1. Knights Of The Burning Crypt

Mummified cavalry
Led by the European gleam
ride out of the dawn of a fevered dream

Hoofs on the sand ground
stirring the sleep of time
Death rides through the hills of searing thyme

Risen from the stone beds
with weapons gripped
Maces and Sables
Knights of the Burning Crypt

Headgear and breastplates
encrusted with ancient dust
Bones crossed to renounce the grind of lust

Bloodstained visors
blocking the rays of the sun
Fleshly hunger
craving to be undone

Swords raised
These are ghost of the Templar graves

2. He Who Speaks

Seated ruler
Golden rust
Time embracing
bone and dust

Woven cerecloth
Cranial mask
crowned with haulms of nightshade and
inscribed with glyphs of timeless dusk

Risen regent
Bonds undone
Spectral glory
Faceless one
Furtive mortuary
Clandestine cave
The monarch of the nightside realm
emerges from his restless grave

Tlatoani He who speaks
Tlatoani Ancient reek
Tlatoani Sepulchral breath
Tlatoani Crystallize the law of death

Sleeping ruins
Golden dusk
Cloak and dagger
sarcophagus
Desiccated
demigod
The lord of secret underworlds
is dreaming beneath the remains

Out of the dark we call you

3. Metamorphosis

Sedated and bated
Hovering on the verge of night
Heeding the whisper
that ravishes with delightful fright

Encircled by darkness
deafening any sense of doubt
Heavy and palpable
as the drape that shuts the deathbed out

In the thick of night
the sleep of reason instills the passion
to act on what's unright
Metamorfosis

Throats bared
Eyes wide shut
Bloodied teeth
Bottoms up

Elated and bruised up
Falling into the shadow light
where demons are waiting
to turn the rapture into blight

Exhumed from the darkness
explorers of an ageless route
confining perceptions
as the drapes that shuts the daylight out

The pyre is set alight
the dance of shadows produces monsters
coming into sight
Usurpers of the mind

4. Skull Prayer

With tears from the well in the mountain
and the gaze from the pestilence hearse
with a voice both whispering and shouting
come the words that were dug from the Earth

Ashem – Dava!
Ashem – Deva!

By the flowers that bloom on the grave hill
and the acid that frets in the snake
By the hue in the eye of the road kill
comes a witness between sleep and wake

Namtar! Allatu!
Namtar! Allatu!

chill my bones with liquid sooth
Fill my mouth with budding youth

By thee smoke wreaths that dance in the darkness
with the scent of the desert night
By the grin of the disinterred carcass
here's to demons that dwell out of sight

Ashem – Deva!
Namtar! Allatu!

5. Midnight Trial

Nightfall visitors
cruel inquisitors
Warriors of the crucifix

Tearing up the hinterland
Persecution out of hand
Holy lunatics

Outcast alchemist
Graveyard occultist
Baptized in the river Styx

Smoked out of her hiding hole
Strapped upon the gallows pole
Dead in 1666

Breaking through the crust
Rising from the Earth and dust
Desecrated recusant

Floating on the mist
A lady you cannot resist
Priestess of the covenant

Staring through a grid of rust
Whisperer of death and lust
Metal suited revenant

Wilder of Wallachian hex
Breathing down holy necks
Satan's ardent reverent

Midnight trial
Underworld arrival
Gallows survival
Chthonic revival

Dwelling in a twilight state
Driven by relentless hate
Haunter of the Christian Knave

Rapid eyelid sorceress
Princess of the wilderness
Riding on the theta wave

Nightmare of the bourgeois
Descending on the men of law
that miracles will have to save

A shadow shadowing wider and tall
winter, summer, spring and fall
Vengeance from beyond the grave

6. Revenants

Spectral shadows of noble blood awaken from their rest below the light
wicked flowers regressed to buds open in the European night
wayfarers on untrodden roads emerging from their sleep in swamp and cave
Highwaymen with heads unbowed return now from the plains beneath the grave

Neamh – mairbh Revenants on the storm
Neamh – mairbh Avengers with no shape or form

Hefaeras from the tombs of Prague floating through the subterranean maze
cloaked in robes of rain and fog they hover upon the water face
Forgotten servants with middling looks rising from the pages of the past
A horde of no-ones leave the books to read from living lips: "I'm aghast!"

Revenants Nightmares afloat in the rain
Revenants Storm of the nocturnal bane

Ascending from their Lethal sleep: dripping specters of the deep

7. Ghoul Wind

Night falls over hills and rural plains
Night calls to the sleeping bone remains

Every fourth moon for centuries
sees the charge of the ghoul wind raid
Midwinter and Walpurgis Night
and at Cimmerian August Shade

Lids creak as the corpses start to barge
Tombs speak in the draught
of the raider's charge

Unfortunate nights for centuries
as the moon wears cranial shade
bonfires burn for mercy
to fend off the spectral blade

Godless spirit raiders
ride the howling wind
Backwood grave invaders
resume their die hard sin

Screeching and yammering
with grins of vengeful might
Ghouls blaze across the sky tonight

Every fourth moon for centuries
sees the charge of the ghoul wind raid
May-Eve and Midwinter Blot
and at Cimmerian August Shade

8. Initiation Rite

A shadow dances in the stone hall
The spirit without a name
The prey that flits across the cave wall
is hunted down by ancient flames

Blood drops cast by the elder
contrast to the winter pale skin
the stains trail upward on the body
drawing the claw of the Djinn

Rites of the Fathers
Scriptures on skin
Delve into sin!
Black stale waters
Pike jaw grin
Let the animal in!

A howl from underneath the wolf hide
declares innocence dead
the drive that lurks where the beast hides
settles in the fair haired head

9. Scylla

Riding through the air she comes
lured with the smell of infant blood
to dance with Lapland witches while
the laboring moon eclipses at their charms

Fierce as ten furies
Terrible as Hell

Voluminous and vast
A serpent armed with mortal sting
Woman to the waist and fair
but ended foul in many a scaly fold

About her middle round: a hideous peal
a cry of Hell-hounds
with wide Cerberean mouths full loud
bark and howl within unseen

The adversary of God and Man
with thoughts inflamed of highest design
puts on wings and towards the gates of Hell
explores a solitary flight