CREEPING SHADOWS

The story of Ishor Tarfish, Druidess of the Wishing Wood.

(based on a character given to @ishtar_bird)

Stagnant water wafted on the air; stagnant water from age old clouds, abandoned and forgotten. She stood watching them for a while, breathing in the putrid smog, stale as the land it had ventured from. It tasted of decay, and destruction, and death.

Doman was always there. It had always been there. A dusty brown mass lingering on the northern border of the green. The stories of it were known by almost everyone, and those who hadn’t heard of them were not yet born. Doman was where the Gods fell. The horizon seemed endless, as she stood there with her back to the army of trees. Surveying the outstretched empty plains with suspicious eyes; the light of the sun rolled over them as patchwork through the clouds; light spots and dark spots, all danced across the land as one. It began with a rumble. Nothing more and nothing less. A rumble on the frontier of the world. “Is time,” declared the old Satyr at her side. His large gnarled horns framed a friendly bearded face. “Can smell it? Is as they worried.” “It is,” she nodded, her teeth clenched behind a smile and the grip tightened on her staff. “Ishor, I know you be wantin’ to stay with us an’ all, but you arn’ no Fernish nor Faunish neither, we o’ the wood forgive you an’…” “Tangafr, I will stand with you…until the end.” she swallowed. The Satyr stood beside her and patted a furry hand on her soft shoulder. “Ishor…” There was a second rumble. In the distance, the patchwork of light spots and dark, was replaced by a wall of greying fog that fast approached. “You need to get to the Source. I will slow them down at least.” “Ishor, you ney be…” “Tangafr, there isn’t time, and I have not the power to withhold the Source from them, RUN!” The old goat turned on his hooves and disappeared into the dense forest; oaks and ash and birch huddled down low, letting their boughs hang with the weight of time immeasurable. She looked back to the horizon, but it was gone, there was nothing but the greying fog. Ishor took a deep and slow breath, feeling the stillness of the air, the calm before the chaos. The fog and darkness crept closer and closer and closer, a looming giant ready to smother all things. Per-roo! Per-roo! Two horn blasts sounded in the tree-line behind her. She didn’t turn, she didn’t flinch. She breathed slow. Per-roo! Per-roo! The horn sounded again. Closer and closer; the fog was less than a mile from the wood. She breathed slow. Per-roo! Per-roo! With the horncry the woodland militia burst free of the tree-line. Bears and Boar, Badgers and Foxes; behind them marched the horn-bearers, the Faunish on their sturdy hooves, and the Fernish Celts painted in blue. A chorus of voices and chants and roars echoed in the silence. Mice and Squirrels, Sparrows and Owls, and all the woodland creatures came forth to bear witness. And still she breathed slow. The beats of her heart as the wings of a bumblebee. Per-roo! Per-roo! The horn bearers sounded. The fog lurched, nearly on top of them. She breathed slow. Four Great White Stags, crowned heads bowed low, bounded with haste towards the darkness. They signalled the advance. Per-roo! Per-roo. She breathed slow as they marched into the darkness of the ever greying fog.