Blood Snow

Far away on the hilltops high
I see the eagle perch,
The bare rocks cast unforgiving shadows
The ground underneath is scorched.
I stand on the very spot
Where it all began,
Where the eclipse cast its grim shade
When it swallowed the sun.
I was there when we both stood
Back to back in the last defying stance,
When they ambushed us on all sides
And we prepared for the last dance;
The dance of death, all around us
As the ground shook with the mortar rain,
And our comrades  lay dying on the field
Never to get in the action again.
The mountains bled that winter,
The glaciers turned the rivers red,
As martyr and usurper fell in the same stroke
Some screamed in dying agony, the blessed lay dead.
The blizzards howled in the voiceless pain
Of the ghosts scattered in the snow,
Through the mountains and vales
Their dying shrieks will forever echo.
And we knew then and there,
That morning will never come for us again,
The frozen graveyard beckons us
Where the last of our blood will drain.
But our guns blazed forth as we dealt death
Bowing to fate was never an option for us;
If Satan was waiting below to swallow us both,
We would show hell to the living before he took us.
And then, the bullets came, unforgiving
Piercing through the frail bodies of ours,
The snow melted beneath with our hot blood
As we still fired lead after lead
Giving unto them as they gave us.
But then, the snow rose into our eyes,
The guns faded one by one in the mist;
The darkness came and took us over,
The pain receded like a final bliss.
And now I stand over the same spot
Where I breathed my last,
The memories still haunt the desolation
The rocks still remember the past.
Though our names are forgotten,
Our bodies lie frozen in some ever dark crevice,
I'm honoured that for our nation
Our blood wet her soil in her service.