Me, foolishly: Let's do this in iambic pentameter!
Me, two lines later: hahahaha
no
~~~
The Sorcerers Stoned
~~~
Harsh-eyed Oakheart made prayers to saintly hunters: Orion, Ahab, and Xie Bao,
Kindly Dundee, and White Simo the Old. She burned a stick in offering for luck.
They accepted no sacrifice but the prize of hunters: the cry of the sparrow
Trapped in a silk net, the groan of stags brought low by arrows, heaving hot air and sweat,
Awaiting the kill. Her armour was anointed, and her blade of diamondsteel,
Adamant, was blessed by the shamans with words of death.
At her command were the slayers armoured lightly: Nikodai, Elaine, and others
Holding their guns ready, those cloud-cutting rifles that sing bright death across long miles.
A company of death seekers: Red Rhana, the Fusilier, Heigelmann and Fritz,
John Whitecourt in his suit of bone, and others in the Black. They were forsaken,
And desired to die. The psykers elite, as well: Modarius, Lamarr, and
Simon Covenant, blue-robed, wearing breastplates of iron, wanded and staved.
They awaited her word, seated in high balconies.
"Strike now," said Jane.
The slayers fired, point-blank, and cut down the loyal lieutenants, tearing apart
The servants of Tigai.
The Eradicator barked. He was hooded, armour painted with soot and melted gold.
When wax, half-left in sunlight, runs thick and shiny, and cracks with the coming of dusk,
So too was he decorated. "Heretics!" snarled he, within the fray. "You dare to strike
Malus Tigai, the all-consumer? Such gall!" As his army rushed onward, he prayed, "Oh,
"Roboute, fill me with strength!" Saying thus, he built a fire that writhed and twisted,
Snapping and gnawing. His eyes were clouded; he beheld leal and vibrant hounds,
Filled with vigour, joyous to do their master's bidding. Unable to deny them
pleasure, he set them loose.
When a man has been entombed, cruelly tormented and made foreign to good things,
Starved and maddened, and set loose, so ravenous were the fiendish beasts. Apple red,
They ate steel and flesh.
Jane the hunter, unmoved and harsh, shouted, "I abjure!" and swung. Her sword killed and killed.
The fearsome image, sketched and painted with gruesome hues, cannot resist the scissor,
That slices and tears the parchment; so too did the nightmares perish. Many died too,
Cooked in their plate, and drowned in liquid iron. Tigai faltered, surprised and off-stance,
And Oakheart struck. She was skillful, with four blows to his one each; she knocked his legs,
Sliced his arms, and cracked his bones. Malus Tigai was carried away to the swirl of the warp.
~~~
Young Jacob Oakheart, lesser of the hunters, announced, "I am a swordsman of renown,
'twas I who slew the Angyl with this black blade. Come to me, so-called immortal;
we shall see what is the worth of your deathless flesh." So said, he leapt upon
Soncus the Undying, bloodthirsty and violent. His flesh was oiled with tallow,
From the thundabeast, whose motions are swift. He knew the killing words, and had
A brilliant spirit.
His opponent, Alerthus of the line Soncus, parried with expertise. His limbs were thick,
Like when a rod is dashed against a stream, and splits a wake that is swallowed up quick,
So were his wounds undone. He wore a suit of murderer's plate, won from mighty Vatrn,
Who lost favour with the gods. He held a grey two-sided blade that cut through steel and
Rockcrete; Ezureidel was its name. Soncus was skillful in its handling. His blows
Were like missiles flung from the sling of ogryns. When boulders are unbalanced, and roll
Down a trampled hill, gaining speed and terrible force, smashing shields and crushing men,
His swings were like that.
They fought in the smithies, a place where learned men work metal and melt stone into gems.
Fleet-footed Jacob was light as thistle seeds on the wind, whose hairs have caught the breeze.
His strikes were like vicious flame licking through any opening, black serpents shooting
With death-dealing fangs. As a stonemason handles a quarried block, and splits away
The unneeded material; first, he drills along the line, and widens each opening.
He places two shims, and a wedge between, and drives it apart with a blow or two.
The black blade cut like that, cracks spreading through stone, building up in pressure to unmake
Even the hardest granite. Hot-blooded Jacob was cut above the elbow, and
Bled from the shins. His steel-cheeked helmet and glassy visor were split apart, and
His blood painted the floor. He was faster without heavy ichor weighing him down.
Soncus was baffled. "What is this madness?" he cried. "I am flagging, and ache with pain.
This cannot be. I do not feel pain. I am solid as a hive, enduring all."
Manslaying Jacob said, "That is dumb and you are dumb," and took his head in one blow.
~~~
Aria the Null made secret signs; she was wise to the warp, and stoppered its current.
Her foe was Auslan Medox, slaver-witch. He stole his army from others, and made them his slaves,
Layered them into his armour and arms, chained them like dogs, and made traitors of them.
There was a blur on him that made him hard to see. It shook the air and wove shadows
And light oddly. He was the most craven of hypocrites, and drew scorn from all.
Aria made spells and signs, and cast out her killing net. It pinned magic, and made
Daemons wither and dry, as when a flounder, pulled up from the sea, sucks greedily
For brine. The sinews of the Red Knight flagged and turned arthritic, and the whore
Of the Prince was listless in their plight. Red-eyed, slaying steel rained down upon Medox,
Seeking to kill. One smashed his chest and broke a rib. His lungs bled and filled his gut
With thick blood, and his liver was bruised. He pulled at his throat to unmake the noose.
Auslan made a sick noise. When the decrepit patriarch, brought low by age and pox,
On his sickbed, pleads to unkind gods, "I am not ready I am not prepared,"
his words burbling like a stream that will soon fall quiet in the cold of winter,
like this did Medox gasp.
Aria made the sign of Unmaking, the secret sign, the cruel sign that divides.
She tore up his soul, and milled it apart.
~~~
AN: The important thing is that I tried.
