Wrenogal: Act II, lxxxv-lxxxix
lxxxv
While far away, swift letters were exchanged,
between some several very chagrined men,
who knew that, even so badly arranged,
there was a hidden fortune in Dustan.
They blotted out their names on each receipt,
protecting their own interlocutors.
Preventing those they purposed to entreat
from knowing who were the real murderers.
For who knew but what Wyveria would find
some way around that mountain range? And make,
from that sore village, dismally confined,
a wealth that Dustaners would get to take?
Such grace was not anywhere in their will.
They’d sought persuasion—now they sought to kill.
lxxxvi
The frenzied mind of Erison now buzzed
in anthems of courageous vengeance. Eyes
could see what ears heard not, but, as it does,
one’s ears, over the eyes, the mind does prize.
And so spoke Erison’s mind to his ears,
blotting out all the other sounds there were,
the story that, to him, there now appeared:
how that he would be his homeland’s savior.
And so consumed by this, his story, spun,
his frame threatened more than his mind had thought:
and, watching over, flaming Locrien
gave what Erison needed, but knew not.
So, on his watch, when murderers would creep,
the blade, unlike himself, fell fast asleep.
lxxxvii
They’d read their maps with care. They knew the place.
There was no need for any undue haste.
Their work, indeed, was one of quiet night.
They kept both speed and footsteps very light.
The three assassins stopped before the door
and peered into its window, seeking eyes,
but saw what they had never seen before:
not none, but snoring, where Erison lies.
They touched their noses, grinning at the one
before. A guardless guard—a chance in none
that comes to one of their profession.
Now would be murder, not for pay, but fun.
But as Wyveria’s assassins tried
to carve to her in blood, they were, too, spied:
lxxxviii
He’d woken, fraught with terror at his choice.
How could he trust that man? Where was his mind?
One with naught but sweet honey on his voice?
Who had, somehow, such skill to seek and find?
He’d gotten up from bed. He’d made his choice:
no man could be so trusted. Not alone
he’d prove himself. He’d hear another voice:
the one that did not put him on a throne.
He’d never had a throne. He’d had no choice
to take one, and he found it fit him well.
He liked having a not-so-courtly voice
that understood what Erison might sell.
But found, arriving at the watch, a sight
that made Nolda see Erison aright.
lxxxix
As one assassin raised his knife: the Lead,
and one held his nearby the neck: the Nick,
the third observed with something much like greed:
the Watch, whose watch was laced with something sick:
who knew he had been more dutiful than
the one who slept before him—he had failed;
but ere his satisfaction went to plan,
he downward looked at his ribs: red—impaled.
The redhead boar raised once again his pick:
the Lead whirled round, the Nick saw bloody dread,
convulsed at the foul sight, and drew up sick,
while Nolda’s pickaxe found the Lead’s shocked head.
The Nick fled, and now Erison awoke,
and found a sight that made his morals choke.