The Broken Lute This piece is just a bit of "sword-and-sorcery" poetry. Our merchant caravan went north with pilgrims in it trains, We'd journeyed to Byzantium for Mikligardish wares; With spices from far lands out East we shuffled through the rain, And bowed our heads beneath the skies, each burdened down with cares. Our motley mob of near-blackguards was ladened with pain's prong; We'd lost the chieftain of our band to some ungodly plague. I'd watched him sweat and watched him shiver, heedless of my song; And now we trundled back again, all leaderless and vague. Two days from Mainz we met a man who dressed in Northmen's styles; He claimed to be a Christ-man's priest from Finland's heath strewn stead. And yet I thought I saw in him a wizard's gait and wiles, For I had read the knots and runes upon his staff with dread. Each day the priest would disappear into the early night; He claimed he went into the dusk to pray and also fast. But strange the chanting that i heard until the dawning's light; And when for blessings my friends sought, I went to him the last. Armorica was where we'd set to end our caravan: We'd carry to our chieftain's kin his strangely rotless husk. But soon one night the priest crawled back more like a beast than man And took our chieftain's bier with him, while sniffing at its musk. 'Twas later still that rainy night we eheard a crashing sound; I told my fellow wagon guards just what the priest had snatched. Some crossed themselves, and some took hold of hammers that they'd bound Around their necks to think of Thor; and I picked lice, and scratched. Our chieftain's dripping corpse appeared beyond the fire's glow; The rain had not yet washed from it the reddish stain of blood. It howled and stumbled 'round the camp and brought our courage low; Behind the Sending crawled the priest, bespecked with gore and mud. Three times the walking corpse went round the borders of our camp; Our men shrank back from facing it and quivered at its howl. The third time that it circled us, it shook away the damp, And crushed the crawling priest beneath a foot that smashed his cowl. It stumbled then into the camp while men ran from its tread; One blow it smote and slew a Frank who tried to hold it back. I dropped my sword and grabbed my lute while shaking from deep dread; If down to Hel my soul must go, then music I'd not lack. 'Twas then the Hel-spawn clawed at me and broke the lute in twain; I cursed the corpse and loosed a howl that made it stumble back; I pranced about and screamed at it and jumped up on a wain; I satirized its cold-spawned faults with poetry hued black. And then I sprang upon the beast, and struck it with my lute; Both fists of mine held wooden spears, that once cool music sang, It stumbled back from my assault and screamed at me in Jute; I heard it not while in my rage, the broken lute my fang. When I had ceased from striking it, it lay there in the rain; I'd nearly torn the head from it while in my battle-rage. I dropped the oaken lute on it, and shivered from my pain; My silver strings would sound no song, nor would the corpse, nor mage. We burned the bodies in the dawn as sun broke through the sky; Each man but I spoke psalms or charms to keep them where they lay. I turned my head away from all and asked the gods, just why I'd had to sacrifice my lute and voice to see this day. Our merchant caravan struck west with somber bearing 'round; We hardly spoke another word until our home we found. copyright 18 Aug 1989, by Earle B. 'Glas' Durboraw.