The Law of the Hunted is “guard your own back,
For the enemy strikes from behind.”
The Law of the Greedy is “trust no one else,
Hide and hoard anything that you find.”
The Law of the Hater is “crush and destroy,”
And the Law of the Bigot is “kill.”
But the Law of the Herald is “faith, hope and trust,”
And the strength of the Herald is will.

All these Laws I have learned from the first to the last

From the ones who would teach me they’re true—
And full many the ones who taught anger and fear,
But the ones who taught hope—they were few.
And I ask myself, “Which is the Law I must take,
Fitting truth as a hand fits a glove?”
Then I chose, and I never looked back from that day,
For the Law of the Heralds is “Love.”

THE FACE WITHIN

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Kristoph Klover and Larry Warner

(Dirk and Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

The Weaponsmaster has no heart; his hide is iron-cold

His soul within that hide is steel; or so I have been told.

His only care is for your skill, his only love, his own.

And where another has a heart, he has a marble stone.

That’s what the common wisdom holds, but common is not true.

For there is often truth behind what’s in the common view.

And so it is the Herald’s task that hidden truth to win

To see behind the face without and find the face within.

He goads his students into rage, he drives them into pain;

He mocks them and he does not care that tears may fall like rain.

He works them when they’re weary, and rebukes them when they fail—

Cuts them to ribbons with his tongue, as they stand meek and pate—

And will our enemies be fair, or come on us behind?

And will they stay their tongues or in their words a weapon find?

Or wait till we are rested before making their attacks?

Or will they rather beat us down and then go for our backs?

But he has no compassion, does not care for man nor beast—

And when a student’s gone, he does not notice in the least—

And no one calls this man their love, and no one calls him friend

And none can judge him by his face, or what he may intend.

But I have seen him speak the word that brings hope from despair—

Or drop the one-word compliment that makes a student care—

And I have seen his sorrow when he hears the Death Bell cry—

His soul-deep agony of doubt that nothing can deny—

For on his shoulders rests the job of fitting us for war

With nothing to give him the clue of what to train us for.

And if he fails it is not he that pays, but you and I—