[Intro]
[Low bass plays the descending motif beneath mallet toms and sustained guitar chords.]

[Verse 1]
Morning came colourless over field.
White gathered on buckler and shield.
A sword stood upright where earth held the blade;
Its owner lay near it, already half shade.
Frost filled his beard and the cuts in his glove.
Beside him lay a dove-shaped brooch.
I copied its pattern and marked the place,
Then brushed the cold crystals away from his face.

[Chorus]
Frost Covers the Fallen, but not whom we call,
White on the sword-edge, the fur and the wall.
Frost Covers the Fallen and smooths every scar.
We speak each name clearly, wherever they are.
Let winter take footprints, let snowfall take form.
It will not take memory while one voice stays warm.

[Verse 2]
A healer moved slowly with charcoal and hide,
Recording the tokens we laid at her side:
A buckle of bronze and a red wooden bead,
A ring cut with barley, a pouch full of seed.
The seed had come dry through the battle and sleet,
Still safe in its leather, still fit to be wheat.
She gave it to children and tightened the cord:
"Let grain be his marker. He needs not a sword."

[Verse 3]
We found young Arn beneath two men from the south,
His warning still frozen half-formed in his mouth.
The wolves had not touched him; they watched from the rise,
With hunger made patient and frost in their eyes.
I took back the waterskin tied at his waist,
The one I had given in smoke-darkened haste.
Its leather bore tooth marks, its mouthpiece was worn.
He drank while he ran with his warning before dawn.

[Bridge]
We could cut no graves through the iron-hard plain.
Each carried a token and learned several names.
When one of us travelled beyond that white frame,
The dead crossed the weather beside us by name.

[Instrumental Break]
[Lead guitar and bowed lyre alternate a slow funeral melody over the bass motif and measured tom procession.]

[Verse 4]
The king found a warrior whose fingers still wound
Around the red banner he pulled from the ground.
The silver-thread raven was darkened with mud,
Its torn wing stuck fast with melted snow and blood.
He freed it with water warmed close to his skin,
Then folded the cloth with the tokens within.

[Final Chorus]
Frost Covers the Fallen, but not whom we name,
Not Torvald the hammer, not Ragna in flame.
Frost Covers the Fallen, turns red earth to white.
We carry their tokens beyond this cold night.
Let winter take footprints, let snowfall take form.
Their names cross the weather in voices kept warm.
