Guardian

Prologue: North

The snow fell relentlessly, its influence massive among the icy plains. The field was painted white, spires of jagged rock littering the landscape. Above the storm, the moon shone brightly in the clouds, creating a glare which refracted even through the dead of night.

Aside from the elements’ assault, there was no motion, no sound but the howling of the gale.

A sharp crack pierced the blizzard, the sound carried swiftly away by the wind. There were several reasons why this was out of the norm. The most prominent one, however, was that the ground was thickly permeated with a huge layer of permafrost. Despite the winds, the rock had been fortified beyond measure. Nothing had cracked in millenia.

One of the largest of the aforementioned spires trembled. It was no large movement, yet no structure had trembled in the wasteland since the beginning of its existence. The stone, nearing a height of 300 feet, had symmetrical protrusions covering its face and torso. Snow blanketed it, removing the concept of texture.

There was a sharper noise. The trembling intensified, the mountain moving to such an extent that the ground shook. Some of the snow shook off, revealing carvings as ancient as time itself. The material was tinged with spiderwebs of ice which pierced its very being.

A third crack came, and the trembling stopped. Slowly, the stone raised a limb. Its arm was a huge mass of stone and thick, coarse hair. It wore engraved gauntlets, which had now begun to glow with the light of the moon. Rough spines coated its shoulder, the aged rock strengthened by an eternity of frost.

Its head shifted, still covered in snow. By now, the blizzard had doubled in strength. Brushing away chunks of ice large enough to crush buildings as if they were snowflakes, the behemoth raised an arm to its face, removing the remainder of snow.

A stone mask stared into the wind, its eyes hollow and mouth spread in a wide grin. The sockets began to glow cobalt.

Scattered across the world, six more did the same.

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