The curtain wall is breached, Rejoice, it is not south-facing And we can sup and gorge In the false sense of asylum In the ancient whitewashed halls, The faceless grasp the levers On the death-infested wasteland Our warriors all lie gasping From distant strangleholds Of those that would destroy us: The artful foul deceivers. Scored out the motte a labyrinth Of dead-end shafts and dungeons An escape route for the traitors, A slow death for the exposers Of the trickery of our leaders, Who conspire in the subjugation Of confederates and kinfolk, Our children born to serfdom That stalks the near future; Unless their guild is broken, There will be no sovereign nation. The bailey is now a crucible Of mistrusting vying tribes What took centuries to build Is deconstructed by the hour There is fear from without, There is fear from within The menacing siege towers wait, Giant mutants in the storm, For the infighting to break, Once the young men have been starved The killing will begin. From a mighty wooden watchtower A sentinel screams and cries He sees the stark futility And so plots his own demise In the tarnished halls of justice Laws are brought in from outside By hooded grotesque riders In collusion with our leaders That claim to be the protectors But only ever enrich themselves And their conspirators far and wide. The illusion is one of fairness Bread and circuses, justice for all The knights are paraded as heroes, Battle-worn, beaten and lame Applaud from the puppet masters Whom never a battle have seen As the shadow of propaganda Falls on demoralised youth Dredged up from the murky moat "A suicide victim again", Quips the spymaster's killing machine. Far away in the silver birch forest, The sun melts the crystals of ice That cling to the branches all winter Then drip to the frosty wood floor A stag lifts his giant antlered head, Each frozen breath stirs the air He grunts and detects the sly hunter As an arrow speeds forth from the bow His hooves tread the crisp brown leaves One last time as he slumps to the ground And the life drains away in the stare. The constable briefs the elite guard In the armoury wing of the keep Rebellion and protest will be crushed As he kisses a gleaming sword Knights sworn to sacred allegiance Will cut down their own if required For power and land is dominion In the kingdom soon to come When gods are returned to the earth And the guild is secret no more And the serf knows not he is one. How could it have come to this: The enemy move among us? The gatehouse quickly crumbles, No sign of its former splendor The flags are weathered and torn For us old enough to remember The pride and warmth in belonging To a throng of master masons That would shape and build a future That was stolen by the usurpers, Without war and without surrender. In the chapel a young man whispers To one from a silver birch forest The Castle cannot be taken, For blood was spilt by the ancestors, And flows in the secret places Where life drains away in the stare In the forest an army is mustering, On the hills the dead kings are rising, The day of the traitor is ending, The enemy will be ruined, But for now they remain unaware.