The Hound of Varus
The Hound of Varus, he was known
The whole length of the isle
With sword as sharp and pointy as
The fang in a demon’s smile.
Now, in the north of our sweet land,
Behind the fabled Wall
That keeps the Orks far from our homes
They strived to build a hall.
The hall was for their chieftain lord
To celebrate his lore
For he knew necromantic arts
That all good folk abhor.
His servants that attended him,
So ragged and so pale,
Were heroes he had killed, then raised,
Their blood poured in his ale.
But still the chieftain roared about
And would not hold his peace
For without the Hound of Varus,
His brew was not complete.
His minions then were soon sent out
The challenge to declare.
“The Orkish lord waits by the sea.
He waits for you, Hound, there.”
The Hound went down upon his knees
Prayed Varus for His strength.
The old boy said “Take up your sword,
And poison all it’s length”
“Poison?” spluttered Varus’ Hound.
“I cannot cheat to win.”
“Don’t be daft,” Varus declared.
“Have you seen the size of that thing?”
“I didn’t bring my people here,
Away from pampered fools,
To get them pointlessly killed
By sentimental rules”
So Hound passed through an apple grove
En route to the Ork lord’s shore
And nobody knew what he took from there,
Though his blade surely shone somewhat more.
The chieftain roared at the smell of blood,
And greeted his foe with a bray
That scared the very sun above
So midnight arrived in the day.
The battle raged for hours untold
And Ork and Man still fought
Til Hound slashed up with his treated blade
And the Ork lord’s blood he bought.
“Aie! I know I’m murdered now,
My dead watch where e’er you go
They said you went to the apple trees
For the poisoned seeds that grow.”
The Hound, he waited ‘til his foe
Was felled, and then he said,
"Was only harmless juice I took
From the poisoned brown seed's bed."
"A simple thing to trick my lord,
And simpler yet to trick your spy.
You've fallen as you thought you should.
It's from mere fright that you now die."
The Hound of Varus, he was known,
The whole length of the isle.
Not just lauded for his strength,
But also for his guile.
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