Then fire great-beams,
spear-tips shatter, | shields batter,
shorn lie friendships | by fray’s lordship.
Blade is sated | on a bleak morning,
arrows angle | to end breathing,
shells in the earth-flesh, | sharp-down-falling,
carve out craters. | Cruel the killing,
brawl without victor, | vileness breeding,
brute-beasts feeding: | fast-eyed raven,
eagle waiting, | and wolf crafty,
these three only | a thrill blissful
feel at battle. | When bit sundown
on horizon’s rim, | renks in the forest
witless wandered, | in washing gore
bathed so wholly, | hostile or friendly
none could distinguish; | stunned beyond weeping,
in their woe wordless, | warriors stumbled
to help wounded; | then wondered some
that to defy death | should death as a king
enthrone in the land.
Books IX and X of Cosmic Warlord Kin-Bright come out on 2 December.
