[Verse 1] I took the yards, the roads, the rails, The bridge, the spur, the casting line, But realms are not won once by force, They live by route and rate and time. I learned it where the relay dropped, I learned it where the sectors bled, A state that rides one sleepless skull Is buried long before he’s dead. So in the glare of plotting glass, Still in my old and weathered coat, I marked the ground one man could seize And swore to raise more hands to hold. [Verse 2] I chose one captain from the freight, He knew what snaps a convoy spine, One from the works, who heard by tone When cast ran hot and fell off-line. One from the net, who read dead tags, False tracks, bad feeds, and broken screens, One from the forward killing ground, Who knew what pressure does to speed. I gave each man a numbered sector, A mech command, a buried wire, A reserve cold behind his front, A call-sign tree, a signal fire. I gave them law fit for command: Hold what is yours. Preserve the whole. Keep freight alive. Keep signal clean. Spend steel for gain. Protect the role. [Pre-Chorus] Read what I mean, not what I said. Act where you stand when timing breaks. Carry the realm inside your scope. Do not come back with smaller wins. [Chorus] Houses of Iron, hold your ground, One crown above, one law below, Many captains, one intent, One living fire through rain and smoke. Houses of Iron, keep the roads, Keep the relays, keep the nerve, Rank is burden, oath is bond, And every house must make it serve. Houses of Iron, stand in storm, Steel in hand and will in wire, What I first took by speed and force You hold as kingdom, line by line. [Verse 3] I built them fallback nets in depth, Two alternate routes for every front, Mapboards under poured concrete, Briefs cut short and reports kept blunt. No noise. No flood. No frightened guess. State fuel. State loss. State route. State time. State what you hold. State what gives way. State what you need to keep the line. I taught them where reserves belong, How not to chase a spoiling force, Which bridge to blast, which works to save, How not to win and lose the war. I taught them when to cut the net, When silence carries more than speech, How mission orders travel clean When trust and judgment run beneath. [Verse 4] Then outer columns crossed the rim, Heavy armor, banners wide, They drove for crossings, plants, and roads, Convinced the realm would split inside. House Red held fast at river ground. House Black kept eastern furnaces fed. House White cut freight behind their push. House Grey let armor run, then bled. The net stayed thin. The sectors spoke. Each burst came short, exact, and clean: Fuel at half. East line still holds. Reserve released. Enemy seen. And standing there above the board, Still in that same long weathered coat, I watched the thing I needed most Breathe under hands that were not mine. [Bridge] A crown is not a brighter room. A crown is guns and grain and wire. A king is signal through the dark And captains true through dust and fire. A house is not a softer name. A house is what a sector bears. Its patent lives in what it holds. Its title in the load it wears. So this is how a kingdom stands: By mission held through broken weather, By many minds that read one will And keep the wider realm together. [Final Chorus] Houses of Iron, hold your ground, One crown above, one law below, Many captains, one intent, One living fire through rain and smoke. Houses of Iron, keep the roads, Keep the relays, keep the nerve, Rank is burden, oath is bond, And every house must make it serve. Houses of Iron, reign through pressure, Command passed true through every spoke, And when they came to kill one man, They found a realm, and then they broke. Houses of Iron, stand and hold, Steel in hand and will in wire, What I first took by speed and force You made a kingdom hard as fire.
