coahuayana City was about two hundred fifty miles from Apachigan City. In the local language, "Coahuayana" means "snake with hands," so it could also be called Hand Snake City.

The territories of the tribes in the southwest also spanned five hundred miles east to west and three hundred miles north to south. They extended east to the Tarsus River, north to the Apa Plain, south to the Endless Lake, and west to the borders of the Colima Mountain Region. However, due to the lack of fertile volcanic ash plains like those in the Fire River Plains, the southwestern tribes had a population of only about 110,000 to 120,000 people, many of whom were scattered along the plains surrounding the Endless Lake.

Before the sudden downfall of the previous Tarasco dynasty, the southwestern tribes were vassals of the Kingdom. Powerful tribes were deliberately suppressed or even divided, and many tribal warriors were conscripted during the western campaigns. Only after the downfall of the previous dynasty did Kimari, the "Shield" Great Chief, finally break free from the Kingdom’s control and rise to power. During Kimari’s ascendancy, the Palm Family traded much food and weapons, becoming an important ally of the Shield Great Tribe. The relationship between the two was extremely close.

Therefore, when the Envoy from Zotol arrived at Hand Snake City, the ambitious Kimari immediately gathered his forces and moved north to support his allies. Having been oppressed by the Kingdom for many years and having struggled to achieve independence, the southwestern tribes were unwilling to see the old rule return. Now, at least ten thousand tribal warriors surged out from the forests, and many more were still gathering.

The Tecos Tribe of the southeast gathered in the southeastern region of Zicao County, nearly two hundred miles east of the mouth of the Tarsus River, on the Sakatula plains by the coast (modern Zihuatanejo). Sakatula, meaning "water in the yellow mountains" and located between the mountains and the Endless Lake, was also known as "the land of women," home to a large number of matrilineal clans; hence it was called Sea Woman City. Four hundred miles northeast of Sea Woman City was the Weytamo Mountain Region, and two hundred miles to the southeast lay the coastal Tlapanec peoples.

Sea Woman City was extremely remote, four to five hundred miles from Apachigan City, with large rivers and lakes in between. The Tecos tribes residing there, numbering forty to fifty thousand like the various sections of the Tlapanec, were nominally submissive to the Kingdom and the Alliance but effectively governed themselves behind closed doors. Their geographical position was highly isolated; they were protected to the north by the southern Sierra Madre mountains, and hundreds of miles of towering desolate mountains meant they feared no land-based campaigns and cared little for the situations beyond the mountains.

Zotol had also sent envoys to Sea Woman City, but he knew in his heart that it was nearly impossible for the southwestern tribes to dispatch forces.

Turbulent thoughts flashed through the mind of the Palm Clan Leader, making him increasingly aware of the dire circumstances. But for the moment, the only thing to do was to defeat this marauding band of frail barbarians who fled at the slightest scare!

With this thought, Zotol’s strides did not falter. He pursued relentlessly and finally cornered the Wolf Robe Chieftain at the end of a valley. Looking around, steep cliffs surrounded them, leaving no escape routes. The Wolf Robe Chieftain, with over a hundred red-haired followers, turned around in desperation. He held up his bronze short spear and roared.

"Awoo!"

"Haha, see where you can run now!"

Zotol laughed heartily. He approached with three hundred trusted Samurai, his eyes filled with murderous intent.

"Don’t try to howl like a wolf; even if you kneel down and meow like a cat, today I’ll still take your head!"

"Awoo!"

The Wolf Robe Chieftain roared again, a strange smile appearing on his face, and the red-haired hunters by his side also called out.

"Awoo!!"

Only moments later, as if in response to his call, a coordinated howling erupted from behind the cliffs, like a wolf pack’s hunting cry!

Then, in Zotol’s disbelieving gaze, on the cliff a few steps away, hundreds of red-haired hunters stood up. They raised their lightweight yet powerful bamboo longbows, took brief aim, and unleashed a deadly volley at the elegantly dressed Palm Chieftain.

"Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!!"