The Kurilusa part 2

6. The Command of the Lord of Lords

The kings went forth from their arks with hosts unnumbered.

The Lord of Lords had spoken: “Claim this land in my name. Be bountiful. Prosper.”

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7. Of the Departed Homeland

Little is told of the land from which they came.

It could no longer bear them.

Beneath the gaze of the Lord of Lords they felled their last groves.

From the trunks they shaped great vessels.

Upon the grey seas they set forth, guided by the foresight of their lord.

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8. The Taking of the Land

They marched to all corners.

Each king carved his domain as a mason cuts stone.

Those who stood before them were trodden beneath the feet of war-mammoths.

Bronze-clad ranks broke the weapons of their foes like twigs.

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9. Of the Bondage of Men

Men of this land were bound in chains.

They raised the cities of their conquerors.

Those who bent the knee were set above their kin,

bearing the rod and the seal of the elves.

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10. The False Gods

The elves beheld the gods of men.

They found them alike to their own.

They taught their true names.

They taught the rites befitting them.

Thus seemed the mercy of the elf-kin.

Thus was the guile of the false gods.

These cared nothing for the worth of their worshippers.

They hungered only for sacrifice.

Temples rose.

The breath of the pyres coiled to their thrones.

Even the noble elves were deceived.

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11. The Driving of the Troll-Kin

There were others in the land.

The troll-kin, hunters in shadow.

Beasts who feared the sun.

They struck by night.

They dwelt in the virgin woods.

The elves burned the forests.

The flames drove the trolls into the wild.

Their shadows no longer fell upon the cities.

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12. The Founding of Harreatusa

In the heart of the realm, upon the green plains,

the Lord of Lords set his dwelling.

Upon the bones of an elder city he built his capital.

He named it Harreatusa.

Countless slaves labored in its building.

At its heart rose a great ziggurat.

It stood upon a mound where once a tower reached to the heavens.

Now the tower was a hill.

From its height the Lord of Lords ruled all kings.

As he was the center of their lands,

so he was the center of their power.

13. The Near and the Far

The greater the king, the nearer his hall to Harreatusa.

The lesser were driven outward, to the rim of the realm.

Some climbed the rising hills.

Some stood at the feet of the mountains.

The mountains encircled all the land,

and there still lay the great white glaciers.

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14. The Forbidden Heights

These were places men had long shunned.

Now the elves drove them there,

for in the shadows beneath the ice and stone

lurked a cunning race:

the dwarf-kin, born of rock,

ever envious of the wealth of others.

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15. The Gathering of the Dwarves

They beheld strangers in their hidden land.

From crevasse and hole and deep hall they came,

to see what kind had entered their domain.

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16. The Slaying of the Envoys

The elves slew the first who came before them,

for the dwarf-kin’s form was hateful to their sight.

In those days they were more savage than now.

They wore only what the deep earth yielded.

Envious of the beauty of the elves,

they swore to kill what they themselves could not become.

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17. The Uniting of the Holds

Contrary to their nature they gathered in union.

Beneath the mountains ran a web of ways,

and through these they plotted their strike.

A host great in number was assembled in secret,

and they lay in wait for the vanguard of the elves.

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18. The First Battle

The dwarves fell upon them without warning.

They struck down many.

Such a blow would have shattered a lesser race,

but the elves, godlike, forced their way to safety.

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19. The Folly of the Dwarves

The dwarves, thinking themselves victorious,

grew proud and bold.

They marched out in greater force to drive the invaders away.

They reckoned the elves no stronger than the first they had faced.

Their host swelled as more holds joined them,

all eager for glory and plunder.

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20. The Fall of the Outposts

In swift order the forward posts of the elves fell.

They were unready for so fierce a foe.

Down from the high passes came the dwarven columns.

The outnumbered elves gave ground before them,

shame burning in their hearts,

for they were not a race accustomed to flight.

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21. The Yielding of the Edge Kings

The kings at the far edge of conquest strove to stand.

Their forces were but drops in a sea before the dwarven tide.

They yielded lest they be swallowed whole.

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22. The Abandoned Cities

The cities they had barely founded they forsook.

The dwarves claimed them, drunk with greed.

They hungered for the finery of the elves.

In those days the dwarves knew not beauty, only craft.

The works of the elves struck them as a revelation.

They coveted what they could not create.

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23. The Messenger and the Pan

The retreating elves neared despair.

The dwarves hounded them without rest.

Then came a swift-footed messenger,

bearing word: the Lord of Lords was coming,

and with him a mighty host.

He had seen their plight, for he could see all things.

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24. The Gift of Sight

In his keeping was the Pan of Seeing,

through which he beheld what was,

and what yet might be.

Strange and many are the tales of its finding.

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25. The Black Shore

Some say he walked the black shore of the homeland,

his heart heavy with the fate of his people.

From the sand there rose a faint humming.

He bent low and brushed the shore clean.

There lay a pan, black as the deep,

filled with the salt water of the sea,

shaped as a lotus half-closed.

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26. The Tear of the King

A tear fell from his cheek upon a petal.

It rang out, and a hum passed through the water.

Light rippled and strange visions flared in his mind.

What he saw he did not speak.

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27. The Nights of Watching

He carried the pan to his chamber.

He forbade all to disturb him.

Through many nights and days he gazed therein.

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28. The Promise

At last he came forth to his people.

To the despairing he spoke:

“Across the ocean lies the Promised Land.

Fell the last of our trees.

Make great arks.

Cross the sea.

If our race is to endure,

there shall our life be found.”