THE DARKEST HOUR: SONNET

1.
Out of the darkened breath of winter rides
A mighty host on horses like the night;
The seven-pointed star above them glides
On banners black and glittering with light.
Unearthly beauty in their tossing hair,
In pounding hooves and gleaming manes and flanks,
In laughter sweet and colder than the air,
All mankind's nightmares riding in the ranks.
Through ice-locked streets and alleys full of snow,
Through empty parks and frost-enshrouded glades,
Their swords and spears aflame in eldritch glow,
Their eyes as bright and deadly as their blades.
  Around us hear the cries of battle roar:
  I know that we have been here once before.

2.
I know that we have been here once before:
The weight of years lies heavy on my heart,
So many years, so many, since the war
That ripped our kingdom and our world apart.
Seas rose and sank, land sank and rose again
Uncounted myriads of mortals died
Ten thousand years of banishment since then
And still you care for nothing but your pride.
This second war will not be like the first,
To devastate the world we fight to win;
This time against Unseelie host accursed
Stand warriors of merely mortal kin.
  Yet in their seeming weakness lies the key,
  Of mortal races speaks the prophecy.

3.
Of mortal races speaks the prophecy
That tells how the Unseelie Lord may fall;
Gargoyle and human in a unity
Against the one who seeks to slay them all.
In mortal terror and immortal rage
That lesser folk should keep him from his own,
He fights such unity in every age,
In spilling blood and shattering of stone.
A clan allied with humans in one place --
Or is this union of another kind,
Two mortal heroes, one of either race,
Two hearts, two lives, forever intertwined?
  Or could there be another way to read
  The words that all of us are bound to heed?

4.
The words that all of us are bound to heed
Are buried under centuries of shame
Too long in exile, far too long indeed
Imprisoned, banished, stripped of rank and name
Some scattered to the fringes of the earth,
Some bound in iron against the fated day,
Their leaders, queen and lord of noble birth,
Lay crippled with their magic torn away.
What matter that he coveted your wife?
What wonder that he lives now but to kill?
My son, your brother, bitter all his life,
Yet never your inferior in will.
  In such a state you sentenced him to live;
  What made me think that somehow he'd forgive?



5.
What made me think that somehow he'd forgive,
That I could end this war ere it began?
My chances gone like water through a sieve,
As helpless now as any child of man.
Tell either of you to give up this fight?
As well persuade the moon give up the tide;
I've known you better since before the night
I loved, and looked you in the eye, and lied.
There's few enough at Court who even knew
I was a wife before I was a queen.
I watch now; little else that I can do
To save my sons or aught that lies between,
  With powerless entreaties or commands.
  This time the power lies in mortal hands.

6.
This time the power lies in mortal hands:
In southern jungle waits the man-turned-beast,
The guardian dancers in the desert lands,
The wizard in the regions to the east.
With reawakened heroes at his beck
The king will guard his island once again,
The silent clay man rises to protect,
The silver man stands ready to defend.
And everywhere as shadows of the night
Come drifting downward with the falling snow,
Stone cracks and yields, and gargoyles take flight
All wielding iron against their common foe.
  My people give the only help they may
  Behind the lines, before the coming day.

7.
Behind the lines, before the coming day,
Both sides prepare to tread the battle's path
The hoodie-crow makes ready to betray
The young-old wizard to his father's wrath.
Unseelie minions seek the final piece
And hound two mortals through the shivering street
That in this final hour of their release
They need not fear the knell of their defeat. 
The changed ones cringe beneath their master's heel,
Torn loyalties of lover and of friend...
On this one night all prophecies are real,
On this one night ten thousand years will end;
  And destiny that no illusion hides
  Out of the darkened breath of winter rides.