El Dorado

A city of gold. Gold, I tell ye!

- Crazy Pete

Summer 1888, The Inca Kingdoms, Amazonas

The water of the pond was red with blood. It boiled and churned from the fight that was raging on below its surface, creating pink foam that slowly drifted away by the current created by the waterfall. Shock saturated the heavy air. It was fueled by the panic-stricken screams of a soldier who tried to stanch the blood gushing from the stump where his right arm had been. That fellow had been the first to climb the rocks that led to the cascade. He had been careless—and unlucky. The dragon lying in wait behind the veil of falling water had made sure he would remember that for the rest of his life.

"Come on, come on, Az," whispered Eddy, his gilded revolver in hand, scanning the water for any sign of the dragon or his best friend and partner, who, as usual when a wyrm needed killing, had lost no time diving into danger.

In this case, that meant jumping on the dragon's back with nothing but his Bowie knife.

Azrael's gloved hand, holding the knife in a reverse grip, tore through the foaming surface and disappeared just as quickly to be replaced by an equally brief view of a pale reptilian underbelly as the beast desperately rolled in the water to get rid of his attacker.

The soldiers started firing, their bullets whipping the water.

"Stop shooting," shouted Eddy, worried they might hit his partner.

The order was repeated, albeit this time in flawless Spanish, by Marquis Isidro de Orellana, their employer on this ill-begotten adventure. The firing ceased instantly. The Marquis kept his dogs on a tight leash; Eddy at least had to give him that.

The struggle continued—a good sign, Eddy hoped. The beast was small for its kind, barely larger than a horse; it was ugly and wingless, a land hunting variation Eddy had not seen before. It reminded him more of a gargantuan lizard than the winged terrors that ruled the skies. Still, it had proven its deadliness once already, and even though Eddy knew no man more apt in the business of killing than Azrael—and Eddy knew many men in that line of work—he was still worried that his partner would run out of air soon.

A tense minute passed, and then the water took on an even deeper hue as more blood was spilled. Moments later, pink entrails rose toward the surface and floated away like snakes on the escape. The ugly, reptilian head of the dragon surfaced.

"Fuck!" Eddy fired.

In quick succession, Eddy emptied his revolver. He was sure that at least two bullets hit their mark, yet the beast did not move. Suddenly he realized he was the only one firing.

"It's already dead," grunted Azrael, panting heavily. Eddy almost slipped on the wet stones, so surprised was he to hear his partner's voice. Azrael had surfaced a few feet away from him to his left.

"Not bad, Señor Grimes," the Marquis complimented Azrael. "I can see your reputation is well earned."

Azrael looked pleased, though Eddy knew it was not due to the compliment he had just received. Killing dragons always made him happy, and happiness was something seldom seen in the grim bounty killer.

Tall, pale, and as thin as a greyhound, he was clad in soaking wet black garments of sturdy cloth and leather. He carried more weapons than a small armory; two Colts dangled on crossed belts across his hip, and two sawed-off Buffalo rifles loomed from holsters strapped to his back by a pair of ammo belts crossing his chest. Brushing away an intestine that had been caught around his neck, he tucked away his huge knife in the sheath in his boot, the serrated blade looking as hungry as always.

The bounty killer gave Eddy a queer grin, and once more Eddy thought that in a beauty contest between the Grim Reaper and Azrael, the Grim Reaper would win. Horribly mutilated, most of the left side of his face was a mass of black scar tissue, a reminder of how dangerous dragon fire was. His left ear was gone, and yellow bone stretched from the temple to the back of his head, a few resilient tendons stretching over it stubbornly like a net. His left eye was white and blind and sat in the surrounding scar tissue like an exotic spider in a web. In contrast, apart from a smaller scar here and there, the right of his face remained mostly unharmed. Azrael had been a good looking man once, handsome in a cruel way.

Now he was a monster.

"Ahh, there you are," the aged dragon killer grunted, reaching back into the water and snatching up his black hat. It had a broad rim, and a band of dragon-leather strapped the fist-sized skull of a dragon-hatchling to it. Azrael valued the hat even more than Eddy loved his gilded Peacemaker. He claimed that it was the skull of the first dragon he had ever killed, the same dragon that killed his two brothers. Eddy had never believed the story until one day, when he was drunk, the bounty killer had revealed how he slew this particular dragon.

At some point Azrael's father, a dragon killer himself, threw his three kids, one after the other, into a pit with the dragon spawn. Alone, no older than three years, they had to fight the hungry beast for their lives. His two brethren died in that pit, yet Azrael survived and killed the dragon spawn with the split femur of one of his siblings.

Survival of the fittest, Azrael's father had called it.

After that, Eddy had avoided drinking too much with Azrael.

"Here, I'll give you a hand," Eddy said. He reached out for Azrael but slipped and fell into the pool himself. He came up, spewing water.

The mocking faces of the Marquis's soldiers greeted him. At least the waterfall is blocking out their laughter, he thought. Big and brutish men, the soldiers were in many ways the stark opposite of Eddy, who physically was the absolute average human being, a fact he covered with extraordinarily luxurious garments and equipment. Though, in the last three days, traveling through the jungles of the Incan Kingdom, he had wished a hundred times that he had traded his tailored suit for one of the bland uniforms of the soldiers. But then again, if he was about to die, he would do so in style, in his best suit—his only suit—with his gilded Peacemaker at his side. And of course his mouthful of gold teeth to prove that Eddy had done something with his life and risen from his meager beginnings as a poor dragon-egg thief to become . . .

Well, a richer dragon-egg thief.

"Enough delay. El Dorado is waiting," shouted the Marquis over the roaring of the waterfall in an imperious tone. In his twenties and therefore not much older than Eddy, he was tall, dark, and handsome.

Eddy hated him.

Reason for his hatred, apart from a bit of envy and general dislike toward rich and arrogant people, was the pale beauty standing at the Marquis's side: Isabella, his breathtakingly beautiful assistant and bodyguard.

Slender and small, she wore tight-fitting black military garments like the Marquis as well as knee-high riding boots. Dark, shoulder-length hair framed a perfectly symmetrical face, blue eyes, and lips red as cherries. At her hip hung a plain and functional German pistol and a richly adorned foot-long stiletto.

Life ain't fair, Eddy thought sullenly as his gaze lingered on her for a moment. The Marquis whispered something in her ear, and with a nod, she turned toward the wounded soldier being cared for by a comrade who tried unsuccessfully to stem the flow of blood. Without a word of warning, Isabella drew the stiletto and stabbed the wounded soldier through the heart. His comrade withdrew in shock, and the curses of the other soldiers filled the air.

"El Dorado is waiting, gentlemen," droned the Marquis, overshadowing the event, not even a hint of compassion on his cruel and handsome features. "We all knew sacrifices would have to be made. Let's hope this is the last one. Don't forget, the pride of the Incan Nations is hidden inside this mountain. El Dorado, the Golden City, and together we will snatch more riches out from under the dragon's paws than you could ever imagine. You will go home as kings!"

Greedy grins found their way onto the faces of the soldiers, their bleeding-out comrade already forgotten. Eddy had to hand it to him: the Marquis knew how to motivate his men—and how to intimidate them. Moments later, they were on the move again.

The remainder of their group—six soldiers, Eddy, Azrael, the Marquis Orellana, and Isabella—climbed up the slippery stones and passed under the cascade of falling water. It was colder here, which proved to be a short but welcome reprieve from the smothering heat of the jungle. Even more appealing for Eddy was how the wet clothes of Isabella's uniform clung to her like a second skin. When they paused, he briefly felt butterflies welling up in his stomach as his gaze wandered up her lean frame like the hands of a lover—until he met her face. She was staring at him, her eyebrow crooked, a knowing smile playing at the angle of her mouth. Suddenly the picture of her killing the soldier pushed itself into Eddy's mind and he quickly turned around, pretending to look at something. Anything.

And there he saw it—a tunnel leading into the mountain became visible for a second as the water spray that was around them like fog lifted for a second. It was a tunnel, more foreboding than all the dragon lairs Eddy had ever laid eyes upon. It was covered in spiderwebs so thick that they could serve as a man's blanket. Animal and human bones lay scattered across the ground in front of the entrance. Suddenly, Eddy was very happy to have so many guns at his disposal. He told the others of his discovery, and they gathered in front of the entrance.

"This must be the secret tunnel to El Dorado my ancestor was rambling about. The secret tunnel to El Dorado through which he escaped more than 300 years ago," said the Marquis, wiping his wet black hair from his face. "It is time to prove your worth, Señor Finn. Lead the way."

Eddy's jaw dropped. "You want me to do what?"

"The way!" the Marquis repeated, his fingers playing impatiently with the cavalry sabre on his side. "Señor Grimes assured us that there is no man in the world with a better sense of direction when it comes to traveling caves—or avoiding dangers. You are like a mole-man, yes? So . . ." He pointed toward the cave. "Find us the way!"

Eddy stared at Azrael in disbelief. His long-time buddy and comrade-in-arms shrugged slowly and lifted his remaining eyebrow in a feeble and silent apology.

Eddy was about to object, yet as he looked into the faces of the surrounding soldiers, he thought otherwise. They were all exhausted from their trek through the jungle, yet a hunger for gold burned in their eyes—a hunger that could quickly turn into bloodlust if he didn't play his cards right.

In angry defeat Eddy grabbed a lamp from the hands of one of the soldiers and went toward the opening, grumbling under his breath, "Mole-man, I show you a mole you stupid f . . ."

"And Señor Finn," added the Marquis while tying back his long hair into a ponytail, a hint of glee in his dark eyes. "Beware of the spiders."

"Beware of the—what?" blurted Eddy, turning around, his eyes going big.

A mix of annoyance and satisfaction flashed over the Marquis's handsome features, "The spiders! The guardians of the caves. Didn't Señor Grimes tell you anything?"

Azrael spat out and said, "No need startling a horse by shaking a rattlesnake tail."

Eddy glared at him.

As an answer, Azrael pulled out his revolver and Bowie knife, then walked toward the cave, a cold grin on his mutilated face, "Can't be worse than the jungle, eh partner? Let's go."