Defiance of Death

Dark Fortress

Twenty Norsemen ahorse, clad in furs and gloomy armour tread the roads of mist
Among the ancient mountains, passage to beyond the realms of man
Passing crypts of kings and wizards, of priests and noble leaders

    
A valley filled with fog, travel without light
The gate was magnificent, like sculptured of ice, shimmering through the misty veil
With a blue light of unearthly origin

    
Beyond was another valley, surrounded by an unconquerable wall of mountains
It was of purest, gleaming white except for the sky
Which was black and starless
And a pale looming fullmoon hung in the midnightly scene
Below's a frozen river, and trees like giant, misshapen skeletons
And the black stone monument on a crystal hill,
Bathed in the moonlight like a pock wound on porcelain skin

    
Onward, ever onward...
With swords drawn the Norsemen stormed into the castle's hall

    
Spirits of the damned, cursed to drift forever
Hellish shapes of stone, wicked claws and fangs
Tearing in bloodlust the flesh from the bones
The Norsemen were falling like flies

    
But only the strongest, the greatest of all could climb the highest spire

    
(Atop the highest spire)

    
Atop the highest spire, stare into the night
See the constellions black on blackest night
The burning wheels and machinations, that keep the world on turning
And the chaos deep within
Feel rage and madness, boiling hatred and the will to survive
Sight becomes a tunnel, a vortex of unshining stars
And what remains is silence...