Hence to the Silver Fields of Ealdenward

[…] 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.