Alchemisland

The fearless cannot flee, even as those holding walls fall to scree

They see no danger, death seems not only distant but an impossibility

They ride out from the safety of the inner keep to the overtaken streets

Blades in hand, shaken aloft, you will never take us alive, they adopt

Bear fury, conjuring from the air the rudiments of undoing, careless

And unsparing, they are speared until their flesh tears but onward uncaring

Nothing generic about these men, one in ten million each of them

Skills which cannot be teached, deeds which can only be preached

Deeds such that a teller is accused of deceit, no man contains such heat

But I weep for them beseech belief, this I saw and this tale I keep

Twenty years I have told this tale, in every keep, to every chief

Hand to breast and tear to cheek, dear to heart this tale I speak

The brave men who rode out from the keep, preferring glory

And loudhorn, dwarven cheeks bloated with blowing, prayers to Odin

For wode, fey, warp spasms, dragon energy from leys; alas, battle rage

Men made wolves for a day, killing viciously in a bestial way

When the blade fails, the teeth repay blows, tearing flesh away

Armour crinkling like baled fist paper at my hammer’s damage

The leaders plotting evil say the king is weak

His numbers he cannot feed

He is unrenowned, committing no great deeds

No tree comes when there is no seed, they say

Thence they come riding, thundering Joves emboldened by Morrigan’s crows

They scream, it cannot be!

Beating hooves, most rode many times, none ever unseated, undefeated

Comportment matching that martial stature, straight backed, straight at you

Armoured and horses matching, in heavy golden barding, no royal pardon

Scourge they are! One hoplite falls armless to the grass

His lopped off arms still brandishing his spear like a guitar

Spears peeking, seeking out from airtight shield walls, like upturned barstools

The fearless can neither sit still nor countenance fleeing

Life is fleeting, they ride death-seeking

Some naked, streaking toward the thickest fighting, striking out to die

Cum-tongued crotals hum at belts like the thundering of wasp-made bulls

The great pull of the void, enjoinment of flesh and steel, messy meshing

Polymerization unto a man of metal, screaming like hell’s best castrato

Astride a red destrier, length more hands than mark a stripper’s ass

Proud as the dreams of eagles, hellsbrood jackals eager to please their bloodqueen

They ride peerlessly on war-loving horses, flaring nostrils greedily intake meaten smoke

Men I smote and wrote of, others I rode down, mowed down, and never again thought of

Writing death poems in the borrowed blood of felled enemies

Each length I rode a hundred fell dead, death saw me then kindred

Dressed in death, hot blood upon their helms, faces, axeblades, hafts

Fore and aft death and more death, glaived faces, blades halved, beauty unmade

Disdain for life writ upon the face of one grey-haired and ancient, a rugged glacier

Made for hatred, he rode a grey horse that pale man, spun from gelid traces

Of lost frost ages, his thick wrists smith’s width, blood red as Smithwicks loudly spilling

Through his helm’s grille his rilled vision is all filled with life’s stilling, dervish spinning

Blades part limb from frame, it seems the invaders may yet be driven back this day

At that thought, pride preceding fall, a blade strikes his head off, spooking his grey

Which set off at a gallop across the field of play, headless rider headlong for Hades

To the host waiting who were convinced none would ride that die

That this would be a siege involving much waiting

What a shock seemed that banner suddenly raising

Discharged bolts whistled from slitted casements

Planting in gizzards, blood outrivering colour with an alchemical equivalent

All of them so aged, having lived many days, the lined, hirsute faces of wizards

Dawnlight settling upon glaives and pauldrons, piercing gazebreaking turnawaying

Putpaiding to the footmen, those worst paid, mostly tenement and lawbreakers

Ten of them die at every swipe, tripe to these princes of combat

Some of that enemy host begin to flee, victory seems not a distant dream

The riders clear the field, greedy for bleeding, claiming excessive weregild

Screaming with cleaved visage and bleeding ears, the enemy leader

Gleaning imminent defeat in the anguished decease of their chieftain

The ranks loose their fixity, the lines are lifted, the crimes are not forgiven

Red rivers, flesh riven, fleshly princes hacked crotch to gizzard

Running to the forest selvedge, the Fangorn fringes, a protective privet

No protection is offered

Those struck by men on horseback pivot, as if parading their rent flesh

Before falling dead, beset by ravens within minutes

Death like a fast spreading illness enmeshes, deswelling their flanked ranks

More bones were left in shallow holes than were mounded in the Avanc’s lair

None are left wounded, a confusion of frenzied skewering

The dead and the wounded alike are stabbed with knives

Hands removed for rings they can’t pry off

Red rushing rivers as pen Hell’s slivers

Broken blade, Narsil shards Rivendell

Without any powder or shot, piles of bodiless limbs as upon shell hits

Doing as a Roman does in Rome, more open domes than post-quake Rome

None are left for the rope, one hundred thousand opened throats

Dead horses are swept into the moat, gross and infectious, flyblown

In longhalls drinking honeyed mead from enemy helmets, hauberks drenched

One hundred benches, twice that wenches, every heroic name mentioned

Bard killed during the Raid so each takes a turn, sweating like they knew cocaine

And consumed it, fading rage sees throbbing pain, they drink pale poppy milk

Soon the pain stabilises, they are able to manage, manfully steeling damage

The stormblooded king of that saltsculpted frostankle

One wounded arm hanging useless, his back crooked, his neck awkwardly angled

Boasted killing two hundred men that day.