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You burned the nalwood before dawn,

And marked the sons of Tanith gone.

Yet home survives in names we keep,

In songs we teach and vows we speak.

The pipes recall each hidden glen,

Straight silver changes hands again.

Home lives in what the Ghosts renew,

In every custom carried through.

Nalwood shifted under mist,

Rain beaded where the branches kissed.

The pipes called out from glen to glen,

And guided woodland travelers in.

Tanith Magna woke to trade,

Sacra poured and bargains made.

Straight silver rested close at hand,

A woodsman’s blade throughout the clans.

Three regiments mustered, packs in rows,

Nalwood stocks beneath black clothes.

Before departure could begin,

The Chaos warfleet closed them in.

Gaunt chose the lives the ships could bear,

While bombardment stripped the forests bare.

The Ghosts would curse the choice he made,

Yet every curse came from men saved.

The troopships climbed; the world grew small,

And silence settled through them all.

Each Ghost carried what remained:

A voice, a custom, and a name.

You burned the nalwood before dawn,

And marked the sons of Tanith gone.

Yet home survives in names we keep,

In songs we teach and vows we speak.

The pipes recall each hidden glen,

Straight silver changes hands again.

Home lives in what the Ghosts renew,

In every custom carried through.

Cameleoline drank foreign rain,

And broke their outlines through the cane.

Through hive and trench, through marsh and fen,

The scouts slipped past the watching men.

Straight silver flashed at arm’s-length range,

A woodland skill on worlds made strange.

One cut, one breath, one sentry fell;

The column passed without a shell.

The pipes rose thin above the guns,

A Tanith air for absent sons.

Brin Milo played the old refrain,

And every Ghost recalled the rain.

They traded place-names after shift,

Each syllable a guarded gift.

A farm, a joke, a lover’s face

Kept Tanith present in that place.

“Feth” joined “gak” in barrack speech,

While sacra passed from bunk to breach.

A curse, a drink, a piping air—

Small customs proved their world was there.

Vervunhive stood gutted, scarred,

Its dead lay deep in shattered yards.

Macaroth’s Act gave each a say,

And many chose the Ghosts that day.

The Tanith watched with guarded eyes

As hive-born ranks increased their size.

The new recruits could feel the strain:

They wore the black, but lacked the name.

Women took the black as well,

Some read lips since Zoican shells.

They learned the cant, the signs, the drills,

And earned their place through nerve and skill.

Straight silver passed to hive-born hands,

Cameleoline crossed new lands.

They learned no woodland craft at birth;

Their service proved their Tanith worth.

A hive-born scout earned Tanith trust,

Reading tracks through rain and brush.

The old divide began to mend,

As shared campaigns made kin of them.

Tanith passed through chosen hands

And grew beyond its founding clans.

The world they mourned became a vow:

Carry its customs forward now.

You counted farms and ruined towns;

We counted names passed safely down.

You measured conquest by the slain;

We measured customs that remained.

You ended root and shattered roof;

The marching Ghosts became the proof.

You claimed the people disappeared;

Their pipes kept Tanith present here.

Each true-born Ghost who meets his end

Takes something none can fully mend:

A hunter’s sign, a market phrase,

A face remembered from younger days.

The roster marks one trooper lost,

Yet Tanith pays a deeper cost:

A bird-call known to one old scout,

A hidden glen he could point out.

One voice leaves the evening song;

One childhood disappears with him.

A family story reaches its end;

A memory leaves with one old friend.

The Ghosts repay each killer’s due

With silent shots the leaves let through.

Yet vengeance cannot seed a tree

Or teach the lost man’s history.

A world once rooted under boughs

Now lives within the Ghosts’ shared vows.

By birth or choice, through service earned,

Each Ghost receives what elders learned.

When final Tanith-born voices are gone,

The pipes can carry Tanith on.

Another hand will bear the blade;

Another voice will name each glade.

You burned the nalwood before dawn,

And marked the sons of Tanith gone.

Yet home survives in names we keep,

In songs we teach and vows we speak.

The pipes recall each hidden glen,

Straight silver changes hands again.

Home lives in what the Ghosts renew,

In every custom carried through.

Each fallen Ghost takes more than breath;

Their private Tanith dies with them.

Each chosen Ghost receives the name

And carries Tanith on campaign.

Ask where Tanith can be found:

Where Ghosts move without a sound.

In every voice that names a glen,

In every blade passed hand to hand.

Tanith became the people here.

Tanith marches with us.