Online:Song of the Askelde Men

Fifty Nights from home I last awoke

Upon a sky-flung cliff in Hjaalmarch Hold

Though my flesh had died and gone to ground

My Vision went on, from body unbound

Winking there in the vale whence I came

This dead man's eyes saw pale flame

Where men the same who took life away

Sung high their battle-glory and praise

Wafting went I, a shade or a wight

Through stoic pines, pitched ink of night

Ere I came upon the pyre-burning throng

I heard carried on wind's wing their song

"Sing high and clear, bandsmen born of sky

Let Sovngarde hear and join our cry"

"These honored dead shed blood upon the fen

Ending Orc and Elf and traitor Men."

"Your spirit went unto and filled their heart

You sped them to glory, Hail Spirit Wulfharth"

Then oil from urns fed greedy flames

Burning what few my legion and I slayed

Wordlessy they chanted then until dawn

Every flake of ash gathered ere they marched on

Swept along unseen, so too went I

Meekly haunting these Children of the Sky

Tireless they went, over hearth and hill

Exhaustion seemed only to spur them still

Unflagging they went, a whorl of rage

Soon finding our camp, bloated with prey

My dead heart ached for I knew men within

Doomed, never knowing how close was their end

Again the Nord chests swelled up in refrain

I screamed unheard. I wept with horror plain

"Hear us, our ancestor, Ash King, Ysmir

Honor this warband as we to glory repair"

"Those dead to whom you spoke and heard

We bear them upon us, Your valor conferred"

And so it was, to the man each was smeared

With ash of a Brother's bone, blood and beard

These ashen brutes, the Askelde Men

Set to a gruesome task, each bowstring bent

I bellowed then, a cry of desperate rage

A futile howl among those men, an empty page

Yet one elder turned and unblinking, stared

Into the vapor-soul of me, his nostrils flared

He bellowed ancient words, his beard aflame

And my vision fell away, Peace at last came