vine song

I hope that maybe Leo,matt and people can build on this a bit Chords available on request, feel free to add comments Words are Lying here on the ground covered in dust and earth the most delicious part of me that you have brought to birth Growing here on the floor covered in cobwebs and muck But you have come to wash me, come to lift me up For you have come to cut me to cut me close to you For all your ways are perfect and all your words are true

The Pig Who Wasn't

Once upon a time there was a pig who did not like being a pig.
Every day he would walk down to a still pond and study his reflection in the muddy water before the other animals spoiled the smooth surface with their drinking.
“ I look like a big fat pig!” he would say to himself. And he would turn away from the water disgusted and stump back up the little hill to the farmyard where he lived.

All day long he would avoid spending time with his brothers. “Let them root and grunt and grow fat” he said to himself. “I am not going to become a fat pig like them”!
Instead, the unhappy pig would avoid the company of other animals of his kind. He took to walking alone for hours in the woods that adjoined the farm.
Instead of rolling in the mud, he found a small secluded stream where he would wash each day, and bracken where he would roll until he was dry and clean.
Instead of rooting for food and truffles, he made cologne for himself and
wore it on his clean pink skin. He purchased wax and somehow managed to remove all of his course piggy hair with it.
Instead of the rich swill enjoyed by his brothers, the pig kept to a strict diet of leaves and berries and ate as little as he could bear.
But every day when he went to look at himself in the water, he still saw a pig staring back at him.
The pig became more and more despondent until, one day, as he was walking in the wood and thinking about how very hungry he felt; he came upon the wizards cottage.

Now the pig knew very well that it never does any good to talk to wizards. No matter what they promise; it always turns out badly in the end. The pig recalled that his mother had always been very firm on the subject of wizards.
Nevertheless, the pig was so tired and hungry that before he knew it he found that he was already at the edge of the wizard’s garden and peering over his fence.
The wizard was outside tending to his vegetable garden and appeared not to have noticed the pig. Like all wizards he looked a little frightening with a shock of brown hair that he had formed into great spikes using goose fat. His face was painted with thick white clay and his eyes appeared a little too large for it which always made people feel uncomfortable when they spoke to him.
He straightened up and regarded the pig. “ What do you want little pig, and what are you doing in my vegetable garden?” he asked. The pig noticed that the wizard had sharpened his teeth to points and he stepped back a little way out of fear. Eventually he found his tongue and answered the wizard.
“ Please sir; I came because I don’t want to be this big fat pig anymore”.
“ Oh really,” said the wizard, “and what will you give to me if I agree to turn you into a man?”.
“ Oh, I would give you anything, anything you asked” cried the pig as hopeless tears brimmed and fell from his eyes.
“ Very well then,” said the wizard, “ I will require your two front legs for my dinner tonight”.

The pig was afraid, but he had already agreed to the bargain and told the wizard that he would give whatever was asked. In the end, he allowed the wizard to cut off his two front legs and to cook and eat them for his tea.
When finally the wizard had finished eating the meal he sat back at his dining table, threw down his knife and fork with a crash and cried “very well then, let us get to work”!

The wizard drew a chalk circle around the unhappy pig and lit smoking braziers that made the pig cough and feel ill. He uttered strange enchantments in foreign languages that made the pig’s ears buzz and ache and caused his skin to tingle and burn.
By the time the wizard had finished with him, the pig was very tired and so the wizard led him to a small bed and bade him lie down whilst he went to get two fresh willow branches from the garden.
The wizard took the branches and put them in the empty places where the pigs front legs had been. He bound them in place with a fresh cloth and spoke a last spell over him.
“Sleep now pig, and when you wake, these willow wands new arms will make. Your skin will bubble, melt and flow; until into a man you grow.
And that was the last thing that the pig heard; for he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When he awoke, the pig was all alone. The wizard had gone. The house and garden, the bed and covers. Everything had disappeared. The pig was lying naked in some bracken and night was closing in.
But this was not what frightened the pig and made him cry out in alarm.
It was when he tried to stand up and found legs and toes and arms and hands and feet where before there had been only trotters and pork and willow wands.

The pig ran and ran through the darkening woods. His new soft human skin was little defence against branches and thorns and soon he was bleeding from a dozen cuts and welts.
Finally he arrived at the little pond near the farm where he lived and peered anxiously into the water.
A very ugly human face peered back at him.
The pig was exhausted from his long ordeal. He finally collapsed by the side of the pond and wept.
“ Oh, Oh, what have I done to myself? I was a perfectly beautiful pig and now I’ve changed myself into a terribly ugly man. Whatever shall I do?”.

And so the man set about looking for the wizard so that he might ask to be made back into a pig again. He searched from place to place and from year to year. To pay for food he would work at local farms as a labourer and became known as an excellent pigs herd. He asked again and again about the wizard and gave his description to everyone he met. But as the years passed he was no nearer to finding him and found that he did not really fit into the human world.
For all I know, he is searching still to this day. Moving from farm to farm and having few friends because of his ugliness.
And at night. When the farms are silent and still and all eyes are closed, he will often creep back down to the pig sty and snuggle warmly in amongst the swine. For you see, inside himself he never really stopped being a pig.
He was the pig who wasn’t

4pm

Come on come on 4pm finish
I want to travel home and vanish
My mind is tired and undernourished
I need to find myself again.

I work so hard to make the hour
I tell myself I'm overpowered
The clock ticks on, the future cowers
And I have switched off my concern.

BOOK: Lord Eschin part two

That had been three weeks ago.



The Princes office smelled of mahogany and bees wax. The only sounds the ticking of a long case clock and the scratching of Tasaam's quill as he signed off army dockets proffered by an aide.



Lord Eschin stood stiffly at attention in front of the great desk. Usually he would have taken the time to bathe and change following arrival at the palace but he had bee ushered into the Prince's command room by a nameless aide who refused him time for such luxuries.

After what seemed like an age, Tasaam placed the quill back in it’s silver holder and turned his cold gaze on the young Lord standing before him as if becoming aware of his presence for the first time.

“ I’m waiting Eschin,”

Sozo considered pointing out that in fact he was the one being kept waiting; but the prince was clearly in no mood for games. How on earth did the man even find out about these things?

“My men were exhausted you highness. Deployment of shadow wings was the only thing to do under the circumstances. It was either that or lose twenty men to exposure for the sake of two trolls”.

The Prince held Eschin’s eyes for a moment. He was irritated and allowing it to show. Finally he turned and dismissed the aid, leaving them alone in the room.

“ You fail to comprehend the greater picture Eschin. This is about more than the lives of twenty soldiers. It is about the hundreds who would lose their lives if we were forced to join battle without air support. How many weeks does it take our mages to re cast shadow wings on a horse once it has been deployed. Two, three? Not to mention the risk that some superstitious peasant might have seen you and told all of his inbred clan to stop feeding my army as it harbours sorcery”

Eschin stood at attention and said nothing, his face impassive. He tried to concentrate on the ticking of the clock; mentally picturing the intricate mechanisms within, their tasks unseen, measuring out the moments of his discipline.

“ What would have happened had battle been met with your steed unable to take to the air?” barked the prince. He seemed about to continue but suddenly sighed deeply and sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes an massaged them with the balls of his fingers, as if attempting to rub away the frustration that he was feeling.

Finally he Opened them once more and motioned to Eschin to take the seat in front of his desk.
“I am sorry your highness, it really did appear to be the best course of action available at the time”.
The prince took up the crystal decanter from the desk and filled a glass with water. He sipped a mouthful and swilled the contents of the glass around for a moment. Savouring the mouthful as if it were a fine wine before returning his attention to the young looking lord sitting before him.
“You are a fine leader of men Eschin, your battle instincts are good and your prowess with the blade is already making you a legend amongst the men.
But a lord must have more. You must learn to be a strategist as much as a fighter. You must resign yourself to make the hard decisions at times. I’m afraid that you no longer have the luxury of being able to be liked by all.
Sometimes it is cold mathematics that must decide out fate rather than hot blood hmm?”

The prince poured out another glass and offered it to Eschin who received it gratefully.
“how fares your noble mother fare?”
Eschin found himself studying the pattern of grain on the waxed mahogany table. The surface was so well tended that it provided a perfect reflection of the ledger.
“She remains bedridden, but my father’s physicians have managed to halt the spread of the disease and have given her powerful narcotics to ease her suffering. She remains lucid for the most part and spoke of you with great affection on one occasion prior to our parting”.
The prince sighed.
“They are your physicians now Sozo, you are the Lord Eschin. The responsibility weighs heavy upon you does it not?”.
“Aye, it would be a lie to say that it does not. All of my life I watched my father rule our lands, and now that rule has passed to me, I find myself at war a hundred leagues away “.
“And why are you here my Lord Eschin?” the prince asked.
“It is the hard choice but the best one. Much as the Eschin lands need me, my skills are better employed here if those lands are to remain free and clear of the taint of Chaos”.

“Just so”. The prince rose and gestured that Eschin was dismissed. “Come dine with me tonight, once you have had the opportunity to bathe and change. We will talk some more; of happier days my friend”
Another aide, buried under a mountain of paper, scurried into the office as Eschin left.
No wonder the prince was tired. Feeding an army in a foreign land in winter was a logistical and political nightmare. It was a role which Eschin reflected he was glad not to have as his own.
Walking down from the princes ‘ready room’, Eschin passed back through the huge oak door; opened for him by one of the palace servants.
The bright morning sunlight outside caused him to shield his eyes as he passed the parade ground, already filling with soldiers. Surrounding the ground were the wooden sheds; home to the leather robed battle mages who endlessly bore the stink of their incense burning.
One of those sheds now held his steed; she had been hurried into the dark confines as soon as they arrived at the palace. Wizards swarming around her like bees around a hive. The last he had seen of her before the door closed was a mage muttering some unpronounceable incantation at her head whilst his younger aide daubed sigils and runes along her flanks with some substance that glowed brightly in the darkness.
As Prince Tasaam had said, casting shadow wings capability on a creature as large as the mare could take days or weeks. Sozo bit his lip as he passed through the busy sheds and headed towards his lodgings.
As much as it angered him, he had to reluctantly concede that Tasaam had a point. IF the forces of chaos could find a way to attack their position in the next few says then the army would fare much worse without his air support.
Proferring his woollen cloak to a young page he entered his lodgings.

Tempaphilia

I am entranced by time, she is my love
Though lesser men do fear her and shrink back
For she grows fleet and faster with each year
Whilst we slow down and fade within her trap.
And yet I’ve come to love her and not fear
Some hostages fall often for their guards.
Whilst seasons turn she gently dries my tears
And smoothes my open wounds to healed scars.
The promised blessing, yet still miles away
She draws it to me with each hour that passes.
The foolishness I had in all youth’s day
Is washed from me as I attend her classes.
I am in love with time, too soon to leave
And timeless run upon Elisions’ grasses.

BOOK: Chapter One

Lord Eshin


The Archer Dallon grimaced behind the coarse homespun scarf and tightened his grip on the cold bow.
‘Bloody trolls’.
This part of the legion had been assigned to ‘search and destroy’ detail in the freezing foothills of Berkham. It was months since the enemies defeat in what was proving to be a yearlong campaign and counting.
A flicker in the shadow haunted valley ahead caught the eye of their commanding officer and he put heels to his mount. Dallon and his foot weary companions dutifully followed.
Dallon’s fingers were wrapped in rags as a preventative against frostbite, but the gnawing cold refused to leave him even when he was inside. Which he had not been for days now.

‘ A short killing stab at the forces of chaos!’ That had been the promise of the recruiters. Easy victory. Girls, gold and probably promotion to the kings court into the bargain eh.
That had been twelve months ago in sunny Hartenland. The recruits had since lost their illusions in the campaigns endless skirmishes as well as a few fingers and toes to Berkham’s seemingly endless winter.
‘Bloody trolls’.

Dallon wondered whether their commander had harboured such illusions of a hastily won campaign. The young looking officer was reputed to have been well used to the ways of war before arriving in Berkham to aid the beleaguered forces there. Dallon had seen little of the man but it was said that he took a dim view of tales of death and glory and was as likely to spit on the ground as lend an ear to those who spun them. As if they brought some foul taste to his mouth.
Sergeant Tharn was ahead of them by the officers mount; scanning the valley and now he pointed and spoke to the officer.
“ There, on the left”.
Sure enough, the troll had flashed across their field of vision to shelter behind a rise in the terrain.
The officer motioned the archers to let fly.
Twenty shafts were sent over the rocks hiding the trolls position. It appeared. Running shambolicly to avoid whistling, iron tipped death from above.
Trolls all looked different. This one was covered in dirty red fur and hunched low to the ground like some shambling ‘proto man’.
The thick fur would have made an excellent shield against the cold. Indeed, several in the legion had attempted to fasion troll skin into functional cloaks. But the stink lingered on the fabric like and unwelcome guest and most men gave up the practice. Preferring to be cold with their friends than warm but shunned by all for the stench.
No amount of washing seemed able to rid the fabric of it’s musk and so all such attempts had long since been abandoned.
The cold, it seemed, was an opponent to be feared, respected and fought as much as rebellion itself.
‘Bloody trolls’.

Now their officer heeled his mount forward and powered into the fleeing troll with the force of a comet. He buried his twin swords in it’s back and then wrenched them free in one swift motion, wheeling his mount as he did so. The troll stood for a moment as if unaware of it’s own demise. Then the legs buckled beneath it and warm blood steamed and fountained onto the cold ground.

The officer always refused a lance or helm. Now the twin swords, his curious affectation, were briefly passed to Tharn who cleaned them with a rag before returning them with the air of one passing over some holy relic.
The cleaning rag would be burnt or buried, as would the troll. Trolls could not be left. For some reason, even carrion would not suffer to feast upon their cursed remains.

If tales around the legions camp fires were to be believed, trolls did not rot when buried but stayed fresh beneath the soil. As if waiting to be reanimated by some ancient evil. The tales were false of course. Dallon could testify that they rotted well enough. Where trolls were concerned however, the necrosis could only improve the smell.
The troop were relieved. It showed in their body language. Some joked as they poured pitch over the fallen body and brought tinder to it. They had been following the troll now for three days. Scouts sent endlessly back and forth to the increasingly distant camp in the south.
Burning icy wood by night in an effort to feel cold rather than frozen and trying to make frozen rations do the job of feeding twenty men and their support staff. Their commanding officer had done well in keeping morale alive in the chilled nausea of a long hunt. He too looked relieved as he dismounted and clapped his sergeant on the back.

Now the bloody troll was burning. Foul smoke spiralled into the blue sky like a giants black fingers. A signal to the distant fort that something evil was dead to the north. The men could re bind their rags and head for home. Or at least for the comparative comforts of the legions camp. The officer passed Dallon, as he walked through the men, speaking in more relaxed tones to sergeant Tharn.
“ Good work sergeant. Tell the men they can rest awhile before we turn this lot around. We have at least four more hours before we loose the light”. He scanned the Valley ahead, as if seeing it with new eyes now that the kill was made. “and send some men to scavange the area for dead hawthorne. Those trees should burn well”.
The old sergeant smiled and motioned for two of the men nearby to make it so. “There may be some rabbit tonight Lord Eschin, I will have some brought to your tent”. The order was given for the men to rest easy. Dallon watched as lord Eschin moved to rest in some nearby cover, accepting a drink from the skin of water that was now being passed around. He released a breath that he had not realised that he was holding and set about unpacking some dry wood in order to prepare a hasty hot drink.

Eschin closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in the scent of wood smoke as some of his men prepared a small fire.
In the surroundings of Heretenland the action would have incurred his wrath. Smacking of laziness and un disciplined behaviour. But here among the hills of Berken a hot drink could mean the difference between life and death and a good leader learns to be flexible or ends up leading dead men.
Removing his gloves, he gratefully received a cup of hot Skaal from the aging sergeant Tharn. The hot steam felt good on his cheeks and the foul, alcohol laced contents made him gasp for a moment as it hit his throat.
His relaxation was interrupted by the sounds of screaming from the vally ahead. Eschin’s horse stamped and whinnied nerveously, scenting blood in the air.
Tharn was rushing past him now swearing at the men around him to scramble to ready positions.
“The bastard wasn’t alone! Theres another one up there sir”.
All around him men wearily forced themselves back into action. The fire was kicked out, drinks flung into the cold earth and bows re strung.

Sloppy. The cold had made him sloppy and foolish. At any other time, he would have insisted that scouts sweep the valley before setting a rest order.
Now there was more blood in the air to pay for his foolishness and the prospect of who knew how many days in the frozen foothills.
Eschin re donned his gloves. It was his mistake and he would pay the price. With a sweep of his arm he ordered his men to fall back.
Grabbing the pommel of his mount, he vaulted into the saddle and ordered a nearby man to un hobble the reigns.

Tharn hurried up to him and spoke too quietly for the other men to hear as he held his commanding officers eyes.
“ if you are about to do what I think you are about to do, doesn’t it violate the Princes standing orders my Lord?”
“Prince Tasaam’s orders be dammed. He isn’t here woth us and if we spend much more time in the open we will start taking casualties to cold rather than chaos sergeant”
Eschin turned his mount away from the man. In all likely hood, the prince would never find out about the illegal action that he was about to take. There were no superstitious peasants around these godforsaken areas in any case.
He heeled his mount to the valleys head and, gripping the reigns a little tighter despite himself, he shouted the command word.

A bunch of powered muscle. A leap. A sound like a demons gasp and the horses wings burst from it’s flanks in an explosion of power and fury.
The blur of speed quickly resolved as mount and rider levelled out and scanned the scene below.
He regarded the smoke from the kill, the troop, still poised at the valleys head, faces gazing up at him. Scouts fleeing back from the Hawthorne trees that lined the valley and…there!
Hidden from view by a curve in the valley; dropped wood and a crimson stain on the ground.

Eschin slowly circled in the air, seeking the trail of the unfortunate soldiers killer. He sighted the black form of his quarry some hundred yards distant, already fleeing towards the north.
The sign would not have been difficult to follow even on the ground as the troll still carried the bloodied head of it’s victim. But protocol had already been broken and, Eschin reflected, he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
Whispering to his mount, he followed behind the fleeing troll and, as they closed the distance, he freed his feet from the stirrups and drew the swords.

Both mount and rider understood what was to come and no word of command was needed. The troll had finally become aware of his presence in the air above but too late. Eschin had already leapt from the saddle.
Gravity took him in it’s embrace but Eshcin rode the air like a sycamore seed, swords blurring a silver circle around him as he dropped.
The trolls head was struck from its body with ferocious force whilst Eschin landed perfectly on it’s torso, letting the huge ribs snap and break his fall as his impact drove the creatures body lengthways into the earth.
He rose smoothly as his mount gently alighted some yards away, it’s wings once again folding invisibly into it’ s flanks.
The horse whinnied and trotted towards it’s master and the broken ruin that was all that remained of their enemy.

When You're Young

When you’re young and someone hurts you
Your cheeks grow hot and red
Traitor tears brim and fall
You gasp and blub


But when you’re old and someone hurts you
You will not give them the satisfaction.
You remain cold
Composed and silent
And cut them from your life.