The Breaths of Desolation

Nameless the slain on the shore
Tattered the banners of war
Ash clings to the breeze
Dark rivulets choke the sea
Verdant greens turn to fawn
Branches aflame in the dawn
A woodland caressed by the cruel hand of death
Sweet desolation's breath

Sky, bright and azure...
In your pale beauty, solace I sought.
O Earth, broken and bled...
This was no autumn - yet your leaves were stained with red.

Forth, into the fray!
A marshland of corpses, souls eaten away
Red mist is descending, filling the air
Steel meets steel, a blade finds my chest
In death we gaze skyward, half-sunk in the dirt
And as life deserts me a vision takes form: a dark figure rising as black banners soar

And over the fenlands in sussurant swells
Faint voices emerged from the silence that fell
And danced on and on in the grim firelight
Of fell auburn pyres stood over the night

Our spectres came forth from submerged tombs of sand
Eternal sojourners in dark sunless lands
The last who remember the battles we fought
The unblemished earth neath the scars that we've wrought

...and drift above...
...and drift so far above...

And I was the roots, and I was the stones
That twisted and wove round their fragmented bones
And I was the smoke, adrift with the breeze
In plumes I hung over the black oaken trees
And I was the branches, the forest untamed
Their corpses I cast in ethereal shade
Forgotten their sorrows, forgotten their names
I left them to rot in their frost-covered graves

And I was the stormwind, and I was the air
I lashed at the mountains in ancient despair
The stars smouldered on, then started to fade
Till all that remained was my dreadful black shape
And I was the flame, her radiant wrath
Excising the shadows our banners had cast
And I was her hatred, and I was unfurled
The breaths of desolation that swept through the world

To wear the scars of blasphemy
Accursed in death we'll forever be