“HEEeeeLp….m..m..”

The young soldier strained to breathe as his captor lynched him by his mere standing.

Holding him well above the floor, his swinging feet kicked nothing but air, not even the tip of his toes managed to muster the dust below.

The guard swung him over his shoulder.

Bouncing his back off the caked dirt.

HRRRRK

A violent grunt expelled the last ounce of his shallow breath.

The brute lumbered his foot above the floored boy’s head.

Hovering his monstrous leg over his victim’s temple, he gradually rested his heel upon the sobbing defenseless soldier.

The bulk of his foot alone embedded his skull into crumbling soil.

The behemoth of a captain fixed his eyes on the ever-expanding cloud, he could see the swells curve unto themselves, tracing Tlawecoli’s movements.

“HOLD HIM DOWN!”

The captain commanded.

[COIL LASH]

Tlawecoli sends the attack outside his shroud of dust.

A second rope ripped through the dust, cleaving the thick plume, the recoil striking his jaw.

"AARGH!"

"G-Ge-Gedt- DA BASthArD!"

He slurred his orders, ignoring his swollen maw as blood drowned his tongue.

His face, now replete with fury; Axalco kicked the mace toward his comrades.

Tlawecoli scurried beneath the veil of dust.

With his eyes tightly closed, all he could do was listen.

He’d heard his soldiers hacking the dirt from their congested throats.

Heard them topple to the floor like mere livestock.

He felt the popping vertebra of his youngest cadet, and in his rage, tasted the blood that spilled from the boy as his own.

Standing motionless in the enveloping shroud, he held his breath and emptied his mind.

He took heed of the rustling feet, discerning between the rushing gallantry and dispersing peasants.

The weary steps from recovering guards he’d managed to fell multiplied along with the urgent stride of the approaching troops.

With the discarded mace now far beyond reach, another plan he needed.

Tlawecoli opened his eyes; flecks of dust drifted over his thick eyelashes.

Looking around, nothing but dust, desert, and death.

There was nothing.

This was it.

He looked down at his hands, still shackled by his imperial binds.

With the dust bowl beginning to dissipate, vague shadows wavered in its veils.

The figures of civilians and warriors were indistinguishable.

Their cautious feet were unable to hide their numbers, still, he could only listen as the soldiers marched closer and closer.

Withholding their fire, the eagle archers kept their keen eye within the cross-hairs of their mark.

THE ROPES!

His mind reminded.

[DUAL STRIKE]

Tlawecoli targets the ground.

Gripping the tethers, he swung them in a circumference, flaring up the pulverous soil once again.

He swiftly swung his arms overhead, then lashed his ropes straight down.

WAAAAAACK

Another lash cracked out once more, this time walloping the dirt beneath the surrounding guard.

As the riling plumes blustered, its thickened clouds impaired their vision, delaying their advancing ranks.

The mighty Captain Axalco proceeded to lift his massive foot, menacing over the young prisoner’s face.

'AAARGH!’

A stray bundle of dirt pelted the monster’s eyes.

"HaCk HAAack!"

“You coward. Fight me like a real Mezan!”

His lumbering foot hit the floor away from his floored victim.

Tlawecoli pinpointed his location inside the billowing dust bowl.

He needed to hurry before the brute killed the young cadet.

[PROWLER DASH]

At once he darted, dropping below the sand as the dust trailed behind his every step, like a brush his flowing hair painted tails of dust in the wind.

Glimpses of Tlawecoli darted between the streaks.

He switched the ropes between his hands, forming a crude garrote, as he sprang from beneath the swirling shroud.

The hulking guard could finally see as Tlawecoli leaped over his statuesque frame, he felt the abrasive ropes surrounding his neck not an instant later.

"HHRRKKGGRRK!"

The oaf stumbled around, clawing towards his back, trying to reach the rider.

The dense clouds dissipated from the clamor as swipe by swipe his stocky fingers failed to grasp the tightly pressed noose.

With the air losing its opacity, the imperial troop spotted Tlawecoli’s loose retrains writhing across the floor.

As he continued to bury his shackles into their captain’s windpipe, he stretched his feet against the beast’s ample shoulders, tugging the ropes, anger shook his trembling muscles.

The Imperial soldiers wrangled the tethers strewn about, flailing against the baked dirt.

Afraid to even tug at the ropes, seeing as how they were now half-buried into the captain’s bruising neck.

Seeing their hesitance Tlawecoli place his foot behind the captain’s head, thrusting as he yanked the ropes.

Tearing cracks rattled along the noose.

Faint droplets of blood were beginning to seep between the unwinding rope and the abraded flesh.

Phweet!--Shunk-

A whistle soared past the soldiers.

The captain heard a solid clonk mixed with the sound of tearing flesh, immediately followed by a painful shout.

Blood trickled unto his shaved head, dribbling down the wedged rope over his ears.

Its cold wet touch contrasted with the warmth of his opening wounds.

A satisfied smile grew on his face.

Axalco swiped up once more, this time with sure precision, a favor from the prince’s arrow.

The brute clenched the protruding stem of the surgically skewered bolt.

Twisting and turning the arrow he jammed its splinters deeper into the wound.

Still, Tlawecoli’s grip managed to persevere through the pulsating torture.

Frustrated the captain pulled the serrated head back out, only to quickly pierce his heel, severing his tendon.

Tlawecoli jerked his leg away in reflex, his foot dangling at its hinge as the arrow remained lodged in his right ankle.

He slumped from the captain’s back, his limp body racing toward the ground.

SLUMP

“Restrain him, you useless imbeciles!!!”

A young man, covered in regalia emerged between the leading troops which separated prisoners from the cortege of patricians at the lead.

His charcoal hair was shaved off one side, and both his ears adorned with a fan of broad emerald feathers.

A braided headband of green and red rectangular patterns woven unto a black background circled his head, much like his men.

Unlike his more uncivilized countrymen, a defined border outlined the finely groomed thicket of his brow, and his angled bones carved a fierce yet delicate young man.

Erect feathers angled against one another formed the triangular ridges which crowned his head, creating the signature profile of Prince Cuatemoc.

His highly maintained features belie his countless conquests.

The young noble lowered his nocked arm and proceeded to tuck his bow underneath his elegant flowing cloak of the same imperial color and pattern.

The surrounding guards began reeling Tlawecoli’s tethers, tugging his ropes.

Again immobile nothing but his howls ran through the susurrate desert.

“THIS WARRIOR is a personal present for the Emperor, Captain.” He snapped his fingers, pointing at the mace.

Quickly, one of his men fetched the weapon resting near the prickled shrubs.

“You’ve debouched my perfect offering, Stolen right from right under your king’s grasp.”

The prince’s attendant handed him an axe's pummel.

“So was it treason…or frailty, Axalco?”

The lumbering captain bowed before the young prince, holding his wrist out in shame.

“Your inadequacy eclipses even a frame of your nature ‘Captain’.”

Lifting the mace high overhead, the orange shimmer slashed down towards its previous owner, as he supplicated for his transgression.

The sun continued its reprieve, dimming from a pale yellow to the typical orange glow of late sunset.

On they marched, weaving between sandstone and towering shadows.

Their heels tugged against the net of ropes.

They persevered through parched air and baked dust until the scent of fresh blooms drifted into the last stretch of The Mictetzahuat.

Finding himself once again within the hold of the Mezax empire, Tlawecoli could only spectate the land drifting as far as the eye could see; evolving from barren gravel to sparse plains and, eventually settling into the verdant oasis in the heart of the desert.

Droves of Mezans poured in from the arid dry plains of The Mictetzahuat.

They trampled over the scarce vegetation where arid grounds met the emerald hills of the oasis, at last, they had arrived at the abundant prairies of Ometeotican.

The cool breeze caressed their baking skin, and sweat evaporated with the gentle gust, cooling their seared faces.

Moist air soothed scalded throats, whilst the aroma of ripe fruit lingered with the floral bluffs.

It was a small respite for the weary travelers.

Even the prisoners came at ease in the meadow, indeed it almost made one forget the impending doom nearing the end of the journey.

Like the waltzing breeze cavorting with the lush plantations, their slogging feet found a renewed briskness in the peaceful outskirts.

A few yards away stalks of corn rocked gently in the breeze, its vibrant cobs paled the fields of marigolds from which they sprouted.

Their tender yellow seeds were sweeter than the hauled fruit upon their barracks.

Colors of guava, avocado, and dragon fruit melded with the collage of wildflowers sprouting along the grass road.

An imperial brigade patrolled the verdant fields, corralling the arriving peregrine away from the farmland and unto the main passage.

Drafts of moisture permeated the air with the clean aroma from the Imperial lakes.

Prince Cuatemoc held a bone-white pipe.

Holes lined its windpipe shape, and a crudely carved skull graced its end.

Fwhiiiiiit!

The prince whistled at his platoon pointing at the location of the obscure road.

Tlawecoli could discern the imperial roads verdigris marble from the slightly darker meadow it overlapped, it almost camouflaged the trails leading directly to the capital.

Peasants removed their meek leather shoes to feel the fresh grass between their toes, a delicacy more savory than a handful of fresh spring one might say.

The grassy slopes, like undulations of a silent ocean, with its pine-blue pastures dancing to the current of its billows.

The joyful youngsters rolled down the lush hills, as wagons struggled over its terrain, hasteful to find the paved highway.

Over the distance stood two stone mounds, equal in size, with a beauty unique to the Mezax artisans.

Both identical, each a boulder of viridian jade, their delicate gloss contoured the mangled hummingbird Teotel; vassal of Xiupotec.

The sculpted monuments presided over the spacious imperial road which lay between the decaying visage of its statues.

Their long narrow beaks were snapped past half their length, and their stout feathers were ruined by countless slivers leaving their wings jagged and shorn.

The once majestic Coluitzil bared a resemblance more akin to the trampled and weathered highway they guarded.

Its miles of winding road slithered into the distance.

Tile of the same material and shape as the feathers of Xiupotec paved the highway, its interlinked narrow stones fluoresced from turquoise to emerald as they marched on with the mission.

FHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!

Again the prince called this time with a longer spine-chilling shriek.

On command, all hastened their pace towards the marble pavement and onward to the giant lakes of the empire.

The rustling feet merged with the cyclic clanks of timber wheels, resonating across the trail and within the narrowing valley as they traveled deeper into the empire, eventually disappearing into the imminent thicket of the surrounding wilds.

In the distance, a mountainous slab of jade began emerging from the canopy, from behind the overgrown jungle.

Majestic temples hovered over the tree line.

The elevated walls surrounded a fertile basin, enclosing all three lakes that formed the capital’s lock.

Still, even walls of such scale could not withhold the magnificent height of Xiupotec’s monolithic pyramid.

As the travelers approached the end of the imperial road, the borders came full circle, converging into massive mask-like gates.

The chiseled earrings of Xiupotec’s face alone dwarfed the squadrons of soldiers and engineers it required to operate.

Tlawecoli’s carrier drew ever closer to the border.

The ambient sound of bickering traders and devout peregrines saturated the checkpoint.

From one end of the doorway to the other, not a sliver of space remained.

Just a swollen mass of bystanders and beneficiaries, peons and elite alike encumbered the wall’s gateways.

Prince Cuatemoc lifted his lustrous bow, signaling his squadron to ready their horns in celebration.

As a single body, the soldiers reached for their flutes. Securing them between their fingers, they lifted their arm back and stretched it forth, then sharply angled their forearms straight over their lips.

FWSSHHHREEEEEIIIIIK

The vibrating pipes began with a low hiss and erupted into an eerily human screech shortly after.

Announcing their arrival.

Proclaiming his victory.

The skull wail was a harbinger of the grisly rituals to come.

Every soldier, from the archers high atop the ridge to the guardsmen at its crowded gates, saluted the call of their young prince.

As the prince’s court sauntered through his future flock, they turned in awe at his beckoning.

And just as a sluice governed the ebb of the capitol’s lakes, the call of the approaching prince parted the congested entryway, the parting crowd granting passage to the prince’s entourage.

The gates arch stretched fifty feet overhead, its steep walls surrounded the fertile basin, concealing the floating gardens and man-made islets populating its serene crystal waters.

In its depths, the sunlight penetrated the lakes, reflecting off the abundant schools of vivid species.