Ballad of the Hexer

[AndrewTech 2815]

✵ Ballad of the Hexer ✵

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By HIH Catherine of Furnestock

Princess Imperial

c. 1859

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In the glow of a full moon’s light,

A widowed woman, overcome by fright,

Unable to take to from her cottage flight,

Fears for her children’s lives.

 

 

The fields are quiet, torn by war,

Voices ceased forevermore.

Ghouls and necrophages roam the earth,

A cradle for horror’s birth.

 

But a coin here and a coin there,

Will do much to end this utter despair.

For in a land of unanswered prayers,

Shines the slayersteel of a Hexer.

 

 

Hailing far from Aeldin’s lands,

Against the unnatural they take a stand.

With stoic features and eyes of gold,

They prepare for battles yet untold.

 

Lesser men grow cowardly and meek

At the gnashing of a monster’s teeth.

Through swinging steel he earns his keeping,

To prevent many a mother’s weeping.

 

With the promise of coin’s pay,

A Hexer will dispatch all beasts away.

“To live to fight another day!”

Is a motto that Hexers say and say.

 

 

Fear is that which slaughters the mind,

The greatest enemy of mankind.

The Hexer endures the greatest strain

To shun away unfathomable pain.

 

His child wallows in the mud,

Though she is not his flesh and blood.

Bruised and battered, worn and seared,

She remains determined to persevere.

 

Down by the lakeside, with eyes like gold,

Lamenting stories that will go untold,

Is it true that fortune favors the bold?

He frets not of the future he is to behold.

 

 

Some are wary of the Marked,

Questioning why it is that they embark.

But regardless of their personal ends,

They are humanity’s friends.

 

[Proddy 2247]

 

 

A grizzled and experienced Hexer reflects upon his Path as he sits in meditation by the campfire in the vast and arid Kharasi Oasis. His trail had been no simple journey - filled with tribulation, sacrifice, loss, and horrors he was fated to endure. Yet he knew within his heart, the work he was doing was not only for the good of mankind but the world. He'd found a place he never could in his youth at the side of his comrades, a sense of belonging and purpose that had melded him into a loyal foot soldier in an endless war. An unruly street urchin summoned and thrust into a higher calling.

 

The fire before him crackles and roars with heat as Arthur tilts his head up to stare at the shimmering nights sky, the pale moonlight casting him a long shadow across those golden sands.

 

Silently, he wondered if humanity would remember his deeds long after his eventual death. He contemplated if the world would remember his name.

[TheIchorDruid 1705]

A slender girl of d'Azor heritage glanced upon the poem, a tilted smile graced her olive complexion before it faded once more of further reflexion. "A debt paid, a duty to uphold.."

[Valannor 6345]

A Shepherd of Lost Souls trudged his way forth through the Orenian countryside - a lead coin wreathed in ghastly gloam flipped in his hands as he marched. Soon, some forlorn hum left the darkness of his helm, and as one the collective voices uttered henceforth;

 

"Toss a coin to your Hexer, o' Valley of Plenty..."