Song of the
Otherlings

ILong ago, when we still lived,
A myghtie war then felled my kynd,
A war so vast - a war so great
That none survyve to man forgive,
That our remains, should they one fynd,
Still gnash and wrythe with all their hate.With ryfles and with panzers, too,
With all your furie had you waged war.
Your tools of war were awe-inspyring
When did to us what they could do
Till we were strewn - till we were charred,
Till naught was left save songs to sing.No song so loud as bloated yre
Sung from those who had been slain,
Their faces twist as if to scream
Though corpses theirs had long expyred,
Their wails sing of lyves lost in vain
Whose death no penance can redeem.“Who were your kynd?” You myght here think.
“What nation had we so despoiled?
No song of ours sing of this tale
Of that no song was writ in ink,
No song of ours sing of your toils
Of that no song that may unveil.”Y sing of dwarfs, Y sing of ælfs,
Y sing of orcs, and ratlings, too.
Y sing of folk too poor, too low,
Too foul for you to see yourself,
Y sing of those by man subdued
Lyke leaves of fall subdued by snow.Our realm, once green, now turned to bogs,
Our cities turned to ash and dust.
Nature claimed what man had not
As our homes now serve croaking frogs
For them to use as they see just
Whyle torpid former tenants rot.An endling Y - soon will Y wither,
None of my folk do still exist.
We are no more nor will Y be
Once my heart will lose its vigour,
Once my blood will not persist
To stream its æther insyde of me.Though that Y was not lyke your kynd,
Though that my features grim appeared,
Though that my ratling voice was vyle
Y dreamt one day to pleasure fynd,
Y dreamt in my remaining years
Like Kallyope to sing and smyle.Please forgive my last desyre
For Y will rest now facing East,
Y have no ryght the rysing sun
As Y lay still and thus admyre
To face once Y had been deceased,
To face now that my task is done.If, by chance, this tale you read,
Please for my folk have simpathie,
Please of my ratling words think well
For we your kynd with love perceived.
Y tell a tale, not one of glorie,
Y merelie sing of how we fell.IIFrom the West came gales of spyte,
The winds of war and miserie.
From the West there marched mankynd
Our land to scour - our folk to smyte,
Though we had fought with braverie
Still scores of our kynd there expyred.During the reign of Blue the Bold
Our folk still held one fynal town,
Our countrie sat dilapidated
Where once it stood as our abode.
Our cities turned to burial mounds
Where man’s brigades our heads paraded.There stood our king - so too his knyghts,
Formed in rings in the council hall,
That each may hear and each may say
The thoughts that harrowed sleepless nyghts.
Brave fyghters were they one and all
And all of them fought manie days.As rats when tangled tail-to-tail
In one tyght knot with no escape,
So too the council there stood still
In one great spyral vast in scale.
Their future hoped they to reshape,
A task that they could not fulfill.Among them there stood Finn the Black,
His melancholic raven hair
Crowned marble skin and baggie eyes.
Among the things that he had lacked
Was not his love nor his despair
Nor friends he lacked - him circled flyes.Dunn the Gold proudlie there stood,
Choleric orc with heart of fyre,
First to fyght - last to retreat.
Manie men had underfoot
He sent to wriggle in the myres
For them to groan there in defeat.Fair and lythe among the knyghts
A sanguine ælf - Skye was their name.
An enaree and warrior, too,
Manie there adored the syght
Of their fyne garbs and nimble frame
Though Skye could fyght and this they knew.Forgetful yet with vengeful soul
Ashe the Whyte with Frigian helm
Among the knyghts was mustered there.
Phlegmatic he though not yet old
Oft he wandered in the realm
Within his mynd where none may stare.Hygh and wyde the hall them veiled
Though through its fissures shafts of lyght,
As blades when lodged within one’s breast,
Their dustful den had thus impaled.
When glaring onto helms of knyghts
There gleamed so bryght their ornate crests.Undisturbed by their dispute
While squabbling too amongst their own,
Birds whose nests upon the dome
With noiseful wings a song produced
As fluttered they between the stones
For they too called this hall their home.IIIFirst to speak with gloomful words,
With words of woe - with words of worrie,
Finn, as he had always done,
With heavie heart with them conferred
The thoughts whose weight could he not carrie,
Whose weight could not his weak legs shun.“Why must a lyfe of war we know,
A lyfe of stryfe - a lyfe of storms,
A lyfe removed from bliss and joy?
Why must, whyle croak the hungrie crows,
We flinch in fear from hateful swarms
Whose sharpened beaks must we avoid?Why art can we not rather make?
Why stirring songs can we not read?
Why can we not full of delyght
Live far beyond war’s deathful wake?
Why must what we have not we need
And live must we in ceaseless nyght?Our options few - our prospects bleak,
Among them not to stories tell,
To savour our imagination.
Our hearts beat blue - our aged bones creak,
Our skin to us but emptie shells
Void of souls and aspirations.Our options few - our prospects bleak,
Man our brigades so utterlie
Subdued and styfled with no remorse.
Our folk are frail - our spirits weak,
Onlie ruin do our kynd see,
Extermination our onlie course."IV (WIP)With weightie voice to them Dunn spake
The words he felt within his chest.
His torment turned he into scorn
When spake he of man’s warful wake,
When to his peers had Dunn expressed
That he would fyght as he had sworn.“With Durendal held in his grasp,
Though still to spears, was Rollant slain.
To win we need but persevere
For man’s brigades we shall outlast,
Upon our dead we ryse again
To fyght our foes with clubs and spears.(WIP)To persist is all that we requyre,
To fyght on still despyte the odds.
One day, perhaps, man will decyde
That twigs were not worth his great pyres,
That shock had no been met with awe,
That we may live on syde-by-syde.To persist is all that we requyre,
To fyght as we have fought so far,
For man will tyre - man will be drained
And when he does we will acquyre
A lyfe anew and not be barred
To flourish once more unrestrained.”V (WIP)For eight long years shed we our blood,
For eight long years lost we brave souls,
How longer still must we persist?
How longer still must deep in mud
We tread and march to fill the roles
Of friends no longer in our midst?The Nibelungs - so too their gold,
Remain no more to sing their song.VI (WIP)If perish here our fate to be
We must then give man songs to sing.
Let him sing of our last brawl
Atop steep heaps of smitten bees,
Let him sing of our last sting
When hornets left their folk thus sprawled.If perish here our fate to be
We must then sing our fynal verse.
One fynal cry for all to hear
Long after we had done our deed,
Long after we had been dispersed
For man our effort to revere.VII (WIP)Both king and council pondered on
What path to take in these hard tymes,
To risk it all in one great fiyht
Or travel East and there beyond
The walds and mountains there to climb
Far from harm in safe respyte.Not manie left from years of war
There still remained within the halls
Of Littledale and all her shyres.
Should travel they - they won’t go far,
Should battle they and surelie fall
None would remain to lyght their pyres.VIII (WIP)Thunder shook the redoubts bare
As barrage after barrage surged
Onto gullies meant for cover
To hurl combatants in the air.
Their remains, the source of scourge,
Earthwards plunged to fynd their slumber.As rats when tangled tail-to-tail
In one tyght knot firmlie confyned,
Orcs in dugouts huddled near
Till mortar shells, lyke shrieking gales,
Their bonds of friendship there untwyned,
Ending lyves - easing fears.Windswept grasslands heaved lyke tydes
As panzers sailed above the waves.
Infantrie formed at their rear
Lyke ducklings formed behynd their guyde
Who shielded them and comfort gave
For comfort is to man his spear.With Wayland’s weapons to stryke their foes
Charged myghtie columns of armoured spyte.
The clawing shrubs could not persuade
Their tracks to halt or backwards go,
Man’s brigades marched lyke a blyght
The otherlings to thus invade.Growling engines fierclie ferried
Yreful beasts intent to slay
All who stood beyond man’s borders.
Whose birth to death had them decreed
For born they were another way
And knew they not of Western order.Barking ryfles with bloated bowels
Emptied salvoes in measured beats.
In twos and threes - in friend and foe,
In harmonie with all the foul
Songs of death and rotting meat
To entertain the feasting crows.Here an orc to raiding foes
Unleashed a burst of ryfle fyre.
Upon their kynd they slumped in pain
Where manie more there slumped below,
Their remains, consumed by myres,
Just lyke their peers decayed in vain.Here grenades thrown in a hole
Skywards tossed a helm with head.
Through dust with haste - through fear with frenzie,
A pack of men to take control
From orcish hands and from the dead
A narrow trench of lyce besieged.