The Warrior Ethos

 

 

 

Title art by L.H. Grey

 

 

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Nine Inch Nails “The Four Of Us Are Dying”

 

 

 

Skirmish
A thousand broadswords unsheathed

 

Numbers swollen
Primed to do battle
Ample mark to bequeath

 

Regimented.

 

Standing tall on this uneven ground
with chain mail ornamented

 

Dressed not to recess
No finesse in such actions

 

The numbers would never stack up
should we tally in fractions

 

By birthright united
Shared vision far-sighted

 

A militia this fearsome and true
cannot be expedited

 

As the battlefield doesn’t take kindly
To those who stumble in blindly

 

No prisoners taken out here
Death will not ask politely

 

It will grope

 

It will snatch
without blessing

 

Most unkind as it’s pressing
A caress not to savor

 

It strikes with intent to dethrone
the very second we waver

 

Bleeding us out
Through mortal wounds

 

Armor littered with lashes
Crude gashes

 

Gushing
Rushing to greet us
With icy hands

 

These are its plans

 

Denied.

 

See defeat is an option
Never once entertained

 

For the Spartan blood running deep
Knows not how to restrain

 

It’s this purpose
This bite
This insistence to fight

 

Which just might see us vanquish our foe
Each victory ours to bestow

 

Dense rivers of grue still to flow

 

No conceding
This bleeding
Need not be impeding

 

As it spews to renew
Is as tried as its true

 

Each twinge of affliction
Gainsays dereliction

 

Supplies benediction
Debunks this infliction

 

Inanimate
No more
Blindest faith now restored

 

No longer sightless
No longer flightless

 

Stampeding.
Marching.

 

Unassailable faith overarching

 

Disavows our undoing
Won’t allow for such ruin

 

Standing tall on this uneven ground
Shoulder to shoulder
An immovable boulder

 

Resolute to the bittermost end

 

Never once begging to differ
Always protected

 

As the blood of a Spartan runs thicker.

 

No fear
No resignation

 

Just a solitary crimson tear
And

The sweetest Salvation.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Charles Stevens

 

Keeper of The Crimson Quill

 

 

 

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