Udulo's Rise by Adam White, Poet

Time. Time is a fickle beast who would see us fall

And laugh again like she laughed at our fathers passed.

Her hand does pluck the strings of everything we do

And she is not alone in her cruel, meddling ways.

Through emotion and our own wanton selfish acts

We cut a path through life that has only one end,

Invisible to all save our own mortal grace,

Inspired by the web weaved through all our waking days.

Many walk on, undaunted by this final truth

Until the telling is told by their aching bones

And, weary, they lay down to take their final rest

Terrified of all they ignored until too late.

But this is not the road for every living man.

Some hesitate to walk at all, ever in fear,

Where others, undaunted, sprint for the finish line,

And precious few choose eternity over fate.

What follows is the story of a man who did

And the trials on his quest for most eternal life,

The blood he spilled in the name of selfish desire

And of a warrior who would oppose him so.

But not always were these two men destined for this

And like all things there story has a humble start

Of soldiers singing songs of glory great,

Before diving in to disaster down below.

But wait. Before we even come to talk of this,

Let us speak again most fondly of our mistress, Time.

Her nails tapping loudly on her looking glass

As she, unentertained, so wearily looks on.

Upon it's mirrored surface, these two men stand tall,

Of different times and different motives, ways and thoughts,

Who, by her grace alone, could be remade as gods

And see all of their petty, mortal concerns gone.

On one side, large, powerful and feline, he stood

Firm of feature and clearly too of iron will.

Handsome and Adonis-like with his rusted skin.

His name is Morrovore and he wears passion's guise.

Here, he works the fields as Mistress Time looks on,

Before dipping her finger in the polished glass,

And stirring up his lifetime to please herself the more

Making him a soldier, wars fires in his eyes.

The other man, a carpenter before this change

Would carve beautiful works of artistry in wood

Was changed as the ripples of fate washed over him

Erasing everything poor Udulo would be.

In his place lay a child near a broken home

Tears streaming down his distraught and disheartened face

Before Mistress Time waved the sorry boy away,

Deeming the soldier's tale more interesting to see.

The years of Morrovore's reign lost to us all.

Only tales of his strength and cruelty remain

To remind us of his most dark and heinous fall,

From legend to terror in the space of ten short years.

His most meteoric rise to head of state,

Then tainted by betrayal of the common good,

Mankind's spread across the bright and distant stars

Arrested as his greed for power became clear

He was opposed and cast down by more loyal men

But he escaped with many shamed and loyal kin,

Each the equal of any great warrior then

Fated to become murderers, every one of them.

These Void Ravens, pirates and villains to a fault

Wealthier, more savage than you'd care to imagine.

It is in this state that our story finds it start,

And on the world Apollo, war torn skies open.

Blue and beautiful, the open air reigns above
Green grass, covering vast vistas of howling winds,
Interspersed with great grey cities to house the brave,
Those travellers who chose new life among the stars.
With grand investment, the human race rode out
To settle worlds and start a better life anew,
With peaceful intent and a greater kind of heart
Than we have ever had for this sorry world of ours.
But no, their naive dream was doomed to fail,
And Apollo, like many worlds, stands divided now,
The ground torn up in chunks of smouldering sod,
The building just a maze of ruined concrete walls.
No remains but for the settlers weeping souls,
Hounded in to hiding by the traitors chattering guns,
Borne at the shoulders of Apollo's fallen kings,
Her soldiers corrupted by the hands of Morrovore.

But these short-sighted fools, in their hastened greed,
Were not the only men to hear her cries,
And so, in droves and crashing through her skies
Came the silver ships of good and righteous men.
Blazing with the holy fire of golden suns,
They raced toward Apollo's scarred and broken skin,
Like regal birds that soar through aquamarine skies,
Flying far to rescue their lost children found again.
Aboard one of these craft and lit by soft green light
Sat eleven heroes, ready to lay down,
And in the name of goodness fade and die
To protect the ideals man should represent.
Great honour, goodness and bravery sat among them,
And fear too, for no good heart would fail to quake
In the face of such terrible and unfair odds,
That they faced at the end of this, their great descent.

Their names, for many of them all that does remain,
Were known as follows, Lycus young and blunt,
The brothers twinned, Aeron and Acheron,
Mayala, silent, plain and beautiful,
Jonah, strong of heart, Gantz, a hardy soul
And Homer, the poet of them all.
Cezar of the strongest temperament,
He was their leader, solid as a wall.
Their sniper, Marcus, quiet in his ways,
Sat by his friends, the jokers, Rad and Craig.
Among these heroes sat their twelfth and true,
His name is Udulo, the only one
Among these heroes who's motive isn't clear.
Less humble duty or a sense of pride
Than a rage that's lived inside for many years
He'd wished revenge to be delivered, done.

Our Udulo, was once much his father's son,
Talented were his hands when working wood,
They lived at the frontier and carved a life,
With his mother there beside them, giving her love,
But this was not the life that fickle Time had touched,
This life was terminated by her petty hands,
As Morrovore, when Udulo was eight, did fall upon,
Their village, and cauterise Time's wound with flamed wreathed gloves.
Among the chaos, the child hid beneath his parents bed
And heard and witnessed his father's cruel demise,
While fighting against so many worthy foes
While his mother raped and broken and then finally dead.
Poor Udulo, his world on fire, dragged their bodies clear
And huddled to their cooling flesh for many days,
Unsleeping, unmoving until long absent rescue came
To harshly tear him from any life he may have lead.

His life was then set swiftly on a path unknown.
Whisked away by soldiers to a strange and greying place,
Where, like all younger orphans in these dark and trying times,
His days were bent now all towards the mighty craft of war.
The boy excelled and grew to be strong and broad and tall.
He also grew in to a furious lad, that no other could fell.
His temper often flailed about, rampant and unchecked
But rarely he acknowledged the loss that he raged for.
Ten years. Ten years had passed and on his proving day,
His day of birth as well as far as any other knew
He broke in single combat the quartermaster's blade,
Knocked his elder down and, graceless, beat on his own chest.
It was thus his fate was sealed and he was made a front line grunt,
Too impatient, too untrustworthy for any other work.
This suited Udulo just fine and at last he had his way,
He'd have his vengeance or die trying in his long and violent quest.

This led him to the eleven souls that sat around him then.
They had warred as one two times before and never lost a man.
As expert as soldiers could be, they knew each other's ways,
And his rage was made a weapon that his brothers knew to use.
They'd smashed a fort at Ebon Reach, which traitors made a home
And decimated Varrisport, a city lost to plague,
Confident, he cleaned his arms, so blind to things to come,
He never thought upon all the things he had to lose.
Ten years. Ten years since and he was galvanised,
Hardened and embittered at eighteen years of age.
His eyes were mirrored glass that made his foes consider well,
Inside their final seconds the great extent of all their sin.
Such relish he would find inside the coming hours kills,
For every body smashed would bear the face of his great foe.
Every scrap of Udulo's strong will was bent now to the day,
That he could crush Morrovore's throat until his monster's eyes would dim.