chapter 47

Jungle Sovereigns

Even though they were standing, the American frontiersman and the British officer had to crane their necks upward to see those holding the lances.

These warriors were different.

The powerfully built men and women facing them wore bandolier-like leather straps across their chests. Over small cotton garments similar to an apron, short swords hung in leather scabbards from each of their waists. It was as if these imposing warriors had dropped out of the sky to alight in the midst of the Amazon. Reinforcing this impression were their metallic weapons, an oddity in a jungle, where metal objects were rarely found. No one moved or spoke.

“Still a good sign?” William whispered out the side of his mouth.

“I’m not so sure,” Nate ventured, “we may be right stewed.”

The natural flagstone base of the small clearing was wet with spray from the waterfall thundering into the emerald pool behind them. The deep water was so clear that the boulders on the bottom of the basin were plainly visible in the flickering torchlight.

Without warning, the drummers behind the warriors beat on their jaguar-skin drums, the rhythm and intensity steadily increasing. The tall warriors stood to attention, their long lances held upright at their sides.

The native prisoner wrenched free from his guards and flopped down, arms outstretched, face pressed against the flagstones. The guards kneeled and touched their foreheads to the ground.

“What the blazes?” William said.

A curt blow from a lance forced them into a kneeling position.

Between the two rows of warriors, backlit by strategically placed torches, the rulers of the Sacred Land appeared. The queen stood beside her king. Her dark braided hair was secured by a cap inlaid with sea-green beryls. A thick gold torc, an ornament consisting of a band of twisted metal, was fastened about her neck, and a jagged white scar on her forearm contrasted with her brown skin. A boar’s tusk amulet left no doubt as to her skill with a bow and a blade.

Naked from the waist up, the king wore a striking high headdress with a bright lime fringe and a circlet of canary and crimson festooned with alternating blue and scarlet toucan feathers. Under the plumage, his thick black hair was shot with silver streaks. Shimmering golden armbands encircled his firm biceps and forearms and a colorful woven shawl was thrown over one shoulder and hung over his chest and down his back.

Clad in leather aprons, with long swords at their sides, they were tall, majestic, and grim-visaged and had an elegant, aristocratic bearing. They were like mythical icons from a time that had been lost in Europe since Arthur and Guinevere.

“I don’t know which I should feel most—amazed or terrified,” William uttered.

Nate whispered, “Probably both.”

With each stride, torchlight reflected off the polished bands encircling the arms of the king and queen, piercing the darkness with golden echoes. The chiseled features of the sovereigns betrayed little emotion.

The drums grew louder.

The queen stopped in front of the bound captives, one hand on the hilt of her sword, the other on her hip. Her dark eyes bored into them.

The drumming reached a climax, then ceased.

The king gestured for them to rise. Prods from the warriors’ lances brought the captives promptly to their feet. The sovereign turned, approached the pool, and beckoned them over. Bordering either side of the booming waterfall was a stand of tall red trees that shimmered with silvery leaves: cinchonas, the fever bark tree.

One enormous cinnamon-colored tree stood at the edge of the pool. As they neared, the light reddish-brown color of the broad trunk resolved into every hue of the rainbow. William wondered, Is this it? The singular tree described by Jussieu, host to the plant which prompted this impossibly dangerous journey?

The king pointed upward—his calloused hand was missing two fingers.

Halfway to the top of the tree was a large limb with a wide black scar. The burn damage started at the junction with the trunk and continued up the limb for ten to fifteen feet.

The remnant of an old lightning strike. Jussieu’s words came flooding back: “where an old lightning strike had most damaged the bark.”

Anchored to the damaged limb and barely visible in the early-evening twilight, damp in the spray of the waterfall, magnificent midnight-black flowers crowned a profuse group of silver-green orchids.

“We’re here,” William said and sighed. The object on which rested all his hopes for his daughter’s recovery lay almost within his grasp.

“I guess I owe you an apology, Admiral,” Nate said. “There they be.” The sight of the fabled orchids and their prior discovery of the artifacts of an earlier advanced civilization made him feel that something very strange was happening, not just here, but throughout the Amazon. “These people aren’t going to hand anything over, Gunn, especially to us.”

Frustrated, William gestured extravagantly at the orchids, then at the monarchs, before Nate smacked his arms down. “What do you think you’re doing?” the American chided.

The king ignored them, but the queen nodded to one of her servants.

A warrior, the servant had a noticeable blemish running along the back of her leg. Carrying a black lance with a nasty triangular tip, she stepped forward and turned a menacing eye on the prisoner who remained prone on the flagstones. She jabbed him with the blunt end of her weapon and indicated for him to climb the tree. Only when she lowered the sharp end of the spear to the center of his chest, did he slowly rise and turn toward the tree, picking up his pace after being given a sharp kick of encouragement.

William whispered, “That’s what I was doing, Yank—getting through to them, and a lot better than you did.”

“We’ll see.”

The prisoner grasped a branch of the tree and started to climb. A faint, unfamiliar buzzing filled the air. Halfway to his goal, the man froze. Around the next tree limb above him curled a small venomous snake. The green triangular head peered down while its yellow tongue tasted the air. The prisoner looked to the ground. Several of the guards had notched arrows and were beginning to raise their bows.

With lightning speed, the man jabbed out and clasped the asp by the neck, the writhing snake coiling about his arm even as he popped the head off with his thumb. Shaking free the decapitated snake, he resumed his ascent.

The humming increased and continued to grow. Almost fifty feet off the ground, the climber approached the orchids. From the foliage directly above, a swarm of monstrous black insects erupted, each as long and as fat as a man’s thumb.

“Good God!” William said.

The rippling black throng descended on their victim. Shrieking in pain, arms flailing frantically, he fell backward, howling like a tormented animal. With a thud, the flailing figure struck the rocks at the water’s edge. The giant wasps continued to sting the corpse relentlessly, the shattered body rapidly swelling to a grotesque shape. The huge insects only retreated when the guards approached with smoldering torches and drove the swarm back into the tree.