Name/Pseudonym: {Thomas Radio}
Contact Info: {Discord : Thomas Radio#0749 | Twitter : @Thetrueastwest}
Ethereum Wallet Address: {thomasradio.eth}
Prose from a Realmsman IV
With your head down, shield up, keep on marching.
Warsong I
If I die by trickery
Tell the lads a lie
For nothing can stop my march
Without a proper fight
Hi ho, ho hum hi {x4}
If I die nobly
Tell the lads the truth
I fought until my final breath
Tested meddle nail and tooth
Hi ho, ho hum hi {x4}
If I turned my back and ran
Strike my story from the tale
Shame will befall my name
May I die out on the trail
Hi ho, ho hum hi {x4}
If I make it home
I’ll tell the lads myself
The courageous acts we all performed
Our honour will prevail
Hi ho, ho hum hi {x4}
Hired Swords
I am a sellsword
a sold knife really.
After the legion made way through the armoury,
left me with just a dagger.
I do not intend to fight,
but to be fed and clothed,
to travel north,
for that, I’d sell my soul.
Experience
Round camp
and fire,
stories share lifetimes.
Told through the voice
of a character
who made the tale
their own.
The Reality of PurposeThe Reality of Purpose
We pass into a valley
and our merriment plummets,
like it leapt from the looming cliffs
that flank our ranks.
Our banner lain
torn and stained
War Song II
We’ll kill those bloody bastards!
And split apart their skulls!
Earn my right to take their land,
their lovers, and their gold!
Forward, Forward
Sleep is not a deep pool
you swim every night.
It is a murky mist you wade through,
and any moment
you’re pulled by your collar
back into the waking world.
Back into marching columns,
now passing through unrecognized territory.
Patrol
The outskirts of camp
bind darkness to its edge.
You feel
the chill creep towards its heart.
And you sound the alarm
if it gets too close.
Cater to the Crowd
I deliver free verse,
and the hooligans go wild.
Stay wild, dear people.
With hearts at home,
and hearths on the rode.
Settle your sleep
with a meal and some ale.
Go home to your partners,
and sleep until battle
heeds your name once more.
Calling you home
an echo of the war horn.
I was a Bard, I am a Warrior
Father,
I walk with men who kill for coin, but would die to see their comrades live. Months go by moving droves north and a snail’s sprint. We have seen nothing but the demise of the army that fights under the House of the Spectre Lion Crown, the Banner we fly. Why else hire swords if things were going your way? Coincidentally, I no longer travel your way, Father. At first, we were northbound, I could almost see the Citadel. But by then I was lost. The lives which led men to this line of work… Things I had never heard… Places I had never seen… Songs that thrum in your chest like an arrow stuck fast inside your splintering shield. I include here a poem, recited to me by a cavalry member of tens of years. In a scratched and bare voice, he told me he was a bard, who sang beautifully of the world in which he grew up, when he joined the march, looking for a way oversea. He says the muses left when he found himself adorned in mail and armour. The heavy plates he exchanged for so much he left behind. On the graveyard that was a battlefield just the night o’er, he wrote this and buried himself amongst his companions.
I hear a whisper slide
off my soiled sword,
whetstone scrapes speaking,
sharpening secrets
I’ll take to my grave.
Sheathed it screams,
and no one hears a thing.
Ghosts
can be immediate
Departed
You do not desert as a sellsword.
There are two ways to leave honourably.
I opted for the first,
and left with my life.
Elevation
I am not a religious man
But I am aware of the Higher Beings
In a village,
I met the children of Embok
They ingested the venom of toads,
and burned fragrant herbs.
They had visions of the Higher Beings,
working in harmony,
to bring Life to Enrëa
Five Adventurers
I met a Goblin
and Golem,
Octo and Flames,
and a Skeleton.
Good folk.
End of Chapter Four