[Intro] Rain needles the leather. The horses know the hour. Thunder writes its name across the black ridge. We do not ask for mercy. Mercy already left. One cloth left flying — soaked, torn, ours. [Verse 1] Midnight in the teeth of a wind that wants us gone. Torches gutter. Boots fill with cold that argues. Someone whispers turn back — the valley is a grave. I taste iron and rain and the old unfinished vow. Behind us: ash where the hall used to stand. Ahead: a pass that does not care if we arrive. Still the pole bites my palm. Still we ride. [Pre-Chorus] If this is the last honest charge we get, then let the dark learn our names the hard way. Stoodstrong in the saddle. No prayer left soft. Hell can take the rest — it will not take this cloth. [Chorus] Last banner — fly through the black hour. Last banner — we are the storm it answers. If the night wants a body, it can take mine; the cloth stays up, telephantix line. Last banner — hold when the world goes under. Last banner — thunder is just another drummer. We ride until the sky runs out of knives — and the banner is still alive. [Verse 2] The Arcane Verse is not a book — it is the breath you keep when your lungs want to quit. A brother falls. We haul him. We do not stop. The ridge opens like a wound that refuses to close. Somewhere a horn answers — ours or theirs, who knows. I laugh once, raw, because fear finally ran out of room. The pole is heavier. My arms are not done. [Pre-Chorus] If this is the last honest charge we get, then let the dark learn our names the hard way. Stoodstrong in the saddle. No prayer left soft. Hell can take the rest — it will not take this cloth. [Chorus] Last banner — fly through the black hour. Last banner — we are the storm it answers. If the night wants a body, it can take mine; the cloth stays up, telephantix line. Last banner — hold when the world goes under. Last banner — thunder is just another drummer. We ride until the sky runs out of knives — and the banner is still alive. [Bridge] Strip it down to heartbeat and hoof. No speech. No crown. No borrowed proof. Only the cloth and the ones who refuse to fold. Only the charge that outlives the cold. [Final Chorus] Last banner — fly through the black hour. Last banner — we are the storm it answers. If the night wants a body, it can take mine; the cloth stays up — this is the line. Last banner — hold when the world goes under. Last banner — thunder is just another drummer. We ride until the sky runs out of knives — and the banner is still alive. [Outro] Dawn is a rumor. We do not wait for it. The cloth drips rain like a new kind of blood. Stoodstrong. Still riding. Still ours.
