They had gone further than planned.
What began as a regional campaign around Tziccoac had turned into a chain of hard-won victories, each one forcing the Huastecs further north.
Three days had passed since the city fell. In that time, Cuetlachtli's forces had rested, resupplied, and rotated. They moved swiftly through the outer towns, each one holding out longer than the last, but none holding forever. A rhythm had set in: isolate, encircle, pressure, seize.
By the time scouts returned from the northernmost outposts of the Tziccoac valley, it was clear. The remaining Huastec fighters had fled northward, across the riverlands, toward less charted land. None had turned east or inland.
They were being pulled.
Not by orders. Not by an official strategy. Just by the motion of things.
Even the junior officers felt it. The last few battles had been tougher, bloodier, and yet more rewarding. Towns yielded arms, copper tools, livestock, women, and supplies. There were brothels now, dice games under lanterns, three working relay posts built with local labor, and a clear northbound track where the horses no longer stumbled. The map they found in Tziccoac still sat folded inside Cuetlachtli's case.
The river it showed, now confirmed to be the Castilian Pánuco. Lined up with their current location. The island far to the east had sparked quiet theories. Some said it was a place where more Castilians lived. Others said it was where they came from in the first place. A few simply called it "the place we're not ready for yet."
But this? This was still manageable.
This was still war on land.
And the enemy still bled.
So they kept going.
…
…
…
They noticed the change long before the next battle.
The jungle thinned. Trees grew wider apart, their branches less tangled, their leaves broader, waxier, and tougher to burn. The tall grass reached their thighs in some stretches, and in others, dry flats stretched for hundreds of paces before curling back into thickets.
It was hotter. Not in the humid, breath-choking way they knew from the valleys near the Gulf, but a heavier, more persistent heat that stuck to their backs even in the breeze. The nights were cooler now, too. Fewer insects, less fog. A slow dryness creeping in.
The horses moved better here. The supply teams noticed it first. There were less slipping, fewer hoof wounds. The new soil had more grit to it. Firmer, sandier, easier to dig in, and easier to bleed on.
Birdsong changed too. The high-pitched cries of the tropics faded into new sounds: shriller whistles, drumming calls, low caws from birds they didn't recognize.
A junior officer near the front of the column muttered that it felt like they were walking into another country.
The locals they captured didn't argue. When asked where the next village was, they didn't name a town they just pointed north and said "the land of the high mountains."
The rivers got wider, muddier, slower. Most had no proper bridges, just shallow fords and tied logs. Some were guarded, some abandoned. But every crossing felt like a threshold.
The sky stayed wide. No mountains to block the view as of yet. No high ridges to rest behind. Just open fields, thorny scrubland, scattered groves, and the wind.
They were in unfamiliar country now.
But they had not turned back.
…
…
…
The first arrow didn't kill the scout, but it dropped him to one knee. The second one hit the horse behind him. Then the brush exploded.
Huastecs emerged fast and low, flanking from both sides. No drums. No shouting. Just the sudden rhythm of feet over dirt and the sharp twang of atlatl cords.
They weren't here to take ground. Just to hit and vanish.
Tier 1's front ranks responded instantly. Veterans dropped low, raised shields, called out formation numbers by reflex. Others fired back with slings or darted for cover, yelling to the captains that the left flank was bleeding.
A second wave of Huastecs rushed in with clubs and copper-tipped spears, only to fall back as grapeshot whistled through the trees.
The ground wasn't ideal for cannon. Too narrow. Too brush-choked. The artillerymen fired once, maybe twice, then had to reposition before the Huastecs circled behind them.
It wasn't a battle. It was harassment.
And it worked.
Half the morning was lost clearing the area, patching wounds, and accounting for the missing. They found signs of traps left behind. Spiked pits, snares, cut branches ready to spring. The kind of tricks that slowed armies and drained patience.
By midday, Cuetlachtli had the captains switch the marching pattern. Scouts now rode far wider, cannons kept to the center, and junior officers had orders to treat every bush and ridge like it hid a blade.
They'd moved into an area where the Huastecs weren't defending towns, they were defending the land itself.
And they weren't done yet.
…
…
…
The next encounter came at a narrowing ridge above a shallow river. Good visibility. Shitty footing.
Tier 1 slowed as the scouts returned, dust-caked and tight-lipped. They hadn't found a town. They'd found people, and thousands. Camped. Positioned. Waiting.
And the Huastecs weren't hiding this time.
Their ranks stretched across the low hill, multicolored tilmatli rippling beneath the wind. Shields painted in reds, greens, ochres. War paint streaked high over brows. Some held copper swords. Others atlatls and thick clubs. A few carried old Mexica shields, either from prior battles or handed down from ancestors who'd fought in wars from before.
It wasn't a rabble. It was a stand.
Cuetlachtli said nothing as the cannon crews began setting up.
He didn't need to give a speech.
The Yaoquizque Tlapixque moved into their positions. Three-line volley, tight wedge flanks. Cannons were centered, not split this time—better terrain for direct fire.
They fired first.
The Huastecs didn't budge.
Tier 1 held formation. Two volleys. Then three. Arquebuses cracked in steady rhythm. Smoke coiled low around their legs. A few Huastecs fell. Most didn't.
And then they charged.
The slope made it worse. Their momentum carried them faster than expected, and within minutes the front line of Tier 1 was soaked in hand-to-hand fighting. Gunpowder couldn't hold them all back. Too many bodies. Too much push.
For every Huastec that went down, two more pressed in.
The air turned foul with blood, heat, black powder, and rot. The screams didn't stop. The guns jammed more often now, powder fouled by sweat, barrels overheated. Cannon teams shouted for more shot. They were already low.
Cuetlachtli sent up the red marker "hold position" but the left flank nearly collapsed.
Only when the flanks bent into partial encirclement and the Huastec middle stalled did the tide shift. Grapeshot tore through their rear. Arquebusiers got higher ground. Melee units advanced with spears and short-swords, gutting the wounded, silencing the crawling.
By late afternoon, it was over.
The Huastecs had retreated, like wolves. Not routed, but bloodied enough to vanish into the treeline.
Tier 1 stood where they were. No cheering. Just breathing. A few dropped to their knees. Others reloaded by habit, hands moving while their ears still rang.
They had held the field.
But it wasn't clean.
Nearly a hundred men wounded. Two dozen dead. They'd burned through far too much powder. Cuetlachtli paced through the aftermath, jaw clenched, checking stock levels, bark-paper reports, relay estimates. His officers knew not to speak unless he asked.
The field smelled of copper and piss.
And even with the dead cleared, the flies were already arriving.
One of the younger Tlaxcalan captains muttered, "We won."
Another wiped his face and said flatly, "So did they."
Cuetlachtli didn't respond. He just turned toward the north. Toward more hills. More brush.
…
…
…
The camp was makeshift. Nothing permanent. Just enough cleared brush and trampled earth to pitch low awnings and give the wounded shade.
Sentries stood in rotation. Not as sharp as usual. A few leaned on their spears more than they should've, but no one said anything. Everyone felt it.
A line of men lay along the shallow ditch at the camp's edge, wounds cleaned but still open. Saltwater boiled and rationed. The stench of burned cloth, dried blood, and meat filled the air. Every few minutes came the hiss of another soldier being stitched or having a wound cauterized.
One man bit down on a thick branch as a spearhead was pulled from his thigh. Another vomited halfway through a bandage change. The Tequitiliztli moved quickly between them, checking pulses, assessing who could walk tomorrow and who would need to be carted back to the rear line.
They couldn't afford to lose too many more.
By the time the sun dipped low, Cuetlachtli had gathered his captains in the only part of camp that still felt orderly. A flat clearing near the ridge, marked by a ring of shields and a rough map pinned with stones. His arms were crossed. His face unreadable.
A junior captain gave the first summary.
"Fifty-eight confirmed wounded. Twenty-three dead. Four of them officers. Arquebus teams are down to thirty percent powder."
No one flinched. They just absorbed it.
Another added, "Five cannons operational. Two overheated and cracked their mounts. We've got smiths, but no iron."
One of the Tlaxcalan commanders grunted. "We burn through more than we bring in."
Cuetlachtli finally spoke.
"Then we take what we need."
The circle quieted. He scanned the faces around him, their grime-covered, sun-leathered, some still splattered with dried blood.
"We're sending two detachments. One raids. One scouts."
He gestured toward the map.
"The raiding team will move northeast. Follow the last trail the Huastecs pulled back on. Hit anything moving. Camps. Supply wagons. Porters. Doesn't matter. We harass them back. We make them slow down."
A few nods. Someone muttered, "Finally."
Cuetlachtli continued.
"The scout team goes north-northwest. Quiet. No banners. No volleys. Just eyes. I want terrain studied. Water sources marked. I want to know if we can put a military post somewhere out here, a permanent one. That means elevation, clean water, roads."
One of the older captains scratched his chin. "You expecting to garrison this region long-term?"
Cuetlachtli didn't blink. "I'm expecting the war not to end soon."
There was no challenge after that.
He turned to his aide. "Draft the names. Pull men with good legs and better instincts. Anyone too fresh gets left here."
The aide nodded and left.
Cuetlachtli looked out across the camp.
The wounded still lay where they'd been placed. Some already asleep from pain or exhaustion. Others awake, listening. Watching. No one was weeping. No one had broken. But the line was stretched thin.
This wasn't Tohancapan anymore.
This was something else. The edge of the world. The place where maps went blank.
And they weren't turning back.
…
…
…
Days Later
Tier 1 hadn't rested.
Even without the raiding or scouting teams in camp, the main force hadn't gone idle. But it wasn't by choice.
The Huastecs were one thing, familiar in method even when fierce. The Chichimecas were another.
They didn't attack in formation. They didn't charge in waves. They didn't try to take ground.
They harassed.
At night, arrows came from the dark. Flint-tipped, whispering out of the brush and biting into tents, rations, unguarded throats. During the day, scouts returned bloodied or not at all. Traps were found on narrow path, pits lined with sharpened sticks, tree limbs bent and tied to rip cords, crude spikes dipped in waste.
Cuetlachtli had them moved twice in a span of four days.
The first encampment had become a grave for the wounded, picked off one by one as night raids escalated. The second was better fortified but harder to resupply. Horses grew thin. Teeth clenched over every bite of dried meat. The jungle felt louder now. More alive. And none of it friendly.
Some of the Tlaxcalan auxiliaries started calling them the northern ghosts. Not quite Huastec, not quite human. Not soldiers. Just something wild with sharp hands and long memories.
One Yaoquizque Tequitiliztli lieutenant lost a dozen men in a single patrol. Nothing found but a blood trail and a half-burned signal flag wedged in a tree trunk.
When Cuetlachtli gathered his remaining officers again, no one brought up moving forward. Not yet. They were holding position, drawing maps, setting layered defenses. And still bleeding.
They sent more runners south, to the command in Tziccoac. For powder. For horses. For word from Ehecatl himself.
But for now, Tier 1 was learning something unpleasant.
The Huastecs had retreated north for a reason.
They hadn't just been escaping.
They'd been baiting Tier 1 into Chichimeca country.
And now, the Mexica were fighting an enemy that didn't care about siege logic, volley lines, or the glory of flags.
They were fighting ghosts.
…
…
…
There was good news. And there was bad news.
The raiding party never returned.
No runners. No scouts. No sign of struggle.
Maybe they were taken. Maybe they scattered. Maybe they never even reached the Huastec line. Tier 1 had no way of knowing. The land up here swallowed what it wanted. No one spoke their names out loud, not yet anyways. Not until someone saw a body.
But the scouting party came back.
Their clothes were ripped, their faces drawn, but they were alive, and they carried something more valuable than weapons.
A map. Drawn by hand, crude but clear. Hills, river bends, a high ridge with clear water nearby. They described a patch of land shielded by stone on two sides, not far from a stream thick with fish and surrounded by sloping terrain ideal for sightlines and layered defenses. It wasn't just a good position for a military post.
It could grow. Into a camp. Into a foothold. Into something permanent.
Cuetlachtli didn't hesitate.
The moment the sun rose the next day, all of Tier 1 began packing.
The wounded were hoisted onto litters. The last of the cannons were rechecked, resecured. Powder was rationed. Rations were halved. No one needed speeches. They just needed movement.
By the time they left camp, the air felt thinner, less like fear, more like resolve.
They hadn't forgotten the raiders.
But now they had a place to build.
Now they had ground to claim.
…
…
…
The march north continued along the shifting edges of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The air grew drier with each passing day, the heat sharper, the nights colder. Tier 1 followed a route that curved past the upper Pánuco watershed, hugging the safer eastern slope away from the deeper valleys. There were no cities here. Just raw land, stubborn trees, and the silence of hills unmarked by tribute routes.
But they weren't alone.
They saw the Chichimeca.
Not many at first. A figure on a ridge. A silhouette at dusk. Sometimes a pair of eyes behind the brush, watching from above. They didn't speak. They didn't attack. They just watched. Not out of fear, perhaps, but out of patience. Cuetlachtli saw it. So did the captains.
The Chichimeca didn't charge thousands of armed men.
But they'd be back. That much was certain.
The march pressed forward. No drums, no banners, only boots and hooves and the steady churn of wheels and breath. The scouting report had held true. On the fourth day, they reached it: a high ridge flanked by low hills and a spring-fed stream. The slope faced east, catching the morning sun. The western edge dropped into a shallow basin with stone cover on three sides. There was room for tents, for fires, for defenses.
Cuetlachtli stood at the center and looked out over the basin. The men were already unpacking, securing gear, checking the tree lines.
He raised one hand, fingers spread, and spoke to no one in particular:
"This place is Yaotlan."
Land of war.
The name stuck.
Before the sun had dipped, the first stakes were being driven into the dirt. Trenches marked. Watchposts raised. It wasn't a city, far from it, but it was a beginning.
And here, at the edge of the known world, Tier 1 would carve its next chapter into the stone.
…
…
…
The men had eaten. The fires were low. The laughter and murmurs of the camp slowly thinned into snores and shifting bodies. But the war hut still glowed.
Cuetlachtli sat cross-legged beneath the woven awning, a bowl of coals burning slow beside him. Around him sat his captains and junior officers each bearing a scar, a record, or the eyes of someone who no longer mistook war for ceremony. Some drank sparingly. Most simply waited.
They didn't waste time.
One of the older Tequitiliztli spoke first. "The Chichimeca won't meet us in open battle. The Huastecs barely could. They know it. That's why they bleed us through ambushes, through cuts instead of breaks."
Another nodded. "They strike the weak lines. Wagons. Rear scouts. They won't take the camp, but they'll make sure we sleep lighter each night."
Cuetlachtli didn't speak yet. He just listened.
"What we did before won't carry us through Tamaulipas," a younger Tlapixque captain added. "We can't keep treating this like it's Xocotla, Tohancapan, or Tziccoac. It's not."
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the crack of a log outside the hut.
Then Cuetlachtli spoke.
"Good. You're not fools."
He leaned forward, fingers tracing lines into the dirt beside the coals.
"Then here's how we handle it."
One by one, he listed the new doctrine.
"One: Divide and conquer."
He looked around the circle. "There are Huastecs. And there are Chichimeca. They're not one people. They're scattered. Dozens of tongues. Dozens of chiefs. If they unite, it's by fear. So we'll make them fear each other."
Some heads nodded.
"Two: Use their tactics."
He tapped the dirt sharply. "We've seen them strike from the trees, from gullies, from the river. That's fine. But we know these tactics too. The Cihuacoatl reclaimed Tenochtitlan with smoke, blades, and silence. So we take what they know, and we do it better."
No one disagreed.
"Three: Raid the isolated."
"Find the outer settlements. Not the strong ones. The stretched ones. The tired ones. Take their food. Take their tools. Take their youth. Leave them guessing what direction we'll strike next."
A captain chuckled once under his breath. "Like wolves on a mountain trail."
Cuetlachtli didn't smile, but he didn't correct him either.
"Four: Fortify."
He glanced toward the south-facing wall of the hut. "Yaotlan isn't just a camp. It's a tooth. And we will sharpen it. Walls. Trenches. Watchposts. I want this place to be a wound they can't ignore but can't pierce either."
"And five…"
He paused. Let it sink in.
"Do not chase them."
He turned his gaze to a captain who had spoken earlier.
"They want you to follow. They want you out past the safe trail. You chase a ghost into the brush, you get ten darts in your neck."
One of the junior officers grunted. "So we bait them."
Cuetlachtli met his eyes.
"Yes. We bait them."
The council went quiet again. Not out of confusion. But because the plan was clear. Each word cut clean. Each piece, familiar.
They'd seen the map.
Now they understood the terrain.
Cuetlachtli stood slowly, joints stiff from the squat. He stepped to the edge of the war hut and pushed the flap aside. Outside, the night hummed with insects. Somewhere to the west, a coyote howled once. Then silence again.
Behind him, one of his oldest captains spoke quietly.
"Are we really at the edge of the world?"
Cuetlachtli didn't turn.
"Indeed we are."
He stepped out into the dark.
"And we'll make sure this land will belong to us."
…
…
…
The smell of dung-tipped arrows clung faintly in the northern wind.
For weeks now, the land between Tziccoac and Yaotlan had grown familiar—claimed through blood, iron, and filth. What the Cihuacoatl once used in the capital, Cuetlachtli now used in the wilds. No grand speeches were given about it. No banners waved. But Tier 1's blades and arrowheads were dipped in rot, piss, and shit. Moldy cloth bound under the hilts to soak into wounds.
It wasn't noble. It wasn't clean.
But it worked.
The Huastecs had learned quickly what those infections could do. The Chichimeca too. Tier 1 didn't need to win every battle. They just needed the enemy to hesitate. One scratch, one shallow cut and that was enough to put a man in bed. Or in the ground days later.
And that was the point.
It gave Tier 1 time.
Time to fortify Yaotlan. Time to rest the injured. Time to train the locals who bent the knee. Time to connect back to Tziccoac where now, fresh gunpowder, dried meat, and clean water flowed through the horse relay built in secrecy and speed. Ten riders to a stretch, switching saddles without a word. It wasn't glamorous. It was just working.
And that, more than anything else, made Yaotlan feel like it might last.
It was late morning when the runner arrived.
Cuetlachtli stood beside a dugout fire trench, speaking with one of the engineers about stone-reinforced palisades, when the boy approached, panting but upright.
"There's a group," the runner said, chest heaving. "Chichimeca. A lot of them. Coming from the north. Not charging. Just… walking."
"How many?"
"Twenty. Maybe more. No banners. No weapons out."
Cuetlachtli's gaze narrowed. He nodded once and called over a captain.
"Sound the signal. But don't raise arms. Not yet."
A horn bellowed once from the central post. Not the rhythm of alarm, just readiness.
Within minutes, the Yaoquizque were posted.
Helmets on. Shields at rest. Arquebuses near the flanks, but not raised. Quiet tension. The kind that didn't snap easily, but made every breath sharper.
They came into view slowly.
Barefoot. Lightly clothed. Faces painted with ash and ochre. No armor. No iron. Just bone necklaces, knives, and eyes that scanned everything at once.
One of them raised a hand as they got within distance. Not a greeting. Just a signal that they meant to speak.
Cuetlachtli stepped forward with two captains. No translator. No priest. No pageantry.
One of the Chichimeca, older than the rest, tilted his head.
"You are not Huastec," he said in broken Nahuatl.
"No," Cuetlachtli answered.
"You kill Huastec."
"Yes."
"You chase us?"
"No."
The man nodded once, long and slow. "Good. Then we speak."
Cuetlachtli didn't respond right away.
The man who spoke was wiry, bare-chested, with hair tied into a short knot behind his head. His Nahuatl was coarse, half chewed, half spat, but clear enough. The rest of his group stood behind him in loose formation, their shoulders loose, eyes alert. Watching everything. Counting weapons. Gauging gaps.
Cuetlachtli gave a slight nod, then asked plainly, "Your name?"
The man tapped his own chest. "Tome. Xanambre."
Cuetlachtli squinted. "Xanambre?"
The man said it again, slower. "Janambre."
The sound caught in Cuetlachtli's throat. That curled, rolled sound. The one Nahuatl never used. He repeated it, trying to mimic the shape. "…Janambre."
It came out strange. Too soft. Wrong on the tongue.
He frowned. Then shrugged.
"Xanample," he muttered instead, flattening the word, shifting it closer to what his mouth knew how to shape. "That's what we'll call you."
Tome didn't argue. Just blinked, slowly. Either it meant nothing to him or he knew better than to correct a man surrounded by hundreds.
Cuetlachtli lifted a hand and signaled toward the path.
"If you came to speak, speak. Inside."
There was no ceremony after that.
No welcoming drums. No seated meal. Just a silent clearing between the inner fences and the growing rows of tents. The Xanample entered two-by-two. Still barefoot. Still quiet. Not a one reached for a weapon.
The rest of Tier 1 watched with hard eyes, but didn't move.
This wasn't surrender.
Not yet.
But it wasn't a challenge either.
And Cuetlachtli would hear them out.
…
…
…
The tent flap parted.
Two of the Janambre stepped inside first, followed by Tome. The others waited outside, crouched or standing near the palisade edge, silent and still. No one reached for food. No one asked questions. They simply observed.
Inside, the air was warmer, still thick with the smell of tanned leather, iron, sweat, and ink. Cuetlachtli stood at the head of the long mat, with his captains flanking him, arms folded.
The map table behind him was half-covered. Ink still drying from the latest scouting updates. No one offered seats.
Tome stepped forward slowly, chin raised.
Cuetlachtli's eyes didn't move from him.
"You came here," he said.
"You asked to speak."
His voice stayed even.
"So speak."