tapered to sharp points. The faces of curious men, women, and children peered out from the shadowed openings before quickly ducking back out of sight. Massive kapok trees grew between the familial dwellings, their branches laced tightly overhead, except where they were pruned so as not to violate the integrity of the odd roofs. No vines or lianas dangled from the trees, yet entire colonies of epiphytes and bromeliads bloomed from the moss-covered trunks and branches in beautifully orchestrated shades of pastel yellows, purples, pinks, and blues.
The stones that lined the walkways and the borders between the structures were carved with decorative friezes, crafted with intricate zigzag and rhomboid patterns and sculpted designs. Here she truly recognized the Inca influence. There were depictions of serpentine, feline, and avian gods, especially one that appeared to be a combination of all three; faces of men in elaborate headdresses; and a series of images that appeared to tell the story of moving from one village to the next. And all of the designs were filigreed with gold.
Sam turned to her left at the sound of running water. A thin stream, channeled by low, smooth blocks, bisected the path perpendicular to the one they traversed. There had to be a spring somewhere ahead that pumped the water down the gentle slope, and somewhere out of sight was surely a mechanism of reclaiming it.
Stone domiciles passed to either side, perhaps twenty in total, before the path opened into a wide circular courtyard roughly forty feet across. Thick-trunked trees grew from the flat stone terrace at regular intervals. The lower branches had been trimmed back to the trunks to encourage proliferation in the upper reaches. Monkeys screeched above and green parrots with red rings around their eyes cawed and darted just overhead. The tree in the center had a thinner trunk than all of the others and broad, eleven-fingered leaves that folded open like hands. Sam recognized it as a cecropia tree, a sophisticated evolutionary anomaly that fostered a symbiotic relationship with a colony of cecropia ants. The ants helped the tree by defending it from herbivorous insects and mammals, while the stems and branches were riddled with hollow passages that provided a suitable home for the colony, and food in the form of glycogen that grew from the Mullerian bodies on the undersides of the leaves. One species was contingent upon the other to survive.
To her right were two circular stone stages separated by a short staircase, at the top of which was a much larger rectangular building with six trapezoidal doorways. The upper walls were designed with a step-fret frieze, while the remainder featured a mosaic of multicolored quadrangular stones. They were carved with more historical images, many depicting a god with the face of a snake, the eyes of the jaguar, and a receding crown of feathers. Sam imagined the domicile served as a palace of sorts for the ruling family, in front of which various rituals were performed.
Jay stepped in front of her to get a better view through the lens, then ducked back in line.
'Talk to me, Sam,' Leo whispered into her ear. 'You're the expert. What are we looking at here?'
Sam was still trying to decide. She had definitely formulated a theory, but she didn't want to be rash. She needed to be certain before she said the words out loud.
Leo's eyes locked on hers. His question wasn't one that required a simple answer. There was another question lurking beneath the one he had vocalized. He wanted to know if they were going to have to fight their way out of the village. What could she say? She was piecing it together as fast as she possibly could, and she was every bit as overwhelmed as the rest of them.
She averted her gaze and stared past Leo. Through the maze of tree trunks she could see several tall stone tiers ascending the steep slope of the mountain that served as the rear fortification. At the top of each retaining wall grew green tufts of plants, one of which she could readily identify. Maize. It was only then that she knew beyond any shadow of doubt who this lost tribe was.
'They're Chachapoya,' she said, again meeting Leo's eyes. 'We had thought that after the conquest by the Inca and then the Spanish occupation that their bloodlines had been diluted into the general population. But this tribe must have somehow eluded capture by leaving the traditional tribal boundaries of the Utcubamba and Maranon Rivers.' She became more and more animated as she spoke. 'All of the buildings and the layout of the village are Chachapoyan, but the artwork on the friezes and the main building are Incan. And do you see that terraced garden over there? You'll find the exact same thing at both Kuelap and Machu Picchu. These people fled here nearly five hundred years ago to elude the conquistadors. They've survived in complete isolation for longer than the United States has even existed.'
Leo narrowed his eyes. 'Both the Inca and Chachapoya were warring tribes.'
'And they could have already killed us if that was their intention.'
'We need to know right now if things are going to get ugly.'
There was movement to her left. Sam whirled and saw three black-painted faces leaning around the trunks of the kapoks. Each man held a bow with an arrow notched, pointed directly at them. She glanced to her right in time to see more scrabble up onto the stone platforms to cover them from above.
'Just keep moving,' Colton whispered from ahead of them.
Across the twin stages, in one of the middle dark openings of the large dwelling, the shape of a man took form from the shadows. He lingered in the darkness a moment longer before stepping out onto the stone platform and into the light.
'My God,' Sam gasped.
VI
'Here,' Colton whispered. He reached around Merritt from behind and pressed something against his belly.
Merritt knew the object by feel, and tucked the pistol under his waistband.
He didn't like this. Not one bit. They had been herded into the city walls, and now they were sitting ducks, far too exposed as they slowly walked through the central courtyard. He hadn't fired a weapon in half a decade, but that didn't worry him nearly as much as how quickly the skills and the ability to kill without reservation would undoubtedly come back to him.
From the edge of his peripheral vision, he watched the natives take their posts behind the trees to his left, while they simultaneously assumed the higher ground to his right. His fist found the grip on the pistol too easily and his index finger caressed the trigger like an old lover.
What were they waiting for?
With his free hand, he pulled Dahlia behind him so that he was between her and the natives. Her blonde hair stood out like a bull's eye.
His heart pounded. Not with fear, but in anticipation.
The man who had emerged from inside the stone building strode to the edge of the platform and surveyed them as though they were no more significant than a line of ants marching through his kingdom.
He stood a full seven feet tall with the ornate golden headdress, from which both real and filigreed feathers stood like the rays of the sun to frame the crown that covered the man's forehead and brow. It reminded Merritt of the one he had discovered in Hunter's rucksack, only instead of golden teeth along the front rim, these appeared to be made of bone. The wrinkles on the man's face placed him somewhere in his fifties to sixties, yet his body was as muscular and toned as that of a man half his age. He bared his teeth as he watched them pass, showcasing brown triangles that knitted together like the fearsome jaws of a shark. Worse still was the fact that even beneath the thick application of black paint, the scars covering the man's body were clearly visible. Long, straight scars transected his chest and abdomen, and curved around his shoulders and biceps. His legs had been carved in numerous directions to create divots in the flesh where the scars intersected. Even his face had been slashed in such a way that it appeared cooked. His right eye was lower than his left, and the cheek beneath was thinner, the bones more prominent, as though a large section of meat had been torn away. He wore only a gray skirt woven from alpaca wool, from which hundreds of dark feathers hung to his knees. There were even feathers in his hair and hanging by leather straps from the wide holes in his ears.
Upon closer scrutiny, Merritt could tell that the other natives on the circular stages to either side of the stone staircase were similarly scarred, though to nowhere near the same degree.
He imagined some rite of passage ceremony like a bris, only instead of being circumcised, these boys were cut to within an inch of their lives. What kind of monsters were they dealing with here? Any tribe willing to torture
