Ballad of the Crimson Warrior

Ballad of the Crimson Warrior

Beneath a blood-red moon hung from a starless sky,
A child of the desert land lifted up his cry
not of frightened infant, but a man who would not die.

Full of life the child grew a scion of the dead,
tall and powerful as oak with hair a vibrant red.
When traitor’s blade his sire slew, across the sands he fled
Shrieking oaths unto the sun that he would be avenged.

In time a captured slave, he served masters with aplomb.
Then at a vixen’s honeyed lies they divested him of tongue.
Mute and alone he wandered anew, a beast without a name
‘til cowards potions felled his might to dwell in chains again.

At a price his life was bought upon the slavers’ scaffold
By a waifish maiden to guard her in her travels.
Far and wide they journeyed then to dark, foreboding lands.
To shield the girl that gave him voice had made him whole again.

In a peasant town in snowy dale, they fought a crimson king,
Who sought to free the populace by clasping them in chains again.
“Who makes his bread to feed his own does steal it from his brother!
Who sheds no blood, his blood be shed to fill the cups of others!”

In the end, his words fulfilled when captive slaves were freed,
They broke his bones and drank his blood and, on his flesh, did feed.
To darksome moors on stormy night our weary heroes fled
Where moon eyed ghouls with infant cries preyed on living and the dead.

Through hail and rain, they tracked the ghouls like rats into their burrows,
But chasm broke the pair apart when underground they followed.
The girl wandered in darkness pursued by ghoulish hordes.
Their pallid flesh and talons black would haunt her evermore.

She came upon a starry tree with moon-like fruit adorned
And met a black clad sorcerer who called it Talyslorne.
“They gave their children unto me, these discontented mothers
To live their youth with burden freed and at expense of others.

With the fruit of this tree, I made them mine own.
With but a taste you are free. Such is the gift of Talyslorne.”
Yet the girl rebuked this demon fiend, decrying him no better
Than any selfish, slovenly would be mother or father,

For he cursed them to dwell in graves their sires cast them.
Eternally undead they prowled to please his hellish master.
Then came her champion with fire and fury,
And with venomous blood put an end to his tyranny.

O’, crimson child, o’ sorcerer’s bane, lift up thy blade and call out thy name.
Thy mane, like a flame, trails out far behind,
thy blade strikes like lightning before thunderous cry!

His birthright of blood a blessing and curse
Made him a pariah to wander the earth.
In terrible dreams a wizard ensnared them,
To feast on their souls in phantasmal gossamer.

Time weathered and scarred in desertic exile, the warrior found his home,
Declaring his love for the vagabond maiden to whom he’d pledged his sword.
In arid haunts of his desert kin, he faced his deathly past,
And upon the rolling, arid dunes she was his bride at last.

They’d fain have left their war-torn shores to dwell in peaceful lands,
But bonds of vengeance drove their search for bloody recompense.
The autumn waned and winter came, and banners of war unfurled,
But in months of blood and plunder, none saw aught of lad and girl.

Then on a dismal summer eve men witnessed on the coast
They crossed the sands in ashen garb, pale and scarred as ghosts.
The warrior’s eyes once vibrant gleamed with light like moonlit silver,
And pulsed with life like lightning behind a darksome nimbus.

Yet now they dulled like ocean spray. His armor was tattered and worn,
His face was gaunt, his flesh was grey, and at the wrist his hand was shorn.
At his side, his paramour, once spry and lovely woman,
Now shrouded in an ashen veil, cradled air before her bosom.

Her youthful eyes stared softly down at emptiness in hand
As if her burden was to her the fairest treasure in the land.
She sang to it, the cradled void, and whispered to it softly.
She bore it closely to her breast and cringed beneath the moonlight.

Across the shore the echo faded of her mournful lullaby,
And in the vulture shadow of the cliffs, they vanished in the night.
The tongues of men have spun the tales of the warrior’s escapades,
They praised his valor; they cursed his fury—the child without a name.

Hero, villain, beast they named in tales from every land,
But to the wizened greybeards, the boy was but a man.