h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thus launched that mighty black ship.
hewn from twisted boards of fallen oak.
Upon the backs of bound thralls
chained to the ocean's shore.
With a crack their spines sung,
shattered splinters of bones burst
and blood bled, staining the timbers.
Sea foamed red as crimson flowers
blossomed upon the gore covered prow.
Under Grave skies bereft of sun
sails raised loft to catch the chill northern winds
sent to haul that ship of slaughter
by its flayed flesh sails of sloughed skin
it made its journey, dragged by oar
rowed by hulking war-men.
faces scared with the years of battle
that have etched themselves upon worn flesh
their muscle and sinew tested with the
house of fervoured combat, for each man
knew the craft of murder and death,
Baptized in blood and raised in ways
of battle-blade and bitting axe.
Their mad eyes brimmed with murderous desire
breaking bodies with sword and club
gouging flesh and bone and hymns
of terror as screams exult their lord.
An outrage to persons whose pastured passions
led them to settled life,
for these men of death sought not
coin or gold, but looked across
those waves and sought the attention
of their bloodied god.
Lord of Iron and Brass
who smote with fury adorned with
skull and placed upon a towering throne.
His face dressed upon the sea-garment
that caught their ships path across the
sea, gore caked and dripping with unending blood,
thus his gruesome visage heralded the doom his
victims would be subject to.
Through the dark green sea they made
their way till headlands and cliffs made
themselves in sight, and so readied they
their mail shirts of hand bound chain,
whose work to guard the flesh from
wound and lesion, to deny the war sword
its hunger for bloody slaughter.
so too did they adorn themselves
with iron helm cast in shapes of hideous creatures
found in dream and visitations sent by the lords
that dwell in the warriors cursed land.
Their harsh blades dull and cruel
ready to carve flesh and cleaves through skull
and limb.
Hrothkalr drew his sword
his fell blade cast with flames fueled
with hearts of men, whose right
to be sacrificed tested in battle
their bones used to temper the burning iron
on the altar of murder, till only blackened
dust remained
and when crafted into a form of cruelty
quenched with the blood till it steamed away
so was made that mortal's sword
crafted from iron and flesh.
the skies heaved as the ship
approaced the shore ready to kill
and slaughter, the heavy sound of
thunder boomed as the bloody god
looked upon the coming battle,
his unending fury lashed the waves and
scared the earth, and sounding through th
maelstrom a long note blown from horn
announced this horde's coming.
Thus like the storm
they charged upon the coastway and reached
where lay a herd of weakling men
creating a din so brutal in sound
the folk thought a great beast
laid seige to their holm, and gave
in return their own screams of terror
and no less was their fear when they
saw the truth of the great cry
and when they saw too the hideous
blood soaked image of the hateful lord
worshiped by the war-men.
With the lowing of horn the battle-brothers
did herald the nascent carnage

with praises and laudations
to the blood god, boasting of coming deeds
as they sank into bloody veneration,
deep did they slide into that dark dedication
as deep as their swords gnawed flesh
and limbs hacked from bone,
bodies lay scattered into the earth wet
with gore and viscera.
Hrothkalr took each man by his throat,
delighting in the fear he beheld