The Song of the Kháyin

“Glory! Great honour shall be mine!

Wenestl shall be last of his dastard line!
Sword unsheathed and bow taut-strung,
We rest not while a Norvajael stays unhung!”

Over glen and trail the quaver spread;
The Ilken sought sheaths of hapless dead!
Seething, as one our spirited gunari rose
To take upon glittering steel their vows

War served but to strengthen the faltering heart!
Massacre could not mar the flame within!
Day after day they were torn apart
Yet unswerving was their resolve to win!

Burning, pillaging, the shendful Ilken horde
Into scarred and blasted Estayn poured
The few who ’scaped the relentless fury flew
Unto Eyr Mu’in through paths strewn red with dew

Inch by fell inch the battle raged
‘Til the Ilken began to wish the war unwaged
Within the castle fretted Ynvartim
The craven deserted the trust placed in him!

The wails of Thousands for succour cried
But for her they would doubtless have died
Gisela, the gallant Gunari we joyously hail
Refused in that perilous hour to turn tail!

He called her Kháyin; heaped upon her curses
Left her naught but those he named sick-nurses
Left the Castle to be stormed and battered
Her brother slain and so many lives shattered!

The rafters rang with the attackers’ scorn
The guard tower was empty, the curtain wall torn
They charged, they bombarded " but all to no avail
For how shall such noble resolve be suffered to fail?

Against our Gunari Woden no dastard foe may prevail
E’en the machinations of the Ilken-Knilde must fail
Dull are enemy swords with blood, yet there she will stand
Bright as gold and as bold, to guard her cherished land!