I was right. Of course I was right. The jungle is about to eat us up again. It has started to rain. It’s been raining for days and the air is so humid you can almost drink it. Mosquitoes as big as birds are waiting cunningly in the vegetation to suck the blood from our veins. Cora Faustbein was sucked straight to death by these beasts in her sleep. If I tell you! She lay paler than a ghost in her sleeping bag in the morning and never woke up again…
We keep coming across small ruins on our way to Tlaxtlan. Captain Jäger is confident of reaching the city in the next few days. We could see more troops of lizardmen. Gathered around a spawning-pool. Yes, spawning-pool is probably the right name for these huge blue-green shimmering ponds from which these monsters crawl out. The lizardmen were probably praising another skink priest with purple skin and colorful feathers. In his hand he wielded a staff with golden emblems as a kind of banner.
The hissing of the lizards makes me shiver. Snake-like, almost poisonous, it runs through my veins. I begin to long for the ships and our home. I can’t get rid of the feeling that this expedition means our death.
Day 75
Carlo Ibanez, scribe of the Marco Colombo expedition, 1492 Lustria
