Driven
Death black clouds furrow their angry brows low,
Growling with wrath, threatening to destroy.
The wind with untempered fury doth blow,
Uprooting trees, mighty jav’lins to throw.
Stumbling after a mounted convoy
A broken man yells in sorrow and rage.
Lightning answers his distraught envoy,
Striking in staccato, punishing joy.
Soul entrapped in despair’s unyielding cage
He shambles sobbing from the muddy road.
Ambling lost through the rustling sage,
Alone in the war that the storm doth wage.
The gale howls, strains to bear rain’s heavy load,
Driving furiously the rain and sleet.
The earth trembles and he falls, tasting blood,
Lying disparaged in the rushing flood.
Ignorant of the murk running by fleet
He cries, unmoving, wrath melting to grief.
The wind slows is pace, his sorrow to greet,
Rain falls the more straight, the moist ground to meet.
He mumbles curses on the wretched thief
Who stole all his long labor had achieved.
Lays ‘neath the storm, in sleep to be received.
Glowering red beams filter through the dripping trees.
The dispossessed man rises from the mud and sees
An angry, crimson morning rising in the East.
The embers of his wrath smolder and a single
Tear is answered by a sudden spatter of rain.
As the sun rises the fire within dulls his pain.
He trudges through the wreckage of the storm now ceased,
Moving to the inn where his thoughts yet do linger.
At last he had gained all he had desired.
With his mighty sword he had won the sheath
To check emotion that nature inspired.
Across from him stood she who his heart fired.
Before the alter, ready to bequeath
All that they had and were to each other.
Her maid of honor stood, bearing the wreath,
Their eternal union symboled in heath.
Behind him stood a man like a brother
Who had helped him obtain this self control.
When the wedder bid him kiss his lover
Those there opposed revealed their druther.
The best man shouted and groom’s sword did pull.
The enraptured man spun and threw him down,
‘Twas then the commotion commenced in full
As mercenaries from the crowd did roll.
As his bride drew her blade blood stained her gown,
Her traitorous maid a knife having drawn.
Groom met the rest, drawing knife his own,
Not knowing yet he was again alone.
His own hilt on his head brought him to dawn.
A stab in the leg joined the blow to head,
They unbelted the sheath, took horse, and fled.
A dark wrath yet clouds his mind, features, and the sky
As he leaves the inn where fresh grave of his wife lie.
He rides his wild horse hard, chasing after the men
Who took from him his wife and deprived him of all.
He hears word they’ve gone North, deep into the mountains
And so he goes too with bear sword and harsh count’nance.
Dark clouds yet pursue him and linger where he’s been,
As he rides the hills tremble and threaten to fall.
His chase takes him higher, into the wild
Where his chilled demeanor is met by snow,
His disposition that of one beguiled,
Seeking revenge that will not be bridled.
With the same biting hate does the wind blow.
His horse grows tried as the sky grows severe:
He is forced to stop though not wont to slow,
Gives reins to a boy, seeking sleep does go.
His cold gaze cuts into the tavern’s cheer.
The happy fire dies as he looks its way
And the common’s babble dies in his ear,
Memory drawing but a single tear.
He discards the sounds so jolly and fey,
His anger numbed at his wife’s memory.
He hears nothing that the barkeep may say,
Stumbling as sorrow steals strength away.
He awakes with his anger again free.
Mounting his horse despite furious wind
He forges ahead when others might flee.
He is desperate his revenge to see,
And pursues still them who against him sinned.
The wind whispers to him their location:
The tower that stands atop the mountain.
He leaps from the lathered steed at the tower’s base.
On the steel door he turns an anger twisted face;
Lightning screams and assaults the door at which he glares
Hurling the crumpled metal to the dark beyond.
Amidst the storm, bare sword in hand, he climbs the stair,
Thought telling beneath cold rage that he will find them there,
Sulking, afraid, in this most secluded of lairs.
He seeks those who stole that of which he was most fond.
At the tower’s top he finds his quarry.
He watches them from the stair’s clinging dark.
The spineless fiends lounge about, unwary
Of their lurking, waiting adversary.
In a corner lies the dead bride’s maid stark,
Raped and killed by those her treach’ry aided.
He crouches, patient, waiting to embark,
Belated only searching for his mark.
He seeks the best man who friendship jaded.
Determining at last he is not there
Patience ends, awakes his anger faded.
Rushing to the fight for which he waited
He cuts down a foe while the others stare,
Strides swiftly to the next and runs him through.
The others begin to quickly prepare
But he presses on, his own strength to dare.
The fire arouses and joins the fight too,
Consuming those cowards who fear the strife.
All his men fallen the leader steps to,
Wielding the sword that to the groom is true.
He quickly disarms him and draws a knife.
“Where is Borzan?” he bellows, blade at throat.
“In Feran,” is answered ‘fore the blow smote.
His sword in hand he returns to his horse beneath,
Keeping it bare for his friend had stolen the sheath.
With wrath unsatisfied he descends the mountain
Riding harder still after him who eludes him.
A raging, feral flame engulfs his mighty blade,
It matches those that in his eyes refuse to fade.
His anger resides within, a frozen fountain,
In dread response, lightning the stormy clouds does limn.
He rides with his bare blade hung on his belt,
Hard bound for Feran in furious speed.
The magic steel yet glows with anger felt,
Alone and eerie as the rain does pelt.
Wrath filled he pursues his friend, changed by greed,
Pursues his revenge and his stolen sheath.
The wind directs him, in swift paths does lead,
Blowing more fiercely once by is rage freed.
He runs beside his steed as it beneath
His weight and the weather’s abuse does stumble,
Driven by his wrath not to bequeath
His chase, but runs beside his beast. His teeth.
Clenched he does not feel the mountains tremble,
Undaunted pursues his furious pace.
His horse begins to flag in the gambol,
Himself tired, he lies to rest in the bramble.
He is asleep shortly, the sun on his face
As the clouds part and his sword yet does glow.
As the sun sets he continue his race,
Kicking his horse to meet the tempest’s pace,
Seeing Feran’s walls more quickly does go.
With his quarry near his sword grows more warm
As he rides for the town, pursued by storm.
The gateman lets him pass, his countenance fearing.
The townspeople shut their homes, the tempest hearing.
The warrior rides unperturbed to the tavern,
Hunting the traitorous friend that to this place fled.
The man forces open the door soon to be barred
And glares over the common, his countenance hard.
“Is Borzan here?” he snarls, his upper lip stern.
“Left for Kalin,” the man hears and departs unfed.
A white flame engulfs his sword as he leaves.
He rides full of fury, bound for the inn
Where his closest friend led a band of thieves
To take from him all for which he yet grieves.
He rides through the night, pursuing again
A dear ally who had become his foe,
A revenge that had too long escaped him.
Dawn breaks upon the mountains, cold and grim.
He sees the inn nestled in fallen snow.
In the cold morning light the traitor strides
Out from the tavern and its murmur low.
Drawing his sword the man charging does go.
The thief sees the fire streaking down hillside
And panicked he pushes back through the door.
His wrath mounting as he to the door rides
He reins to a halt and from the saddle slides.
His shoulder leads through the portal before
And he thunders through the quieting inn,
His boots sounding heavy on the pine floor
As fire from his sword to the roof does soar.
Out to the back vale the wedding was in.
He locks the traitor in an icy glare,
Frigid whip lashes out, freezing him there.
Quaking in terror, with stolen sheath at his side,
One time friend draws his sword with no hole left to hide.
His revenge soon accomplished the fighter wades in,
His strong form wreathed in flame as he makes his advance.
Cringing under a parry before the grave stone,
With the first fiery blow his sword is to grass thrown.
The man throws him down and retakes his sheath. Again
Gains control and sheathing his sword gives second chance.
For he remembers his bride—a warrior of mercy—
And with emotions tamed he can again clearly see.