Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

The jaguar kept the same steady pace, head down, her sides heaving as she moved with growing pain through the twisted web of roots and vines, determined to reach her goal. The sky above the canopy turned dark and the rain eventually lessened.

    Bats took to the air and the forest floor came alive with millions of insects. She kept moving, weaving her way through the trees. Twice she had to take to the aerial highway, using the branches to pass over fast-moving water. She could swim, but she was exhausted and the rain had swollen the banks of even the smallest streams, so the entire forest floor seemed bursting with water. All the while, the eagle kept her company, giving her the strength to continue her journey.

    She walked most of the night until she came to the first marker she recognized, a broken remnant of an ancient temple, an impressive structure in spite of the ruins joining sky, earth and the underworld together.
    The jaguar statue guarding the remains, made of limestone, snarled at her, eyes wide open and staring, judging her worth. Right now, exhausted and far too weary, she didn’t feel very worthy.

    She put her head down and slunk past the statue, for the first time dropping her chin, avoiding the staring eyes as she padded silently over the ancient stones and pushed deeper into the overgrown brush. A few more miles and the night seemed darker, the trees closer together. Vegetation coiled along every trunk and took up every available space, crowding so close it took effort to push through to the broken limestone blocks that were strewn about and half buried in the thick vegetation covering what once had been a clearing.

    Trees had long since overtaken the spot where the land had been cleared to make way for a small village and farm. The corn was long gone, but the jaguar remembered it, the rows of bright green stalks lifting their heads to the sun and the rain in the midst of the surrounding forest. Squash and beans lined the rows, as her people had returned to the old ways, using the same mixture of maize, limestone powder and water for their flour as their ancestors once had done here, in this very same place.

    She could feel the blood, running like the great underwater river beneath her feet, flowing, soaked permanently into the ground. Her ancestors had died here—and then, twenty years ago, her family and friends. She would forever hear the sounds of their screams, would know the terror and fear of true evil.

    Overhead, the cry of the harpy eagle sent the sleeping monkeys into a wave of howling, the sound swelling through the forest, yet the noise reassured her. The eagle, lord of the sky, landed in the canopy, folded its wings and peered down at the jaguar. She acknowledged its presence with a lift of her head, peering upward into the thick canopy. It was unusual for the great predator to hunt at night, and should have been unsettling. Anything out of the ordinary in this forest where legends and nightmares came to life and walked the night made her uneasy, yet she felt a strange companionship with the bird.

    The jaguar and eagle stared at one another a long time, neither blinking, neither giving ground. The jaguar studied the sky predator, vaguely wondering what it meant when a daytime hunter was moving about at night in the tapering rain. She was too weary to have much interest in the answer, and was the first to break eye contact. Here, in the ruins of two villages slaughtered, where wailing ghosts howled for revenge, was not the place to find the rest she so badly needed. She continued her journey, picking her way through the broken stones and half-buried foundations to the tall Kapok tree where the eagle perched.

    Majestically the bird rose into the air, circled the Mayan ruins and dropped lower to peer at what was left of the foundations of more recent destruction. The sharp eyes examined the ground as it flew overhead, then it dipped even lower, nearly skimming the jaguar before rising abruptly, the giant wingspan taking the large raptor back into the cover of the canopy.

    The jaguar felt the beat of those powerful wings as it passed so close to her. She raised her head and watched until the eagle was out of sight, her only reaction before she took to the tree, using her claws to aid her ascent. She stood for a moment looking at the empty sky, feeling absolutely and utterly alone, her sorrow a heavy burden. She couldn’t afford to feel sorrow. She needed this trip to dredge up