It was only midday yet Declan walked in darkness. This part of The Wolf’s Wood was so dense that the sun was lost to the trees. The light fought to get past the curtain of wide gold leaves projecting a brilliant aureate haze that hung high overhead never reaching the forest’s floor. Slight silver slivers of light shone through small sparsely found spaces in the canopy seeming the same as stars stuck in the shivering spread of space.
He had the nose of a tracker and it caught every new scent with each gust of wind that stopped by to rustle the leaves and toss his hair. The soft spice of the great golden leaves above him which he found out as a boy if they were eaten tasted something like pepper but were far too bitter to be called good. The wet woodsy smell of newly growing moss mingled with the scent of death and decay of the fallen and rotting logs the lichen was beginning to overtake completely. Some way off deeper in the trees away from his current path was a stark bracing smell of a recently thawed river that sent a chill down his back and somewhere closer yet a recently whelped fawn lie hidden in the brush. Declan could not help but think of how closely the smell of birth resembled the smell of death; fear covered in blood.
He made no sound as the wild overgrowth on the forest’s floor swallowed each step but that did not make the forest silent. It was alive. The river cascaded strong and swift over stone and stump crashing like a far-off herd sent on stampede. Crows cackled, cooed, and cawed speaking in their secret language. Were they having some jest at his expense? Crows, as he knew were notorious tricksters and found humor in the darkest of places.
It was a wild place and it called to him. It called to the savage, to the wolf and his greatest desire was to split his skin and run, to truly become part of this world within a world, to not just see or hear or smell these things but to live them. He wished it more than he had ever wished anything. to be as primal as the woods, to become wolf and stalk through the trees unbothered by the dark, to find the fawn and feast on its flesh before washing the hot sticky blood away in the cold waters of the river.
They were watching. They were waiting. He knew they were, he could feel them. Not just the crows either. The Wolf’s Wood was an old place and home to more than plant and beast. Spirits strode through the trees, some were fair of face and curious and others still were dark and angry with malign intent. Those were not the eyes that were on him now. He knew as he walked he was being watched by The Gods and they waited to see if he would honor this place and them. He gave a silent apology as he continued on his way.
Gods and spirits were not all that watched in the woods.
He had the nose of a tracker and it caught every new scent with each gust of wind that stopped by to rustle the leaves and toss his hair. The soft spice of the great golden leaves above him which he found out as a boy if they were eaten tasted something like pepper but were far too bitter to be called good. The wet woodsy smell of newly growing moss mingled with the scent of death and decay of the fallen and rotting logs the lichen was beginning to overtake completely. Some way off deeper in the trees away from his current path was a stark bracing smell of a recently thawed river that sent a chill down his back and somewhere closer yet a recently whelped fawn lie hidden in the brush. Declan could not help but think of how closely the smell of birth resembled the smell of death; fear covered in blood.
He made no sound as the wild overgrowth on the forest’s floor swallowed each step but that did not make the forest silent. It was alive. The river cascaded strong and swift over stone and stump crashing like a far-off herd sent on stampede. Crows cackled, cooed, and cawed speaking in their secret language. Were they having some jest at his expense? Crows, as he knew were notorious tricksters and found humor in the darkest of places.
It was a wild place and it called to him. It called to the savage, to the wolf and his greatest desire was to split his skin and run, to truly become part of this world within a world, to not just see or hear or smell these things but to live them. He wished it more than he had ever wished anything. to be as primal as the woods, to become wolf and stalk through the trees unbothered by the dark, to find the fawn and feast on its flesh before washing the hot sticky blood away in the cold waters of the river.
They were watching. They were waiting. He knew they were, he could feel them. Not just the crows either. The Wolf’s Wood was an old place and home to more than plant and beast. Spirits strode through the trees, some were fair of face and curious and others still were dark and angry with malign intent. Those were not the eyes that were on him now. He knew as he walked he was being watched by The Gods and they waited to see if he would honor this place and them. He gave a silent apology as he continued on his way.
Gods and spirits were not all that watched in the woods.
