The war began in earnest when the alliance army marched from Tlaxcala into Xocotla and its surrounding territories, 28,000 sandals slamming the earth in synchronized thunder. The ground shuddered beneath them, clouds of fine dust kicking up into eyes and throats, a dry sting that clung like sand in a windstorm.
Caught mid-harvest and mid-trade, villages and towns fell swiftly beneath the army's sudden arrival. Smoke curled from torched rooftops, flames snapping through thatch and timber. The acrid bite of burning straw and resin choked the wind as heat shimmered across the air, singeing skin even at a distance. Horses, new to the relay system, replaced many human runners. Hooves thundering against dirt paths, their slick hides glinting with sweat, saddles creaking as bark-sealed messages swung in rhythm with each gallop.
Local resistance was minimal, disorganized, and crushed quickly. Arrows sliced the air; iron balls screamed before punching into flesh with meaty thuds that sprayed hot blood into the dust. The scent of copper and loam clung to the earth as bodies fell in heaps, their gurgled cries swallowed by the clash of steel on shield. Wood splintering, bone shattering.
As agreed, Tlaxcala took their spoils freely. Warriors rummaged through huts and altars alike. Gold clinking into hands, cacao pods stuffed into sacks, precious feathers bundled in armfuls. The sweet tang of crushed chocolate beans mixed with smoke and sweat as Tlaxcalan glee echoed off burning walls.
The Mexica, in contrast, documented. Scribes followed behind the chaos, hunched over bark-paper scrolls, names of standouts etched mid-battle with quick strokes. One such name, Yaotl had cut through defenders like a storm, his face streaked with blood, earning the title of Tecuhtli Calpixque before the dust had even settled.
The march didn't pause.
With Otomi, Totonac, Huastec, and Nahua villages behind them, the army pressed forward in coordinated waves. The earth turned to mud beneath relentless cactli stomps. Gunpowder choked the air with rifled arquebuses thundered with every pull, their sulfur bite flooding mouths. Flames danced atop collapsing roofs, ash swirling into skies already red with smoke. Grenades burst in short flashes, iron fragments slicing through defenders. Screams rose and fell like waves, blades soaked with gore, fingers tightening around weapons slick with blood.
Xocotla was supposed to resist. It never did.
The Nahua-majority stronghold collapsed without a fight. Its lords had no warning as they were surrounded before they could react. Roads were sealed with felled trees and mounded earth. Supply carts groaned in the distance. Thirst crept in. Food ran low. Panic whispered through the alleys. The old codes of war used to be sending out a messenger, granting time to prepare. The Mexica used to give their opponents forty days to prepare, but now this was ignored. The Mexica had replaced tradition with calculated violence.
Reports from nearby settlements reached Xocotla too late. Scouts returned breathless, their warnings barely delivered before campfires appeared across the horizon as they were hundreds of them, circling like vultures. The air filled with sharpening blades, low chants, and dread. When the gates opened, there was no battle cry. Just silence. Submission. And the quiet terror of a city too late to save itself.
The central plaza stank of smoke and ash under a noon sun that baked the earth into clay. The lords of Xocotla with their headdresses askew, sweat dripping down ash-streaked faces were paraded before the assembled army. Tlaxcalan jeers boomed over the crowd, warriors laughing as the lords knelt in dust. Their oaths of loyalty rasped through cracked lips, voices trembling under the flutter of the eagle-serpent banner.
Tribute followed quickly. Baskets of cacao poured open in soft rustles. Feathers quivered as they changed hands. Jewelry passed from captive to conqueror with the clink of gold and jade warming in callused palms.
Then Cuauhtemoc stepped forward.
He named the new Mexica administrator with clear purpose, his voice rising over the crowd, naming a Tecuhtli Calpixque to oversee the city. The newly appointed noble stepped forth in a flowing tilmatli, while the old lords watched their authority—like their city—crumble to dust.
Tlaxcala took full advantage. Maxixcatzin led his warriors in stripping the temples and storerooms clean. Pottery smashed. Maize sacks split open. Jade ornaments were weighed and claimed. Gold idols pried from altars gleamed blinding in the sun before disappearing into waiting hands. Slaves were chained and driven out, tears silent against the noise.
The chaos was so absolute that the lords of Xocotla mistook who was in charge. Believing Tlaxcala led the invasion, they bowed before Maxixcatzin—begging mercy, pleading for their temples and authority. He dismissed them with a lazy flick of the wrist.
"We're just here to take your shit," he said. "Talk to Cuauhtemoc if you want to keep breathing."
Soon after, the Mexica asserted control. Cuetlachtli passed Cuauhtemoc a final list of recommended names, his fingers stained with gunpowder. The bark-paper still warm from his grip.
Cuauhtemoc read aloud in the plaza, each name called like a drumbeat. These were the new Tecuhtli Calpixque—tribute collectors entrusted to manage, protect, and extract. Veterans. Loyalists. Fighters who had proven themselves. The crowd cheered. Chests puffed. Titles accepted. And beneath it all, the scent of conquest still lingered in the air.
Xocotla had not fought.
But it had fallen all the same.
And the east was now theirs.
Then there was Cuetlachtli establishing the newly formed division of the Yaoquizque Tlapixque called Yaoquizque Tequitiliztli—Tribute-Labor Of The Guardians—in the city's shadowed alleys where the air grew heavier with the vice of opportunity.
He began by setting up gambling dens of patolli in dimly lit adobe rooms, the clatter of painted beans rolling across mats echoing amid the hazy smoke of tobacco pipes, warriors' callused fingers flicking wagers with the sharp snap of shells, laughter and curses mingling with the bitter tang of spilled pulque as fortunes shifted in the flickering torchlight.
Beautiful or desperate women were gathered for prostitution in curtained alcoves, their perfume of floral oils clashing with the musky scent of arousal as they enticed with swaying hips and whispered promises, the soft rustle of huipils dropping to the floor followed by the rhythmic slap of skin and breathy moans that leaked through thin walls.
Slaves were allocated wherever needed, their chains clinking with each shuffled step as they were herded to labor sites, the metallic bite of iron on wrists chafing skin raw under the sun's glare, while Cuetlachtli's enforcers patrolled to prevent full chaos, their boots thudding on dirt paths as they broke up brawls with the crack of macuahuitl hilts on skulls, the coppery spray of blood a stark reminder amid the vice's haze. The underworld took shape swiftly, a web of controlled sin that promised income while keeping the city's pulse from descending into anarchy.
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Twenty days had passed, or in terms of the Mexica calendar a full month, when Cuetlachtli arrived at the lavish tecpan of Xoluta after dispatching the first month's profits from the underworld back to Tenochtitlan.
The tecpan pulsed with vice and sin, its adobe walls echoing the raucous laughter of Mexica and Tlaxcalan warriors intermingled in a haze of indulgence, the air thick with the acrid tang of pulque spilled on earthen floors and the musky scent of sweat-slicked bodies writhing in ecstasy. As he walked through the grand halls adorned with looted feathers and jade that gleamed under flickering torchlight, Cuetlachtli passed gambling dens where patolli boards clattered with the sharp roll of painted beans, men shouting curses as fortunes shifted, their callused hands slapping tables sticky with drink.
Prostitutes in striped huipils clung to warriors, their soft moans blending with the rhythmic slap of skin on skin from shadowed alcoves, breasts heaving with each thrust as men claimed them roughly against walls that vibrated with the impact, the wet sounds of penetration filling the space like a forbidden symphony, the coppery hint of blood from bitten lips mingling with the floral oils on their skin.
Cuetlachtli thought he glimpsed the wife of a Xocotla lord among them, her once-noble huipil torn open to expose her full breasts as a Tlaxcalan warrior groped them possessively, her cries of forced pleasure echoing amid the grunts, but he wasn't concerned.
He had other thoughts as he arrived in the room where Cuauhtemoc and Maxixcatzin awaited, the space quieter but still heavy with the distant echoes of debauchery, the air carrying faint traces of sweat and spilled seed through the open doorway.
The three men discussed the next phase of the war, their voices low and resolute amid the tecpan's muffled chaos, the weight of maps spread before them on a low table scarred from previous conquests.
The newly titled Tecuhtli Calpixque were already sent off to their awarded villages and towns to collect tribute, their departures marked by the clatter of departing carts heavy with supplies. Cuauhtemoc leaned forward, his turquoise tilmatli shifting with a soft rustle, his expression a mix of grim satisfaction and caution. "Our men report few injuries, no deaths. The unprovoked strike was a boon, as cowardly as it felt at first. Villages crumbled before they could rally."
Maxixcatzin nodded, his scarred hands clenching into fists that thudded softly on the table, his red mantle stained with the dust of the road. "Aye, the surprise broke their spirits like brittle obsidian. My warriors revel in the loot, but the east hungers for more."
Cuetlachtli's eyes gleamed as he traced the map with a callused finger. "The gods favor the bold. The lack of warning turned their defenses to dust."
It was then agreed upon by the three that they would split the army accordingly. Cuetlachtli would be Command Army Left, conquering Tohancapan with the Tier 1's under him, his voice hoarse with zeal as he vowed to carve through like Quetzalcoatl's wind. Cuauhtemoc would be Command Army Center, conquering Cuauhtochco with the Tier 2's, his steady gaze promising disciplined fury. Maxixcatzin would be Command Army Right, conquering Cuetlaxtlan with the Tier 3's, his grin widening at the prospect of spoils. The tecpan's distant moans and laughter underscored the discussion, a reminder of the vice they controlled, the alliance's bond tightening amid the plans.
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The meeting concluded in the war room's fading torchlight, the assembled lords rising with the rustle of reed mats and the soft clink of pulque gourds set down on the low table, the air still heavy with the smoky bite of copal incense that clung to their tilmatli like a lingering embrace. As the group dispersed into the tecpan's corridors where distant moans and laughter from the halls of indulgence echoed faintly, a Xocotla lord lingered at the threshold, his face pale and slick with sweat under the flickering shadows, his cotton huipil wrinkled and damp from nervous twisting. Cuauhtemoc noticed him, his turquoise tilmatli shifting with a whisper as he turned, gesturing with a firm hand for the man to enter. The lord shuffled forward on trembling legs, the stone floor cool and gritty under his bare feet, collapsing to his knees with a thud that reverberated through the room, his sobs breaking the silence like shattered pottery, hot tears streaming down his cheeks to drip onto the dust-speckled ground.
"Lord Cuauhtemoc." the man pleaded, his voice cracking with raw desperation, hands clutching at the Huey Tlatoani's hem, the fabric smooth and heavy under his fingers. "My wife… she's among the women in the tecpan, the ones the Tlaxcalans are… indulging in. I beg you, help me. She's a mother, a woman of standing, her skin soft from years of care, her body meant for honor, not reduced to a whore for them to insult, their rough hands groping her breasts, their grunts filling the air as they thrust into her like animals." His words spilled out amid heaving breaths, the distant sounds of vice seeping through. Wet slaps of skin, breathy moans, the musky tang of arousal carried on the breeze. Making his plea all the more gut-wrenching.
Cuauhtemoc heard the man's pleas, his expression stoic but internally a storm raged, sympathy twisting in his chest like a thorn embedded deep. Truly he understood the anguish, though never in the same predicament, he had seen and heard it among the pipiltin during the Castilian occupation. Their wives and daughters dragged into wherever the Castilians wished to take them, the air thick with the scent of sweat and fear as the Castilians claimed them roughly, grunts and cries echoing through the night, bodies left bruised and slick with unwanted seed, the helplessness a blade in the gut. He had been powerless then, as this man was powerless now, the memory's bitter taste rising like bile. Still, he could not rule on emotions alone, the empire's foundations demanded pragmatism, and thus he suggested a compromise, his voice steady and resonant as he placed a hand on the lord's shoulder, the man's trembling frame warm under his palm.
"Rise," Cuauhtemoc said, pulling him up gently, the lord's tears dampening his sleeve. "If you wish to spare your wife such fates, become more Mexica. Dress as we do, follow our order, send your children to Tenochtitlan to learn from us. That is a step in the right direction." He gestured broadly, his tilmatli rustling softly.
"Look to Cuetlachtli, of Huexotzinco origins, yet more Mexica than some pipiltin I once knew, his loyalty woven into every breath." Cuauhtemoc ended the conversation firmly, his eyes meeting the lord's red-rimmed gaze. "Do that, and there's a possibility you could be considered an equal among us."
The man stopped crying but remained no less sad, his shoulders slumping as he nodded, the weight of the compromise pressing on him like the humid air, before taking his leave with shuffling steps that scraped softly on the stone floor, the door creaking shut behind him like a final sigh.
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A few days had passed, and the army stood ready to begin the next phase of the war, the air thick with the scent of oiled leather and sweat-soaked cotton as warriors sharpened macuahuitls with the rhythmic scrape of obsidian on stone, their breaths heavy and eager in the predawn chill that prickled skin like tiny needles. Just before Cuauhtemoc took off, his turquoise tilmatli catching the first hints of sunrise as he mounted his horse with a creak of saddle leather, he turned to the newly appointed Tecuhtli Calpixque. A veteran named Yaotl, his face weathered from battles with scars like jagged lightning across his cheek, and pulled him aside near a flickering torch that cast warm, dancing light over their features, the flame's heat a brief counter to the morning's bite.
"Yaotl." Cuauhtemoc said, his voice low and commanding, grasping the man's shoulder with a firm grip that pressed into the muscle beneath his ichcahuipilli, the fabric rough under his palm. "Watch over the Xocotla lord, his wife, and children. If that family makes attempts at Mexicanization by adopting our dress, our ways, sending their young to learn in Tenochtitlan then offer them privileges. Land rights, reduced tribute, protection. Show them the path to equality."
Yaotl nodded immediately, his expression a mask of solemn agreement as he bowed his head, the torchlight reflecting in his dark eyes like embers in coal. "It will be done, Huey Tlatoani. Your vision guides us."
But mentally he disagreed, his thoughts churning with a sly hunger that twisted his gut like a coiling serpent, the warmth of the torch doing little to chase the cold calculation in his mind. He had been there partying in the tecpan that chaotic night, the air heavy with the musky tang of arousal and spilled pulque, moans blending with the crackle of hearth fires as bodies writhed in shadowed alcoves. He had glimpsed the Xocotla lord's wife among the women, her striped huipil torn open to reveal full breasts heaving with each thrust from a Tlaxcalan warrior, her skin glistening with sweat under the flickering light, nipples hardened from rough pinches as she gasped in forced ecstasy, the wet slap of skin on skin echoing amid grunts and cries. The sight had enticed him, her curves a temptation that stirred his length even now in memory, the imagined taste of her salt-slicked skin on his tongue, the feel of her thighs wrapped around him as he claimed her roughly. He had no intention of protecting that family; instead he plotted loopholes to exploit in his favor. Perhaps a fabricated charge of disloyalty to seize her as "spoil". Bend her over in his new quarters and thrust into her with savage force, her screams muffled by his hand as he spilled inside, turning the lord's pleas into his personal indulgence. For now he kept his face neutral, the internal smirk hidden as Cuauhtemoc departed with a final nod, the Huey Tlatoani's horse kicking up dust that gritty on Yaotl's tongue, the army's march beginning with the distant rumble of feet and the sharp commands cutting through the air.