The gentle glow of moonlight bathed the silent woods in shade,
As the shadows swiftly sharpened, birdsongs all began to fade,
And the summer night lay peacefully on lake and glen and glade,
All the world asleep beneath the stars.

Suddenly, a glimmer, and a swirling of dark cloth,
Fluttered through the woodlands like the flutter of a moth,
And the air around it froze as though the chanting of a Yoth
Had invaded the tranquil land.

Closer yet he comes! With a leap and with a bound,
His presence hard to find but by footprints on the ground,
By quiet, patient breathing and the light but deadly sound
Of bone against leather sheath.

A dart is flung! The target stung, grasps at a withered throat,
Bloodstream halted in his frozen limbs by every deadly coat,
Of the toxins that are crafted by the hands that now promote
Death by upraised blade.

The face of this poor victim is a mask of pain and fear,
In stark contrast to the mask reflects it like a mirror,
As the face beneath the black cloth twists into a quiet leer,
And the humming knife descends.

In the morning, vultures full, the carrion as well,
And the only way an onlooker would ever truly tell,
That a life was taken here, would be by bloodstains in the dell,
And the howling of a wolf upon the wind.


Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Ferinus, in the year 496 AD.