VIII.
By Lucifer's Crown (Lapis Exillis)
[Jerusalem, 1099AD] The siege well underway: The massed throng of the Crusader army baying for blood at the Holy City's gates; the ubiquitous assault of trebuchet fire the beating heart of the unrelenting offensive, drumming the rhythm toward an inexorable conclusion.
Amongst the Host, the Grey Lord Aldric stands with his mercenary band - eyes alight with the promise of plunder and much to the consternation of those genuinely pledged to the war of Innocent III.
Rumours abounded of godless practice and the worship of darker, older gods, more malign even than the infidels' divinity, while others still claimed that the man worshipped none at all - casting his soul to the winds of fate with no champion deity to shield him . . .
[Lord Aldric Grey]:
Siege towers in ponderous procession - reflections of the laborious revolution of political wheels which so en-mired me in a quest preached by a man of war in robes of peace:
A sable shadow by unscalable walls cast,
A city sanctified for 1000 years past
With innocent blood - By ominous chill, I am gripped,
As by perfidious words of that primate of priests.
Neath flickering flame-light the siege towers' creaking forms progress toward the white, scarred walls. Strength and stealth are allies as the scheming of spies ensures defences from within are breached and the multitudinous force of our mangonels is unleashed!
[War-Cries of the Crusaders]:
Deus le volt!
Destroy the heathen!
Slaughter them!
[Lord Aldric Grey]:
Pledged to baser purpose,
Your decrepit god
offers no favour!
By the strength of my arm and the tenacity of my will shall I claim that which I seize as my own!
Come, we stand as one,
Take up your blades
And we shall lay waste these shades -
Remnants of men
Whose pitiful ken
Cannot comprehend they are slain
Push ever on - the day’s not yet won
There’s far more carnage to be done!
Come, wolves of the plains,
Give fury free reign
In blood and fire we’ll inscribe our names...
Into the timeless annals of history.
While our bodies rot, why must our deeds?
[Keeper of the Stone]:
Cast off those chains of mortality.
And behold that which all men seek!
Ankle-deep and wading in sanguineous misery
Hacking as habit at the writhing massed humanity.
A sea of blood now consumes the basilica.
The gate of the Rock will not be opened in the face of such nefarious and diabolical slaughter
Women and children as one crumple under christian blades.
[Lord Aldric Grey]:
Deep within these frescoed, bloody halls I feel the tremors of our missiles this city’s secrets to disturb
Launched from far beyond the walls where something ancient is interred now through fragmenting stony floor it clamors to be reborn
Hearken in thrall
To Lapis Exillis’ call
A city of eternal war
Has a man of such born
[Lord Aldric Grey]:
By the stone of Lucifer’s crown have I been granted the the gift of an eternity mired in bloodshed!
