Tales from the Dark Caves

Brynjar and the Nine

From high frozen mountains stirred Nine

Wardens black, their souls cold and gray

As the runed rock that bound them,

Hateful of great sorcerers that cast the sealing

Curses true. From mouths, teeth sharp, tongues barbed,

Songs unearthly and beautiful keened,

Drawing souls weary and summoning forth an

Ominous and cruel energy to free them.

Cracks webbed the spectral stone, ice frozen fell,

Runes gleamed and shimmered in the putrid gloom;

Out of the frigid void ventured Nine wardens,

Black bones burning with resented magic and malice.

Those wraiths of wretched sin, curators of curses

Morbid and foul, guardians of the void, at once

Sensed the darkness that had descended upon the realm,

Rocked by their grim and paralyzing presence.

Desolation gripped the realm with

Ruthless reign, a hundred winters cruel and cold as

Frost's wicked blade. Fiendish monsters, spawned from

Rifts rotted by the Nine's divine songs,

Laid lands once prosperous to wastes.

Man mourned for that they had lost.

And now it is known that no hero stood brave

To face the faithless wardens, so high and ubiquitous

In those frozen mountains, those shadowed spires;

But across seas guarded by gale, one sorcerer by the

Name Brynjar set to change the fate of the world.

He dwelled in secret places, hidden from the scrying

Gazes of those specters foul. With staff and sword in hands,

He erected an army of spells and twisted tales forgotten;

Of gilded armor gold and glistening.

Through winters long he weaved, the occult

Magics orphic in all sense, foreboding as the

Wraiths that haunted those hallowed grounds.

At last, his dark project finished, Brynjar raised up

A ship on which his army was carried, brought by

Oceans churning and writhing. Raged, they were!

For the wraiths then saw Brynjar coming, and

Doom set quickly upon them. Their leering eyes

Watched his army march through marsh and bog,

Unperturbed by monsters vile. And there they'd gathered,

Silver torches blazing, far beneath the high frozen mountains

Where the wardens sought their sanctuary!

Out of Boreas's burning the Nine came,

billowing from avalanche black, darting behind them

Wight-wolves wild, their evil so perverted that half those

Gilded soldiers fell to corruption. Brynjar's sword was seized,

His staff radiated with glorious power! Forth he thrust his burnished blade,

Biting deep into a charging shade's shadow. The screams

Of anguish and resentment sang into the dark; the skies swirled and gurgled

Like the raging seas, lashing with claws of brilliant and blinding

Light. Against the eight remaining Brynjar's army surged,

Their swords a flashing storm; their gilded plating glittering crimson

Under the setting sun, beneath which fate intended to purge

The world of evil once again! Another wraith fell with a harrowing howl.

From hoary head to shoulder the wight-wolves were cleaved,

Sinew and flaking flesh peeling back from the dead bone beneath.

Battle-midst, blood his warpaint, his mantle soaking, Brynjar

Brought his staff down with a chant of sorcerers' old.

The oaken wood flared tawny with magics archaic;

The boiling clouds opened and released a volley of arching rain

Sharp as knives, the wind warbled with the faceless phantoms and

One by one they fell, black forms dissipating back into the void from hence

They came, never to rise again. And so it was told that Brynjar the Brazen,

The Last Wizard, slew the Nine and was bowed before as

King of the world. His reign lasted winters many, and no evil

Ascended from the void to challenge him before his death...

... But only seven met the cold bite of his singing blade.

In the clever guise of a wolf, one fled weakened;

And into frozen mountains high the Ninth was sealed,

In time's great passing to bide it, just until the king of the world himself

Passed. And when the Last Wizard had drawn his last breath,

Cracks splintered stone now ancient, runes scorched and glowed

Beneath ebony ice. From the void fogs black and vile poured forth.

Shimmering and weak was the spectral form that clambered from

It—but the wrath was deep and wrought of power; the songs it

Sang were haunted and harrowing, just as the wolf that

Howled from a distant dusk.

(This was a high school project. We were told to write Epics in the original style of Beowulf. It was actually really hard, and I am very proud of this piece.)