Jill paused for a moment. The 24-year old student un-shouldered her backpack and pulled out her water bottle. Unscrewing it, she gulped down a swig of warm water. She was drenched in sweat in the muggy heat of the jungle. She ran a hand through her reddish brown hair, which had gone frizzy from the humidity,
“Come on, Jill, try and keep up. We’ve got a couple more miles to go before we make camp for the night.” An older, blonde woman said, stepping past Jill.
“Yes, Professor White!” Jill said, putting her canteen away. She picked up her backpack and started forward again. The anthropology student had signed up for a research expedition, to be led by the universities top field researcher, Abigail White, along with two other student assistants and their guide.
In front of Jill was a foreign exchange student from Korea named Kim Seong. Taking the rear of the column was Jill’s friend, a brunette named Samantha Green. The final member of the group was a local girl named Maria. They were headed into the jungle, in search of the lost tribe of Mala-fora.
The group of women hiked forward in silence, listening to the sounds of the jungle all around them. At the head of the party, Maria and Professor White led the way, clearing a path with machetes. Periodically, they would stop and the professor would consult her map and compass, to make sure they were still on course.
“Hmmm…this is odd.” Professor White said, looking at the map. “I could have sworn we were going straight, but it seems we’ve gotten turned around somehow…” She and Maria huddled together, discussing things closely. Concentrating on the map, neither woman noticed as the ground began to creep up around their hiking boots.
“Professor! You’re sinking!”
“hmmm…what was that?” Professor White muttered absentmindedly, turning. She looked down. Her eyes widened with surprise.
Jill ran forward to help. “Stop! Don’t come any closer, it’s quicksand!” Professor White said, a moment too late. Jill’s boots were caught in the mud. The young woman struggled to lift her feet out, but the mud held them fast.
“Jill, don’t panic.” Abigail White said, calmly. By now, she and Maria had sunk to their calves. “Take off your pack and toss it away, it’ll just weigh you down.” Putting action to word, she slung her pack off and tossed it aside. The other two women followed her example.
“Kim, Sam, go see if you can find some vines or something to pull us out with. Go!” The two girls nodded, dropping their own backpacks and rushing off into the jungle. Abigail turned to Jill. “Just stay calm. So long as we don’t struggle, we won’t sink all the way. When you sink down, lean back and try to float on your back. When they get back, they can pull us out.”
Jill and Maria nodded. Jill struggled to stay calm, as she felt the wet earth slide around unsteadily beneath her feet. Slowly but steadily, her legs sank into the earth, now to the knee. Abigail and Maria were already up to their waists.
“Damn it. Where are they?” Jill thought to herself, fighting the rising panic inside her. She was now up to her chest. She raised her arms, keeping them above the clinging, sucking quicksand, ready to grab the vine when it was tossed.
Jill glanced over, only the heads of her companions remained above the earth. Jill looked up, hoping to keep her face above the quicksand as long as possible. Suddenly, a vine was tossed, landing nearby. Jill struggled to raise a hand from the clinging muck to grab it. She held on for dear life as she was dragged, slowly, from the pit. Nearby, Abigail and Maria were pulled up as well.
Heart racing, Jill clambered her way back to solid ground. It was only then, she looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw who her rescuer was. A very tall native woman stood before Jill, looking down at the student. She wore only a loin-cloth and a leather belt, her bronzed skin was covered in an intricate pattern of body paint that covered her from head to toe. Her dark hair was woven into a braid that hung down to her waist.
She wasn’t alone. A half dozen other natives were with her. Several of them were even taller than the first woman, easily seven feet tall, with long, athletic limbs. Two of them were helping Abigail and Maria out of the quicksand. The others were armed with a mixture of short bows and spears. As Jill staggered to her feet, two of them leveled spears at her chest.
“whoa! Take it easy!” Jill said, raising her hands placatingly. Abigail and Maria stood and were led over to Join Jill. The natives eyed the three women with stern expressions. One of the women said something in a fast tongue Jill didn’t understand.
Evidently, Maria did. “She’s speaking the language of one of the hill tribes around here. She is…um…she’s telling us to take off our clothes.”
“Well, I don’t think we have much of a choice, do we?” Professor White said. “Best do what they tell us, for now.”
Jill nodded. Inside, she was scared out of her wits, but the professor’s coolness in the situation helped to steady her as well. Resignedly, Jill removed her hiking boots and socks. She unbuckled her belt and slid down her khaki shorts and unbuttoned her blouse. Beside her, the other two women did the same.
Jill blushed as she pulled down her underwear. The native women were eyeing their captives, speaking amongst one another. She glanced at Maria, who merely shrugged. Their captors were speaking their own language, rather than the one they’d used to communicate to the explorers before.
When the three stood naked before their rescuers and captors, the natives moved forward. Three of the women seized Jill, Abigail and Maria. They easily held their squirming prisoners fast, while the other three natives stepped forward with coils of rope, woven from some kind of native plant. Quickly, efficiently, they lashed their captive’s hands together behind their backs, looping rope around the naked women’s chests, above and below their breast, pinning their arms to their sides.
More rope was tied around the three captive’s necks, forming crude leashes. One of the natives grabbed the free ends of the rope leashes in one hand, while her comrades gathered up their weapons as well as the explorer’s backpacks. The lead native tugged on the leashes sharply. The three prisoners had no choice but to follow, trudging after their captors. The other huntresses formed up around their captives.
“Where are they taking us, professor?” Jill asked quietly. Their captors didn’t seem to mind the three talking.
“To their village, I presume.” Professor White said. “Judging from their strange dialect, I believe these women might be from the lost tribe! Amazing!”
After they’d been walking for a few minutes, the procession of captors and their tightly bound captives came to a small clearing. Waiting for them in the clearing were a half-dozen more native women. With them were Kim and Samantha. Jill groaned in despair when she saw her friends had also been stripped, bound and leashed like she and the others had.
“Professor!” The two girls cried, as the huntress dragged the three of them over to join them. “While we were searching, we ran into these people.” Kim said, head hung low. “We didn’t have a chance. Before we could do anything, they grabbed us and tied us up like this.”
Nearby, the huntresses were also discussing things. Though she couldn’t understand a word they said, Jill listened, intently to the tone of the women’s conversation, trying to divine whether it boded ill or not for her and other captives.
After a moment, they came to an agreement. The lead huntress barked an order. The procession started forward again, dragging their helpless prisoners along after them. They made good time, the women in the front clearing a path with their knives. They appeared to know exactly where they were going. They followed the lay of the land, without pause.
As evening fell, the huntresses made camp for the night. Several of them cleared brush and started a fire. A stake was hammered into the ground. The prisoners’ leashes were tied to it, to keep them from running off in the night. Their feet were also bound, with the same kind of rope. The natives made no sort of shelter, they ignored the tents they’d taken from their captives. They simply huddled close together for warmth. Their captives were forced to do the same, shivering against the cold night air.
For two more days, the captives were dragged through the jungle. Each night, they were leashed to a stake. Each evening and each morning, the captives were fed a meal of some dried fruit and smoked meat and given a few sips of water from a skin one of the huntresses carried. On the third day of their captivity, the prisoners arrived at the city.
There was no warning. They’d gone down a narrow gorge, shuffling, single file through the mists. All at once, the mists parted to reveal a large valley, stretched out before them. Filling the valley were dozens, hundreds of large buildings, made of some sort of dark colored stone. At the center of the city, a massive stepped pyramid rose above everything.
They city was crowded with people. They stopped and watched as the huntresses led their wide-eyes captives through the streets. They were dressed alike, in that they weren’t really dressed at all, and they all wore the same basic design of body-paint. After a moment, Jill realized there were no men. All around her were staring native women, none looked older than her mid-twenties. And here and there, speckled amongst the crowd were lighter skinned women, with brownish, reddish, blonde hair.
“Hello!” the captive looked over, as a voice called through the crowd. A blonde woman in native garb stepped towards them. She said something to the guards in their native tongue, before turning back to the five of them. “Welcome to the lost city. I’m Dr. Eva Schneider.”
“Dr. Schneider?” Professor White exclaimed in surprise. “How can that be? You disappeared in the 1950’s?”
The woman grinned. “The women of the lost city still have many secrets. Secrets that will soon be revealed to you. But first, you must be inspected by the goddess…” She nodded to the guards, who tugged on the leashes. They dragged their confused, curious captives towards the temple-pyramid…