3 – The Silent Sentinels

The fishing boat reached the cold, silent shores of Ipik-ki-oonook unhindered, and indeed, without a further sighting of the Icemen.  The shore, they saw as they approached, consisted of many small stones, smooth worn by the rolling waves and rising tides of the seas.  Peregrine leapt from the prow of the boat as they neared, grabbed a hold of the tow rope and waded the last little distance ashore, dragging the boat up onto the beach.  It slid to a halt, half out of the water.  Blade joined her on the beach, studying the surrounds.  A tall dune of dark sand bordered the beach, beyond which they could see nothing but the top of the hill, clouds rolling across it.

Pravodin tentatively left the boat yet would go no further, standing beside it, casting furtive glances behind, off towards the mainland where the village could just be made out in the bay.  Never before had anyone he had known set foot on the island and cold sweat touched him.

“I know that you are not planning on heading back alone,” Peregrine commented pleasantly as she collected her sword and pack from the boat.  “The reason being that I am sure you are aware that if needs be we can make our own way back, and if that were to occur, then we would have to have a little talk, the process of which I doubt will be at all that pleasant.”

Pravodin shuddered involuntarily at the cheerfulness of her words and responded with a hasty nod.  “It never crossed my mind.  I will stay here to look after the boat until you need me.”

Peregrine laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, a solid blow that rocked him back on his feet.  “Good man.”

Slinging her pack over her shoulder and belting her sword to her side, she started out across the beach towards the dunes, with Blade beside her.  Stones clattered beneath their feet, stones in a variety of shades and hues and designs.  Some were banded; others speckled or blended, with highlights of green and red, brown and black and grey.

“You did not have to threaten him so,” Blade observed once they were out of Pravodin’s hearing.

“You know full well as I the thoughts that crossed his mind,” Peregrine replied.  “Far better that we headed that off in the here and now rather than facing the prospect of being marooned on this island.  This place does not even have the benefit of food and water, unlike the site of our previous marooning.”

Blade responded with a melancholy sigh, a lament at the nature of man.  “Tis true what you say, and yet it is in his very blood to behave thusly.  Even the least among the Navodians dreams of being a fell reaver of the seas, to swarm foreign shores, to sack and plunder.  In their hearts they know they are born with salt water in their veins and that the mastery of the seas is their birthright, whatever the circumstances that may have befallen them.  I would expect nothing less from this man.”

“He at least understands how things stand now.”

They reached the long sandy dunes that barred their way and started climbing up over them.  Along its length grew patches of hardy grasses and reeds, binding the dunes together.  A faint wind had picked up, one that swirled at the grey grains of sand that formed the dunes.  As they climbed to the summit of them, they saw beyond it a treeless plain spreading out, all the way to the hill, covered in a heath of low, windswept grass and moss.  Dotted across the plains could be seen ring after ring of statues.  They stretched all the way to the foot of the hill that rose dominant over the island.  Each had been carved out of a block of green stone, one of a type not native to the island, for all else there was grey and lifeless.  The statues, each in height as tall as a man, faced inwards towards the hill, surrounding it from all directions.  Here and there among the grass and statues were patches of snow that had not yet melted.

Peregrine led them down from the dunes and strode across towards the nearest of the statues.  From the wear and the weathering that abraded its surface they could tell it had been there for many a long year, and yet in all that time had gone undiscovered by the Navodians who lived only a short row away.

“It is passing strange that word of this place has not gotten out,” Blade commented, laying a gloved hand on the green stone surface of the statue.

“Pravodin did say that the Icemen guard this place with a determined jealousy,” Peregrine pointed out, her eyes going beyond the statues to the hill itself.  All barren were its slopes, marked by washes and gullies where the rains had rushed down after fearsome storms to soak the plains.

“Would not that have tweaked the curiosity of those that dwelt nearby even more?” Blade asked, “Or inflamed the passions for wealth and greed of the Navodian blood?  It speaks much of the prowess of the Icemen that they so thoroughly cowered the Navodians that not only would they not risk confrontation upon the seas, a place they claim mastery over, but have done so in such a manner in the distant past that the Navodians have obviously forgotten the how of it, to the point it is now tradition to do so.”

“And yet we were allowed ashore with not a word said otherwise,” Peregrine pointed out.

Blade responded with a faint twitching of the lips, in the manner of a smile.  Raising the carved bone, he rested it against the statue.  “It does appear that there is more at work here than we first suspected.”

Peregrine laughed, shaking her head, setting her auburn tresses flailing.  “Do not allow your curiosity to get the better of you, my friend.  Come, let us be pressing on.  All will be revealed when we reach the hill, I do not doubt.”

They started out on the long walk across the plain, travelling between the numerous statues spread out around them.  No two appeared alike from what they could see of them, and none, though shaped in the form of men, bore the heads of men.  Instead they had the heads of birds and walrus, fish and creatures that defied both description and understanding, as if carved by the hand of one who had seen maddening glimpses of places best left forgotten and undescribed.  They were enough to chill the bones of the bravest and even Peregrine, much inured as she was to the bond of dread in most circumstances, could not but help be troubled by what she saw, her hand never straying far from the comforting grip of her sword.  Each statue had been carved with its own idiosyncratic signatures, so that they had the feeling that if they were to explore the entirety of the island and inspect each and every statue, not a one would mirror another.

“They all stare at the hill,” Blade mused after a long period of silence but for the soft moan of a gathering wind that rippled the grasses.  He turned to look back at the way they had come, to be met by row upon row of blank faces staring back at him with lifeless eyes.  He quickly averted his gaze, for he had the ominous feeling that in some manner they were studying him at the behest of alien thoughts, ones that, while not overtly hostile, nevertheless were without the concepts of mercy, or pity, ancient and unyielding as the stone they were bound in.

Peregrine slapped the stony shoulder of the nearest statue, unconcerned by, or unaware of, the thoughts that troubled Blade.  “No doubt they mean to keep an eye on something?”

“A physical manifestation of some form of guardianship perhaps?” Blade pondered.

“Maybe you can ask them yourself,” Peregrine noted, and about her there came a change of posture, subtle though it was, a shifting of stance and loosening of muscles.  She moved now with the sure step of a hunting cat on the prowl, all coiled muscle made ready to erupt into action at the blink of an eye.

Blade turned back to face the hill at her words and beheld a most unexpected sight, for down the side of the hill a cloud came swirling, detaching from those that lingered above it.  It swept across the plains towards them.  Within it could be seen, if but barely, a small group of figures, Icemen by their looks, though these wore not the white of the ones they had met earlier but a deep grey instead.

The cloud spun itself forward and in its wake there trailed a light drifting of flakes of ices that sunk down to settle upon the cold ground.  Hands went to weapons as Peregrine and Blade waited for its arrival, though they did not draw them, for they did not yet know the intent of the Icemen within the cloud.

As it grew closer, the cloud began to thin out, to lose form and function until at last it dissipated right before them, the four grey clad Icemen within stepping from its remains down onto the ground right in front of the pair.  The last revenants of the cloud washed over them, a faint stirring of the air that held a hint of chill that stung the flesh like sharp needles before it was gone.

The Icemen, each indistinguishable from the other in their shrouding hides, spread out in a loose arc, facing towards Peregrine and Blade.  They carried, instead of spears, rods of bone, upon which the duo could see carvings, done much in the same manner as the carved bone that Blade carried.

He raised it, holding it out so that the Icemen could see it.  The hides that covered their faces masked any expressions they may have made, and nor did they speak in response.  Instead all four turned and started to walk back towards the hill, following one after the other in single file.

“I guess that we are to follow them,” Peregrine said as she set off, walking after the Icemen.  Even so, her caution had not eased, for they walked towards the unknown, and those that she followed had not made their intent clear in any form.

On to Chapter Four – Into the Dark