[Halvdan:]
- "Ill omens my friend, look,
Ymir's blood drifts into the dawning sun, and colours it as red as raven's mead,
I warn you again of this dark ambition!"

[Vidar:]
- "Nay, my destiny is writ in stone, as it is for all men.
Fear not or fear greatly, for our wyrd is upon us!
May the gods watch our path, and Tyr light our way.
The doom of our folk is upon us. Quickly they ever fall to the sign of the southern cross.
Our fate must be decided!
We must sail at once!"

[Halvdan:]
- "To the north, then?"

[Vidar:]
- "Aye... to the north..."

The red runes spoke of these dark days
A tale forgotten beneath the dying sun
A darkened plague, eclipsing all that should be
To the north we sail, beyond the mists of time

From ancient lore, a stone from above
In the farthest north, beneath the ice and snow
To turn back the southern shadow,
To reverse the river of Freya's tears

"That ninth I know: if need there be,
to guard a ship in a gale.
the wind I calm, and the waves also
And wholly soothe the sea." - Havamal

Walvater do not desert us
We throw the last spear, across the field of history
To pierce the side of the martyr
To rape the fields of their lies

We dream of the dawn, of honour and legend
To burn brighter than a thousand suns
Our song will lift high, our blood will run deep
Into the veins of the earth, and colour the snow

"Ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery;
It glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems;
A floor wrought by the frost, is fair to look upon."
-- Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem

[Halvdan:]
- "The crew is restless, we have lost three to exposure already.
I plead with you, turn back, before it's too late and we all perish!"

[Vidar:]
- "If we turn back now we will be as good as dead anyway,
And the Valkyries will piss on our graves."

[Halvdan:]
- "The gods have stopped listening to you, even Aegir thwarts our way.
His daughters are cold and barren, grasping our hull with icy fingers."

[Vidar:]
- "Tire me not with your superstitions, for soon we will reach the ultimate north,
Our ancestral homeland, where the air is warm and moist, and the sun rains down eternally.
By the stars, I know we are close!"

[Halvdan:]
- "Well let us hope your superstitions are greater than mine!"

Cold winds carry the breath of the past
An icy path to the shores of Nastrond
The frozen ocean mirrors the starry sky
The northern lights, beneath the Dragon Star

Winter hearts of blackened stone
Forged in fire, in the primordial time
Cast down from heaven, to the ancient ones
To bond the iron and blood eternally

"Sure, if sword could venge
Such cruel wrong,
Evil times would wait
Aegir, ocean-god.
That wind-giant's brother
Were I strong to slay,
'Gainst him and his sea-brood
Battling would I go.
But I in no wise
Boast, as I ween
Strength that may strive
With the stout ships' bane."
-- Egil's Saga

"Praise not... the ice until it has been crossed."
-- Havamal

[Halvdan:]
- "The seas, they're... they're whispering!"

The black sun rises over the northern sky
Our prow breaks the ice before us
The sea below lies stagnant, its foetid breath the air of dead men.

Their eyes stare up at us, pleading to join them
The icy grave melts under the foul mist, poisoned wind from the east
The final judgment of dead races past.

Ravens bite at their flesh, and spit it back out into the mire
to join their parasitic host again.

Worse fates await those who defile their blood and honour
Look to the farthest northern shores
Beyond Cronia, beyond the sea, beyond your dreams
To the frozen throne, where he awaits.

"And they passed the Scythian archers, and the Tauri who eat men,
and the wandering Hyperboreai, who feed their flocks beneath the pole-star,
until they came into the northern ocean, the dull dead Cronian Sea."
-- Charles Kingsley "The Heroes" (1856)

Beneath a single brightened star,
Spinning round both near and far
A frozen throne lies cold and sleeping
And held the giant, tall and weeping

"For eternal winters, lost in time,
I weep for all my etin kind
The blood that bonds both high and low
Runs ever through the ice and snow"

"I see thee men, once friend and foe
Heimdall's children, seeds have sown
Still keep thy pure and blessed mead
Beneath the stars, beneath the tree"

"Yet new days dawn and Norns have spun
The final fate of Odin's sons
Nine ages past, nine worlds collide
Drowning deep in crimson tides"

"You seek thy doom and freedom same
The need of ice and burning flame
The black stone wails for fallen kin
The high halls clash in storm and din"

"Foreign gods smite night and day
Temples fired, runes burned away
The elder ones of wayward kith
Bore strong new sons of eager frith"

"To hold the tide of kingdoms lost
To take the hammer to the cross
The blood skald sing your song and fame
Hero's fane and martyr's bane"

"I tell my tale of ages gone
Of eternal cycles soon to come
Heed my verse, for Heimdall's horn
Hails now the end of etin-borne"

Drink from Urd, and sing its song
Its mead of knowledge sweet and strong
The mists of time and port of call
The beginning and the end of all

Star borne lay with wives of men
Their daughters great with etin kin
Ancients seed the darken kind
To hang in silence nights all nine

The elder blood in fiery vein
Unleash the brood of Odin's fane
To trample southern kind asunder
And bring the light of distant thunder

Erect halls beyond the sea
To honour blood of Heimdall's three
Till the land of golden yield
To forge the steel and oaken shield

Drink and laugh o sons of high
Lay with maidens 'neath the sky
Forge the race of Northern kind
The fates of gods and men entwined

Great kingdoms rose in golden times
And mighty winds of northern skies
The winter frost of yearly time
Yield summer rain and warmth sublime

The god's gift came in flash of fire
A map of heaven to Asgard's spire
Black iron forged in Volund's name
Ancestral bond of blood and flame

And all shall point to northern star
Where lodestone guides from lands afar
Primordial home of gods and men
To never leave from mortal ken

When sudden earth and mountain split
And walls of ice from north emit
And nations fall and seas arise
A reign of fire from darkened skies

Boreal children scatter far
The high ones weep between the stars
For all they wrought, and all they forged
Fell deep within dark earthen gorge

To eternal lay in ice and snow
Held whispered runes in heathen glow
For those of kind, to find the same
The one-eye's secret throne to reign

And now lost children flee their bane
To time of old, the stone of flame
To fill the veins with ancient fire
Reshape the world on martyr's pyre

Dead Giant - "Now that I have shown the past,
we must sail for what comes to pass,
Your blood kin break the circles fate,
to turn the tides with might and hate!"

She sees smoke rise upon the hill
Clouding all with ash and hate
Robes of black, strike the brand
Consuming all, the mind and flesh

Strength lies not with foreign spawn
The blood's venom the heart of winter
The ice and fire of primordial ken
Last eternal ages, beyond dying suns

She scribes the runes in ancient stone
For they burn not, and glow in fire
Bind runes she reddens, cruel ones
To fetter the martyr's sheep

Now she is found by the robed man
The dress is torn, and she is held down
To receive his foul seed, but now he
lies fallen, her thorn deep in his neck

The black stone lights the way to far
Where Baldur waits the sleeping star
To spin like sunlight darkened black
And boldly sign the northern pact

Where screaming ravens soar the sky
And mighty winds the ships defy
Walvater's army marches on
To battlefields that light the dawn

The southern plague is thus defiled
To bring splendour to the northern child
Where twilight roads lead Thulian way
And destroy the ones that led astray

The new north shines like starry night
The martyr falls in black sun's light
The stone is set in middle earth
To eternal guide the blood's rebirth

[Halvdan:]
- "Ill omens my friend, look, Ymir's blood drifts into the dawning sun,
And colours it as red as raven's mead, I warn you again of this dark ambition!"

[Vidar:]
- "Aye, an ill omen indeed. My heart weighs heavy, as this accursed
Sign is like heavy iron on my chest. I fear this mad quest of mine shall not continue."

[Halvdan:]
- "Will you accept their offer then? Please, our time is done here.
This new way speaks of peace, we can fight this no longer. The King has said thus."

[Vidar:]
- "Aye... the crucified one is your King now my friend. We have forsaken it all.
Our history, our culture, our heritage, our blood. Our gods... we have killed them,
And there, there is their blood..."