Colyne Stewart, Oct AS XXXVII (2003)
Once the leaves were scarlet, once the leaves were red,
Once our King was living, but now the Khan is dead.
One sunny day in fall time he went out on the hunt,
Setting out on horseback, riding to the front
With his loyal guardsmen and Duchess by his side.
He set upon the game trail; t’would be his final ride.
An arrow whistled from the dark and struck him in the eye,
A hero from the steppe-lands, a hero meant to die.
Bahadur we called him, knight in Western lands,
Keen with wit and wisdom, generous with his hands.
A man like this makes enemies of unseelie souls,
These creatures hated goodness, they hated lofty goals,
And so they sent an archer of hate and shadow formed,
Hidden in the red trees past which hunters stormed.
Once the leaves were scarlet, once the leaves were red,
Once our King was living, but now the Khan is dead.
Carried by the Kashek, carried to his Queen,
His body placed upon the grass, red upon the green.
The people then they grieved him, railed against their loss,
Cried for Sarnac Bahadur, who bled upon the moss.
Some say they saw his glowing shade dressed in snowy white
Watching as his followers bemoaned their awful plight.
He kneeled beside his children, as Roak took the Crown,
His noble face lost in the grass, his hands upon the ground.
And as his children stepped away, the Khan began to fade,
Leaving naught but steel-clad bone within the leafy glade.
Once the leaves were scarlet, once the leaves were red,
Once our King was living, but now the Khan is dead.
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