The City Of Dread
by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach
The moon was a giant firefly caught in a web of cloud, its pallid light filtering dimly down to the narrow mountain trail. Stunted trees, leaning low over the path, rubbed leafy hands together with a mournful, rustling sound. Black shadows crouched under the overhanging branches. And over all loomed the towering peaks of the Peruvian cordillera, gashing the blue-black sky with jagged, blackened fangs.
A little caravan crawled warily up the narrow, winding trail—a woman, four men and their burros, one behind the other. The long, white beams of their electric torches, darting erratically among the gnarled trees, seemed to intensify the darkness. Uneasiness hung over the group, quelling speech. The last man, the cholo guide, leading the string of pack-animals, cast occasional hasty glances over his shoulder, watching little shadows steal silently from beneath the trees into patches of moonlight, bending and bowing and merging with the darkness.
“Verdammte dummkopjl” the second man in the column growled suddenly in a throaty Teutonic voice. “Why did we not stop for the night down in the valley as I suggested? It iss your fault, Marshall! Ja, you say, we reach the ruins before dark. We need but a climb a little while, and we are there! You said it, so it iss so!”
Ken Marshall, striding in the lead, looked down angrily at the shorter German. “Don’t be childish, Ollendorph!” he snapped in brittle tones. “I know it’s my fault—but we may as well make the best of it. Anyway, we would have made it if we hadn’t switched to the left back there at the fork. But you insisted that Enrique was wrong—so here we are.” His voice became mockingly gentle. “I know you’re afraid of the dark, Maxie—but I’ll protect you. You’re perfectly safe as long as I’m around.”
. . .
