[Intro]
[Two-note guitar phrases reach upward and stop before resolving; solo viola answers from below.]

[Verse 1]
Thunder lay silent beyond the wet field,
Nine darkened footprints ran out from his shield.
Freyr saw the hammer half buried in mud,
Its short leather handle made slippery with blood.
Then Surtr came forward, each footprint a brand,
The noon-colored sword in his coal-colored hand.
Behind Freyr, the wounded crawled out of the rain;
He tightened the antler and entered the flame.

[Pre-Chorus]
No sword left its scabbard to leap at his call,
No bright edge defended the gap in the wall.
He raised his round shield as the fire giant came—
One branch against daylight, one body against flame.

[Chorus]
The swordless god meets the sun on a blade,
No bargain can call back the weapon he gave.
The swordless god holds where the burned soldiers stand,
One antler for iron, one shield for the land.
The swordless god falls, but he does not give way—
He buys them one heartbeat with all he can pay.

[Verse 2]
The antler struck sparks from the edge of the sword;
The first cut took leather, the next split the board.
Freyr drove one horn through the fire giant’s side,
But molten blood opened and swallowed it wide.
Surtr swung level; the wheat fields went black,
The shield rings flew glowing from Freyr’s broken back.
He thought of the orchard, of frost on her hair,
Then faced the next stroke with his shield to the fire.

[Chorus]
The swordless god meets the sun on a blade,
No bargain can call back the weapon he gave.
The swordless god holds where the burned soldiers stand,
One antler for iron, one shield for the land.
The swordless god falls, but he does not give way—
He buys them one heartbeat with all he can pay.

[Instrumental]
[Solo viola completes the missing sword melody once while guitars sustain beneath it.]

[Bridge]
Surtr spoke quietly, almost with grief:
“You knew what would meet you beyond your belief.”
Freyr answered, coughing through blood and through smoke:
“I knew. Still I stood. That is all.” Then he broke
The last antler tine on the blade’s burning seam
And drove the sharp fragment through fire like a dream.

[Breakdown]
No blade in the hand.
No road to retreat.
The fire at his face.
The dead at his feet.
No rescue above.
No bargain below.
One moment purchased
For strangers to go.

[Final Chorus]
The swordless god kneels with the sun in his chest,
His hand on the antler, his head facing west.
The swordless god falls while the refugees run,
Their backs lit blood-orange by Surtr’s false sun.
No victory follows, no skald clears the blame—
Freyr dies buying seconds that vanish in flame.

[Outro]
[The stereo field narrows to solo lyre and voice; the final chord remains dark but complete.]

Gerðr, the orchard was green at the end.
I carried your winter.
I stood as their friend.
The sword never answered.
I answered instead.
