SHAMROK RIVER

  Icalave and the others were approaching the river. It glistened in the darkness even though there were no lights. Icalave could here the water racing up the banks as Shamrok River made its way north. He signalled for the others to wait for him as he went to the water first. They waited eagerly. Icalave quietly walked to the bank, only the soft squishing sound of his paws in the mud would give away his position to anything with incredibly sharp senses. The water still smelled fresh, so he bent his head down to taste a small portion of the water. It was hard to tell, although this time he thought he might have picked up a small amount of a stony taste. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, whether he should risk a larger mouthful or call the others and take their opinions, but possibly have the risk of being poisoned.
  He sat for a minute thinking, his white fur around his paws sinking into the dark mud, until he decided to call he others.
  He gave a small bark, short but not to long for any other animal to make out what it was. Arssneq and Rossmend were imdeiatley at his side, wanting to hear any news about the river.
  “I’m not sure what to think of it,” murmured Icalave, “the taste of it is strange to me. It does not taste like any poison but I am not willing to take any risk with it.”
  “Then how will we cross the river?” asked Rossmend, careful not to raise his voice to loud.
  “Perhaps I could have a small taste? To see whether it is poison or not?” Arssneq offered. There was a slight unsatisfied note in his voice, but Icalave could tell it was from his being under the command of himself, rather than self sacrifice.
  “No.” Icalave replied,” I will go first into the water. My tongue has not told me that it is immediately dangerous, Yet I still do not know how deep the water is.”
  Icalave summoned up the rest of his courage that he could muster before quickly adding on,” If anything should happen, Arssneq shall take charge and head straight back to Icizlwen.” He then began to take his first steps into the river when a voice called out behind him.
  “But what are we to say what happened to you?” The voice had come from Arssneq. “ We can’t just simply turn back up at home without any explanation of where we have been. The Slitca will ask questions and he will want to have answers!” Icalave turned round, all his paws were now in the water.
  “Tell him the truth then. Say that it was I who put you to this task, that you did not want to go but as head of group I made you…”
  “But then that would be lying! Because we did come willingly!” Arssneq argued. “And even if we did say that we were forced to, we would be betraying the others! The others in the rest of our group, and no doubt one of them will surely slip that we did go willingly, then we would be heavily punished for lying to the Slitca, even if we did tell them the truth afterwards, you would know!” Icalave gave a sudden grimance on his face of the memory. He didn’t want it to be brought up at this instance. “For yours and our own good, Icalave, we will follow you to your, or our, death.”
  Icalave felt resigned, he did not like to force others into doing things against their wills, or for his own purpose. But they were his most loyal two out of the whole group,. The rest of the group greatly respected him, but none except these two would ever go on such errands with him.
  “ Alright, do as you wish, but allow me to go first.” Arssneq let out a small breath of relief and triumph, it was rare for Icalave to become violent, but it wasn’t impossible. Sometimes he would just randomly get angry and violent if someone provoked him with a horrid memory or plain stubbornness when he was tired.
  Icalave walked further out into the pitch black water. He could feel the trembling of the others fear of what could be in the water, but he cast that aside and only thought of reaching the other side without being swept away by the current.
  The water continued to get deeper, he was barely half-way across. The rocks at his feet in the water became larger and harder to balance on; the water level continued to rise over his back, only his white head was visible in the failing light.
Suddenly he reached a point where there was no rock in front of him to walk on, his front paw clawed in the water but found nothing substantial that would support his weight.
  “This is it then,” Icalave quietly spoke to himself, the water gently waded its way around his body. He could feel the movement of his fur with the water patterns around him, the cold of it soaking all the way down to his skin.
  With a small shiver and a deep breath he slowly put his head under the water, so as not to alarm the others of any immediate danger. With all his weight he pressed himself down onto the rock that he was currently standing on. It took a number of attempts to get himself all the way down, having to release some air so that he didn’t have so much buoyancy, before he was flat on the rock. With time against him he stretched out his right paw to feel if there was any other rock below it. Carefully feeling his way down he eventually came to the bottom, but by that time he was nearly half way off the rock. His breath suddenly seemed to have run out, so with a mighty push he heaved himself up against the waters weight and pushed his head back out into the air above the river. He gasped and gulped a large amount of air, soothing his pained lungs, but was a terrible mistake.
He gained to much buoyancy and was swept of his feet. With a quick urgency to get back into an upright position he flipped himself over in the water. A loud splash was all that came. The other two who were still standing on the shore with only their front paws in the water heard. They snapped up their heads in the direction of the splash. It had come downstream of where Icalave had entered the water so they feared for the worst.
  Without thinking they both ran alongside the river towards the sound.
  Icalave was still heading further downstream, unable to find anything below his feet to allow him to stand against the rising current. He noticed that the other side of the river was getting closer, but also the rivers velocity was increasing. He heard two Howls come from the side of the river that Arssneq and Rossmend were on, then two small faded blue glows that were moving along side the river. He continued to pick up speed. A small amount of dread rolled around in his mind, but he passed it off, thinking of the best means of escape.
  Suddenly a cold chill in the air ran in front of him. The wind blew from the North and a sudden smell of ice hit Icalave nose. Just as sudden as the smell hit him he crashed against something hard in the water. It was as cold as ice. But his back had hit it first, rendering him in a lot of pain. A small whine escaped from his mouth but nothing more, until he felt two mouths clamp around the scruff of his neck and pulled him out. The two figures both glow a small blue but we fading fast.
  “That was foolish,” was all that Icalave could muster.
  “Right back at you,” replied one of them before Icalave heard two thuds of bodies collapsing onto the island of ice in the middle of the river.