» Library » Novels » Wolfgang Hohlbein » Gefiederte Schlange » Schiff der Götter » Gold von El Dorado » Schwert des Dschingis Kahn » Verschwundenes Volk » Geheimnis der Osterinseln » Labyrinth des Horus » Erbe von Avalon Created by: Sascha Krasny update: 02/06/17

Wolfgang Hohlbein's Indiana Jones and the Feathered Serpent         Chapter 1     June the 8th, 1929 Piedras Negras/ Yucatan It was still raining fire from the sky. The last bad quake was five minutes ago, but the earth had been shaking and rumbling long thereafter. And the forest was in flames - not only at the foot of the Vulcano, were the torrent of scorching lava had hit it, but the whole forest, as far as he could see. The air was smelling of sulfur and burning stone and it was so hot that every breath of air was painful. Here and there the ground was smoldering, and even down here, more then two miles away from the fire spitting heart of the vulcano, it was shimmering here and there through the ground; a net of thin, indented crevices running through the ground, and sometimes a breath of air so hot and corossive caught him, that Indiana groaned from pain. He was not sure if he would make it. In front of him, maybe one or one and a half mile away, a steep hill was rising from the woods; an indented top of black, glaslike stiffened lava, where no plants had taken hold and thus there was nothing to catch fire. But those one and a half miles could as well be one and a half miles too much. Big and small rocks detached from the flank of the vulcano all the time and fell down on them like deadly projectiles of an angry Maya god; the ground was shaking and trembling so bad that Indiana had problems to stay on his feet sometimes; he barely got enough air and believed that he would suffocate; and all the time small, roaring geysers of boiling stone and suffocating, scorching hot fumes were exploding all around them. And Swanson was heavy. In the first few minutes Indiana had not felt his weight, because he had dashed off in sheer fear of death, and alone the thought of the white-hot stream of lava, which followed them - not very fast, but with the merciless perseverance of a force of nature -, alone the thought of this roaring torrent of white-fluid rock, which seemed to come right out of hell, had given him nearly immense strenght. But even the superhuman strength induced by fear had limits, and Indiana felt that he would reach that limit soon. He stumbled more frequently. Two times he had already fallen and he was barely able to hold Swanson, and the motionless body on his shoulder seemed to weight tons by now. And as if the dark, ancient power, which they had awakened with their sacrilege, knew that their victimes could be able to escape at the very last moment, the eruptions had gotten stronger. Not only the mountain, the whole land seemed to jerk under his feet and to squirm like a giant, wounded animal. Indiana reached the foot of the lava heap and turned left, when the ground opened and a man thick jet of fluid rock shot up, where he was running to. He ducked instinctively. Two, three drops of the white-hot lava hit him and burned tiny, smoking holes in his jacket and the skin below. Indiana gasped in pain and doubled his efforts. The edge of the forest seemed within reach now. But as fast as he was running, the apocalypse, which he was running from, followed him.And as if she was playing a cruel, little game with him, she was always a little bit faster than he was. Flames were licking from the undergrowth here too. The leaves of the head-high ferns had turned brown and rolled in; black smoke darkened the sky; and through the crackling flames came a choir of shrieking, panic-striken animals voices. When the vulcano erupted, the animals had run away from the immediate vicinity of the mountain, but the forces of nature were simply faster. Within a radius of three, maybe even four or five miles round, flames and burning stones were falling from the sky. And there was nothing they could turn to anymore. The whole jungle had become a giant trap. Not only for its animal inhabitants. Indiana stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He looked around chased. He could not see the hill from here on anymore. Flames and black, oily smoke impeded his sight. A wave of suffocating, dry heat hit him from the jungle as well, but he knew that the elevation had to be directly in front of him. It had to be there - if not, then he could as well stand here and await death. He shifted Swansons weight on his shoulder and tried to find a way through the burning jungle with a quick look. Then he dashed off. The way down from the crater of the vulcano had been bad; he had thought that it could not come worse. But this here was worse. The whole forest was in flames. The ground was so hot, that he could hardly walk allthough he had thick soles, and over and over again burning branches fell on Swanson and him. The heat and the glaring, flickering light drove tears into his eyes, so that he nearly became blind. He dashed simply straight ahead, crashed into a tree, which had appeared out of the smoke so suddenly, that Indiana had no time to react, and fell hard to the ground. Swanson slipped from his shoulder and plundged in the thicket with a gasp of pain; for a moment Indiana lied there dazed. When he heaved himself up again, he suddenly believed to see a shape. It was only a shadow that he could see out of the corner of his eye, hardly more than a flat, distorted outline against the background of the roaring wall of flames, like a demon, gigantic and black, and with a distorted, blood red devils grimace, which seemed to be spit out by hell itself to prevent him from escape in the very last moment. Indiana turned around frightened, but the mountain ejected a new, roaring explosion at the same moment and the sky became overcast with blazing heat, and when Indiana looked again, the shape was gone. For a second he stared at the place, where it had stood, then he came to the conclusion that it had to be an illusion, and he bent down to help Swanson up. Swanson groaned from pain, when Indiana heaved him on his shoulder. His fingernails scratched Indiana's face, as he instinctively tried to escape this agony. Indiana ignored the new, burning pain, balanced Swansons weight out on his shoulders, as good as he could, and staggered on. That he found the rocky hill was pure chance. His foot suddenly hit something hard, he stumbled, found his balance at the last moment and grabbed for hold with his free hand. His fingers grazed over black, hard-as-glas lava, which cut into his hand like knifes. And through the curtain of smoke and grey ash he could suddenly see the side of a battered hill rising steep in front of them. Even under normal circumstances it would have been difficult to climb the hill; with Swansons weight on his shoulders, it was nearly impossible. But plain fear gave him additional strenght for one last time, and somehow he did the trick. Panting, nearly blind from exhaustion and pain and with his last bit of energy he crawled on the furrowed hill and dragged himself into the cover of an enormous piece of black frozen lava. Against the rain of fire from the sky it did not give any protection, but at least it held back the flames and the scorching wind a little bit. Indiana collapsed from exhaustion. For some time he did not move, he panted and waited for the world to stop spinning around him. For some minutes he could do nothing else than to lay there, to breathe and to listen to the fast stakkato of his heart, which was pounding in his breast as if it would burst any moment. There seemed to be no bone in his body that did not hurt; no muscle, that was not strained, and no square centimeter skin, that was not burned, scalded or grazed. The bitter taste of vomiting was in his mouth, and his eyes were watering from the smoke and the glaring light, in which he had to look over and over again. This was not the first dangerous situation where Dr. Indiana Jones found himself; but it was the worst. What had started as a harmless walk and continued as an adventure, had turned into an inferno. Yet he hardly remembered how it all had begun - everything had happened so fast and seemed to happen at the same time, so that the pictures in his memory got all mixed up and turned into a single, crazy kaleidoscope of terror. Allthough he tried with all his force to push the memory away, the same picture rose in his mind's eye over and over again: Swanson, who suddenly cried out and threw himself between Indiana and the flame, that shot up from the crater of the vulcano without warning. Yet they had been warned, thought Indiana bitterly. Oh yes, they had been warned, more than once, but they had not listened - as usual. For a moment he thought that he could see the face of the old Indio again, who had stood in the way of their truck with arms streched out; a thin, ragged figure, whose sight was nearly pitiable, how it stood there on the dusty main street of Piedras Negras and tried to stop that roaring colossus from another time. "What do you want?" Swanson had snapped at him, barely after he had stoped the truck and jumped on the street, where the Indio was still standing with his arms streched out, trembling, the face completely without color and the skinny legs under the worn-out poncho only centimeters away from the bumber of the truck, but without giving way, and in spite of the obvious fear in his eyes with a dignity that totally confused Indiana. "Are you tired of life, you crazy old man?" shouted Swanson. He too was pale and trembled all over, but Indiana also understood that what had seemed like anger to him in the first moment, was only the expression of his fright. The five-ton truck had very nearly run the old man over. The Indio answered to Swansons angry words with a calm, sonorous voice which was a flagrant condtradiction to his pitiable appearence. Indiana could not understand what he was saying, because the old man used a diallect that Indiana had never heard before. Two times he believed to understand the word Quetzalcoatl, but he was not sure, because Swanson interrupted the Indio at once, and this time the American scientist was really shouting in anger; and this time in the same throuty language like the old man. For a moment the Indio looked at Swanson with an expression, which was wavering between sorrow and anger, then he turned around and shuffled away with hanging shoulders. "What did he want?" asked Indiana as Swanson climbed back into the truck and put the starter into action; so violent, that the decrepit lever nearly broke. "Nothing." answered Swanson - more than just a bit too hurried to sound convincing. "Nothing at all." Indiana looked at him questioning. "Nothing at all?" he repeated doubting. "You mean he nearly got run over for nothing?" Swanson had finally started the motor and changed the rear so rude that the gearbox grated audible. "You know how superstitious these old Indios are", he said. He laughed tense. "He saw the truck and claimed that we would be desecrating sacred ground, if we would drive into the mountains with this devils machine." "And then he threatened with Quetzalcoatls curse", supected Indiana. Swanson winced barely noticable and steped on the gas so violently, that Indiana was thrown back into his seat. The ancient motor shrieked protesting. "Quetzalcoatl? How did you think of that?" "Because he said it", answered Indiana. "No he didn't", Swanson growled. "You must be mistaken." "But I heard it very clearly", replied Indiana. "Two times." "Then you were mistaken two times", said Swanson. "The old man was crazy, that's all." But he had not been crazy, and Indiana had not been mistaken. They had brought the anger of the old Mayan gods on them, and now Swanson was dying, and if no miracle happened, Indiana would live only a few moments longer than him. He chased away the bleak prospects when he heard a noice, that he indentified as the painful groaning of a human after a few moments. Swanson was moving. His burned hand raised with difficulty, fumbled around trembling and finally touched Indiana's shoulder. Slowly, with painful movements it crawled further, passed his neck and finally reached his chin.It was the movement of a blind, who touched the face of his vis-a-vis, because he could not see it. And Swanson was blind. I have no right to be alive, thought Indiana shocked, when he looked at the destroyed face of his friend. Swanson's countenance was black, not dark, not covered by soot, but black. Only here and there shimmered the bright red of burned flesh underneath the slag and soot of his features, reminded a line of the face, that he knew, forced a drop of blood its way through the black-burned flesh. It was a sight, that chocked his throat; and not only because the face was so terribly disfigured. Actually he should be on his place now, thought Indiana exhausted. He had been the first to step on the edge of the crater, and he had been the one after whom the vulcano had spit his fiery breath. Swanson had saved his live and sacrificed his own. Indiana knew that his friend would die. It was a miracle that he was still alive. No doctor on the world could safe him now. And even if it was possible - the next city was seven, if not eight or nine hours on foot, they had already lost the car on the way here, and Indiana's strenght would not suffice to carry him so far. "Indiana?" Indiana smiled, allthough the dead eyes of his friend could not see it anymore. Careful he reached for Swanson's hand, took it and held it firm. He could feel how hot the skin of the dying was. His hearbeat was very slow, but so heavy, that Indiana could feel every single beat like a vibrating shock. "I'm here", he said. Swanson tried to smile, but what had happened with his face made it a terrible grimace. "Are you o.k.?", he asked with difficulty. Indiana nodded. Only then he remembered, that Swanson could not see it any longer, as well as anything else. "I'm fine", he said. "I've only got some scratches. But you've got it bad, old boy." "I know", Swanson whispered. "It's......bad." "Yes", answered Indiana. "But you'll come through. Don't fear." Swanson coughed: a horrible, dry sound, which made the blood freeze in Indiana's veins. "Don't lie to me", he whispered. And as if to confirm his words, the mountain ejected another roaring fire cloud. Indiana looked up instinctively. This movement saved his life. Like the first time he saw the shape only out of the corner of his eye, and only as a distorted, black shadow. But something told him that this was definitly something else than a shadow, and let him act instinctively. In a split second, after Indiana had overturned to the side, the blade of an osidian axe broke, where his face had been before. Indiana fell, rolled on his back and drew up his legs. With all his might he kicked at the gigantic figure, that suddenly rose above Swanson and himself. He hit. The figure stumbled back, tried for a moment with wildly rowing hands to keep its balance on the glas-polished lava and finally fell hard to the ground. Indiana and his attacker got on their feet at the same time. However Indiana doubted for a moment that he was really standing, because the other one towered half a meter above him! And it was not only his enourmous height that made Indiana hold his breath... The man was a giant, with shoulders so broad that they had to be twice as big as of a normal grown man. Underneath his arms and legs the muscles were vaulting, so that he looked nearly deformed, and to put the dot on the i of his frightening appearence, he was only dressed with a loincloth, but covered with loud colors from head to feet. His face was a devils grimace; underneath the loud green and red and yellow painted demons face his features were nearly completely hidden. Indiana wasted no second to pay the proper attention to the Indio’s war-paint. Because he jumped at him with an angry, nearly animal groan, Indiana threw himself to the side with a movement as fast and loosened the whip from his belt. The weapon of the Indio was broken, and he had thrown away the useless handle - but this giant did not need a weapon to deal with a normal grown opponent. Or even with five. The Indio seemed to assess the strength ratio smiliar, because he did not even glance at the whip in Indiana’s hand, but turned around and rushed at him a second time with wide-spread arms to simply squash him. Indiana waited until he was close, ducked under his seizing hands and kicked him in the hollow of his knee, when the giant stumbled by. The indian grunted surprised, made two, three clumsy steps and fell on his knees for the second time. When he rose this time, he was away far enough for Indiana to use his weapon. The whip cracked. The cord jerked like an attacking snake towards the neck of the Indio, winded itself around it and pulled together. The stroke would have been enough to let every other man break down unconscious, or at least convince him, that he had something better to do the next few minutes than killing harmless archaeology professors - for example, to learn to breath again. It did not convince the Indio. Instead of breaking down on the spot, he grabed for the cord of the whip with both hands and dragged on it; and Indiana got the idea to let go of the handle a fraction of a second too late, as he was the one now being dragged towards the Indio. When he finally let go it was too late. The Indio released the cord of the whip and and seized Indianas shoulders instead. Indiana felt himself being lifted up and and whirled around, a second later he was thrown between the sharp-edged rocks with such a might that everything went black. The impact drove the air out of his lungs, so that his painful scream remained a whistling gasp. For the fraction of a second his senses threatened to dwindle, and when his sight cleared, the Maya was already above him. The man was a giant, but he had nothing of the clumsy awkwardness of most big men, but moved with the powerful grace of a wild cat. Indiana raised his arms in a weak sign of resistance, but the Indio knocked his hand to the side, threm himself on him and pressed him to the ground with his knees, while his huge paws closed themselved around Indiana’s neck like the jaws of a vise and began to close merciless. Indiana made a desperate effort. Three-, four-, five times, one behind the other he hit the giant in the face, but he did not seem to feel it. Indiana’s lungs were crying for air. Desperately he tried to shake the Indio off, threw himself back and forth and reached for his hands with his last energy to bend the thumbs back and break the grip. But he felt very soon that he had not enough energy left. His senses already began to become muddled. The shape of the Maya became blurred in front of eyes, his face seem to swell, until it filled his whole field of vision... And than something totally unexpected happened. The grip of the Indio loosened. First still hesitating, but after a second he completely withdrew his hands from Indiana’s throat and stared at his neck. Indiana gasped for breath.The Indio stood up, looked at him distracted for a moment and turned away with an awkward motion. Indiana jumped at him when he bent over Swanson. He put all the energy, that was left in his beaten-up body, in this motion, and his impact was enough to throw even this giant off balance. But to nothing else. The giant fell, but he turned while falling and grapped Indiana, a second later he found himself lying on his back for the second time, with a heavy, living mountain of muscles and bones with a least five centner on his chest. And his expression made clear that he would go ahead this time. The Indio clenched his fist, to put an end to this (and probably Indiana’s life too) for ever and ever. With lightening speed Indiana poked the index- and middle finger of his right hand in the eye. The Maya groaned in pain, put bove arms in front of his face and tipped backwards from Indiana’s chest. Indiana helped the motion with an aimed kick, jumped to his feet - and fell to the ground for the third time, when the Maya grapped for his ankle and threw him off balance with a hard yank. This time they both came to their feet at the same time. Indiana ducked under the fist blow of the Maya, hit him three-, four times one after the other on his chest and body and made a horrified jump to the side, when the arms of the giant striked after him like a flail. He was not fast enough. The fists of the Indio missed him, but his arms closed around his body with deadly might and pressed shut. Indiana tried to break his grip, but he could have tried as well to part the jaws of a fifty-ton press with his bare hands. His rips cracked audibly. The air escaped whistling from his lungs. The Indio teared him up and turned him around and at the same time increased the preasure on Indiana’s chest. Desparetly he raised his arms and hit his flat hands against the ears of the giant, several times and with all his strength. The Indio groaned from pain, but did not let loose and pressed even harder. In front of Indianas eyes colorful circles began to dance, and he thought, that he heard his spine grating. With a last, desperate motion he raised his right knee and hit the Indio with all his strenght right between the thighs. The Maya roared, let Indiana fall and stumbled backwards in a crooked, grotesque posture. But his painful shrieking turned into a furious growl after a few moments and when Indiana stumbled to his feet, the flicker in his eyes had turned from pain into pure bloodthirstiness. Indiana knew that if he would get him this time, he would kill him. Fast and without pity and Indiana could probably do nothing against it. But at least he could try. As the Maya straigthened himself up, Indiana attacked and ramed his head with all his strenght into the stomach. It was a feeling like running into something with the height and mass of the Cheops-pyramid. A dull pain raced through his head, chased along his spine and exploded in his back. Suddenly his mouth was full of blood, as he bit himself in the tongue. The Indio did not even waver. Indiana fell to his knees like in slow-motion, fell forward and stoped the fall with his hands in the last possible moment. Everything turned around him.Groaning he lifted his head and looked up to the giant Maya, whom he could see only shadowy, but incredibly big above himself. The Indio still did not move. A second passed by, than another and another, and the giant still gave up to seize the opportunity to grap Dr. Indiana Jones as well as ripping his head from his shoulders. he just starred down on him, with his strangely rigid eyes. Than Indiana noticed two things. The Indio was not looking at him, just into empty space. And the smell. The stench of scorched hair and burned skin. Still he nearly reacted too late, when the Indio started to fall. Stiff as a poker, in the same stiff posture, in which he had stood there, the Maya toppled over, and Indiana had just enough time to throw himself to the site with a hurried motion, before the giant hit the place where he had been like a meteor of flesh and bones. Between his shoulder blades stuck a red-glowing piece of Lava like the broken blade of an axe. Indiana starred at the horrible picture for a second, then he jumped up with a horrified leap and went two, three steps away from the dead. Alarmed he looked around. The mountain was still spitting fire and burning stones, and the fate of the Maya showed clearly how deceptive the security was, that the lava hills offered. Nevertheless he satisfied himself thouroughly if the Maya had been the only one and if the crevices and tears of the hill hid more deadly surprises. Only then he went back to Swanson. His friend had lost consciousness. But at least he was still alive: his breast rose and sank with fast, irregular movements, and his lips were trembling. When Indiana kneeled down next to him and laid his hand on his forehead, he opened his eyes and tried to raise his head. "Don’t move!", said Indiana hurried. "What....happened?", Swanson muttered weakly. "Where ... have you ... been? I..I have ... heard. Is there someone else ... here?" Indiana looked back to the dead Maya for a heartbeat. He had hoped that maybe Swanson had noticed nothing of what had happened. Finally he shook his head and said: "No. There is nothing. I just took a fast look around." "And how does it look?", asked Swanson. "Not good", admitted Indiana after a short pause. "But we are going to make it. I think that the damned mountain is calming down already." "Beat it, Indy", said Swanson. "Beat it, as long as it’s still possible. Save yourself." "Nonsense. You don’t really think that I’m just going to leave you here?" "I’m dying", said Swanson. His voice sounded nearly relieved, and there was no trace of fear in it. "Rubbish!" Indiana contradicted. "You are not dying so fast. Let me rest for a few minutes and then I’ll take you to the city. The doctors will patch you up there in no time." It was a lie, and both knew it. But for a moment Indiana believed it, only because he wanted too. "Let me...here", said Swanson with difficulty. His voice grew more quiet. It was trembling now but not from fear but from weakness. Indiana moved his ear close to the destroyed face of his friend to understand his words. "Save yourself" whispered Swanson. "Save yourself. I’m dying anyway." This time Indiana did not contradict. But he did not move either. He knew that Swanson would not survive the next few minutes, and Swanson seemed to feel that Indiana would not leave. He could not. The least, that Indiana could do for his friend, was to sit here next to him until it all was over. He lifted his head and looked up to the mountain. The top of the volcano was covered in bloody, flickering red; the same color was mirrored in underside of the bubbling clouds, which covered the sky above the mountain. Over and over again flames shot up from the crater and avalanches of glowing rocks, and everywhere on his flanks new red-hot crevices opened. The forest burned as far as he could see, but they still were lucky: the rainy season had started a few days ago with all force, and the tropical rainforest was saturated with moisture, so that the hellfire of the vulcano could not set fire to it completely. Maybe he still had a chance. He. The thought nearly filled him with anger. It just wasn’t fair! For a moment he hated himself for still being alive. Then he understood how absurd this thought was and how wrong. Because he made, what Swanson had done for him, to nothing. He was ashamed of his own thoughts. Indiana’s eyes filled with tears, when he broke his look away from the fire-spitting mountain top and faced his dying friend again. If they had never come here in the first place! He had had a bad feeling about this, from the beginning on, but the adventurer in him had been stronger than the weak voice of his reason. Swanson did not have to exert himself to persuade him to join this improvised expedition. Alone the idea of finding something in the crater of an extinct volcano, that has not been seen by human eyes for 500 or 100 years, had wiped away all his second thoughts. An extinct volcano... The words echoed in his head like a bad mockery. The last eruption of this volcano had been more than 200 years ago. At least that was what people had told him. And then he had to erupt again the moment they approached the crater! He chased away this thought, ran his hand over his face to wipe the tears away, which came from the smoke and heat as he tried to convince himself, and bent over Swanson again. His lips moved. At the first moment he had problems to understand the whispered words. Swanson’s voice was only a breath. "...daughter", understood Indiana. Swanson said more, but this word was the only one that he could really identify. Swanson’s hand detached from Indiana’s, crawled slowly over his chest and tried to pull something out from under the shirt. Indiana saw a thin golden flash and reached for it too. Very careful to not cause Swanson any more pain, he detached the small golden pendant from the neck of his friend and let it fall into his open hand. Swanson’s fingers closed over it with a jerk, held it with all his might for a moment and oppened again. "Give this..to my...daughter", he said. It seemed that he had mobillized all his strength to say this five words, because his voice sounded clear and understandable once more. "Bring it...to her. Tell her...that..." He did not talk further. It took ten seconds until Indiana realized that he would never finish the sentence. Swanson was dead. His eyes filled with tears again, but this time he did not try to hold them back. He sat there for minutes, just letting his pain free, until he finally got himself under control enough to raise his hand and carefuly remove the necklace with the small gold pendant from Swansons fingers. The pendant was tiny, nearly insignificant; not larger than the nail of his small finger. At the first sight it seemed like worthless trash, but when one looked closer, one could see a hidden elegance and skillfulness under the seemingly rough lines. It showed a curled snake with an affected bush of feathers growing out of its skull: Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake-god of the Maya. The history of the south-african people had been Swanson’s special field. Indiana still remembered well the evenings and nights that they had sat together and talked about the secrets of this lost civilization. And after all this had been the reason for them being here. Swanson had not told him anything definitive until the last moment, but he had made certain hints, which had made Indiana come to the conclusion that there had to be something sensational in this extinct crater. The only thing he had found there, he thought bitter, was his death. Two endless minuted he sat there and looked at the tiny, sparkling pendant, then he raised; he wanted to put the necklace into his bag, but changed his mind in the last moment. With a fast movement he put it around his neck and hid the pendant carefuly under his shirt. Indiana walked back to the dead Maya for the last time. He was sure now that he had not illusioned the shape down in the forrest, it had been the same man. He must have followed him down from the mountain; and maybe even earlier. Carefuly and with the absurd, but very intense feeling that he was doing something that he’d better not do, he sank to his knees beside the giant and turned him on his back. The face of the giant was distorted in death, but not even the for all time stiffened agony and the thick layer of paint could cover the characteristic features: the sharp nose, the broad chin and the slightly fleeing fore-head. This man was a pure Maya. Indiana sat there and looked by turns at the face of the dead indio, the tiny Quetzalcoatl pendant and the fire-spitting volcano. What on earth did he had hoped to find there? He hesitated a last time until he rose and slowly walked down the hill. Leaving Swanson here like this seemed like treason to him, but he had no choice. And Swanson would not have wanted him to do something stupid now and get killed. For it, the price he had paid for Indiana’s live, was definitly too high. And suddenly Indiana felt something like defiance. It was like his life did not completely belong to himself any longer. With what had Swanson done for him, he had made it partly to his, and he would now allow that this damned mountain would kill his friend a second time. All around the forest was burning, and maybe the trees hid some more descendents of Montezuma, which wanted to kill him. The ground trembled and it rained ashes, scorching stones and flames from the sky, but somehow he would make it out of here. Somehow. End of Chapter One.   Translation information This is just a quick translation. I know that there are mistakes in it, since I've been using the dictionary a lot and I was not always sure which word to use. Please forgive me my grammatical errors. I really appreciate any suggestions or corrections. Have fun! Sil (the translator) Legal disclaimer This is a fan translation of the first chapter of "Indiana Jones und die Gefiederte Schlange" written by Wolfgang Hohlbein. The novel is copyrighted 1990 by Goldmann Verlag, München and Lucasfilm Ltd. This document may not be sold or reprinted.