The winter winds raged outside, but within the caverns of the mountain dwarves beneath the Kharolis Mountains, the fury of the storm was not felt. As the Thane called for silence among the assembled dwarves and humans, a dwarven bard stepped forward to do homage to the companions.
SONG OF THE NINE HEROES
From the north came danger, as we knew it would:
In the vanguard of winter, a dragon's dance
Unraveled the land, until out of the forest,
Out of the plains they came, from the mothering earth,
The sky unreckoned before them.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.
One from a garden of stone arising,
From dwarf-halls, from weather and wisdom,
Where the heart and mind tide unquestioned
In the untapped vein of the hand.
In his fathering arms, the spirit gathered.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined,they arose
Into the heart of the story.
One from a haven of breezes descending,
Light in the handling air
To the waving meadows, the kender's country,
Where the grain out of smallness arises itself
To grow green and golden and green again.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.
The next from the plains, the long land's keeping,
Nurtured in distance, horizons of nothing.
Bearing a staff she came, and a burden
Of mercy and light converged in her hand:
Beating the wounds of the world, she came.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.
The next from the plains, in the moon's shadow,
Through custom, through ritual, trailing the moon
Where her phases, her wax and her wane, controlled
The tide of his blood, and his warrior's hand
Ascended through hierarchies of space into light.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.
One within absences, known by departures,
The dark swordswoman at the heart of fire: