[…] And through that night, the wise ones gathered,
long-travelled Sigfri, Ulfish druids, Gifli too,
to speak of Dofran and its glorious folk,
so long hidden from human eyes
and fates foretold, and omens grim
such that Ka-hrahrr gave dread voice:
“Thus speak the seers from ancient days,
the eyeless ones of Ash-staff’s roots,
whose words have passed from mouth to ear,
the end of things, the crash of doom,
when time is ended, worlds broken:
gods devour gods, men devour men,
and beasts devour the cold remains;
when entrails swollen encircle the worlds
and seas spill over deep with blood;
burgs of bones cast shade on mountains.
Total war, a lifetime long,
will rage upon the reddened earth –
til none remain. The skies held still.
No wind, nor hail, nor tempest blown –
the air itself choked of its breath,
and darkness, ever-strangled night,
eternal, endless, evermore –
a gallows for all that ever was.
The wolves of waste shall be well-fed.”
She bowed her head, and silence sunk.
“It need not be,” cried Sigfri loud, at last;
“While wyrd has stopped, it seems, for all,
we can now choose to make our own.”
“Whether now or hence, the end will come,”
Ka-hrahrr replied, “But, fight we shall,
for that is what we live to do,
we children of Ulwarf the King.
The lords prepare, our forces wait.
Go do the same; I’ve rituals due.”
She stood, bone-creaked, stooped, and went.
And Sigfri went out in the dark,
to speak with birds, and sing to earth –
bard-song, bird-song, in a distant tongue,
while Gifli, fearful of the future, wept.
For over seas and land came swift the foes;
the hordes of Skarhall, Fyrfax’s troop;
the Queen, her lord, the living dead;
the Karandir, the Stonetooth band,
the ‘Hounds of Hretha’, men of blood,
and Viltyndr, life-takers, pillagers of every form;
and greatest among them all, well held
in chains of black fire, Brondvang’s fetters –
Skróth Wastelander, the scourge of Gyldland,
the wyrm who brought down Rothgard’s walls,
the breaker of cities, slayer of heroes,
harrier of kings and bane of life;
never had such a fearful host been seen.
The Time of Troubles now arrived,
the doom of the once-golden lands,
the Ylfish fields, Lēoma\'s pride;
the middle-realms, the gods’ own creations,
would soon be burned and bled in wrath,
all life made waste, the battle-beasts gorged.
And Dofran’s forest glades fell still
where thirteen women, black-robed, sat
in ring around a deathly blaze
and thirteen horses, coal-black, stood,
with eyes of frost at forest’s edge.
There came no chant, no swords held high,
but thirteen threads of silver web
held tight between their bone-white hands,
the pact now made; their work was done.
The weft of fate now moon-lit clear;
the loom, the field of Ealdenward.
And up high in Heofenroost, raven-black Hrefni
wove grim bonds of slaughter.
And in darkest wastes of Westenthorn
goat-headed Hretha cursed their ill-born brood.