The Desert Warriors
The Desert Warriors is a song from the Season 2 soundtrack of The Wheel of Time television series.
Lyrics
Verse 1
Old Tongue
Official English
Deep in the wastes
Spear firm in hand
Cover their face
Move through the sand
Literal Translation
waste, in deep
spear in hands
cover on face
move forward in sand
Notes
This song uses vaka'dar frequently, apparently a contraction of vakar dar, "forward move". The Aiel are known for moving extremely fast on foot, so this term may imply a certain speed or urgency to motion as opposed to strictly a direction.
Chorus
Old Tongue
danila vakar
hei vaka'dar
ji'e'toh
Official English
Keep moving
Ji'e'toh
Always moving
Ji'e'toh
Literal Translation
keep moving
ji'e'toh
always moving forward
ji'e'toh
Notes
No additional notes for this section.
Verse 2
Old Tongue
Official English
They move in the shade (of)
A forgotten past,
Forgoing the blade,
They fight to the last,
Literal Translation
they move in darkness
past forgotten
blade forgoing
move forward with honor
Notes
Here we see "man" used bare, instead of manshima or mandarb. Likely a melodic choice, but Old Tongue also frequently contracts words in this way. Meradula seems to mean "forgoing", connecting to mera (without).
Notably, the literal meaning of the last line is fairly different from the official English.
Verse 3
Old Tongue
ji'e'toh
Official English
Hearts hard as stone
The fierce warriors
The battle in their bones
Ji'e'toh
Literal Translation
hearts like cuendillar
brave spear dancers
the battle in (their) core
ji'e'toh
Notes
Qis is not found elsewhere; it seems to be a comparative in the vein of "as" or "like", similar to sene.