Burial Ground

III

2:34 p.m.

With the roar of the unseen falls and the clamor of the rain in the canopy, the jungle had become a cacophony of water. The steep path was now a small stream that covered their feet and turned the packed clay to mud. Ever higher they climbed, until the clouds no longer rested on the treetops, but became a part of them. Mists eddied around them, occasionally hiding even the person ahead on the trail. The temperature continued to fall. It still had to be somewhere in the upper-fifties, yet their damp clothes kept their skin stippled with goosebumps. They had to be nearing ten thousand feet in elevation, and surely the summit of the peak they now scaled couldn't be too much farther up into the clouds.

Sam's legs ached and she had lost the feeling in her toes. Her heart raced and her fingers trembled with excitement. If their assumption about the location of the ruins was correct, then it was only a matter of time before they stumbled out of the forest and into---

She walked right into Merritt's back and had to steady herself to keep from slipping. If she fell, the waterslide that was the path would send her careening down the slope.

Merritt turned and braced her by the elbow. He nearly lost his balance as well.

"Why did you stop?" She had to shout to be heard over the deluge.

He merely smiled in response and inclined his head over his right shoulder.

Holding her breath, Sam walked around him and saw Colton and Leo framed against a backdrop of rain at the terminus of the path. The trees grew sparser ahead. Creeping figs and vines tied them together and to the shrub-covered ground. Beyond she could see a sheer abutment covered with lianas and vines. It wasn't an ordinary cliff. Vertical and horizontal seams were visible through the vegetation.

It was a manmade wall.

She walked past Colton and Leo to inspect the fortification. Black stones had been chiseled to the size and shape of concrete blocks, and stacked in a staggered pattern. Most of the mortar between them had eroded away, but the lianas served to hold them in place. Some sections were so overgrown with vegetation that they appeared to have become a part of the hillside.

She ran her fingers along the smooth stones. Obsidian. Volcanic rock.

The wall extended as far as she could see to either side. Every twenty feet or so was an arched enclave barely large enough for a man to crouch inside. They reminded her of decorative sewer drains. In front of each was a column roughly five feet tall and two feet wide, composed of stacked rocks, only on top of each was a charred iron cage like a chimney. She approached one, stood on her tiptoes, and peeked inside. A sunken recess was filled with detritus, and the sides were scored with carbon. They were torches like those that surrounded the fortress in the valley below.

She could hardly contain herself. The anticipation was overwhelming. She glanced back at the others at the end of the trail. Above their heads was nothing but clouds. Her eyes met Leo's, and she felt his pain, which spawned feelings of guilt at her unbridled enthusiasm. This was presumably where Hunter had spent his last hours. He must have drowned somewhere nearby.

Sam turned away and followed the fortification toward the sound of the waterfall. The ground turned from soil to slickrock, and the forest dropped away to the right. A rugged rock slope led to a point, beyond which she could barely see the spray of a waterfall through the mist trapped against the mountainside.

She reached the end of the wall, which veered at a ninety degree angle back toward the sheer face of the peak. Here she could see the fortification more clearly. It had to be more than twenty-five feet tall, higher even than the majority of the walls at Kuelap. A large section on this northern face had fallen to ruin in a pile of broken bricks. It almost looked as though a thin stone staircase had once passed through the wall before one of the sides had collapsed down onto it. Whatever the case, it granted them access to the ruins that lay on the other side.

The rain pounded down on her, soaking her even under her poncho, but she didn't care.

She scrabbled up the steep mound of moss-blanketed stones until she reached the top of the wall, and stared down at a sight the likes of which few modern men had ever seen before. So far, all of the Chachapoyan ruins had been discovered by locals, who had thoroughly ransacked the sites, pillaging everything of value that might have helped scholars piece together the last days of this once great society. This one was different. It didn't appear as though anything had been disturbed by more than the wind and the elements since the last occupants had turned their backs on the fortress.

"What do you see?" Leo called up from below. His voice quivered with emotion.

Sam couldn't find the words to describe it. She could only shake her head. It was everything she had hoped to find and more.

She looked back at the others, who had congregated at the base of the wall. Past them she could see the rugged cut of the stone cliff beside the waterfall. With the mist, it was impossible to tell how wide or deep the chasm was. Even the eternal expanse of the jungle on the eastern foothills and plains was hidden from sight. They were alone at the top of the world, isolated by the clouds and geography. It almost felt as though they were on a different planet entirely.

The red light of Jay's camera stared up at her, along with nine pairs of anxious eyes.

She could contain her smile no longer.

"Well?" she called. "What are you waiting for?"

She turned back to the village inside the great wall, and began to pick her way down the crumbled slope toward the greatest discovery of her entire career.