Glory Song

beserker

I broke through the seventh circle with no planning, no forethought whatsoever. I had just ploughed straight through it. I knew no strategy, only my indiscriminate fury. Not a single thought was in my head. As I burst through the ranks of the enemy a kind of heedless exultation took hold of me and I started singing my Glory Song. As I sung I felt more invincible than ever – my blade flashed faster than the eye could follow, it was as if I had a thousand blades and not just the one. Carnage followed in my wake.

 

I had shifted out of everyday consciousness; I was no longer seeing the world the way ordinary men see it. I was no longer myself – I was the North Wind howling down from the steppes. I was a gale howling in from the frozen seas, uprooting everything in my path, scattering all living things that came up against me like so many dead leaves in an autumn squall… I cared not what the ultimate outcome of my struggle would be – all outcomes are equal in the eyes of the Ice Gods. All outcomes are equal in my eyes too, now that the battle frenzy has fallen upon me…

 

The ranks of the enemy were broken now, their confidence shattered beyond repair. A few dense clusters of heavily armed fighters remained here and there on the field to oppose me in my passage but I cared not for them. I went through them without giving it any thought. I went through them without noticing what I was doing. I was no longer a man – I was a force of nature. I was the mountain wind howling down from the jagged peaks. I was a flash-flood roaring down a ravine, throwing boulders here and there with abandon, ripping away anything in my path. A strange and terrible madness had overcome me and I no longer knew the limitations of normal men…

 

As I walked through the field of battle I swung my sword this way and that and sung my battle song. I hardly knew my own voice. I didn’t know my own voice – It was no longer mine. It wailed and it howled, it roared and it moaned. It gibbered and it screeched. Uncouth words escaped my lips – words whose meaning I could not even begin to guess at. Harsh, brutal, archaic-sounding words that I had never in my life heard before. Words of Power. The Glory Song burst out triumphantly through me – I was its vessel, I was its instrument, I was its vehicle. None could stand against me just so long as I sang this song of terror and madness…

 

Men fled as they saw me approach, their guts turning to water, their clothing soiled by their fear. I had become a monster, a demon, a thing of horror. My sword flew about me so fast no mortal eye could track it. It danced its dance of death and as it danced I howled my battle song, foam flying in great clumps from my cracked and bleeding lips. I knew then that I had been sent to cleanse the Earth. I knew then that my mission would not be over until I had expunged every last trace of Mankind and his sordid works from the face of Creation…

 

My case comes up next Friday.

 

 

 

 

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