O Broken Pass, keep watch, let no new banners pass
In Kiyokami's vault, beneath the bruised sky's glass,
Two sons of Yotsu stood at the Broken Pass,
Wulf with eyes of storm and Benjamin with rune-dark hand,
They faced the Empire's iron and the shadowed marching band.
The wind smelt a smoke of oil of men long spent,
Blisters on palms, dwindling bread, the cold of nights unbent,
So sings the ridge of Wulf's bright flair, and Ben's dark rune in midnight air.
Seven days they held, six long nights of frost and flame,
Watchfires guttered low, the hunt's glamer calling names,
Hear the iron tearing, the horses last lament,
Hold the line, keep the pass, their breath a sacrament.
O Broken Pass, where two stood tall and would not fall,
Against ten thousand voices they answered the battle call.
Wulf's thunder sparks split the iron, hide foes undone,
Ben's shadow run lament, lay low the marching sun.
Raise your cup and sing for courage, carve the stone,
The pass remembers how they kept the nation home.
On the third day's dawn, the Empire's iron beasts advanced,
Plates like blackened mountains, gears that gleamed and chanced,
Wulf struck the sky, thunder, forge sparks leapt from his hand,
They bit the tank's cold bellies, made the iron beasts unmanned.
Benjamin's dark syllables, rap men in sable thread,
They fell like autumn leaves, and yet the earth took bread.
The smell of cordite mingled with rain and with blood,
Steel-grown bones cracked, the world was carved in mud.
But victory is a blade that cuts both edge and wrist,
They felled the ranks and filled the ground with names on lists,
Beneath the rout the sorrow lingered, a slow and patient ache for every light,
Ben whispered, a hundred candles break.
O Broken Pass, your stones are stained with twilight's hush,
Ten thousand dreams fell silent in the Empire's crushed rush,
Wulf's barks like coldly iron husks are scarred and spent,
Ben's runes still smolder where the lads to earth were sent,
Sing not just triumph's shout, but the hush after the fray,
That we remember all the cost and honor what they paid.
Now on the high road stands a statue, two in one,
Wulf's fist frozen, mid-light bends, cloak clasped as if night had won,
Below the road the broken tanks lay like ships run aground,
Mass graves mark the silent rows where the fallen met the ground,
I lay my palm upon the stone where their names are scored,
Feel the heat of memory, the hush of every sword,
Hear the mother's bellet dust the children's whispered prayers,
A memorial stands forever, a wound that time still wears.
Oh broken past, keep watch, let no new banners pass,
Let every traveler learn of courage sung in brass,
Wulf and Benjamin, your vigil cast in iron and rhyme,
Teach our sons to guard the peace and weigh the scales of time,
We praise the sparks and shadow runes, we mourn the lives it cost,
And guard the broken road where so much glory was lost.
Remember their names, let slow bells toll beneath the moon,
Wulf of Storm, Ben of Rune, their memory a rune,
Lay wreaths, kindle watch fires, let the bards forever pass,
The tale of how they held upon the broken past.
© transcript Emily Beynon
