upon the table land
I arrive a naive visitor to tableland,

with fear in my heart and sword in hand.

I ride to the lighthouse high above the sea,

to tell the supreme council of forgotten prophecy.

These orthodox worshipers of mirror ocean

have already set the ritual in motion.

I fear that I have arrived to late,

they have set in motion the world’s fate.

Now as evil begins to quicken

they perform sights so vile they sicken.

Dancing with the hand of death,

I glimpse the helix of Satan’s breath.

With sword I attempt to make them relent

the pursuit of evil so ancient.

In delirium the realize not what they have done,

the have once again released the evil one.

With my sword I enlighten the blind fools

not to indulge in the use of forbidden tools.

The situation is quite bleak, and stark

I turn my attention to the lord of the dark.

I kindle the fire within my breast,

and drive my sword through Lucifer’s chest.

The dark one falls hard upon the terra,

his passing leaves the tableland smoldering caldera.

My warning had arrived to late,

yet the evil I managed to filtrate,

to keep the evil from coming through,

and to keep him from destroying the one that is true.

DARKLY DOWN

BY

NELSON SCOTT

1.

Resume we shalt upon yon path

Sublunary in our pursuit

Ghostly bellweather to follow

To the Chthonic plain

We traverse Darkly Down.

2.

Tenebrous splendor of underworld

Lightly the Brigade treads here

With prescience we shall lay each step

Chary to skulking eye

The tortuos path leads Darkly Down

3.

Good men the Brigade

Each stoic in his duty

Glory clings to all

Unyielding our pursuit

Marching Darkly Down.

4.

Sprung without warning the Eyeless attack

Their melee bounds from all sides

Ineluctabke the Brigades’ response

The steel of our blades the Eyeless’ last meal

Laid to death Darly Down.

5.

Antediluvian depths drink our torchlight

Noisome shadows pursue

Trepidation swallows the Brigade

As redoubt we seek draws nigh

Resolve lays Darkly Down

6.

Raucous laughter greets our steel

The Kobold stand on high

Sardonic slaughter ensues

Our effulgence snuffed with ease

Our souls fly Darkly Down.

Distant  Rumblings

By

Nelson Scott

Through the baking desert sun that under foot crumbles;

A man who remembers nothing weaves, and stumbles.

Small fragments of thought stab into his confused mind,

formless pieces of memory of the place he has left behind.

With each foot fall upon desert landscape desolate and bare

clouds bloom in his useless thoughts, as they form in the air.

Loud crashes ring out causing him to stare skyward in wonder,

as newly formed clouds flash with lightning and roll with thunder.

Dust of this land are now swept up in a newly formed breeze,

for the first time the stranger can remember his thoughts are at ease.

The clouds open to wash this stranger with forgotten rain,

to calm his inner storm, and to relieve his amnesiac pain.

As the lightning flashes the stranger realizes he is not alone,

he is surrounded by gnashing jaws that release a hungry groan.

Ghouls with bones exposed, and rot covering their putrescent hides,

some scream with rusty voices claiming the rights to his insides.

He is sickened to his very core at the undead’s wicked smiles,

soon an avalanche of rotting flesh covers the stranger in necrotic piles.

The onslought of the dead is crushing, they seek his flesh with need so viscous,

nowhere on the stranger can their claws or teeth penetrate, or find suitable purchase.

With strength unknow he heaves their weight high into the stormy sky,

strikes of lightning fall among them, to destroy that which will not die.

Still moving hunks of charred and smoking flesh fall to the earth all around,

as an ever advancing horde of the undead is steadily closing ground.

A massive bolt of lightning races from the clouds to engulf his still form,

at once he feels an acient connection with heart of this raging storm.

The stranger instinctively brings his hands together, index fingers form a glowing spike,

he turns in a slow circle engulfing the charging zombies with devastating lightning strike.

Silence and ashes fill the spaces millions of undead flesh eaters a monent ago occupied,

the stranger stands with a new mystery to ponder, what power stopped this necrotic tide.

With his increasing confusion the strom rages more wildly than it did before,

only to suddenly dissapate as the stranger collapses to the dessert floor.

Exhaustion wracks his mind as the sun shines for a moment brighter gold,

suddenly it winks compeltely our leaving the stranger in growing bitter cold.

From his very core he feels a welcoming heat begin to grow,

as the darkness is pushed back by his form all aglow.

In the far distance he sees a light shining the same shade of blue as the light from within,

he gets slowly to his weary feet and takes to his wondering path once again.

Perhaps answers will be found there in that lighted place to which he is drawn,

any place he thinks will be better than whence he came, The White Palace of Dawn.

The name shoots to him from some distant memory in a dark corner of his mind,

associated with bloodletting, another damned answer he must somehow find.

HAMMER OF WIND

BY

NELSON SCOTT

As river flows through sand of time

hammer of wind shall fall

upon great heroes in hallowed hall

legend made flesh shall forth the volley

go into sun washed glory o champion of light

Valhalla knoweth thy unsung deed

win the day

count no loss

for thou art the one to come across

save the maiden, slay the beast

death shall not know thee

though your wrath shall shake the dead

jerk forth thy comrades from the gate of hell

wrest thy glory to history writ

vengence be not known to thee

duty is thy armor

ride fort the muddy sand of time