The Night Wood

The Night Wood

Through tangled, wight-lit weald she wends,

one hand on veinous sword

for in this boscage fiend does grow,

in bile-brimmed pustules nest.

Beware the night wood, bladed lady,

its paths do twist and gambol

And hellions of the dim do know

its every maze-cursed bent.

“Oh come to me!” she sings out high,

into aphotic brake.

“My vein-sword fears no devilry.

No imp or soul-baned blight.”

With ringing snick her blade does flick,

and warble through the murk.

Its long vein fills with fiend-blood spilled

from conniving lurk.

The dim around her quickly thickens

with creatures best not named.

They have come squelching from fetid pool,

from rotted bole and fen.

Too many for a veinous sword

swung by skillful warrior,

though still, she stands, her shoulders square,

to face the squalling din.

“Halt!” Calls a voice of crackling ice

from grim and toothy smile.

“I’ve come to proffer, lady knight,

a means for your escape.

“Your maiden fair, within my lair

has pressed on me a wager.

If, in fair combat, I take your life,

she’ll be mine forever.

“And if, in turn, I am the one

who falls in bloody failure,

you’ll be hers till end of time,

your strength ever greater.”

Beware the night wood, bladed lady,

and deals forged in the dark.

Though bound by word, wise ones know,

the Night King can’t be trusted.

For quite a time the lady hums

in careful deliberation.

The Night King watches all the while

for her tiny grim-faced nod.

With ringing snick, blades did flick

and warble through the murk

and history’s greatest battle was fought

for ghouls within the dark.

When the Night King fell it was with

a subtle grin of triumph

As fiend applied a black-thorn crown

to the lady’s noble brow.

The bladed lady did achieve

her heart’s earnest goal.

She was wed, ‘neath dripping bough

to the one she’d come to find.

But while in death, her foe was free,

she could never leave.

From deepest copse she still rules,

Night Queen of the night wood.