[Intro][Handclaps, horns and stomping drums enter like a hall chant.]

[Verse 1 - Male Lead Narrator]
They woke with no blood in the cuts on their skin,
With mead on the table and fire within.
Their shields hung polished, their axes shone clean,
Their names rang loud where the roof-beams leaned.
A boar on the board, black bread in rows,
Gold cups raised where the furnace glows.
One laughed at the scar that had opened his lung,
Another forgot what his widow had sung.

[Chorus]
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, roar till the rafters reel,
Wounds close at sundown, hands go back to steel.
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, drink till the torches bend,
Every dawn we kill again, every dusk we mend.
Sing for the golden ceiling, sing for the battlefield,
The doors are wide for glory — but the hinges never yield.

[Verse 2 - Female Lead Valkyrie]
At morning the benches were empty and cold,
The same men marched in their armor of gold.
They split one another by training yard stone,
They learned to fall laughing, rise without groan.
The young Valkyrie watched from the western stair,
Saw fresh-healed throats drawing warlike air.
A hero asked, “Sister, how long do we stay?”
She looked to the throne and turned away.

[Chorus]
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, roar till the rafters reel,
Wounds close at sundown, hands go back to steel.
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, drink till the torches bend,
Every dawn we kill again, every dusk we mend.
Sing for the golden ceiling, sing for the battlefield,
The doors are wide for glory — but the hinges never yield.

[Instrumental Break][Fiddle-like tagelharpa and guitars play a crooked feast melody.]

[Bridge]
Mead can sweeten the iron taste,
Smoke can cover the bone,
Laughter can fill an empty place,
But it cannot make it home.

[Bridge 2]
One man touched the gate at night,
The lock gave no sound,
He found his face in silver light
And no road leading down.

[Breakdown]
Drink.
Fight.
Heal.
Repeat.

[Gang Vocals]
Gold on the cup.
Chains on the feet.

[Final Chorus]
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, roar till the rafters reel,
Wounds close at sundown, hands go back to steel.
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, drink till the torches bend,
Every dawn we kill again, every dusk we mend.
Sing for the golden ceiling, sing for the battlefield,
The doors are wide for glory — but the hinges never yield.

[Gang Vocals Coda]
Raise the horns in the feast-hall, hide what the dead men feel.

[Outro][Crowd chant collapses into a single locked gate sound.]
