IV.

OW Meggr the Mace, mighty of Skalhar 

With his skull-wearers waged war, and marched 

In early leaf throughout all Narngaren– 

Hefda and Horgard they took with terror, 

Leaving few alive, ransacking riches; 

In Asbar they opened the old shield-place 

Where moss-worn stones hid an ancient terror: 

The fearsome Fyordsmog, fire-weapon. 

Across Narn they trod, turning deep the turf 

To mud. Meggr marched first, fearsome mace 

Swinging at his side, worn as portly prize. 

Twice tall he stood, striding seven steps apace; 

Besotted was his once-red war-tunic 

With the blood of mice of good Narngaren; 

His mouse-tail was short, shorn by sword to stub; 

His whiskers hung as hooks, curves, and crook-jags; 

Under the helmet-skull his eyes glowed, giving 

The land the labor of his leer, to lessen 

Mouse-hearts, to starve them from their staunch strengths. 

All who saw his stride gazed as on a man 

Returned to the earth as a monster-mouse, 

Or a rat, singly spurt to mouse-reach height 

When poison was plucked from the life-tree branch. 

But Meggr was a mouse, built upon muscle, 

A mouse-born menace, Narn's very nephew. 

Meggr marched his mice as a torrent rain, 

Flooding the moorlands with grieved bewailments. 

Farms he burned as bale, slaughtered cattle 

As feast for his fiends, to bite meat as men. 

These skull-fit followers with foul scalpers, 

Enslaved Asbar's mice, enchained them to tug 

The tower-terror, the mighty Fyordsmog, 

A war-cart so wide as to hold weight-height 

Of castle Mousgard. Meggr the Mace 

Proceeded to power, purposed to kill, 

To greeded gold-gifts, unlawful looting. 

Meggr struck up a song for his marchers, 

A deathly dirge-round of dreary verses. 

But no news was spread, near or afar, 

For few escaped Meggr, his mace or malice, 

Or the chains he shackled on his slaves who chored, 

Marching the mighty, mangling Fyordsmog, 

Which rolled, churning ground, rioting the air. 

Now Meggr made way to Mousgard castle, 

Marching enchained slaves and his churlish skulls 

To the fortress, to smash their mead-benches. 

V.

ne day the hermit hunter, Rydda his name, 

Heard from a wood the wicked wailing, 

The dirt-dirge of foul-mouthed, mean malice. 

It rung in low rolls around the moor hills 

The thunderous Torture climaxed its close. 

Rydda ran by field to village, warning 

Mouse-folk to ring bells, to hie to the hills. 

A horse he bargained and bewayed to Mousgard 

To tell the king of coming calamity. 

His warning was early to make the mice aware, 

But too late to ready an army in response. 

The wagon's wheels tremored the turf to tease: 

Buh-thrum-buh-thrum-buh-thrum-buh-thrum-buh-thrum! 

But mouse-folk mistook the sound for a storm. 

Rydda gained gate to the gathered mouse-thanes 

And reported right the truthful rumor: 

"Good mice! I say straightway that an enemy 

Marches on Mousgard, a mighty army, 

And with the use of slaves they trawl a tower, 

A machine so muscled and mounted high 

That it rivals these castle walls in weight! 

If my eyes still tell me true, I troth, 

Their slaves are our brothers of Asbar, 

For I beheld painted boar on battered banner 

And the flags also of Hefda and Horgard!” 

The castle mice were startled with terror, 

Their hearts were weighted heavy with horror 

At this tale; though they had waited hopeless, 

Their mouse-hearts were unready to admit 

The enemy lay near, that their nation 

Would not withstand twilight's drowning embers. 

Sir Tallak stood upright, brave and bright, 

And comforted the messenger with praise: 

“Old Whiskers, you are the most worthy hermit; 

If day dawns again, you shall be declared 

The king's most trusted servant; for truth 

You are the speediest messenger among mice!" 

Squires dispatched the news, all mice made ready; 

Soldiers secretly unstowed their armor and steel 

From armories, beneath beds, and boxes; 

Then did all mouse-thanes manifest their might, 

Polishing spearpoints, spangling their armor 

With display; thus arrayed in armor-shine 

Or coated in hauberk-leather-mousemail, 

They strained their ears to catch sharp commands; 

But Mikkeltar was sunk in deep slumber, 

His dreams aweigh with all wearying worries. 

Their last hopes they heaped on the hero-knights 

Who in Mousgard held the last defence of Narn. 

The ten looked to Tallak the Tall to lead, 

For he waked them with urgent argument 

When the ominous news reached their ears. 

Rallying their swords and spirits to rowdy war. 

“Mice, our muzzles are not worth Mithern-erth, 

Or Narngaren our nurture, home to us all. 

Are we mice or men? Shall we mourn or move 

To preserve the peace and people from plight? 

We have sat in sadness, mournful soft comfort, 

While the free mice have been slaughtered, enslaved; 

Had their homes wrecked and their lives lost to louts; 

We are not worth worship in memory. 

We must meet foe, fight selfless without boast, 

Or hope of immortality in song. 

Prophets may foretell, but let our purpose 

Resist the ruin, retrace the glory 

Of our former, now corrupted, courage. 

We cannot only stand proud in parade, 

For warriors must fend and face the night: 

Brutal battle is our burdened business, 

Gold and great glory only our reward; 

When men will not fight, mice must take up sword!” 

ow from upper ramparts was reported 

Sight of sneering skulls with scythes and scalpers, 

Fierce mighty mice of ghoulish gears and gout, 

Arming also spears and pulling-bows. 

 The towering torture, the Fyordsmog, 

Peaked over the harried, moon-paled hills. 

The knights hurried to a high parapet 

And made their pledge to die in dear defense. 

The Mouseking met them, his mourning eyes turned 

To the mount where tramped Meggr's ruthless horde. 

Then the king cried out a curse that trembled 

The air of the sky and stones of the earth: 

“A blight on thee, moon! Your smile I see. 

The night but begun and you beg your leave, 

Racing to retreat, renouncing my plea 

For a little light. O, a little light 

From the lamps of heaven for an old king, 

For those doomed to die today in fire. 

Go then, happy wretch, hide above thy roof, 

Safe in thy slumber, safe till Hel herself 

Drag thee to the dirt, down among the dead." 

Now the warriors did not wish betray 

The king or coil him in captivity, 

But now they knew his paw would wish hinder 

And lose the last light of fighting chance. 

Then Sir Tallak spoke “Will you hark the moon 

Even as chaos clamors at the gate, 

When fiends stand hard by? Go back to your bed 

Though it burn in baleful, boiling fire. 

Or take a coward's cloak and flee from here, 

Though all land swarms with coming savages. 

Or take a sword yourself and slay the enemy, 

Though all our honor may be forfeit hence. 

But do not stay us to welcome with weeping 

The murdering rats! Mice not men must fight!” 

King Mikkeltar made his choice of mandate, 

And fetched to him the silver, Singing Sword, 

To stay the enemies from their murder. 

VI.

ikkeltar looked out upon the turmoil 

And saw the enemy: heartless, tail-less, 

Trampling the green spring grass with their gears, 

The grass that reached to the roof up from root 

And touched the summer and autumn's winged wind; 

Grass over which royal hounds had bounded, 

And royal horses stamped, or paused and grazed 

In grace, their necks low-inclined, untelling 

Of far-off troubles. Only flowers they smelled, 

And clover chomped with quiet carelessness. 

On those same fields had ridden prophet-Mousekings, 

Majestic former masters of Mithern-erth, 

Heirs of the world men had long left behind, 

Leaders of Mousefate, who foresaw Future's hand. 

Albizan the First, who foresaw new fruits 

Growing from the grim, gray desolation 

Aglayca the Young, who had founded 

Mousgard, the seventh stronghold of Narn; 

Had kept the kingdom with keen courtesy, 

And held the proud mouselords in their place. 

Kirmlad the Good, who was gracious; 

Who had held the pirates of Pesk at bay, 

But lorded to let them stay at Lyrda, 

Bartering their brood to allegiance. 

Godlock the Great, many centuries thence, 

Who foresaw and fought the coming of Sgriffa. 

Mikkelmar, his own father, called “the Fair," 

Provider of protection, the most pure 

Inheritor of Mousgard, and most just 

Under the eye of the sentry oak. 

One morning atop their merry mounts, 

On a halcyon hunt in high summer, 

His father forewarned him of Future's 

Jealous, jaundiced joke: 

“Mouse-son, though the Mouse-kings lost prophet's sight 

In the drab days of Mirolmack the Mope, 

A king may yet still see signs foretelling 

Of Future's unfair hand, feinting havoc; 

Perilous possibilities that pass 

Mockingly before the lives of Mouse-kind, 

Wavering, wailing, whispering in the wind, 

Awaiting all to come home to his hall. 

Mark with your eyes, and in your mind, 

The strong and subtle signs of Future's shape: 

The shadow of the birds in disarray, 

Whose wings fly north in cold, cruel weather; 

Stars whose glint becomes shadowed in the sky; 

The doe that abandons her babe at birth; 

Mice who cut their tails unnaturally; 

By these signals perceive the plot's unfolding 

The world shall unwind like a sundial 

By a flick of Future's fickle finger; 

His grasping hand is eager to stamp our light 

And erase our little laughter from the earth, 

To end the world enfeebled in fire and dark." 

oung Mikkeltar mused on these dim matters, 

But the summer was soft, sweet, and sighing; 

Dangers were like flies, mere floating flecks 

In small corners of the welcoming world. 

For now their shadows were outshone by the sun; 

For now the sun was good, and the wind graceful; 

For now the woods were fragrantly scented; 

Deer skirted the edges of the forest: 

Some were haughty and their tall antlers arched; 

Some were slim and sleek with burnished brown coats; 

Some were small, still sporting white speckled spots. 

Mikkeltar laughed when he galloped among them, 

When they chanced to feed and fatten afield. 

Up and over the slope he would see them, 

And spur his horse to chase them forward. 

In the deep forest he found aeries built, 

Caves dug; enveloping foliage granted 

Harbor, imparting, jointing kindred limbs; 

Martens nestled, owls perched, quick rabbits sought 

The undersurface. Vowing watchfulness, 

Expelling yowling Zeffyr, the forest 

Contained warm comfort, but cold mystery. 

Here winds blew yet no word of Mousefate, 

Leaving Mikkeltar to his laughing chase. 

One day he chased there farther than before, 

Deep into the wood, unaware of time; 

For he saw a stag, gold-antlered, white-coated: 

 Strange pangs of desire pained him to pursue, 

To snatch and seize, to ask the stag to gain 

And be granted the gift most coveted: 

Life unlimited. 

e gave chase through thick woods all that day, 

Big branches bowing low, saplings snapping; 

He passed through in quick pursuit of the stag. 

There! He slowed his horse to steady gait, 

Since he saw the stag standing stock still, 

Grazing grass quietly in a wide clearing, 

As if no enemy of it approached. 

There, shading the clearing, stood a great beech, 

So lofty it reached above the woodland; 

Vast was its trunk-width, like an upright vessel, 

And branches as broad oars, cutting the brine. 

Mikkeltar slid off saddle and spoke soft: “stag!" 

The spectral stag snapped to attention, 

Haunched his hind-legs and gave a great leap up 

The tree, and Mikkeltar stood astounded. 

No strange stag, but a strange-tailed mouse smirked, 

Looking at him as it clasped the tree. 

“Funny face you have for a mouse, my friend, 

And a furry tail! We laugh at such formations." 

Thus exclaimed the king when he closely saw 

The strange creature, who was his same size. 

“Funny! I laugh at you and other mice 

For your skinny, thinny tails that twist! 

They look like whips, but cannot hurt a fly; 

They might wrap round a branch, but are useless!" 

Mikkeltar replied: “They are our honor, 

Not silly tools or playthings for mouse-babes." 

The tree-mouse laughed, a high, sharp laugh 

Like a harp played quick by nimble paws; 

A brilliant laugh of shimmering scales. 

“You are Mikkeltar, and I am Koli-Koli; 

I led you to this tree to teach you news 

And give you a silly tool to play with. 

You will want it for a fight forthcoming, 

But I leave you to guess the time of it! 

It's a sport for me, so I'll sit high atop this tree 

Laughing when the mighty menacing Mouse marches 

To Mousgard, enslaving, de-tailing; entailing 

The doom of Mousgard's mice and all others. 

You can't slay darkness, or hold up the heeling sun 

All by yourself, or hold back its bursting." 

Mikkeltar was despondent and morose, 

For he had been tricked out of the plain truth. 

“Well bushy-tail, what weapon should I wield 

Against this awful foe and his army? 

What if I, the King, defeat him fairly, 

And his fur is only fur, and the sun rises?" 

Koli-Koli scampered farther up the empiric tree, 

Resting on a straight branch that sprouted sprigs 

As long and wide as arms, and tapped a tip 

Of wood, which now wakened at his paw's command. 

It dropped to hit the forest floor, and stuck 

In the moss. Amazed, Mikkeltar now saw 

It transform: the silver beech bough became 

A shining sword; from it floated singing sounds, 

Like Koli-Koli's brilliant laughter; 

Like a warbling, bubbling brook, enchanted. 

The Mouseking looked to Koli-Koli again 

And met these words: “Defeat the deadly foe, 

I dare you to it, and will watch awhile!" 

Then the squirrel scurried up the arb away, 

Hid in flowering folds of foliage. 

ome years passed, Mikkeltar waited to know 

The day of the sinking sun and rising fire; 

Those days in his care he closely counted, 

Wary of whispers of the wind he heard. 

Then his kindred cousin cast his shadow 

Of treason, turning Narn against its king, 

Forcing old hatreds to flourish again, 

Setting brethren mice against one another. 

But Mikkeltar knew, even as he cut 

The head of Horgard, that Hel had not come. 

The Singing Sword grew restless as he tired, 

Fighting ceaseless to end the birth of the end. 

No season was soft, or gave him solace; 

No longer was Spring a season of song; 

Summer was burnt, Autumn was rotten; 

Winter wrought cruel, cruel, cutting cold. 

And signs he saw, subtle flags of fate, 

Spying and smirking at sorrows to come. 

“Such sadness you see!" spoke the winter wind, 

“And I must billow it across the moorlands.” 

In horror he heard of Kaltar the Cruel, 

The tail-less tyrant of Garnashgar 

Who rode to Asbar, aspiring to there assail. 

The Mouseking himself rode fast to face him: 

Short battle was done in daylight; they dueled 

Mounted on stern steeds. The tip of Mikkeltar's 

Tail was clipped by a stray swing of the foe's sword. 

In anger Mikkeltar galloped his horse 

Apace, returning with ready weapon. 

He stooped his head to duck Skaltar's sword, 

And skid his horse to stop, and turned again, 

And swung the Singing Sword with weight, 

And clove through Kaltar at the torso. 

With that victory he was hailed “the Mighty," 

And all mouselords acknowledged him their lord. 

His mercy earned him honor as “the Mild," 

And his foes favored as well as feared him. 

Now King Mikkeltar's mind was mollified; 

Only small skirmishes molested Narn, 

And his ten knights attended to those tasks. 

n the autumn of his age and ripe reign, 

Peaceful passing of time, he prepared the prince 

For lawful, dutiful rule of Narngaren. 

Mikkeltar and his mouse-son stood in ease, 

Overlooking the open moors and fields, 

The floating, fluttering leaves caught in breeze: 

All was golden hued and brown and fulsome; 

Festive mice danced to ditties in delight, 

Themselves autumn-colored: deep gray, light brown, 

Silver streaked aging whiskers, lithe pink tails, 

Engaged in the seasonal scurry-dance. 

Winter was white, cold, calm, and content 

 And the hearths of homely holes in the hills 

Were lit warm with familiar fires. 

A gentle winter wind blew through windows, 

Drafting into dens and castle Mousgard, 

Slightly stirring whiskers in their slumbers, 

Caressing curtains, fogging up the glass. 

On either side of the gray-stone castle 

Were gentle slopes of white covering snow, 

And winter's flurry washed the castle white, 

Brightening its blue banner, flapping freely. 

Then Spring began gracious, sometimes stormy, 

And sprung the muddy slough with green: 

New mattressed mosses, tall aspiring sprigs, 

Gentle grasses growing around the rocks, 

Blooming trees with flower colors contrasted 

Bright against the blue sky, above the vale. 

Mousgard stood proudly planted, unperturbed, 

Bronze pole upheld its blue banner, a signal 

For friends to see afar from the moorlands; 

It was a square, solid, simple castle: 

Its stones serene and solemn gray and grave; 

Blue door; curtains fluttered yellow, whipping 

In the wind; when mouse-folk stood on the hill 

They hailed it the home of happy warriors. 

save Narn!" Mikkeltar's mind moved back 

To the sight before his eyes, mind now cleared 

Of memories of earlier ages. 

Those that stood on the hill were fiends, not friends: 

They dared defile his kingdom, disquieting 

Nature, turning fair fields to naked mud. 

Mikkeltar made ready as he watched the skulls 

Swarming the cool vale with violent shrieks. 

The king readied in his raiment of war: 

Golden hauberk-mail; a helmet of kings, 

Which had passed to princes upon their thrones; 

And the Singing Sword, unsheathed to slay skulls. 

The king spoke to his servant this grave speech: 

“It shall be that we bear the last battle 

Unable to enterprise our army 

Against death, Old Future's cursed cousin. 

Were these elder days, and I a king of old, 

Our fate would have been unclouded, foretold 

And prepared, to spare me polluted dreams; 

To spare me seeking of signs under stones, 

Or in dew droplets on the morning grass; 

To spare me masked enemies of much might 

Whom I must sift with a sword to save us; 

And yet salvation slips now like a snake 

Leaving us poor poisoned paws, imperiled, 

Awaiting entrance to Future's dark hall. 

But let us rush, rush! Rush his wide embrace, 

And turn these tyrants also to his arms! 

Let Narn lie alone in night's bright blackness 

Without a sun's day, if doomsday take it,

Yet these rodent rats shall not return here." 

Then sang the sun a song for Mikkeltar, 

But distant and sad, in skies of other lands. 

ow was the hour for final farewells: 

Tallak did bespeak his heart: “Dear brother, 

“Favorite friend, my fellow from the womb: 

Let us memorate and mourn for Mousgard, 

For saved or lost by flame, we may leave it 

This night, never again to know its joys.” 

And Kollok replied: “Let us briefly clap paws, 

Sons of Mirtie our mother, to meet her 

In the fog of Future, if Fate allows; 

Or if we live, to venture travel 

Narngaren again, to near our lost house 

Where father potters with pestles and pans.” 

So they said farewell, confirmed with a clasp; 

So too the others.