THE CHOLŌLTEC WAR, 1411—1413
Following the
sudden death of Lord Mahpilhuēyac, his army was thrown into chaos. The
aquiach’s army rushed south and engaged the leaderless Maya on February 7, 1411.
The Tiho soldiers were encamped in the valley town of Ixtlacāmaxtitlān, on the south side of the Āpōlco River that runs through the settlement. The
aquiach led his main force down the hills to the south, while a smaller army waited on the north side of the Āpōlco to capture any Maya who might cross the river. The Middle Finger’s sons did their best to hold their ground, reminding their throbbing hearts that there was no stepping back for a true warrior, but then the oldest son was cut down by the
mācuahuitl of a Cholōltec Eagle Warrior and things fell apart. The second son continued to fight even as the men behind him fled, cursing the cowards he had led and proclaiming that his feet, once planted on the battlefield, were as unbudgeable as a tree. Then a giant Otomi warrior came and swung his obsidian-studded club, and the Maya saw with disbelief their captain's arm tumble to the ground. He died soon after.
The fourth and fifth sons, along with hundreds of their men, decided to flee across the Āpōlco. It was the dry season and the waters were not swelling, thank the gods, but on the other side the Cholōltecs were ready with quivers of arrows and atlatl darts and slingstones in their hands. The river was soon running red. The fourth son was hit on the head by a slingstone and fell into the waters and did not emerge. The fifth son managed to cross, only to be captured by a Cholōltec soldier. He was stripped of his regalia and sacrificed at the Great Pyramid of Cholōllān as a mere slave, not even a warrior.
Only the third son, Nakawil Nabk’ab’ Ah Tupp Kabal, survived to lead the shattered ruins of his father’s army back to Cempoala.
Following the victory at Ixtlacāmaxtitlān, the
aquiach contemplated an attack on the Gulf Coast. If done right, the Tiho war effort could be crippled beyond recovery. But Ah Ek Lemba had abandoned the siege of Zacatlān and was returning to Cempoala to ward off any Cholōltec offensive, and the rainy season was nearing, so the Eagle of Quetzalcōhuātl returned to the sacred city in March. The
aquiach was met with another sumptuous welcome, befit a man who had defeated the World-Conqueror’s armies not once but twice. The leading merchants and the chiefs and elders of each residential ward came to pay the priest his due honors, and the best artists drew murals of the victory at Ixtlacāmaxtitlān. The
tlalchiach alone, who had been on virtual strike since May 1410, brooded in his palaces and refused to come out. Few people cared.
Ixhuacān and Zacatlān may as well have been cursed for Ah Ek Lemba’s men; they had attacked the former twice and been defeated twice below the walls, and they had besieged the latter twice and twice been forced to withdraw. But what then?
In the meantime, Mahpilxocoyōtl had
captured Lyobaa in August 1410. He followed this up with a conquest of Zaachila, the greatest Zapotec city, in October; by February he had taken the Mixtec city of Yodzo Coo and completed the subjugation of all Oaxaca. The World-Conqueror received the news with a measure of happiness that he had not felt for years, clenched his two fingers and three stumps that had once been a fist, and announced that the army was going south. The king and his Little Finger would attack the Tehuacan Valley from both directions, and once the Tehuacan was secured, the Maya would march on Cholōllān from the
south. Not even a man as devious as the
aquiach, Ah Ek Lemba said confidently, would expect such a line of attack.
In September 1411, Mahpilxocoyōtl and Ah Ek Lemba marched into the Tehuacan. The Valley was only lightly defended, especially in the September harvest season, and was soon overrun. Between the Maya and Cholōllān now stood only the fortress of Tepēyacac. A team of porters carried the king aloft to the peak of Mount Citlāltepētl, the highest mountain in all the known world, on the Valley’s northern end. The clouds were arrayed like a white ocean below him, and the altitude was dizzying and the glaciers dazzling, and still, Ah Ek Lemba thought, he could see Tepēyacac below him, and further away a glimmer that could only be Cholōllān.
My city that shall be mine again.
The
aquiach had not expected an attack on the Tehuacan, and his prestige dimmed accordingly. He sacrificed in the silence of penance as the
tlalchiach gloated and proclaimed that it was he who would be defending Cholōllān in the time of the city’s need. The citizens were little-impressed, but they acquiesced: the
aquiach was mired in self-doubt and reluctant to lead the defense, and even the
tlalchiach was a priest—he had to be blessed by the gods.
The
tlalchiach took tens of thousands of painted warriors toward Tepēyacac and sent off the
aquiach with a small army to Cempoala. Ah Ek Lemba responded accordingly, moving the brunt of his army to Tepēyacac and dispatching Mahpilxocoyōtl to guard the port.
Ah Ek Lemba met the
tlalchiach’s army at the town of Chapōlco. The warriors were so many, the Maya said: an ocean of feathers and armor and men.
The Cholōltec warrior societies led the charge, and at first the Maya appeared to yield. Ah Ek Lemba himself seemed to have fled. The Cholōltecs whooped and scattered into thousands of individual warriors looking for captives to sacrifice. The
aquiach would have warned against this, but the
tlalchiach was confident in tradition and was more than happy to please the men. But it was all a feint, of Ah Ek Lemba’s favorite sort. Somewhere rang the beat of Tiho signal drums, and the World-Conqueror’s trumpets echoed in response. Then the Maya reemerged, it seemed almost out of nowhere, with a horrid shriek. The
tlalchiach’s professional warriors had lost unit cohesion in the scramble for captives and were swept up by the tide of Maya men like pebbles before tsunamis; then the peasant levies saw the banners of their generals and heroes topple, fear seized their hearts, and they began to run. The rout was total. The
tlalchiach himself survived only by throwing himself into the Ātoyāc.
At Chapōlco, the World-Conqueror’s reputation was revendicated.
Yet as Ah Ek Lemba invested Tepēyacac in triumph, news came that the
aquiach had defeated Mahpilxocoyōtl at a little town called Quiyahuiztlān (“Rain Place”) and was besieging Cempoala. The king quipped:
Quiyahuiztlān quiyahui īmezzo Mayah!
“Maya blood rains [quiyahui] at Quiyahuiztlān!”
The men asked him whether he would continue to besiege Tepēyacac (“Nose of the Mountain”) or whether he would withdraw to save Cempoala (“Twenty Place”). The king quipped again:
Zan centetl yacatl Tepēyacac, auh cempōhualtetl yollohtli Cempōhuallān!
“Tepēyacac is just a nose [yacatl], but Cempoala is twenty [cempōhualtetl] hearts!”
The soldiers understood and left Tepēyacac and the Tehuacan to relieve the Cempoala garrison. But when they arrived, there was nothing but impressions in the sand where the Cholōltec tents had once been camped. The
aquiach had attacked Cempoala only to draw Ah Ek Lemba away.
Soon came the rainy season. In Cempoala, day after day, Ah Ek Lemba reviewed the maps of Tepēyacac and the sand models of its defenses, tracing thin lines with his left hand and sometimes with the two fingers that remained of the other. A few hours to the west, the
aquiach returned to a resplendent welcome for the fourth time in three years. The
tlalchiach trudged back to Cholōllān some days later, to a city cold and most unwelcome. He marched to the palace immediately to sulk again.
In September 1412, as the peasants around Cholōllān and Tiho began to reap their corn again, Ah Ek Lemba returned to the Tehuacan. The
aquiach raised the alarm and sent out the call to arms as the Maya army wound up to Tepēyacac. The
tlalchiach emerged from the gloom of his palaces for once and announced that, given these urgent times, he and the
aquiach had compromised. The
aquiach would lead the mainstay of the defense, yes, but the
tlalchiach would lead his own armies, and on all things they would cooperate.
The
aquiach sent Ah Ek Lemba a formal invitation to a set-piece battle, and the World-Conqueror accepted. Faced with a mere mortal's challenge, what god could ever say no?
In the ensuing Battle of Ocoyōcān, on January 11, 1413, Ah Ek Lemba failed to break through the Cholōltec lines and withdrew after a few hours to avoid being flanked. The Tiho army did not rout, and the losses were not severe. Yet it was a defeat nonetheless,
the king’s second defeat in four years at the aquiach’s hands, and the men knew that well. The troops muttered on the road back to Cempoala, and the god grimaced at every resentful whispered word and every vaguely doubtful glance.
The
aquiach had sent the
tlalchiach to cut off the Tiho retreat to the Tehuacan, and Ah Ek Lemba’s army ran into the
tlalchiach’s men as it withdrew to Cempoala. Historians still dispute what exactly the priest-king expected—perhaps he thought the
aquiach would have broken the Maya army and his only task would be the mopping up—but the Cholōltec army was catastrophically underprepared, while the Maya, if humiliated, were still in order. In the Battle of Chilāc, the Cholōltecs were annihilated. The
tlalchiach barely escaped with his life (for the second time in a year!), was received in public mockery, and went off to sulk again.