Blood upon the Sands

The Heart of Stone

 Fianna was first to make her way up the cliff face from which the waterfall cascaded, climbing with the speed and grace of a mountain goat, picking her way up ledges and cracks.  The crew, sailors all, and used to climbing aloft in storm tossed seas, could not match the sword-maiden, born as she was in the wild hill country where such climbs were but second nature to her people.

Securing a rope that she had taken aloft with her around a tree, she tossed it down below, and one by one the others swung their way up to join her.  The way ahead seemed much as it had been along the course they had already followed, of a shallow stream flowing through thickly crowded foliage, lost in the darkening green of an entwining canopy above.  The stream arrowed onwards, straight towards the shrouded peak that rose at the heart of the island, its steep slopes verdant with jungle growth.

They set forth, deeper into the jungle and the island, splashing along the stream.  Perhaps a hundred yards in, Fianna brought them to a halt, holding up a hand to stop them.

"Problems?" Vaspari asked, wiping dripping sweat from his brow with the back of his head.  The stifling heat saw all of them drenched.

"There lurks something within the trees, over there," she replied quietly to him, pointing into the entangling growth that crowded in about them.  Off in the direction indicated, they could make out a lurking shadow of unspecified description.  With a silent, wolf-like tread, Fianna stalked through the jungle towards it, followed shortly by a number of others.

The shadow emerged from among the trees as she closed in on it, a statue of black stone, half fallen, and beyond it could be spotted shattered pillars and tumbled masonry, abraded by ages so as their exact nature and form could be longer be easily discernible.  The statue itself was little more than a misshapen lump of stone that retained only a vague resemblance to a human form, if that had even been its initial countenance.

About the whole were draped snaking vines, tangled like so much rope, all laden with delicate white flowers.  A heavy, all too sweet scent hung in the air, emanating from them.

"Stop!" warned Carse, his rapier slithering free.  Using it, he shifted aside one of the thick strands of vine.  "Tis the Blood Vine," he announced.  Those nearby shifted back with great alacrity, for none wished to be touched by so virulent a plant, one whose lightest feathering could leave such a devilish rash that a man would claw his own skin to bloody lesions in an effort to seek relief.

"This place is of little import," Carse went on, sheathing his rapier once more.  "Mad Dog made no mention if this."

"He may not have even been aware of it," Vaspari rumbled.  "If twere not for Fianna's eyes, we would not have seen it for ourselves."

They returned to the stream, continuing along it, the water flowing and gurgling about them.  In time they came to a most unusual formation, a naturally formed bridge of rock, beneath which flowed the stream.  The tunnel that led through the rock was long, the end but a faint glimmer of light.  Atop it grew thick undergrowth, and trees that towered far into the air.  They entered into the tunnel that the stream had carved out over vast ages.

"There," Fianna said.  Upon the wall of the tunnel, just within the entrance, another of Mad Dog's skull markings could be seen to have been carved, mostly concealed beneath a coating of slime and moss and dripping water.

"Mad Dog's Heart of Stone, I should not wonder," Carse opinioned, peering down the length of the naturally formed tunnel, at vines dangling from the ceiling, whilst the echo of dripping water reverberated around.

"Progress, at least," rumbled Vaspari.  "What is his next infernal rhyme as to where to proceed to next?"

"Once he had reached the entrance of the Heart of Stone," Carse replied after a moments though, "He spoke of entering the House of the Sun, which led the way to the House of Pain."

"I do not much recognise the reference to the House of Pain," Vaspari noted, "And fear just what that may entail, but the House of the Sun, as any good sailor knows, is the west, where the sun retires each evening."

"West it is then," Fianna said.  She strode back out of the entrance to the tunnel and climbed the bank of the stream, plunging into the jungle.  Vines and undergrowth grew thick about, and these she took to with her cutlass, butchering her way westwards, forced to hack a path through the long grass, the fronds and branches of the verdant viridian that closed in so tight about them that all trace of what lay beyond the next few steps was shrouded from sight.

The work was tiring, and limbs grew heavier with fatigue the further on they pressed, while the heat suffocated them like a blanket, each breath drawing in hot air.  Sweat flowed freely and a myriad of insects buzzed around, plaguing them with their noise and bites. Loud cries echoed through the canopy of the trees from birds and creatures unseen.

Deep into the jungle they cut their way, and were it not for the sun above to guide them, all sense of direction would have been lost.

"This is most problematic," Carse noted, brushing by a branch half severed by a blow from Fianna's cutlass.  "We could pass with in but a stone's throw of Mad Dog's House of Pain, and yet not lay eye upon it, or indeed, anything else until we reach the shore again."

Fianna stopped in mid stroke, gazing about.  "That can be solved," she replied, handing her cutlass, the edge blunted by much use, to Carse.  Seeking out the tallest tree nearby, she shimmied up it with the speed of a frolicking monkey, disappearing into the canopy above.  From her vantage above she could spy out the island, across the waves of jungle growth, to the shimmering seas beyond.

Only a short moment after clambering above, her voice hailed back down.  "There is something ahead, or there abouts.  I can not make out precise what it is, but there appears to be a clearing in the midst of the jungle, perhaps two hundred paces away."

Fianna came swinging back down out of the tree to rejoin the others.  Reclaiming her cutlass, she once more led the way towards the clearing she had spotted, cutting a path through the jungle.  Fresh energy had been lent to their limbs upon the realisation that their destination might be close at hand, and the treasure they had come far to claim.