[Intro]
[Low guitars and floor toms establish an alternating rowing pulse.]

[Verse 1]
We pushed the keel through plates of ice,
Each broken sheet returned us twice.
The oarlocks groaned, the wet ropes froze,
Salt gathered white beneath our clothes.
The torn boar snapped above the stern,
Too stiff with cold to twist or turn.
Behind, the hall was smoke and land;
Ahead, no fire marked the strand.

[Refrain]
Across the Black Fjord, pull and breathe,
Cold above the gunwale, darker underneath.
Across the Black Fjord, blade and oar,
Every stroke takes something we cannot restore.

[Verse 2]
Ravens followed half the day,
Then wheeled toward the northern bay.
We found an ash heap near the shore,
Three fish heads and a boot-print score.
Ketil’s band had left in haste;
One broken buckle marked their trace.
I held it up and felt no joy,
Only the cold bite through the alloy.

[Refrain]
Across the Black Fjord, pull and breathe,
Cold above the gunwale, darker underneath.
Across the Black Fjord, blade and oar,
Every stroke takes something we cannot restore.

[Instrumental Break]
[Baritone guitar carries a long melody while the rowing pulse gradually loses and regains one beat.]

[Verse 3]
At dusk, young Leif began to shake;
His frozen hand released the rake.
We wrapped him in the banner’s fold,
Boar gold against his lips gone blue.
He whispered that his mother kept
A lamp beside the bed he left.
We nearly turned. Then ravens cried.
The northern current pulled the tide.

[Bridge]
I tried to summon Eirik’s face,
The crooked grin, the scarred shield brace.
Revenge had narrowed all I knew
Until one hated face came through.

[Break]
I struck my brow against the mast.
“Remember why, not only what has passed.
Remember names, the living, the dead.
Do not let Ketil live in Eirik’s stead.”

[Final Refrain]
Across the Black Fjord, pull and breathe,
Memory above us, anger underneath.
Across the Black Fjord, blade and oar,
We seek a judgment—not another war.
Across the Black Fjord, dawn turns grey;
The ravens find the inlet where the oathbreakers stay.

[Outro]
[The oars stop together; a distant shoreward drum answers the final tagelharpa note.]

The keel touched stone without a cry.
Seven men looked up the rise.
