Jessamyn Norris had hair like the sunset
And eyes like the darkness of night.
Jessamyn Norris had glances like spearthrusts,
Like lances, like arrows in flight.
Jessamyn Norris was tall and was graceful,
She looked like a hind on the lea
And Jessamyn Norris was willful as winter
And wild as the wind off the sea.
Garth was a chancechild, conceived in the springtime
- The peace was made by Allerat,
- And none but he could hold it:
- The words were plain, but none would hear
Of keeping all the borders clear
And drowning feuds of yesteryear- Except when his voice told it.
- For anger rankles deep and long,
- Spilled blood makes heartblood riot:
- And none could see that road would run
Till all the days were dead and done:
"We'll settle this, by Them begun"- Such Allerat kept quiet.
- A little, little span of years
- He gave us peace and order:
- And then he ailed, and then he died,
And old, remembered wrongs were cried,
And vengeance ran the countryside- And red war stalked the border.
Jessamyn Norris swore oaths to her uncle
- Now Nora guards the southern march
- While Keleris is north
- And so their armies had not fought
Though Allerat's Peace had come to naught,
Until Shav war with Kemis wrought,- And both those lords rode forth.
- Her stallion red and his grey mare
- Led soldiers on like banners.
- At Deer Run wolf and falcon met.
Silver blades with blood were wet;
And songs were made that we sing yet- To highborn in their manors.
- Her eyes were like the midnight sky,
- His eyes were gold as dawn
- And as the sun brings day from night,
Her glance in his put war to flight:
When Shav and Kemis ceased their fight- Both he and she were gone.
Jessamyn Norris said to her husband,
- Spring had to the land returned
- Though snow upon the Image lay.
- To brighteyed Garth and Jessamyn
This word was brought by Donalyn:
"They hunt the grey wolf, Kelerin,- And he is brought to bay."
- In silence deep they heard him speak
- The news he had to tell.
- She rose and left while yet he spoke;
Garth told him "no" while his heart broke.
Marca's son pulled on his cloak- And Garth bid him farewell.
- Hoofbeats rang behind their back
- And Garth spun on his heel.
- Grey mare, red horse, together there
She with the arms she used to bear,
Dark leather over her bright hair,- And in her hand cold steel.
Garth was a fighter who never surrendered,
- So three rode to the Blackwater
- Where Eliot's standard shone:
- The southern land had come to war
Tora, Holda, Shana, Tor
Kista cowered from the four- And Keleris stood alone.
- "Old Simm of Darkmarch came to me"
- The grey wolf Eliot cried.
- "Now I've brighteyed Garth and Jessamyn,
And Marca's son, young Donalyn:
No foe will take the Kelerin- With four such at my side!"
- And Holda's foray broke indeed,
- Blackwater never fell:
- Garth there with Eliot did bide;
Jessamyn, always at his side,
Across the Kelerin would ride,- The forest he loved well.
After long hours' riding,
Arkadi reached the river,
Watched the water gliding
And felt peace take his mind.
Called Gelert back from questing,
Stripped his horse of harness,
Rubbed her down for resting
And staked her for the night.
He thought of cooking rabbit,
But too tired was for eating.
Tension was a habit
That he found hard to shake:
Though the riverbank was quiet,
And cool and very peaceful
Only leaves ran riot,
Orange and red and bright.
Gelert leapt in, splashing,
Drenched his weary master.
Arkadi watched him flashing
Like a silvery fish
The ford was wide and shallow
Between the tumbling rapids,
And Arkadi longed to follow
Where his hound had gone.
Suddenly deciding,
He pulled off boots and tunic.
Stiff from ten days riding,
He waded through the ford.
Gelert splashed around him,
And he laughed and ducked to cool him,
And thus the evening found them
When the day was done.
Gelert, scenting danger,
Softly growled and stiffened.
Silently the ranger
Called himself a fool.
Then dove across the river
Forgetting boots and tunic,
Grabbing for his quiver
And his long, black bow.
His quiver on his shoulder,
Half-clad, cold, and dripping,
As the evening air grew colder
His mind did too:
Thoughts of Chaikan slaughter
Fleeted 'cross his memory
As he stood beside the water
In the sunset's glow.
He heard the Chaikans coming
After what seemed hours,
Heard their hoofbeats drumming
Along the farther shore.
This lost and lonesome fording,
Forgotten by the Taighi,
Wanting better warding
Had only him tonight.
The fordpraise be!was narrow:
They had to come to meet him.
And every white-fletched arrow
Sent a Chaikan to Death's feast;
His sword when arrows ended,
And Gelert never faltered:
Man and hound seemed blended
In the dim stars' light.
Arkadi fought like Terhan,
Or Tamien Demonslayer,
But with every fallen Chaikan
He took another hurt.
And when the fight was finished,
And Gelert howled in triumph,
Though the Chaikans were diminished
He was cut to bone.
Injured like to dying,
He called his hound to answer,
A message to him tying,
He sped him on his way.
Through the dark the farmers stumbling
Found him alone and sleeping,
By the red-frothed waters tumbling
Down the ford, alone.
Slotted tracks around him,
A stag, and one right royal,
Marked the place they found him
In that moondark night:
Not a wound was bleeding,
Not a hurt for binding,
Though the past was there for reading
To the healer's sight.
Lying in the waters
Four and twenty corpses:
Many Chaikan daughters
Widows were that night;
But the northern ranger,
Arkadi, lived beyond them:
Fleeing not the danger
He garnered glory bright.
Arkadi was an archer bold
Who ranged the northern land.
'Twas all for love of Prince, not gold:
His service neither bought nor sold,
He braved the snow, the sleet, the cold,
All at his lord's command.
Now reavers came into the land
A dozen times at least:
A score or more, a deadly band
That scoured the villages upland
And left them gutted where they satnd,
Their folk a prey for beasts.
Who were these reavers? None could tell
Whence they came, nor how.
But all cried that their deeds were fell,
And loud to Tanric like a knell
Their cries for help did grow and swell:
More he could not allow.
Arkadi to that country came
And sought for answers there:
"What are the roads the reavers claim?
How do they come to hunt their game?"
But he found none could put a name
To how or when or where,
Until he found a village lass
Who had survived a raid.
She told of men who shone like glass,
With seagull badges made of brass,
That came from westward through a pass
The sages had mislaid:
For high upon the Yenisey
A single ford is found:
None other isfor leagues each way
The river runs through gorges grey
And rocks as sharp as axeblades lay
All scattered on the ground.
Arkadi rode the forgotten ways
And found the place she meant:
And after long and tiring days,
The waters danced inside his gaze
With sunset's colors all ablaze,
And in to swim he went.
And while he swam, he heard them ride
Along their well worn way.
His bow and sword lay on the side,
And out of reach his clothes beside,
And something whispered, Woe betide,
To drop your guard this way!
Arkadi got his bow in hand
He had no time to dress.
He heard again the Prince command
"Against all odds defend the land!"
So he prepared to make a stand
Though naked (more or less).
Arkadi fought beside the ford
And there he won the day.
With bow at first, and then with sword
The shore was red with blood outpoured
And he was faithful to his lord,
And held the foe at bay.
They could not cross the water,
Nor could they make him die.
Chaikan sons and daughters,
Made orphans by that slaughter
At the dancing, red-hued waters,
Will never cease to cry.
Varda the Valiant loved Yarovlad-King,
Her father, her lord, and the sun in her sky.
She swore a great oath by the Golden One's name:
"I'll bring back his body or else I will die."
Now four were the princes who sought Varda's hand:
Her dark eyes, her smile were withheld from all four.
Sometimes, in dreams, she had seen grey eyes smiling
And fair hair in sunshine, but she knew no more.
She slipped from her maids, she left not a word,
On the night of her leaving she told but her groom,
And the stallion Blade Falling she led from his stall
Was as eager as she was to go meet their doom.
She wore borrowed armor her father'd outgrown,
And she bore the great sword that had hung in his hall:
His grandfather's banesword, rune drawn of dark magic.
She took it because she had heard its soft call:
Take me down to Taighem, take me and you'll win,
Take me and you'll triumph, your cause will not fail.
No warrior, she took it, she needed the edge;
Take me, the sword whispered , take me and prevail.
Varda the Valiant before Terhem's walls
Rode grey Blade Falling and carried the sword.
Swiftly her groom bore the king down to ground,
Varda had rescued her father, her lord.
But out from Terhem, to balk her of triumph,
Rode a tall Taighi, a prince by his shield.
Draw me, the sword whispered, draw me and you'll win,
Draw me and you'll triumph, you'll carry the field.
Unsheathed the sword sang out, alive and in glory,
And Taighi in panic drew back from its sound.
Except the tall prince, who though paling and silent,
Pushed back his coif and, though grim, held his ground.
Eyes grey as moonlight met eyes black as darkness;
The sword sang of battle and blood in deep streams.
Tansen the Handsome drew steel out to meet her
And Varda beheld him she'd seen in her dreams.
Ill-fated, they met before Terhem's high walls.
The sword burned blue fire, it sang and it fought.
Tansen was brave, he was strong, he was dead,
And Varda cried out at the triumph she'd bought.
The sword was the master, she hadn't the strength.
Others joined Tansen in Chalma's dark light.
The sword sang in joy; through her tears Varda saw
Plain Taighi footmen advance to the fight.
The sword was still singing, but Varda was thinking,
Backing Blade Falling while fighting in pain.
Behind her the Lauris danced, racing and icy,
And Varda thought how she could turn that to gain.
Varda the Valiant loved Yarovlad-King,
Her father, her lord, and the sun in her sky.
But she died in the Lauris, the sword shrill with anger,
And thought, as she died, upon moonlight-grey eyes.
The White Stag goes running, the forest is dim:
The White Stag goes running and who follows him?
O run through the shadows that lie 'neath the moon!
Who follows the White Stag will not come back soon.
Who sees the White Stag run through the dark night?
Who starts up to follow his arrow-swift flight?
Who craves his wild beauty? Who wants his bright eyes?
Who runs through the forest? Who calls out? Who cries?
A glimmer, a ghostling, a hole in the night:
A shape made of moonbeams, a stag made of light.
She rises to watch him, she stops not nor stays,
The cattle she watched are left lonely to graze.
She feels her soul leave her, she follows its flight:
Forgetting her duty, she runs through the night.
Forgetting her lover, who dreams in his sleep,
Forgetting her family, whom morning makes weep.
The White Stag goes running, the forest is dim:
The White Stag goes running and who follows him?
O run through the shadows that lie 'neath the moon!
Who follows the White Stag will not come back soon.
Who is the stranger who comes to the door,
Crying, "Who are those people who came on before?
Where is my brother, his children, his wife?
Where is my mother, my lover, my life?"
O Amalie, Amalie, years have gone by!
Your mother is gone like a lost spirit's sigh.
O Amalie, Amalie, where did you run?
Here stands the son of your dead brother's son!
Your lover died lonely, he ne'er took a wife,
He loved but you only the length of his life:
O Amalie, Amalie, where did you stray,
And Amalie, Amalie, why did you stay?
The White Stag goes running, the forest is dim:
The White Stag goes running and who follows him?
O run through the shadows that lie 'neath the moon!
Who follows the White Stag will not come back soon.
The lord of Vileyka went riding one day,
Over the moors on his fleet-footed grey;
Three were the deerhounds that answered his will,
And one was the girl that he passed on the hill.
Bright was his hair like the sun at the noon;
Bright were his eyes like the shine of the moon;
Dim was the evening and dark was the night,
And dark was the witch girl who loved him at sight.
The lord of Vileyka heard foxes about,
And he whistled his hounds up to harry them out:
Fleet were the deerhounds that answered his horn,
More fleet were the foxes than hound ever born.
They ran all the day and they ran all the night.
Vileyka's young lord had the foxes in sight;
His hounds began failing, and faltered all three
But the foxes kept running, and chasing kept he.
His mind became mazy, and all turned to dream.
The grey horse, it faltered and fell at a stream.
"Who is't comes riding? O who is't is here?"
Tones dark as velvet enchanted his ear.
"Who art thou, lady, and where dost thou bide?
Come to me, lady, and lie by my side."
"I am but a peasant, why should you choose me?"
"Nay, thou art the fairest that I ever did see."
Words sweet as honey she sang through the night,
And she wrapped him in pleasures and held his heart tight.
Foxes sat watching with cold yellow eyes
As she bound him and tied him and chained him with lies.
Vileyka's young lady expected him soon,
But she watched for his coming for more than a moon.
Many a searcher rode, calling his name
But Vileyka's young lord ne'er returned home again.
It was twenty years later his son did ride out
And while he was riding heard foxes about,
He'd a bay horse of breeding and fine deerhounds three,
And he followed the foxes right over the lea.
Now one of the foxes was bigger than most
He must have been old, he was grey as a ghost,
And the young lord he wanted that grey pelt so rare
For to give to his mother with diamonds to wear.
The foxes went running and chasing went he
Over the moorland and over the lea,
Into the forest and back out again,
Down off the hillside and into the glen.
The old fox, he faltered, the young lord drew rein;
He fired his horsebow, then fired again.
Though the grey fox went down there was no fox to skin:
Just a man who lay dead, and who looked just like him.
Original Poetry: |
General Fantasy | Fantasy Legends 1 | Fantasy Legends 2 |
Original Fan Fiction |
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Power Rangers |
Real Ghostbusters
Battlestar Galactica | The A Team Space 1999 | Alias Smith and Jones | Jurassic Park III |
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