Then, Thousands!

Rost propelled himself on one hand for forty miles,

And with the other for forty more. In this manner,

He crossed the Sea of Quietude, which was itself

Spitefully away from the light of day. Rost wore heavy

Armor fashioned from metal baking dishes and duct tape,

And he carried his sword through his chest.

 

Rost’s sword, the legendary Kyulchtr-chyutra

Was the bread-cleaver of a dwarf-giantess. with a ruby

Pommel and a claw-hilt for creaming butter.

Rost had fandango’d with the giantess for the privilege

So long as he promised to keep it close to his heart;

His sternum became its new sheath.

 

The sea was not water. Rost was careful not to drink

A drop of the dark he swam through.

To do so would sink him to the bottom,

Dead beyond death,

Where even the entropy slept.

He was very tired.

 

To get here, he had cursed the moon-lit sky six times as life left through

The sucking wound where Kyulchtr-chyutra slept.

The ground he cursed six times more, and he walked until

The world peeled from him and he fell through soft

Breezes, slowing as his feet broke the surface

And he was in the dark of the Sea.

 

The empty sun that hung overhead

Was a white ring that sung dim light

On Rost and helped illuminate his destination.

For what might have been a day he swam two hundred miles,

Falling into a slave stupor, his head bobbing lower

And lower with each and every stroke.

 

The horrible scratching of jagged glass against his chest

Woke him up, and he stood up on the eternal shore of silence.

It was obsidian that in the dim light had a shine

That made the coast look paved with lightning.

He pulled the sword out of his chest

And coughed.

 

Rost walked away from the coast, his left arm dragging

His sword behind him, leaving a thin trail in the glass.

Soon he was stepping on flat black stone and vicious little creatures

Came out to meet him. He forced his point and rivulets of blood

Wrapped themselves around the horns of the beheaded strewn like crumbs behind Rost.

He did not come for them; they were taken without hesitation.

 

In this twilight kingdom there was no

Horizon waiting, only a clear dark that hung

Over the empty space.

The only sight, beside the sun, to see were corpses

Of other men who came to face their demons

And did not make it so far.

 

Rost walked into a field of gravestones and

The natives of this other world began to keep

A healthy distance away from the man.

Rost could not read the names of the lost

And forgotten had come so far, only to bury

Themselves alive with their own melancholia.

 

Past the stones, Rost found his quarry

Wrapped around the steeple of a burnt church.

It was an ancient dragon, long bearded

And emaciated from the ages.

Rost raised Kyulchtr-chyutra and issued

Silent challenge to the dragon.

 

“I am the Grand Holy!

I am the Melchizedek and Melchior!

I am What Is and All That Was!”

said the dragon.

“I am Maker of Flames

And my name is Rex!”

 

“My name is Rost.

I am a man.

I come from above.”

said Rost.

“This sword is not mine,

But I’ll have your life.”

 

The dragon unwound itself from the church,

Beating gales with its wings and gathering

Breath in its terrible maw, many miles above.

Rost stood firm with Kyulchtr-chyutra

And the sword flourished,

Hastening the wind down.

 

Fire rained down

Out the dragon’s mouth,

Smoke and lightning clouding its face.

Rost covered his head and the cold steel

Of Kyulchtr-chyutra took in the flames,

Smelling of blood and bread freshly baking.

 

Rost pressed forward while the dragon

Was blind from its expulsions

And removed one of its toes.

He watched the pain quickly climb up

The long of the dragon,

Arching its back and forcing its roar.

 

Down came a claw, and off it went too.

Down came the maw, and the dragon

Hesitated before Rost’s sword.

Rost thrust Kyulchtr-chyutra forward

And cut into its jaw, the blade finally meeting

A match worth fighting.

 

Rost was flailed back and forth as

The dragon tried to knock the sword

Off of its face. Rost took a breath and

In the middle of the tussle found

Just the right angle to fling himself down

The throat of the beast.

 

The dragon heaved and coughed

With enough force that both Rost

and Kyulchtr-chyutra were thrown

Back to the stone-field where the corpse-trail

and head-path remained.

The dragon came soon.

 

Rost took up the sword again

With a resolute face.

He stared down the dragon as it glared.

There was a chittering noise,

tiny and fierce.

Rost heard it around him.

 

From the north came the dragon

And from the west came that noise

That in the south was just echo’d

But the east made in stereo.

Rost held his blade firm when

East came the first dragonling.