The Wild Hunt

Julie Shiel

In the darkest of night,
at the last midnight hour
The Furious Host
hunts for flesh to devour.
They chase mortal men
with their fire eyed hounds
through the forest and field,
over blood hallowed grounds.
Their leader, he rides
on a stallion of black,
sparks fly from its hooves
as he mounts his attack.
He’s followed by legions
of the damned and the lost,
as they ride in the dark
wearing armor grown mossed.
The horn blowers rally
at the newly-dead’s cries,
as a murder of crows
seeks to pluck out their eyes.
They hunt through the darkness,
through the tops of the trees,
and sniff out their prey
with the greatest of ease.
And when the Wild Hunt
nears its predestined fate,
the hunted ones pray
for their souls, but too late,
for even as bodies
are bloodied and torn
their ghosts join the host
of the damned as they mourn.