I said, "I and these three other mounted men will continue openly, in full sight, along this trail. Atop these horses we will be guides conspicuous enough for the men to follow. And tell them this: The foremost among them is to stay at least a hundred paces behind me. Meanwhile, they need no contact with each other. The farther apart they are, the better. If one man comes upon a lurking Spanish scout, he is of course to kill that enemy, but quietly and unnoticeably. I want all of us to get close to Compostela without detection. However, if any of your men should encounter an enemy patrol or outpost that he cannot vanquish single-handed, then let him raise the war cry, and let the guidons be unfurled and let all your men—but only on that side of the trail—rally to that signal. The men on the other side are to go on silently and furtively, as before."
"But, scattered as we will be," said another knight, "is it not equally possible that Spaniards waiting in hiding can pick us off, one by one?"
"No," I said flatly. "No white man will ever be able to move as noiselessly and invisibly as can we who were born to this land. And no Spanish soldier, encumbered with metal and leather, can even patiently sit still without making some inadvertent sound or movement."
"The Uey-Tecútli speaks truly," said G'nda Ké, who had elbowed her way into the group and, as usual, had to interpose a comment, however unnecessary. "G'nda Ké is acquainted with Spanish soldiers. Even a shuffling, stumbling cripple could steal upon them unawares."
"Now," I went on, "assuming that we are not interrupted by any hand-to-hand fighting or discovered by any uproar or impeded by any superior force, both halves of the troop are to keep going southward, guiding on me. When I judge that the time is right, I will turn my horse westward, toward where the sun will then be setting—because I would like to have Tonatíu's favor shining upon me as long as possible. The warriors on that western side of the trail will continue to follow me—a hundred paces behind—and trust me to lead them safely around the outside of the town."
"G'nda Ké will be right behind them," she said complacently.
I threw her a glance of exasperation. "At the same time, the Cúachic Comitl will turn his horse eastward, and the men on that side of the trail are to follow him. Sometime late in the night, both halves of our forces should be south of the city. I will send messengers to make contact between the two and arrange for our reassembly. Am I understood?"
The officers all made the gesture of tlalqualíztli, then went to pass on my orders to their men. In a very little while, the warriors had almost magically—like the morning's dew—vanished into the brush and trees, and the trail behind was empty. Only Ualíztli, Nochéztli, the Mexícatl Comitl and I still sat our mounts there in full view.
"Nochéztli," I said, "you will take the point. Ride on ahead, still at the walk. We three will not follow until you are out of sight. Keep going until you espy any sign of the enemy. Even if they have put out guards or barricades far to this side of the town and they see you before you can avoid them, they will not be expecting just one attacker. Also, they may well recognize you and be perplexed by your approach—especially since you come like a Spaniard, astride a horse. Their hesitation should give you chance enough to get away unharmed. Anyway, if and when you do sight the enemy—in force or otherwise—turn straight about and hurry back to me with the report."
He asked, "And if I see nothing at all, my lord?"
"Should you be gone too long, and I decide the time has come for division of our men, I will loudly give the owl-hoot call. If you hear that—and are not dead or captured—race back to join us."
"Yes, my lord. I am gone." And he was.
When he was no longer visible, the tícitl, Comitl and I put our own horses to the walk. The sun crossed the sky at about the same slow pace, and the three of us passed that long, anxious day in desultory conversation. It was late in the afternoon when at last we saw Nochéztli coming back toward us, and he was hardly hurrying—moving only at an easy trot, though I doubt that it felt very easy to his backside.
"What is this?" I demanded, as soon as he was within hearing. "Nothing whatever to report?"
"Ayya, yes, my lord, but most curious news. I rode all the way to the town's outlying slave quarter, without ever being challenged. And there I found the defenses I long ago told you about—the gigantic thunder-tubes on wheels, and with soldiers all about them. But those thunder-tubes are still aimed inward, toward the town itself! And the soldiers gave me only a casual wave of greeting. So I made gestures to indicate that I had found this unsaddled horse wandering loose in the vicinity, and that I was trying to find its proper owner, and then I turned and came back this way—not in haste, for I had heard no owl hoot."
The Cuáchic Comitl frowned and asked me, "What do you make of this, Tenamáxtzin? Is this man's report to be believed? Remember, he was once in league with that enemy."
Nochéztli protested, "I kiss the earth to the truth of it!" and made the tlalqualíztli—as well as he could, sitting atop a horse.
"I believe you," I said to him, and then to Comitl, "Nochéztli has several times before now proved himself loyal to me. However, the situation is curious indeed. It is possible that the Arrow Knight Tapachíni and his men never came to warn Compostela at all. But it is just as possible that the Spaniards are laying some cunning trap. If so, we are still clear of it. Let us proceed as planned. I and Ualíztli will now turn westward. You and Nochéztli go east. The men afoot will separately follow us. We will circle wide around the town and meet again well south of it, sometime after dark."
At this place on the trail, there was fairly thick forest to either side, and when the tícitl and I rode into it, we found ourselves in a gradually deepening twilight. I was hoping that the warriors a hundred paces behind us could still see us, and worrying that I might outdistance them when the dark really came down. But that worry was suddenly, shockingly driven from my mind—when I heard a loud and familiar noise from somewhere back of us.
"That was an arcabuz!" I gasped, and Ualíztli and I both reined our horses to a halt.
The words were scarcely spoken when there came a positive clamor of arcabuces being discharged—singly, severally, randomly, or a good number of them simultaneously—and all of them somewhere to our rear. But not far to our rear; the evening breeze brought me the acrid smell of their pólvora smoke.
"But how could we all have missed seeing—?" I started to say. Then I remembered something, and I realized what was happening. I remembered that Spanish soldier-fowler on the shore of Lake Texcóco, and how he discharged a whole battery of his arcabuces by yanking on a string.
These I was hearing now did not even have Spaniards holding them. They had been fastened to the ground or to trees, and a string tautly stretched from each of their gatillos through the underbrush. My horse and Ualíztli's had not so far touched any string, but the warriors behind us were tripping against them, thus raking their own ranks with lethal flying lead balls.
"Do not move!" I said to the tícitl.
But he objected, "There will be wounded to attend!" and started to rein his horse around.
Well, it would eventually turn out that I had miscalculated regarding more things than just the ingenuity of the defenders of Compostela. But I had been right about one thing: The people of my own race could move as soundlessly as shadows and as invisibly as wind. The next moment, a terrific blow to my ribs knocked me clear off my saddle. As I thudded to the ground, I barely glimpsed a man in Aztéca armor, wielding a maquáhuitl, before he struck me again—using the wooden flat of the sword, not the obsidian edge—in the head, this time, and all the world around me went black.