The area they walked through was thick with trees and overgrown with lower lying bushes. It started level with the path they had been following and became steeper the further in they walked. Passage was difficult, and they had to retrace their steps often to find a better way through the area. They did not make good time. They tried to keep the path in view, but a few times lost it and had to backtrack to ensure they were heading in the right general direction.

The rain turned heavier and after the first hour in the wooded area, they were drenched and cold.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Melinda asked, her voice sounding worse after the heavy rains. “It has been some time. If they were really looking for us, we would have seen them backtrack by now.”

“Not so sure,” Trident said noncommittally.

The hill grew muddy as the trees spread out, and they had to be extra careful to avoid sliding down after every step.

“This is ridiculous,” Melinda said. Theodore could not help but agree. They were barely making progress, as they pulled each other up by hanging on to the rare tree that clung to the muddy hillside.

“We are not going to make any progress like this,” Theodore said, speaking loudly so his voice could be heard over the loud pattering of the rain. He stopped and leaned against a tree. “We should go back to the path. It is the only way we are going to make any progress in this weather.”

Trident was about to disagree and then thought better of it. She nodded her head in agreement. Samuel took the lead heading back to the main path. He crouched near a bush leading to the path and we followed suit behind him. He waited like that for a while, watching the road for any sign of movement. After fifteen minutes even Trident’s patience began to wear thin. Theodore watched her expression change as she prepared to discuss it with Samuel. Samuel beat her to the punch and stood up on the road and waved them after him.

The four of them worked their way up the small path. They kept their heads down to try to avoid the rain that was falling heavier and heavier. They walked through the afternoon, stopping only briefly to munch on soggy bread and the last of the dried meats. They continued on the path. The path was beginning to flood a bit, as water worked its way down from the mountain over the saturated ground. About an hour after lunch, the rain began to turn to snow, and the ground was covered by the white-orange stuff. The transition was not noticeable, and it took Samuel stopping for the rest of them to realize that there was snow all around them and snow falling from the sky.

The snow was less refreshing than the previous night. It made climbing the path more difficult in places. They had to help Melinda up the hill. She was weakened by her illness, and seemed to have lost her energy. She looked ready for sleep. They knew they only had a few more days of food, and they did not know what was on the other side of the mountain. If the path lead down was as difficult as the one going up, they were in for many hungry days.

The afternoon turned darker and changed over to the early part of evening. They continued working their way up the path. The path led higher and higher into the mountain. Theodore felt the air thin out. He mentioned it to the others, but nobody was much in the mood for conversations. The snow and the long day were beginning to take their toll. Even Samuel, who never seemed to grow tired at anything, was dragging his feet as they trekked up the next hill.

Theodore bumped into Melinda who had just bumped into Samuel. He pulled to a stop and looked up. Samuel was in the front crouched down. He was staring up at the top of the hill. A figure stood silhouetted against the top of the hill. He was holding a pole arm and facing away from them. Samuel made his way to the side of the road and kept walking toward the tree bank. The rest followed suit, crouching low as they walked and trying not to make any sound. The snow fell thickly and seemed to dampen any noise they made. Melinda slipped once, but Theodore grabbed her elbow and kept her upright long enough for her to catch her balance. The rest looked up at the top of the hill to see if the sound had carried. The guard holding the polearm did not move or look over. He barely seemed to have moved at all since they saw him at the hill.

When they were all safely in the woods, Samuel leaned his head in close and the rest followed his lead.

“The rest of them must be up there as well,” Samuel said. “Should we stay here for the night? We can camp down in the trees, or even work our way further down the mountain to get a bit further from the guard.”

Theodore agreed, and Melinda was quiet. They looked over to Trident, but although her head was bent into the conversation, she was looking back at the guard. The light was fading. She did not say anything.

“What are you thinking, Trident?” Theodore asked.

“He has not moved in the last fifteen minutes,” Trident said. She continued to watch him.

“Perhaps he fell asleep at his post,” Theodore offered. The old men who guarded the village often fell asleep leaning on their pole arms around the tents.

“No, that does not seem likely,” Melinda said, managing to lift her head and peer over to where the guard stood at the top of the hill. “I watched those guards in the tents often enough to know what a sleeping guard looked like. He is standing guard but he is not moving. I have never seen anything like it.”

They watched the guard for some time, and except for gusts of wind that moved his long cape in the wind, he did not move.

“Maybe he is frozen there,” Trident said. “Iced over.”

Theodore smiled at the thought. “If he is frozen over,” Theodore said. “Why would they just leave him there? Wouldn’t they bury him or something?”

“I will go take a look,” Trident said. Before anyone could stop her, Trident began working her way up the mountainside by way of the tree stand. She moved slowly but deliberately, grabbing trees to help keep her balance, and staying close to the snow-covered ground. They watched as she pulled herself up tree by tree to the top part of this ascent, where the guard was parallel to her.

Trident grabbed the last tree and hugged it. She was now next to where the guard stood. Although the sun had set thirty minutes earlier, there was still a faint glow in the orangey cloud-covered sky. There must be a big moon out this evening for that much light to make I through the dark gray clouds. She glanced over and studied the guard from this angle. She looked down to see her friends huddled around each other, watching her and the guard. She could see the whites of their eyes glowing softly in the orange snow.

The guard was not moving, and now that she was closer to him, he looked different. Although she was able to see his profile, she could not see the whites of his eyes. In fact, she could not even tell where his skin ended and his clothing began. It all looked a dull gray color. Snow had piled up on his shoulders in small pyramid shapes. She found a stable part of the mountainside and began working her way closer to the guard. She looked down at her friends and gave them the okay sign. She did not wait for their response.

She stayed low to the ground and wrapped her blankets and clothing tightly around herself. She was trying to appear as small as possible as she got closer to the guard. Since she had been up there, he had not moved. Only his cape moved against the strong wind. He stood on the top of this part of the mountain. She could see the mountain dip down over the hilltop. She peered a bit over the top but she was too far down to see over the top.

She thought about climbing up higher to see over the hill and whether it went up or went down again, but decided to check on the guard at first. She was beginning to think that the guards left a scarecrow like apparition at the top of the hill to throw off the children if they decided to follow. Her heart began to race as she approached the guard. He had not moved in some time, and the snow continued to build up on him. It would have taken an extreme act of will not to move. She could not imagine any of the old men, who spent most of their time guarding the outskirts of the tents sleeping, able to keep that much solid standing without moving. There was also no purpose to it.

As she worked her way closer and closer to him, she began to feel resolute in her findings. He was a scarecrow of some sort. He seemed solid enough, and the pole arm was certainly real, but there was something about the body that seemed more solid than flesh. When she was within ten feet of the guard, she waited close to the ground, ready to run down the hill toward her friends if the guard moved. The guard did not move.

She worked her way closer to him, until she was in arm’s reach. She reached out and touched the guard. She pulled her arm back quickly and began racing down the hill toward her friend.

Theodore watched Trident race down the hill toward him. He had seen her reach out to touch the guard, and as if she was shocked, she had immediately began running down the hill. Theodore expected the guard to turn around and give chase, but he stayed there, still unmoving.

Trident skidded down much of the hill, doing her best to avoid trees. When she could not slow down in time, she would hold out her arms and wrap them around the trees and fling herself past the tree to the next area.

She reached them in a few minutes, and Samuel held out his arms to catch her as she was not able to slow herself on her own. Samuel managed to stay standing and lifted her off the ground to kill her momentum. He put her back down on her own two feet. She pushed down the scarf she wore over her mouth to protect her from the orange dust.

“He’s stone,” Trident said simply. “I touched him, and he was as solid as rock. He wore the clothing of a guard and held a pole arm, but his skin, his body was rock, heavy, hard rock.”

“Do you think they dressed up a rock?” Melinda asked.

“That was what I thought when I first got there,” Trident said. “I figured they set up a type of scarecrow to keep us off the path to wherever it led. But when I got close I changed my mind. It was definitely rock, but it looked like carved rock. The body and face looked like an old man, a guardsman. Even the eyes looked like they were sculpted in rock. There is no way they could have created that and dressed it in their clothing.”

“I do not understand,” Theodore said.

“Whatever happened,” Melinda explained, trying to sound as patience as she could. “Whatever happened, that guard up there is now a large stone statue.”

Samuel started to walk over to the path. “There is only one thing to do now,” he said. And with that he began putting one foot after the other, trekking up the snowy path toward the stone guardsman. The figure did not move. The rest of them followed him.

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