Silver in the Frozen Deep

We sailed from warm and easy shores where southern lanterns gleam, But every tavern voice we heard spoke of the silver dream— Of Dauren’s cliffs and frozen winds, where no soft waters creep, And fortunes carved from living rock lie buried cold and deep. The cogs push slow through bitter tides beneath a steel-grey sky, The rigging groans like dying men, the gulls don’t even cry— No harbor song to welcome us, no fire, no restful sleep, Just ice that grips the hull like hands that drag you to the deep. Silver calls from stone and sleep, Buried where the cold runs deep— Take your gold and pay the keep… All are claimed by the frozen deep. A thousand dwarves in shadowed halls with hammer, flame, and will, They taught the men to break the world and bend it to them still— And though they curse in winter’s crush where narrow tunnels weep, They stand as one when something stirs that should have stayed asleep. For eastward lies the Gorgon’s crown where darker powers remain, They say his gaze can still a heart and turn a king to stone in pain— Yet still we dig, and still we bleed, for silver’s fatal gleam, Like fools who chase a shining lie they know is not a dream. Silver calls from stone and sleep, Buried where the cold runs deep— Take your gold and pay the keep… All are claimed by the frozen deep. In Bannenbach the coin runs fast from trembling hand to hand, A king at dawn, a corpse by dusk—no law here dares to stand— No oath will hold, no trust will last, no secret you can keep, The mountain hears, the mountain waits, and watches while you reap. When winter falls, you choose your fate—the tunnels or the sky, The dark below, the frost above—both ways a man may die— And those who break, and those who bend, and those who do not weep, All leave their bones where silver shines beneath the frozen deep. Silver calls from stone and sleep, Buried where the cold runs deep— Take your gold and pay the keep… All are claimed by the frozen deep.