Cold Reckoning

Intro

(Níð! Níð!)

You dishonored the name — now I'm coming...

(Hu-ha!) Frost on the trail and I'm running

No mercy, no god, no cunning —

Just the blade and the blood and the drumming...

Verse 1

I watched the long-fire eat the hall to the rafter,

Heard the children scream and the coward laugh after.

Wyrd cut the thread — but the Norns left one chapter,

And I'm the final word in every verse that comes after.

Three winters I tracked through the eitr and the ice-fog,

Crossed the bone-white waste with the skull of my liege-dog.

You ran to your Jarl — hid behind every high wall,

I burn the walls down — I'm the fire, I'm the nightfall.

Pre-Chorus

Nornir wrote it red long before you drew breath (drew breath)

Owe a debt in blood — only I collect death.

Hela spread the table, set the chair on your left —

Every step I take brings you one step closer to Hel. (uh!)

Chorus

This ain't war — this is reckoning, cold (cold reckoning!)

Blood-feud older than the stories get told (get told!)

Níð on your name — now your fate's been sold (fate's been sold!)

I don't stop at the living — I hunt through the cold! (Hu-ha!)

Verse 2

You poured mead on my father's ash like a greeting,

Left my brother's sword in the mud for the eating.

Now I wear your colors just to crash every meeting,

Your whole bloodline pale when they hear my heart beating.

Draugr in your nightmare climbing out of the barrow,

Huginn dropped your name — Muninn lent me the arrow.

I crossed nine world-roots and I kept the path narrow,

One axe, one name carved — no room for the sparrow.

Pre-Chorus

Nornir wrote it red long before you drew breath (drew breath)

Owe a debt in blood — only I collect death.

Hela spread the table, set the chair on your left —

Every step I take brings you one step closer to Hel. (uh!)

Chorus

This ain't war — this is reckoning, cold (cold reckoning!)

Blood-feud older than the stories get told (get told!)

Níð on your name — now your fate's been sold (fate's been sold!)

I don't stop at the living — I hunt through the cold! (Hu-ha!)

Bridge

You thought the frost would bury what you did —

(wrong...)

Thought the whale-road swallowed every bridge —

(wrong...)

Thought the dark between the worlds could keep me hid —

Nothing keeps me from the debt you owe my kin.

I don't sleep, I don't eat, I don't bend —

I'm the saga with no mercy at the end.

Hela's hall got one chair left to fill...

(your name's on it)

And I'm walking up the hill. (Skál!)

Drop — Instrumental

Chorus

This ain't war — this is reckoning, cold (cold reckoning!)

Blood-feud older than the stories get told (get told!)

Níð on your name — now your fate's been sold (fate's been sold!)

I don't stop at the living — I hunt through the cold! (Hu-ha!)

Outro

(Níð! Níð!)

The debt gets paid tonight...

(Hu-ha!)

There's no world out of my sight...

Skál to the fallen —

The reckoning's right.