It can be imagined that the Texcalteca lords were not much pleased to be called subjects of any alien, or to be told that they were disobeying any alien in defending their own frontier. If anything, those haughty words only heightened their desire for bloody battle, and the bloodier the better. So they made no reply, but turned and stalked back the long distance to where their warriors were more and more loudly whooping and making their flutes shriek and their drums throb.
But that exchange of formalities had given Cortés's men ample time to assemble and position their ten big-mouthed cannons and the four smaller ones, and to charge them not with house-battering balls but with scraps of jagged metal, broken glass, rough gravel, and the like. The harquebuses were prepared and set upon their supports and aimed, and the crossbows were readied. Cortés quickly gave commands, and Malintzin repeated them to the allied warriors, and then she hurried to safety, back the way they had come. Cortés and his men stood or knelt while others, staying in the woods, sat upon their horses. And they all waited patiently, while the great wall of yellow and white suddenly surged forward, and a rain of arrows arced from it across the field between, and the wall resolved itself into a rush of thousands of warriors, beating their shields, roaring like jaguars, screaming like eagles.
Not Cortés nor any of his men moved to meet them in the traditional manner. He merely shouted, "For Santiago!" and the bellow of the cannons made the Texcalteca's war noises sound like the creaking of crickets in a thunderstorm. All the warriors in the first onrushing rank tore apart in bits of bone and blobs of flesh and spatters of blood. The men in the following rank simply fell, but fell dead, and for no immediately apparent reason, since the harquebuses' pellets and the crossbow's short arrows disappeared inside their thick quilted armor. Then there was a different kind of thunder, as the horsemen came at full gallop out of the wood, the staghounds running with them. The white soldiers rode with their spears leveled, and they skewered their quarry in the way that chilis are strung on a string, and when their spears could collect no more bodies, the riders dropped the spears and unsheathed their steel swords and rode flailing them so that amputated hands and arms and even heads flew in the air. And the dogs lunged and ripped and tore, and cotton armor was no protection against their fangs. The Texcalteca were understandably taken by surprise. Shocked, dismayed, and terrified, they lost their impetus and will to win; they scattered and milled about and wielded their inferior weapons desperately but to little use. Several times their knights and cuáchictin rallied and regrouped them and led them in renewed charges. But each time the cannons and harquebuses and crossbows had again been prepared, and they let loose their terrible shredding and piercing projectiles again and again into the Texcalteca ranks, causing unspeakable devastation....
Well, I need not tell every detail of the one-sided battle; what happened that day is well known. In any case, I can describe it only from what was later told by the day's survivors, though I myself eventually saw occasions of similar slaughter. The Texcalteca fled from the field, pursued by Cortés's native Totonaca warriors, who loudly and cowardly exulted in the opportunity to participate in a battle that required them only to harry the retreating warriors from behind. The Texcalteca left perhaps one-third of their entire force lying on the field that day, and they had inflicted only trivial casualties on the enemy. One horse downed, I think, and a few Spaniards pricked by the first arrows, and some others more badly injured by fortunate strokes of maquahuime, but none killed or put out of action for long. When the Texcalteca had fled beyond range of pursuit, Cortés and his men made camp right there on the battlefield, to bind up their few wounds and to celebrate their victory.
Considering the awful losses it had suffered, it is to the credit of Texcala that the nation did not surrender itself to Cortés forthwith. But the Texcalteca were a brave and proud and defiant people. Unfortunately, they had an unshakable faith in the infallibility of their seers and sorcerers. So it was to those wise men that the war chief Xicotenca resorted, in the very evening of that day of defeat, and asked of them:
"Are these outlanders really gods, as rumored? Are they truly invincible? Is there any way to overcome their flame-spouting weapons? Should I waste still more good men by fighting any longer?"
The seers, after deliberating by whatever magical means they employed, said this:
"No, they are not gods. They are men. But the evidence of their weapons' discharging flame suggests that they have somehow learned to employ the hot power of the sun. As long as the sun shines, they have the superiority of their fire-spitting weapons. But when the sun goes down, so will their sun-given strength. By night, they will be only ordinary men, able to use only ordinary weapons. They will be as vulnerable as any other men, and as weary from the day's exertions. If you would vanquish them, you must attack by night. Tonight. This very night. Or at sunrise, they will rise also, and they will sweep your army from the field as weeds are mowed."
"Attack at night?" Xicotenca murmured. "It is against all custom. It violates all the traditions of fair combat. Except in siege situations, no armies have ever done battle by night."
The sages nodded. "Exactly. The white outlanders will be off guard and not expecting any such assault. Do the unexpected."
The Texcalteca seers were as calamitously in error as seers everywhere so often are. For white armies in their own lands evidently do fight often by night among themselves, and are accustomed to taking precautions against any such surprises. Cortés had posted sentries at a distance all around his camp, men who stayed awake and alert while all their fellows slept in full battle garb and armor, with their weapons already charged and near to their hands. Even in the darkness, Cortés's sentries easily descried the first advance Texcalteca scouts creeping on their bellies across the open ground.
The guards raised no cry of alarm, but slipped back to camp and quietly woke Cortés and the rest of his army. No soldier stood up in profile against the sky; no man raised himself higher than a sitting or kneeling position; none made a noise. So Xicotenca's scouts returned to report to him that the whole camp seemed to be defenselessly asleep and unaware. What remained of the Texcalteca army moved in mass, on hands and knees, until they were right upon the camp's perimeter. Then they rose up to leap upon the sleeping enemy, but they had no chance to give even a war cry. As soon as they were upright, and easy targets, the night exploded in lightning and thunder and the whistle of projectiles... and Xicotenca's army was swept from the field as weeds are mowed.
The next morning, though his blind old eyes wept, Xicotenca the Elder sent an embassy of his highest nobles, carrying the square gold-mesh flags of truce, to negotiate with Cortés the terms of Texcala's surrender to him. Much to the envoys' surprise, Cortés evinced none of the demeanor of a conqueror; he welcomed them with great warmth and apparent affection. Through his Malintzin, he praised the valor of the Texcalteca warriors. He regretted that their having mistaken his intentions had necessitated his having to defend himself. Because, he said, he did not want surrender from Texcala, and would not accept it. He had come to that country hoping only to befriend and help it.