The Sand King
Crixalis, Soul of the Sand
Long ago in the distant sands
Lived a great king who ruled the lands.
One day atop the walls of his place,
He noticed a shadow, a smokey trace.
A fiendish spirit that promised the king
Of unspeakable powers to defend his kin.
Apprehensive of the offer presented,
He rejected the apparition, but soon resented.
For his kingdom lay besieged for days,
By hellish creatures of wicked ways.
They flung rotting corpses and infected blood,
The castle with a perilous disease did flood.
As his men succumbed and cities burnt,
The righteous king from his mistake learnt.
Pride and anger had played their part,
Fear and desperation now claimed his heart.
A call of jihad he now raised,
And summoned the apparition which now gazed.
With a chilling touch it laughed and said,
You shall be invincible and never be dead.
As the king began to lose control,
In pain and agony did his body roll.
Limbs grew out from his flesh and skin,
And tore apart his form from within.
The metamorphosis was of epic proportions;
With arcane energies and mystic distortions.
The king lay dead or so it seemed,
But crimson light from the throne room sheened.
Skin hardened to the strength of steel,
And grew six scimitar legs which could feel
The slightest movement in the sands,
As serrated pincers claimed his hands.
As the six eyes opened and his forceps flinched,
The sight of the enemy horde he glimpsed.
With ravenous rage he lunged ahead,
Shattering chains of fate Crixalis dread.
Winds wailed and picked up sand,
And shrouded the creature majestic grand.
The very earth struck open as the beast did burrow,
Filled with fury to end all sorrow.
It ripped apart the enemy ranks,
Blistering sand covering their flanks,
And cut through monster and vermin alike,
Nothing but death was now in sight.
It lashed its tail and flailed around,
Files of men were strewn around.
Under its wrath the very Earth did quake,
Sending fissures in its malevolent wake.
Some severed, others crushed.
With clawing speeds the sands did rush.
Some found themselves lucky to faint,
As the dunes were covered with crimson paint.
The final few tried to flee hell’s keeper,
Powerless against the scorpion reaper.
Not a battle, but a massacre in every alley,
The rampage neared its caustic finale.
As the storm settled the people saw,
A red eyed beast with a gaping maw.
Chanting the language of the desert winds,
Its bloody body a trophy of sins.
An impenetrable carapace covered in red,
And broken spears; blades of the dead.
Barbed pincers sported impaled skulls,
The land absorbing arms of the culled.
And with it the beast was slowly swallowed;
Into the dunes of golden sands it bellowed.
And before its head was finally covered,
The whole city from shock recovered.
After a fiendish laugh that paralyzed all,
Both Man and Beast at dusk’s fall,
Even the dunes lay still, no wind stirred;
A reign of terror, finally curbed.
Now remain legends and tales of vice,
Of the king that made the greatest sacrifice,
Honouring the day malevolence was quelled,
For eternity in the abyss he dwelled.
Tranquil and peaceful, life went on,
No malice, no treachery, no satanic spawn.
But rumors still speak that in the time of need,
The cries of the people the king will heed.
And the beast will surface again uncrowned,
An epicenter of agony and pain to be drowned.
To make an example of his enemies then,
The Sand King will reign again.
This poem was written in collaboration with Nacho Sirius.
