Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'magic'.
-
Upon the plain of Lebelketh The Mountain Army met The Freedmen’s Corps: The Corpsmen were not slaves But hadn’t passed to freedom’s light They passed from slavery to greater dark The Freedmen earned through murder The unbinding of their chains Through bowing at Consumption’s altar They became elite of Uthmar’s killing fiends. Mardel led the army of the mountain folk. He had avenged his mother-slave By slaying Uthmar’s raping priest He ran into the north, evading King Aghoza’s legion-bears. He lived apart, a woodland-haunting Renegade, a running slave, That didn’t know a free man’s ways— Alone for many, many days Until a sickness brought him down. He fell; a maiden found him, In the woods around a mountain town. The mountain people nursed him well, And he was strong the day the reavers came, A violent band that bore the maiden to the ground, Their pleasure interrupted by the sound, Of Mardel, sword in hand and challenging. He killed a dozen, wounded three, Before he fell awash in blood. The nightfall would have seen him dead, If Diurleva hadn’t come to tend him. That ancient healer told Mardel to stay. If not he would have run away, To spare the town the vengeance that would come. Too late, the healer said, the time had now arrived, For Mountain people to arise with sword in hand, And drive oppressing reavers from the land. The Mountain Army then was born, Led by the slave that killed Gad-Agba’s highest priest and got away. More came to be his soldiers, every day. In every village, every town were those who’d seen Beloved blood soaked into mountain soil. They brought Mardel their broken hearts to be remade, Upon the field of battle, with the blade. Gad-Agba knew; Aghoza heard. The King swore oaths upon Consumption’s Lord: To wipe the Mountain Army from the Earth. And marching to the north he sent the Freedmen’s Corps, Men immersed in murder and in evil lore, Men who fought with axes and the Demon’s claw. The rumor of their coming was enough, For folk to slay themselves in fear and awe. But the Mountain Army didn’t quail. As men and women, free, they chose to face, The power conjured up by sacrifice To demons in Gad-Agba’s tower. And if their freedom brought a consequence of death, Still they marched upon the plain of Lebelketh. The Mountain Army thought they marched alone, Against an army of the cruel in numbers greater than their own. But Wind, the Rebel God, loved courage in the human heart. Among Wind’s favorites long had been Mardel. Against the force of the Destroyer, Wind now stood as well. Few were the bows; none were the horse. Blows traded face to face would be the battle’s course. So it began: a murmured crash Was heard on distant hills as armor bashed With club and blade. The first installment Of a butcher’s bill was paid. At first the warriors were merely brave, or cruel. On either side they fought and died as humans do; But then began the supernatural duel. The wizards of the Freedmen’s corps, Began the chants that open doors, Unleashing a demonic force, That changes men to killing beasts, Untiring gluttons in a bloody feast, Their faces black with bulging veins of raging blood, Their minds submerged in floods of lust and hate. The Freedmen troops passed from the mortal state, To strength of violence far beyond the human frame. To stand against them was beyond the sane. But Wind had brought a magic, too. His whispering raised folk to heights, Of courage, love and sacrifice. To Mountain troops Wind brought the Passion of the Blade, The kunastir, to ancient tongues: A kind of gentle rage; the anger of a lioness defending cubs, The force behind the sacrifice of love, And so they did not reel away, The Army stood, The kunastir their only palisade. More chanting then, in desperate note, For those who serve Gad-Agba know, The Wind to be their enemy, and strong; The Freedmen saw the battle could go wrong. They took a chance, unleashing then A power that they knew, Could easily destroy them too. Screaming birds of black and red, Appeared to spiral in the air Above the field; they were not real, Not creatures born of egg and nest. But heralds of a holocaust. Where even mountains might be rent. Not the Children; not the kin. The Demon Lord himself: it would be Him. The Destroyer came to end the fight, and smite the Wind. And if he lingered, it would be the End. Those who fight for Wind may enter kunastir; But beyond that passion is another realm: The Oneness with the Wind in Battle, Or, the tirakel. The kunastir will fade, But from the tirakel is no return, So fiercely does the fighter’s passion burn. And it is not in every man or woman To unite with Wind; the human breath seeks to remain, A little wind in its own realm—the human frame. The tirakel must come to those a bit in love with death, Those who freely choose to pass through glory, to the end. And sadder still, it is the young, Who may believe a battle won, Is worth surrendering to death; they may be right, They may be wrong; but tales of youthful sacrifice, Will always make the saddest songs. To broken hearts, Wind whispered then: Just follow me, and all sad memory will end. The loves you lost beneath the knife Will join you in the afterlife. The broken hearts crossed over then, From kunastir to tirakel. Their swords were bright, their eyes ablaze, As they clove through the battle line. Before them, every wizard fell. The herald-birds dissolved, their magic failed, Powerless the Destroyer railed, His path into the world destroyed. The Demon Lord could not escape the Void. The Freedmen’s ranks fell back, amazed. Their Corps had never known defeat. Mardel’s fighters drove them in retreat, Pursuing them until each one was dead, Demonic bargains coming due at last, The Freedmen’s souls immersed in some eternal dread. In coming wars, in many fights, Mardel recalled the sacrifice, The awful way, The Mountain Army won the day, Because a few accepted death, Surrendering young lives, To Wind’s embrace at Lebelketh.
-
- Fantasy
- Epic Poetry
-
(and 3 more)
Tagged with: