Werre Guild

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Lament of the Unknown Armorsmith
(or)
A Valentine's Day Wish

O, ye gods and goddesses! -how youthful aspiration may
be crushed by neglect; how young dreams may whither in that
bare desert that is lack of means; and how far is that time
from me now. I would not have begrudged you your success,
your honors, you well-acclaimed master, if only your
gold-adorned brow had not scowled at my achievements, your
sneering mouth lavished polite insults upon me. Excellent
you were, but how short of grace. Where one gracious word
could have made me friend, instead you gave me those small
parcels of bitterness to carry, to mark me, to clothe me
poorly; and now I arrive at that bitter time of life where,
if I would, I could lay that burden by. Time has formed it
edged and guttered, black with venom, and yet with it's slag
I will forge weapons crueler still. My hands are scarred by
that same time, internally, invisibly, each wound giving
fell knowledge. My worn body aged too well, my mind knew
premature defeat, until I beheld you strutting by. Shorter
and fatter and greyer than I remembered you, and balder
inside your crown, and didn't recognize me still, but will
anon. Every perfect fold of your robe, or immaculate
detail, not least of all your lofty nose, has returned to me
the anger of youth. Did you not hear it accrete upon me
like barbed panzer? Was the sure snick of arming-hooks
beneath your notice? Are you deaf to the snap of my visor,
blind as the burning sedge leaps to my hand? And when the
cold moors of this poor land you so disdained shake with
distant hammerfall, will you not then notice? Great Noble,
the avalanche of iron approaches, the cyclone of steel
hungers, and like the red-eyed kite whose name I bear, may I
feast upon you yet alive.

-copyright 1997, Drachen Birch

 

Unka Drak <drak@kalamazoo.net>