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The Great Wyrm War

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The Great Wyrm War

# The Great Wyrm War

## [Verse 1]
When Vekh’Zural’s watch-posts burned  
Beside the northern shore,  
The Medestul bore sparks downstream  
And carried back a war.  
From southern roads the banners came,  
Their shadows spear on spear;  
And those who watched the river knew  
What harvest waited here.

## [Verse 2]
Kaemisyol in onyx stood,  
The clans beneath his hand;  
He would not leave a rival hearth  
Alight upon the land.  
He named his hunger holy flame,  
His conquest blood made pure;  
But northward, in the reed-built homes,  
They barred the village door.

## [Chorus]
O sing the flame, and sing the fen,  
The road, the cliff, the rain;  
The crown remembers what it won—  
The clutch remembers names.

## [Verse 3]
The Paathur called the Grand Clutch forth;  
Twelve Mulaagjuns came.  
Behind them lay their scattered homes,  
Before them rose the flame.  
They knew the hollows of the hills,  
The roots beneath the flood;  
They gave no easy road to those  
Who came to judge their blood.

## [Verse 4]
At first the army swept the plain,  
And victory followed fast;  
Its captains thought the northern clans  
Would break before they passed.  
But reeds closed ranks where fields gave way,  
And firm earth turned to foam;  
The conquerors had crossed a stream—  
The war had reached its home.

## [Verse 5]
Through Ihtaa’s fens the columns wound,  
Their standards hanging wet;  
They raised a road across the drowned  
And watched its timbers set.  
By dawn the loaded wagons leaned;  
By dusk the footing sank.  
The wounded heard the unseen feet  
Move softly on the bank.

## [Verse 6]
At Busyl, all the patient marsh  
Undid the builders’ pride.  
What use the discipline of ranks  
With darkness on each side?  
No herald could command the mud,  
No crest forbid the rain;  
And fever took the resting men  
Who would not rise again.

## [Chorus]
O sing the flame, and sing the fen,  
The road, the cliff, the rain;  
The crown remembers what it won—  
The clutch remembers names.

## [Verse 7]
Yet Revakgol did not turn back.  
It measured what it lost,  
Changed the road and drained the ground  
And learned to pay the cost.  
The spade went first; the spear came next;  
Behind them followed grain.  
What courage broke upon one day,  
Their labour built again.

## [Verse 8]
Along the cliffs of Saark they cut  
The north apart by miles:  
An outpost starved, a pathway seized,  
A siege beneath the tiles.  
The Seventy Claws would school their sons  
In how the land was won;  
But those who held each narrow height  
Had names for every one.

## [Verse 9]
And Netin’Fojaa broke at last.  
The war climbed into stone.  
The valleys lost their answering fires;  
Each stronghold stood alone.  
Still messengers took hidden paths,  
Still watchers faced the south;  
Still those who had no bread to share  
Kept curses in the mouth.

## [Verse 10]
At Urtkaa fell the Paathur;  
The highland wind blew cold.  
No living hand could lift him up,  
No oath undo its hold.  
Yet Kaagaat endured beyond  
The breaking of that day:  
The last to keep the mountain watch,  
The last to yield the way.

## [Chorus]
O sing the flame, and sing the fen,  
The road, the cliff, the rain;  
The crown remembers what it won—  
The clutch remembers names.

## [Verse 11]
For thirty-six long years the war  
Had eaten through the land.  
A child could hatch beneath its smoke  
And grow to take command.  
The old had taught the young the paths;  
The young had borne the old.  
And still the south sent measured ranks;  
And still the heights grew cold.

## [Verse 12]
At last a white-scorched banner went  
Where swords had gone before.  
To Vusokaar the envoys came  
To bargain out the war.  
They did not come in captive chains,  
Nor come as equals crowned;  
They came to keep what might be kept  
When walls were beaten down.

## [Verse 13]
Kaemisyol received their oaths  
And left their rulers’ seats;  
Above them stood imperial law,  
Around them, foreign feet.  
The villages would keep their chiefs,  
The garrisons their ground.  
The crown proclaimed a people joined;  
The clutch knew how it bound.

## [Verse 14]
Then gilded flame adorned the halls,  
And victory filled the schools;  
The children learned the citadels,  
The officers their rules.  
But softly, where the clutches slept,  
Another song was said—  
Not how the north was made one realm,  
But how it kept its dead.

## [Chorus]
O sing the flame, and sing the fen,  
The road, the cliff, the rain;  
The crown remembers what it won—  
The clutch remembers names.

## [Bridge]
Let trumpets praise the patient host,  
The roads that would not cease;  
Let scholars write of ordered law,  
And rulers name it peace.  
Yet leave one verse beneath the roof  
Where no crown hears it sung:  
We yielded you our mountain gates.  
We did not yield our young.

## [Outro]
And when the Day of Flame comes round,  
Let all who hear this know:  
Not every hearth will feed that fire,  
Not every head bend low.  
The empire took the northern heights,  
The roads, the levy, grain—  
But somewhere still an unburned voice  
Is teaching them their names.

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