The Ulangar: Book I, Part 8

This continues the epic I wrote between 1991 and 1996.

Meanwhile the students of Norkain proceeded

to trace Ulangar's flight

His craft had left a clever trail

that could be identified and shown as to

where he went through weaving reeds

They found that he went south into the desert isle

where death lay in the toxic strait

By boat they went for the isle

from the hollow mountain Möxien

through the Viscous Sea

No longer did they have a mentor to study from

so no other needs did arise

One boat went for that isle of sand

Thirty students searched for the traitor

A score and ten young men had revenge to strike

its vicious fist upon the deceitful boy

Through Surthur's potion they went

onto the isle of the desert Unikul

to search for signs of the student

One year they spent searching fruitlessly

until one day when a triumvirate discovered the oasis

with a naked man holding herbs

with dark scarred skin standing in its middle

He dropped his orange flowers

and attacked the three students

The students drew knives

weak ceremonial daggers composed of metals unwarranted for battle

Blades snapped like twigs on hard dark skin

Hands grasped heads and skulls smashed skulls

Naked feet knock scribes down

spilling the purple gore across the sand

Serpent arms splintered necks

leaving twisted bodies twitching in the dust

Over this carnage did Lamaraz look

old friends and new found enemies

stared death back at their slayer

from broken bodies and bloody flesh

Lamaraz did not enjoy this

These dead who he once called brothers

should not have died such poor deaths

Fratricide is not a part of war and glory

but a part of nothing greater than madness

He threw the broken bodies into the water

and gathered up his petals

and stored them in Tree

and sung a word a spell about them

to protect them from the toils of time and life