Wyrm

Betwixt crags and wrathful waves,

Where heathen silver was laid,

A noble joyless sat dismayed—

Besieged, alone, until thrown to the grave.

The seething wyrm, wrapped in flame,

Seized the echoing, stone-split cave.

A thief imposed with time unmoored—

A slave under the cord,

He strove to ease his unjust lord—

A chalice from the plenteous hoard.

But with ire inscribed

Fierce upon its ghostly prow,

It broke into the throbbing night,

And cleaved the entrails of the sky.

Below, the eyes of tiny kingdoms wept

Blood from the vehemence applied—

It tore men apart like a sickle through grain,

And heaved upon the city a torrent of flame.

Edgetho's aged son stood beneath the swathing ash,

While corpse-laden grounds swayed beneath our staggering clash.

Never had i stood the stench of such excessive death…

Never had i stood to see our leader falter so…

Not when grendel conspired to harm,

For he'd feigned sleep then unhinged its leathery arm.

But now he struck with ancient blade

That fractured against the panoply of jade,

And the beast wrapped his frame in wreaths of gigantic flame.

Our allies took flight, but i stood with their shame…

I cajoled my own fears to subside,

And gravely speared its rigid hide;

Then a dirk disemboweled the beast's insides,

And we trembled and retched, doused by the crimson tide.

And weeping i catered to his final demand:

To be interred among the barrow's copious swag.

And as the placid years leeched tale to myth,

The valor of wexstan's son stood firm,

But the truth hid in terrors that snared my sleep,

An egress there was none from the insufferable wyrm.