Dr. Ana Carvalho squatted in the brush, waiting as the sun crept above the horizon. Three young native women stood an arm’s-length away, stealing glances toward the pot boiling on her campfire. One carried a chubby girl on her hip who casually nursed her breakfast yet kept one eye fixed on the odd stranger. The other two stood on either side, their long black hair pulled behind tiny faces decorated with slashes of colorful paint. They chatted between themselves like teens at the mall.

Ana had lived at the base of their mountainous island territory for a month, biding her time and waiting for a chance to talk. She’d traded gifts through gestures and grunting, smiled at babies and endured the glares from tiny native men. Today, the three women had finally wandered to her morning’s breakfast campfire to discover the source of the wonderful smells.

A small black dot in the sky Ana had noticed earlier had grown into a monstrous whirlwind of mechanical pandemonium. The native women scampered back into the bush, the small fire scattered to the winds and her camp a near disaster.

She grabbed her long, black hair, whipped about the top of her head by the prop wash, and tied it behind her shoulders. “Get the hell off my mountain, you son-of-a-bitch. You just destroyed a month’s work,” she snapped when the pilot emerged to wave at her. “And don’t come back.” Her green eyes flared in anger.

“I’ve got orders to get you back to Singapore,” he shouted over the roar of the rotor.

Her replacement had already thrown his bags on the ground. She recognized him from conferences when she had been a student. Ana shook her head in disgust and rolled her eyes. This jerk is totally useless, she thought.

“Bite me,” she yelled and stomped back toward what was left of her camp. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the replacement grabbing his bags from the chopper. “And take that with you.”

The pilot jumped out and ran after her. “Dr. Carvalho, something has come up in South America. Something big that might interest you,” he yelled over the roar of the rotors. He handed her a set of hi-res satellite shots and her eyebrows shot up.

“Gotcha!” he said with a smile. “Rossi said these pics would change your mind. Now you grab your stuff and let’s get in the air.”

Francisco de Orellana silently walked the stairs to the top of the plaza and stared out at the group of men assembled; all of them personally assigned to him by Gonzalo Pizarro. He shook his head slowly in disgust. “I have been charged to locate the ‘Land of the Cinnamon’,” he mumbled and his eyes narrowed. “But I seek something bigger. Most of these men will never see my goal, the gleaming walls of El Dorado. A pity.” The rugged conquistador raised a gloved hand to summon the priest who waited to one side.

Friar Gaspar de Cavajal was not young by any counting. He had served in Quito for many years but this was to be his first expedition into the unknown forest. Friar Gaspar knew the Peruvian natives like brothers but secretly trembled in fear as he raised his robed arm to bless the brutes Orellana and Pizarro had chosen for the mission. He closed his eyes and began to chant the Our Father, knowing few bowed their heads in return. The rumors of riches beyond measure had drawn recruits from all of Europe, most of whom chose a sword over a prayer to dispatch the forest natives to heaven.

Meanwhile, with intense scrutiny from narrowed eyes in a piercing crimson glare, the mission’s lone Serbian mercenary lingered in the shadows and watched. His acute hearing had picked Francisco de Orellana’s covertly whispered words from the air across the broad plaza. With a smile, he plotted his own agenda, pleased with the prior night’s little tryst with an Andean maiden; his lusts were now temporarily slaked.

Finally Francisco de Orellana motioned to his sergeant, who in turn assigned duties to push the procession on its way. The cobblestone street echoed to the clatter of horse hooves and the sounds of armored men marching.

The Andean pass was narrow and treacherous as they descended from the city of Quito to the jungle’s floor. Francisco de Orellana knew the route. He had carefully listened to the tales, assembled the best information available and sketched a map which he felt was more than accurate. He had decided to follow the waterway known as the Cinnamon River away from the mountains and into a forest that seemed to stretch forever. His plan was simple. He would locate Pizarro’s blasted cinnamon and then forge on until he possessed what all of them coveted enough to risk their lives: the city of gold, El Dorado.

Weeks passed quickly as the rivers carried Orellana and his men past the villages and long canoes of the forest dwellers. Some greeted them with cautiously curious smiles, others with spears. But they forged ahead, possessed by what they knew awaited them. Giant trees engulfed the group, their dark shadows turning the day into night. The guides moved slowly through the thick growth but Francisco de Orellana continued to smile; he knew that in a mere few days he would become one of the richest men in the world.

Progress, however, eluded them until they reached the rivers which rushed down from the melting snow of the Andes. Here and there they encountered natives whose fame for cruelty and cannibalism was already legend among the explorers. But after months, El Dorado continued to escape their search. Even the famous cinnamon trees were now few and far between. Orellana’s map was tossed, floating in the muddy waters after a fit of frustration.

The mysterious Serb’s name was Ejup Mikic. He had fought alongside the Spaniards for years, winning a reputation for cruel savagery and heartless slaughter. During,the day, he sheltered his face from the searing tropical sun with a forbidding iron helmet. Its blackened glass eyeholes kept his eyes protected from the punishing sun rays and the invasive gawking of the other men. Now he felt the stares from the shores; the secretive watching from behind the lowland overgrowth and even high above, in the jungle’s canopy. His keen eyesight caught a glimpse of those following the group; yet he saw no reason to tell his arrogant leaders who tromped noisily through the jungle totally unaware.

Without warning, the unknown became visible; the Icamiaba Indians attacked. Mikic kept his distance while Francisco de Orellana’s seasoned men fell like flies, powerless against their attackers.

The natives moved like ghosts in the jungle, invisible in the dense growth of the virgin rainforest. Only their arrows emerged from the shadows, flying straight and true in relentless waves of death. After a dozen of his comrades lay slaughtered on the river’s shore, Mikic caught his first glimpse of the savage assailants: a tall, voluptuous, white female warrior who appeared to wear nothing but a quiver of arrows. At first sight, he knew the stares he had sensed from the shadows had been hers.

She drew her bow and let loose the arrow. The gold-tipped arrowhead grazed his helmet. In the distance he heard Friar Gaspar de Carvajal screaming something at him but he ignored it. Men dropped around him; this time Ejup also fell to the ground and waited. The female tribe was victorious but Ejup remained hidden in the forest shadows while Francisco de Orellana fled down the river, abandoning the few surviving followers who were cut off during the battle. Ejup covertly watched, inhaling the sweet scent of the blood while those still breathing were massacred by the Icamiaba women, one by one.

The powerful woman Ejup had first seen appeared to be the commander of the ruthless band. She approached his crouching form with the stealth of a jaguar, all the while keeping a gold-tipped arrow trained on his forehead. A fine strand of leather threaded between her breasts which were firm and high, tanned to a golden glow by the fierce equatorial rays. The leather secured a quiver of gold-tipped arrows to her back. The quiver was decorated with strange word symbols. Three more strands, even finer, held in place a triangle of leather to protect her private parts. The piece bore a finely tooled swirling sun, carved into the leather and painted a brilliant yellow. It hugged her like a second skin, molded perfectly to her form by the sweat and moisture of the tropical battle.

She barked something in a language which seemed oddly familiar. Ejup only glared back with a broad, malicious grin. She reared back to kick him but he caught her ankle and pressed her foot to the ground.

Ejup rose slowly until he towered over her, glistening godlike in his Spanish armor. He removed the shining sheets of metal, piece by piece and tossed them in a pile at his side, until he stood naked before her. Light filtered through the forest canopy to catch them both, frozen in confrontation.

She screamed into his face, her eyes furious at his defiance. Ejup quietly raised his hand to loosen her hair which was braided and wrapped around her head like a coiled serpent. It cascaded down her back, nearly to her waist, black and thick, glistening with sweat.

Her eyes flared in fury at his blatant familiarity,. She barked one more word then stepped back three paces. From all sides two-score gold-tipped arrows whined through the air to strike him from head to foot.

Ejup stood straight and tall, appearing the image of Saint Sebastian, while the women archers closed in a circle around them. One by one, he slowly pulled the gold-tipped arrows from his flesh and handed them back to the warrior. The gashes and punctures in his body closed and healed.

A thick drop of Ejup’s blood ran down his stomach from the last and largest wound. He snapped the arrow’s shaft like a twig and yanked it from his body. As the puncture pinched closed, a large scarlet droplet oozed out to roll down his skin. In one quick motion, he scooped the thickening blood up with his finger and extended it to the lead warrior’s lips in brash invitation. She licked it clean, then moved to stroke his skin and feel his chest where her arrow had just penetrated. Her fingers ran through his thick black hair, her breasts teasing his chest. She cautiously touched his eyes and stared into his red pupils. Her finger slowly traced a path down his cheek to his upper lip and lightly brushed his mustache then followed the course around the edge of his lips to the goatee on his chin. She played with the stubble, fascinated, before pushing a finger through his deep red lips to the incisor which curled back into his mouth.

She smiled, nodded in approval and dropped her weapons. She snaked one hand around his neck to rest her arm on his shoulder, then sensually drew a leg up his opposite side. The female fighters closed their circle as their leader wrapped herself around the stranger. She untied the small knot at the small of her back and pulled the protective leather loin patch away, letting it fall to the ground.

She flicked her tongue on his ear lobe then gently pulled on it with her teeth. “You are vrykolakas,” she whispered into his ear then once more nipped him, this time drawing a bead of blood.

She leaned her head back, revealing her graceful neck to him. He only understood half of what she said, but knew all of what she wanted. He breathed deeply the heady scent of her sweat and blood, the complex mixtures of races he’d traveled half-way around the world to find.

“Yes, I am vrykolakas,” he whispered in return and leaned into her offering.

He opened his mouth wide, his lips pulled back to reveal the terrifying white canines that gleamed in the faint forest light. They disappeared into her flesh and he drew in deeply the essence of her life. The rarefied Amazon blood flooded his senses. Itotia released a long, low moan as she began her eternal life in death. It was a bite, a taste of commitment; it ended.

Ejup strode in the lead, carefully moving down a hidden path worn into the lush forest. Then, a few steps behind, Itotia followed, leading her warriors to the towered city of white and gold which Orellana and his men would never find.

That night, the Queen of the Icamiabas, distant great grand daughter of the Amazon Iphito, became Ejup’s eternal mate in an ancient mix of Amazonian ceremony and vampiric debauchery.

Friar Gaspar de Carvajal had hugged a tree from a huddled position since the onset of the battle, hidden from their view. Watching Ejup and Itotia, he’d seen more than his pious mind could consume and fell against the tree in a light-headed faint. Hours later he awoke in the still of the forest night, dumbstruck by what he had witnessed. He survived and rejoined the Spanish force. Through strokes of good fortune, they stumbled through the jungle and let the rivers carry them to its broad delta on the Atlantic Ocean.

Friar Gaspar hastily scripted two reports and pressed them along with an certain item into the hands of a trusted novice. The young monk boarded a caravel with Francisco de Orellana to return to Spain, immortalizing the first journey down the world’s mightiest river. For all eternity, that flow would be known by the name of the those fierce, white women warriors: The Amazons.

The tribe known as Icamiaba disappeared, the forest reclaimed their grand city and temples. Their fame slipped away into the mythology of the rainforest but they were no more. Ejup taught them well.

Charles the Fifth’s gout was acting up. His foot was killing him and he hadn’t been able to eat a good meal in days. And now Francisco de Orellana stood in front of him, whining about his string of failures and shamelessly pleading for more money.

“Tell me about this cinnamon,” the Emperor growled. “You have shiploads of the stuff and claim it to be as good as gold.” He leered at the man before him. “But, I say, gold, nonetheless, would be grander.”

“Give it to me, you imbecile,” Orellana snapped at the junior monk at his side who was as nervous as a nun in a whore house. The Dominican carried an oilskin which contained the handwritten reports Friar Gaspar de Carvajal had given him. It was divided into two parts, only one of which was for Charles’ eyes. The monk fumbled to retrieve the larger report for the Emperor; both tumbled onto the exquisitely inlaid floor along with the thud of a golden arrowhead.

The Emperor’s patience was gone. He pointed at the floor. “What is that?” Then he waved his hand in the air with a flourish to dismiss the question. “Hand it over.”

The monk scurried forward with the parchments and presented the larger one to the king.

“Come on, man. I can read better than you.” He leaned forward to glare at the monk, his hand pumping the air in impatience. “Give me it all.”

The monk nervously handed the second report but held the arrow in hand with the shaft discreetly hidden up his loose sleeve.

The larger item was laboriously entitled, “A report on the new discovery of the famous Rio Grande that Captain Francisco de Orellana discovered through great luck.” it was long and weighty. Charles was hungry. He tossed it back to Francisco de Orellana and scanned the second. “A report to Bartolomé de las Casas on the odd occurrences during the battle with female forest warriors.” This, he was positive, would be a more enjoyable read before lunch. He lightly scanned the writings, then read with interest, slowly examining each word near the end of the report.

His face grew dark. “Tell me about the Serb, Orellana,” he snapped. A ringed finger tapped loudly on the wood while the Emperor awaited an answer. The Spaniard was silent.

“I said tell me about this Ejup Mikic,” barked the most powerful man in the world.

“He was killed in the battle with the warrior women, Your Highness.” Orellana bowed.

Charles stood, then quickly collapsed back onto the heavy chair that served as the throne of the Holy Roman Empire when he was in Spain. “Out, Orellana,” he roared, “And leave the friar with me. Don’t come back until I can count on you to tell me the truth.” He drained a goblet of wine, slammed it on the table and listened to the heavy door click shut. He looked at the monk who fidgeted with something closed in the palm of his hand.

“What is that in your hand, man?” the emperor asked. The mild holy man blushed and put his hands behind his back, his head bowed in submission. “Come, now. Bring it to me.” Charles made a ‘come hither’ sign with his index finger. Slowly, without raising his eyes, the monk extended his fist and walked toward the Emperor. He stopped a few feet from Charles, his clenched fist trembling.

“Now, open your hand, friar,” Charles said quietly. The fist sprung open and an object fell to the tiled floor with a thud.

“Hand it to me,” the Emperor roared. The monk stooped down, picked up the object, handed it over and ran back to where he had been standing before.

Charles turned the sweaty chunk of metal over and over in his hand, studying every detail, including the thin shaft of wood still attached to one end. It was an arrowhead, perfect in every detail, but unlike one he had ever seen. It appeared ancient but was new, perhaps because of the material from which it had been cast. It was pure gold.

“From Friar Gaspar, Your Majesty,” he answered. “I was instructed to give this to the Holy Father as proof of what happened.”

Charles’ fist slowly closed around the artifact. “You can leave it with me,” he said. “I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”

“But, Your M-M-Majesty,” the monk stuttered, “Friar Gaspar was very clear that I should…”

“Enough,” the Emperor roared. “Now, tell me...” He held the small report up. “Why is this addressed to Las Casas?”

“We have a protocol in the Church, Your Highness, just like you have in your court. He is our superior. Las Casas will send it to the Holy See.”

Charles frowned. Twenty years before, he’d sent Martin Luther packing for his renegade Ninety Five Theses. Even now his brother daily fought holy wars in Germany. The Portuguese were camped out in Rome, pushing their claim to half the discoveries Spain had paid for. The last thing he needed on his platter was heresy in the New World, especially something as sensational as this Ejup Mikic.

“No, Your Highness. Only Friar Gaspar de Carvajal witnessed that which is written.”

Charles hobbled to his study where maps of the rapidly expanding world covered the heavy oak table. He wrote a simple note in Latin:

Your Eminence, Pope Paul III,

There is a Dominican friar serving in The New World by the name of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal. His influence on the well-being of the natives is extraordinary. I recommend that you take advantage of him in a permanent assignment to the Viceroy of Peru. We could all benefit by his example.

Humbly yours,

Charles, by the grace of God, Holy Roman Emperor, forever August,

King of Germany, King of Italy, King of all Spains

He sealed it in a royal envelope with wax and his signet ring and handed it to the friar. “Do your Emperor a favor,” he instructed. “Deliver this to Rome. Put it into the Pontiff’s hand yourself. When you return to the New World, send a holy kiss from me to this Friar Gaspar de Carvajal. Leave today. And before you go, tell Orellana he can come back after my lunch and read me this other report.”

Charles grimaced from the gout and a rumbling stomach. The young Dominican stood frozen. “Go, I said,” the Emperor barked.

When the heavy door had slammed shut, the Emperor clicked open a special drawer built into the massive leg of the table, underneath the oak top. He momentarily stared at the gold tip of the arrow then slipped the small report into the secret compartment along with the mysterious arrow and snapped the drawer shut. ‘There,’ he thought. ‘One less thing to worry about.’ He rang for the lamb he’d smelled grilling in the kitchen, ready for meat as rare as they could bring it.

Eddy Heirbaut lay flat on his back in the restoration shop of the royal Ghent museum, sanding a massive table. Five hundred years had left the Spanish oak harder than any wood he’d ever worked. The magnificent piece had found its way back to Charles the Fifth’s castle via most of Europe’s capitals. In a few months, it would be the centerpiece of the five hundredth anniversary celebration of his city’s most famous son. On top of the massive oak table would sit a large illuminated globe to display the extent of Charles’ kingdom. Unfortunately, no one would give a damn about what was underneath; no one, that is, except for Eddy.

He was ready for lunch and a beer, with sawdust coating every millimeter of his body. He had nearly finished the first of the four massive legs when he sensed a softness in the surface. A few taps told him the wood was hollow. Curiosity overcame him and it only took a few moments to find the secret latch and pop the compartment open.

Inside were three parchments, one each in Latin, German and Spanish. In the rear, wedged underneath the documents was a golden arrowhead. He set the arrowhead aside and scanned through the documents as best he could while he ate his sandwich. With a shake of his head and a smile, he drained his beer and called his supervisor.

By the afternoon, the royal curator from Brussels had sealed off the carpenter’s studio and Eddy had been sent home. The writing was validated to be in the Emperor’s hand. The German and Latin documents were bilingual copies of a full pardon for the German monk, Martin Luther. The Spanish document was a simple Dominican report about the New World. The arrowhead was a mystery, but the whole lot was in the Vatican archives by nightfall that same day.

The arrival of the artifacts from Gent set off a chain of whispered phone calls and meetings in Rome and the Vatican. Just before retiring, a sleepy Holy Father welcomed two sacerdotes in red-trimmed cassocks into his private quarters. The pair quickly outlined the discoveries and offered their recommendations. Their passion and experience spoke for themselves and he nodded his head in agreement. They turned to leave but he stopped them to offer an ancient prayer, the only one he knew in Greek.

It was still the dead of night when they slipped into a tunnel deep beneath the Basilica of St. Peter. They carried images of the newly filed artifacts in a computer memory chip, along with copies of documents so ancient primeval that only they could read them. At the end of the tunnel they ascended a stone circular stairway lit by a single candle carried by a robust young man. They spent the night around a ancient oak table with another handful of hardened and determined men. Each had waited their entire lives for this exact moment. At dawn, each went his own way, a plan in place.

Eddy arrived the next morning at work and learned he had been selected for early retirement. Happily surprised, he and his wife of thirty years immediately left for an extended vacation on the southern coast of Spain. Stranger yet, while touring the Andalucían coast, their rented motor home apparently slipped off a loose gravel shoulder and plunged several dozens of meters to the rocky coast below. The rigged brake line melted away in the fiery inferno of the crash. Their badly decomposed bodies washed up on the shores of two different countries weeks later.

The afternoon was quiet, the water calm. Three children and their mother splashed water over their bodies for the fourth time that day. The river refreshed them, soothed insect stings and restored the peace of their lives in the forest.

The oldest, a bit further out in the stream, spun around as if a fish had nibbled at her bare bottom. She made a face and retreated to her mother. Together, they called the father who fished the body out of the river.

The skin was as black as charcoal and hugged the skeleton inside as if it had been painted in place. Two eyes stared wildly into space. The mouth gaped wide open in a silent scream of death.

Federal Police Lieutenant Edson Macedo cruised past the family an hour after the corpse was found. They called him over to where they had tied it to a low-hanging branch. No one wanted to touch it. A school of piranhas calmly flicked about but not one swam within a foot of the desiccated flesh. The fish scattered when Edson hooked the corpse and hauled it into his launch.

“How long has it been here?” he asked the father, the only Indian willing to talk.

The mother stood behind, guarding her children like chicks. “Mulher morcego,” she whispered.

“Mulher morcego did this.” She crossed herself. The children repeated the action.

Edson shook his head at the jungle superstitions of the family. He’d heard the term before; it was used to scare children - mulher morcego: the translation was difficult and awkward but meant something akin to ‘the bats who are women.’ Edson finished his report and headed back to the small village of Boca do Acre.

The next day Edson hitched a ride on a Military Police chopper to check out the grazing area where the dead man had worked for the landowner, Eduardo Moraes. He found half of the cattle dead from starvation, covered with flies while rats ran wild in orgiastic feasts. The other half of the herd wandered about, listless and gaunt. Bags of feed lay unopened. Not a soul was to be found. He and his men fed as many as they could and returned home to file another report.

By the time the Ministry of Agriculture arrived to rescue the livestock, the living cattle had disappeared into the region’s local butcher shops. Word had traveled fast about the free beef, but there was never a sign of the missing cattlemen.