"No" said the dwarf
Stroking his beard
He would not bend
He would not tear
A single tear
Was all he wept
As he saw
All his people
by the reaper swept.
And now that king
A mongrel in wolf's hide
An oathbreaker
A bastard
A filthy swine
Repeated
" bow and you may live"
" I do not seek to kill your kind"
" only, to propagate mine. "
His baritone timbres
Like a brook of lies.
The dwarf stared
At the king
And proclaimed
" Ho, and what have you done?"
" To warrant your position "
The king smiled
And from beneath his belt
Drew a thin blade
Dyed crimson of blood
And death and destruction
In his eyes.
And challenge
He did
To a duel
The dwarf
A cripple.
But a dwarfs pride
Was larger than
The largest tree
And their memories
Deeper than the deepest seas.
And so prepared the dwarf
To engage in the futile battle
Yet a peace settled over him
As he drew his axe
And so he pointed
His axe not at the king
But at his chest
As his wisdom beheld.
And laughed
The dwarf
And impaled himself
That dwarf
And turned to stone
Did he
A stone of
A bright lapis.
And the King enraged
Smote his blade atop the stone
Shattering the blade
Fragment piercing his heart.
And so lay
The two kings
Dwarf and human
Short and tall
Yet the same crimson
Leached the floor
The same crimson
Contained in the stone.