The Day after Doom

Remember the day after doom! Remember the broken war-gear scattered through the forest and all along the cobbled ways. Remember how split mail-rings sparkled among the fallen needles and treacherous head-guards filled with rain in the evening. That was bad armor. The rings were poorly linked; the chin-straps too weak, not meet for that purpose. Remember the dead men strewn on the scuffed battleground. Empty life-houses rested against sticky pines and lay upon the brown field-grass; they bled into the tumbling creeks and bobbed in the swirling pools. The Nithrangoth swept many bodies away. It took many days to take stock of the dead. Some friendly tribes gathered, hauled bodies to the burning-place. They felled trees with iron axes and stripped the bark from birch. They built log-piles, solemnly tossed the dead upon the pitch-slicked lumber. The funeral pyres were immense; the greasy columns of flesh-smoke tied the earth to the sky; those were grim umbilicals! Remember how the beer-hall was gutted on its mount. Its uprooted mead-benches were discarded and its vast ring-store pilfered. Its ornate doors were splintered, its wrought-iron hinges warped, rent from the timbers. The floor-boards were torn up; all the boar-locks burst. Even the silver-wrought gables and high oak-beam bands were pried from their places; what valuable thing was left? It was a ruin on the hillock, an old husk, a slaughtered lord inside the palisade. Remember how the high-seat was rent from the dais; horses drug it through the mud and the filth on the execution-morning. It was a sad sight to see disgrace befall that stately mead-house. Remember how Wisterholt, the brigand-lord gloated from atop the hill, his troop of knaves carting off treasures, torching the outbuildings. That honor-less rabble forced women and girls alike, defiled them like that. They broke pig-pens and drove livestock away. Their thongs lashed reluctant cattle, spurred grazing sheep from quiet pastures. Many husbandmen felt the cold sword-bite, spilled life-water onto their land when they tried to defend their lord's property. The land was sacked, utterly despoiled. Thanes were made chattels, and battle-captives were driven like oxen down the byways. That yolk even bent the necks of children. Remember how King Hiturolf swung from the gibbet in the gray morning, while black crows skittered along the make-shift beam, and the wood creaked and groaned under his weight. Remember when charcoal smoldered on Steorogot's crown and puddles of lye ate away at the tangled ruins. Mud spattered the scorched standards, the gold threads were torn from the warp before they were fed to the fires. In the forests and fields, hamlets smoked, black threads twisted upward from the crumbled piles of scorched wood and fire-cracked stone. No sheep bleated; no cow lowed; no baby cried. Remember the silence. Remember when the wind was black. Remember when the air choked the lungs, put a fire in the heart-cage, made life difficult. Remember when Etheomere clambered up from the eastern bluffs, his hand-grip strong enough to crush lime stone, his eyes shocked by the panorama of destruction.