Promises

Just like blood on my hands

The badger sat alone, on a field of red. Carcasses littered the ground, a broken spear dangled from a huge paw. Red blood splattered on black stripes, eyes brown now that the Bloodwrath had left. He said he had given up the ways of a berserker, but he had lied. He said he would join his wife at the Abbey, but he had lied

And words are like poison

That sinks down inside

And some things you do

You just don't understand

His brow knitted, what was this soul tearing rage that came and ate him, twisted him, turned him into something awful? Was it the sight of hated foes, the lust to win? What, and why? His promise of peace now seemed meaningless, an empty shell.

I offer no reason,

I ask for no pity

I make no excuse

For the way that I am

He was a badger, and in his in the very fiber of his being, the was, and had always been an urge to seek out evil and destroy it. He could not fight his heritage, he was badger warlord born and bred. He ran a paw across the stripes on his face, the Bloodwrath was a part of him, just as his stripes.

And words are like poison

That sinks down inside you

And some things you do

You just don't understand

How peaceful he had felt, there with the kind creatures of the Abbey. But danger made itself known, and he was needed to destroy the danger. His sword, the very symbol of destruction, stood in a sand dune, blood crusting on it in the blazing sun.

If God is my witness

Then God is my savior

But you are my judge

Then I'm already damned

It was a looked upon as a sin to commit acts of wonton killing, and peace and love were praised by the Higher Power, but here he was, just a mortal in his middle seasons, and the evidence for the trial of the Eternal all around him.

And words are like poison

That sinks down inside you

And some things you do

You just don't understand

He rubbed grit from his tired eyes and looked slowly around. Here, a stoat in rags, eyes open, fangs bared in a scream. There, a hare, one of the badger's former captains, still holding his battle-axe in a rigor mortis grip. All of these deaths had been his fault, it didn't matter now if they were goodbeasts or corsairs.

And would if my fingers

To cut off and give you

Could gain my redemption

I'd cut off my hands

He thought now of his beloved wife. She was the only thing dear to his heart. She hated battle, didn't understand warfare, and thought of it as disgusting when the Bloodwrath captured him, made him laugh with a terrible anger. His paws, that so tenderly held her when they made love, had held death. How he cursed those paws

But words are like poison

That bends you and blinds you

And some things you do

You just don't understand

Wrath made him horrible. It was amazing, one moment he could be peaceful, playing with infants. The next moment, the stench of war could make him crazy, and he would kill, without mercy, those same infants, if they got in his way.

So this is my story

And I hope that it finds you

For your sweet attention

I cannot demand

He rose to his feet, the whole of his massive body burning, as if engulfed by flames. A single tear rolled down his face at the terror he had created. He turned to the mountain on the sand, he could never go back to the Abbey, for the shame would tear him apart. He would write his wife, tell her what happened. It was not her fault if she never wanted to see him again.

And words are like poison

That lives down inside you

And some things you do

You just don't understand

A crimson sun set over a field of blood. The Bloodwrath, calmed and subsided for the moment, still burned in him, his mind, his gut, his lungs. Only time would tell when it would rise again.