The Adventures of Morfix

PRELUDE

War was a constant Menace.

It has become part of Us.

We have lost loved ones.

We have lost livestock.

Hunger has ravished our land.

We have been constantly attacked by the warriors of Mobgad.

Our wives, they had c**************e of.

We remember the dark months we held the sector

The nights we watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets

we remember the rats; and the stench

Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench

And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain

Do we ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

We are powerless against the warriors of Mobgad

Do you remember that hour of silence before the attack?

And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then

As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?

Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back?

With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey

Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

The wind, blowing like a hurricane

In the frightening desolated lands of Mobgad

Where the wolves are ferocious

And hawks and vultures feast on bloody hands

Wounded souls soaked in smudges of blood

Persistent nightmares of woebegone escape

Screeching fervently

A bright radiant flash scorches the cloudless horizon

And ashes drift upward, caressing my bare, dangling feet

Bleak, barren, biting malice below seems blazon

But the dead know not the sentiment of defeat.

I am William the swordsmith of the land of Laos

the father of Morfix.

The Knight of the clan of Laos.

I have seen many wars.

I have won many wars

I have lost many wars.

many war lost against one enemy.

one enemy; the warriors of Mobgad.

who then shall lead the swordsmen to victory against the common enemy?