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Chapter
19 The Suruani
“There’s someone coming,” whispered
Sawatis as he held out his hand to prevent Lemaire from moving any farther
up the tunnel. Both men had been
proceeding as quickly and quietly as they
could. Trained in the backwoods,
they could move silently when they had to and still keep up a brisk
pace.
Sawatis had flicked off his flashlight as soon as he heard the sound of footsteps
echoing through the cave, and now both men crouched in the dark, awaiting
the arrival of the person he had heard.
The person coming toward them seemed to be in a hurry, and made no
attempt to disguise his presence.
When he was within six feet of the two guides, Sawatis tapped Lemaire
on the shoulder and leaped up. With
a cry of surprise, the man tumbled back, Sawatis and Lemaire both on
him. Pinning him to the ground,
Sawatis held the man down while Lemaire shone the flashlight the man had
dropped into his eyes.
The man appeared absolutely terrified, as well he might be at having been
attacked so deep underground. The
truth was, that he, like many others, was afraid of dark
places. The sudden appearance
of the two powerful men had caused him to wet his
pants. Too terrified to speak,
he simply stared at them in helpless
fear.
“It’s one of Featherstone’s men,” said
Sawatis. “I remember seeing
this one in
Lemaire made a sound that resembled a
growl. In an instant he had his
knife out and was holding it at the man’s
throat. He made sure that the
man felt the keen edge of the blade.
“Feel this, you
son-of-a-bitch? It’s gonna
cut right through your neck if you don’t give us the right
answers.”
The man nodded, his eyes wide in terror.
“First off, where’s
“I don’t know,” trembled the
man. “I followed them down
this tunnel and was on my way back to
report.”
“Report to who? We ain’t
seen no one.”
“We split up. I took this
tunnel. We were supposed to meet
in the main cavern and report what we
found.”
“And what did you find?”
Lemaire pressured the man’s neck with the edge of the
blade.
“Please don’t kill me,” quavered the
man. “I didn’t find
them. I only found evidence that
they had been this
way.”
“Evidence?”
“The tunnel leads to an underground
lake. I didn’t want to have
to wade through it so I turned back.
But before I did, I noticed the footprints of two women in the soft
earth next to the lake. They
must have crossed it.”
Lemaire eased off the knife.
“I think he might be telling the truth,” he
said. “What do we do with
him?”
“Take him with us,” answered
Sawatis. “If he is lying
we kill him. If he is telling
the truth we let him go.”
“Oh Gawd,” said the
man. “I’m not lying
you’ll see.”
Dragging their captive to his feet, they tied his hands behind his back and
then pushed him before them down the
tunnel. This time they moved
more quickly, on the assumption that the man was too terrified to have lied
to them. An hour later, they
came to the lake. The footprints
in the mud were there, exactly as the man had said they
were.
“See, I vasn’t lying now let me
go.”
Lemaire was about to comment that Sawatis’ promise was not binding on
him when the Mohawk spoke first.
“Sure, you can go. Take
off all your clothes.”
“My clothes!” exclaimed the man, obviously
astounded.
“You heard what I said.
Undress, unless you’d rather I let my friend cut your
throat.”
The man quickly began to shed his
clothing. A few minutes later,
naked but free, he was stumbling blind down the
tunnel.
“You sure that was a good idea?” asked
Lemaire.
“Sure. It’ll take him
hours to find his way back without a
flashlight. And he’ll be
damned cold and miserable when he does.
I reckon he’s no threat to us, and I’m not the sort that
can kill in cold blood.”
“Guess you’re right,” said
Lemaire. “I’d have
had a hard time killing him myself.
“Now, how we gonna cross this
lake?”
“Looking at the footprints, I’d say we’re going to cross it
naked. Just like the two women
did.”
Lemaire nodded. This trip was
becoming almost too interesting.
“First thing we do,” said Larra, “is find some
food. “There might be some
fruit or something we can recognize on those
trees.” She pointed to a
thick stand of vegetation a few feet
away. “From the temperature
I’d guess we won’t need much in the way of clothing, so I’m
not going back for my clothes until I’ve had something to
eat.”
Larra trotted of toward the trees.
Melissa found herself admiring the tight backside of the adventuress
as she jogged away. Larra’s
pants were soaked though and her well-shaped muscular derriere was outlined
perfectly. Melissa found herself
thinking impure thoughts again, as she too broke into an easy
run.
Among the trees it was quite a bit
darker. These were true forest
giants, their growth promoted by the presence of vast quantities of moisture
and the almost oppressive heat of the strange underground
world. Larra slowed her pace
and began to look for something edible.
She had experienced a similar search in her first adventure in the
heart of central
On this occasion, however, she found very little that she could
recognize. All of the species
seemed new and strange.
“I’ve never seen plants like these,” she
said. “The isolation of
this place must have given rise to varieties not found anywhere else in the
world.”
A few feet away, Melissa spotted a medium sized tree with large heart-shaped
leaves. “What about
these?” she asked pointing to a reddish-coloured grape-like fruit that
hung in large bunches from many of the
branches.
“I don’t know. I’ve
never seen anything like them.”
This was a serious problem.
How was she to determine what was safe to eat and what was not if
she could not recognize any of the
plants? Then she saw something
that provided a possible answer.
High in the branches of the tree was a brown furry
creature. It resembled a monkey,
but a species of monkey that Lara did not
recognize. It was picking the
fruit and eating it. “If
it doesn’t kill that monkey, then it should not kill
us. Let’s give it a
try. We’ll just pick a few
and if it doesn’t have any ill effects on us then we can try some
more. In the meantime, we can
continue to look for something we might
recognize.”
Melissa nodded. It seemed like
a good plan, and she was so hungry she was almost past caring if the fruit
was poisonous or not. She ripped
off one of the bunches of fruit.
Taking one for herself and handing another to Larra, she carefully
took a bite. The fruit was quite
good, its taste halfway between that of a peach and a
cherry.
“Mmmmm! Something this good
can’t be poisonous,” exclaimed
Melissa.
“I think you’re right.
But let’s keep looking
anyway.”
They were fairly deep into the forest
now. Larra had kept track of
the direction they had come, because in this world without a sun, losing
their way was a very real possibility and she wanted to be able to find her
way back to her pack and their spare
clothes. The sound of the waterfall
helped, but as she got deeper into the forest the noise of birds, insects
and other animals began to take over, and so she tried to keep a general
sense of which way she was going.
They wandered for about an hour among the trees, finding several other fruits
that seemed promising. Two of
these they discarded due to their bitter taste, but the others seemed
edible. Eating as they walked,
they soon found that their bellies were
full. Larra decided it was time
to get back to the waterfall. They
had come quite far enough that day.
After all, they were unarmed and would be at the mercy of any dangerous
animal, and Larra was quite sure that there was probably something bigger
than monkeys lurking in the forest.
It was just as she started to turn that Larra noticed the break in the
forest. This was something she
had to check. Calling to Melissa
she moved forward a few more feet.
“A trail,” she said.
“This looks promising.”
Running through the forest was a well worn
path. It was too well worn to
have been made by any animal. This
was clearly something used by people.
The two women stepped onto the
path. “I wonder who made
this?” asked Lara. “It
looks very well used.”
“Perhaps we should follow it and find out,” suggested
Melissa. “It might lead
to the man you are seeking.”
Larra nodded. It wouldn’t
hurt to go a short distance along the
path. Taking the lead, she strode
down the trail, alert for any signs of
danger. At the slightest hint
anyone might be on the trail and headed their way she was ready to move into
the forest out of sight.
They proceed for about fifteen minutes, and then both women heard a
noise. It was the sound of chanting,
and it was coming toward them.
Quickly, they stepped to the side and moved back among the
trees. A minute later a strange
procession came into sight.
It consisted of a long column of dark-skinned
warriors. But these did not resemble
the people of black
Lara and Melissa ducked down as the procession of chanting warriors jogged
past. It was at that point, that
they got a rude shock, because at a shout from the commander, the moving
column suddenly stopped and turned so that it was facing directly toward
them. Larra and Melissa began
to edge back deeper into the woods and it was at that point, that both women
suddenly realized that the same warriors who faced them were also behind
them. Slowly they stood
up. All around them were the
leveled spear points of two dozen fierce
warriors. They were
trapped!
“Found something, boss.”
The speaker was a man called Ives.
He had been assigned the middle
tunnel. Featherstone’s sour
expression brightened. All the
others had returned empty handed.
All except
“It’s a funny thing, boss.
The farther I went the brighter the tunnel got, until it was bright
as day. Then I came to total
daylight. Strangest thing I ever
saw. Daylight without a
sun.”
Featherstone questioned Ives further.
He reached a quick decision.
It was obvious that Ives’ tunnel was the one taken by the two
women. “Well leave a note
for
Three hours later he found the strange world Ives had
described. He and his men stood
on a high ledge above a panoramic vista.
A great valley spread out before
him. Lush and green and seemingly
primeval. Above him was the strange
white dome of the sky.
“Pelucidor,” Featherstone muttered to
himself. “I thought it was
just a story.”
There was no sign of the two women he had been chasing, but there was a clearly
marked path into the valley.
Ordering his men to be on the watch for any trouble, he began his
descent into the valley.
His men had already removed most of their heavy clothing as they had approached
the end of the tunnel. The oppressive
heat of the rainforest soon had them removing even more, until they were
dressed only in their shirts and pants.
All around them insects hummed and buzzed, and birds squawked and
monkeys chattered. It appeared
that they had entered some sort of tropical
forest. Even more important,
however, was the fact that the trail they were on was clearly manmade and
well traveled.
It was impossible to see more that thirty feet ahead, due to the heavy vegetation
on either side of the trail, so it came as a complete surprise when they
suddenly stepped into a large clearing.
An even greater surprise awaited them, however, as they began to move
across the open space. From the
other side emerged almost a hundred dark-skinned
warriors. Quickly the warriors
fanned out across the space, forming a semicircle that steadily advanced
on Featherstone and his men.
Featherstone studied the hostile force in front of
him. He saw to his relief, that
to a man every warrior carried a barbed
spear. It was a cruel weapon,
about six feet long and clearly made for both throwing and hand-to-hand
combat. But more importantly,
there was not a single man armed with a
bow. Against the automatic weapons
his men carried, these overconfident warriors were
doomed.
“Take out the man in the middle and a few of those alongside him”
ordered the Englishman. He had
noticed that all the warriors were uniformly
equipped. Each wore a white garment
resembling a light kilt, sandals, and a feathered headdress consisting of
three vertical green feathers each about a foot
long. The only exception was
the man in the middle and his close companions. He wore a circlet of gold,
studded with what appeared to be green stones resembling emeralds, and five
tall white feathers, each about two feet in
length. The men on either side
of him wore two white feathers, held in place by a gold
band.
Featherstone’s men hardly needed his
order. The words had hardly escaped
his mouth before the thunderous roar of automatic weapons fire echoed across
the clearing. The engagement
lasted only seconds. The warriors
broke and ran, casting their weapons
aside. So complete was their
rout, that the four heavily armed men ceased firing after only a few
seconds. On the ground in front
of them were the bodies of the warrior leader and the men closest to
him. They lay unmoving, each
having been hit several times.
“Well,” said Engles.
“That was easy. Now
what do we do?”
“Follow them.” answered
Featherstone. “I doubt that
they will give us much trouble.”
Holstering his sidearm, he strode
forward. His men
followed. Crossing the clearing,
they found that the other side was only a thin screen of
trees. Beyond it was something
he had not expected. Stretching
before him were neatly tilled fields and small farmhouses constructed of
solid woodland timbers. And beyond
the houses and fields was a walled city.
It was the last thing that Featherstone had expected to see in the
strange new realm he had accidentally
discovered.
The city was not large by world
standards. The entire wall facing
him could not have been more than four or five hundred feet
long. But it was a city nevertheless,
complete with a stone and wood wall and guard towers placed at regular
intervals. The path he and his
men were on ran straight toward it and then through a heavily fortified gate
flanked by twin guard towers.
Behind the walls, loomed large buildings constructed of the same materials
as the wall.
For a few minutes Featherstone and his men stood dumbfounded, unsure of what
to do. They watched as the fleeing
soldiers accompanied by hundreds of peasants crammed themselves through the
gate. They were just five men
against a city containing thousands of
inhabitants. They would need
more than just a few automatic weapons to overcome such a large
population.
Finally, after a long interval, Featherstone started
forward. “Let’s go,”
he said.
“Wait a minute, boss,” said
Stoddard. “We can’t
go up against that many people. Not
in a fortified position. We
don’t even have enough bullets to kill that many
people.”
“You saw how they ran,” replied
Featherstone. “Maybe we
won’t have to kill them all.
Just follow me and keep
calm.” He started forward
again. Reluctantly, and muttering
amongst themselves, his men followed.
Featherstone stopped more than a spear throw from the walls, much to the
relief of his men. Then he simply
waited. Nervously, his men lined
up behind him, wondering what the enigmatic Englishman was up
to. A half hour
passed. And then an
hour. Still Featherstone
waited.
“What’s going on, boss?
What are you trying to do?
Starve them out.”
“Patience you idiot.
We’ll give then a little more
time.”
Almost as he finished speaking the gates of the city
opened. Featherstone’s men
tensed, but he signaled them to remain
calm. Through the gates came
a procession of black-skinned men, each dressed in a manner similar to that
of the warriors they had defeated.
But these were older men.
Featherstone sensed that there was no hostile
intent. The events of the next
few minutes proved him right.
Takla, queen of the Suruani studied the two strange prisoners her warriors
had brought in. She had never
seen anything like them. When
the two women had first been walked into the palace compound they had been
most strangely dressed, wearing cloth and animal hide garments that covered
most of their bodies. Now they
were naked, stripped of all their clothing and possessions and bound hand
and foot to ensure that they did not try to
escape. The captain of her guard
thought it best to take no chances with two such bizarre women, if women
they really were. The high priestess
had cautioned her against them and with good
reason. Their skins were white,
and their facial and body hair much lighter than the dark hair of the
Suruani. In addition they were
very tall, both women standing a full head taller than even the
men. True, their bodies were
very finely formed. Even
beautiful. Takla had noted the
males of her court stealing admiring glances at the women as they were undressed
and then tied with strong coarse rope.
But their strange pale skins suggested that they were ghosts or even
demons. And the eyes of the older
of the two captives were most peculiar.
They were a brilliant violet colour and seemed to blaze with a fierce
intensity. Finally, they spoke
no known language, but instead spouted some strange
gibberish. It was clear that
whatever these women were they had to be treated with great
caution. She would have them
imprisoned until she could decide what to do with
them.
Ayashe entered the cave most cautiously.
She knew that she should not be
here. Sawatis and Lemaire had
given her clear orders to return to
It had taken her two days to get rid of the
dogs. Actually, she had not really
gotten rid of them. She had just
located an Inuit family and had arranged for them to look after the dogs
until she returned. It didn’t
take much convincing. She had
given the Inuit permission to use the dogs as much as they wished until she
returned, and had supplied them with enough dog food to care for the animals
for at least a month. She hoped
that she would not be away that long, but she had no idea where she was going,
or where Sawatis and Lemaire might be.
It was certainly dark enough in the cave.
Even with her flashlight, it was dim and mysterious and much scarier
than the fifteen-year-old girl would have
liked. But she did not lack
courage. Tightening her jaw,
she moved purposefully into the dark.
One way or the other she was going to find out what had happened to
the two men who had hired her.
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