The Brothers Lionheart

I didn’t know whether that was because he wished to join Grim or whether he was as frightened as I was.

I was frightened, frightened, frightened.

I saw Veder fall to Sofia’s spear, and Kader die by Orvar’s sword, Dodik too, and several more, falling right and left, and Jonathan riding there in the middle of it all, the storm tearing at his hair, his face growing paler and paler, and my heart grew more and more sick within me.

And then the end came!

Many cries were heard in Wild Rose Valley that day, but one came that was like no other.

In the middle of the battle, a battlehorn sounded through the storm and a cry went up:

“Katla’s coming!”

Then the scream, Katla’s scream of hunger, which everyone knew so well. Swords and spears and arrows fell to the ground and they who were fighting could fight no more, for they knew there was no saving them now. Nothing but the thunder of her storm and Tengil’s battlehorn and Katla’s screams could be heard in the valley, and then Katla’s fire hissed out, killing everyone whom Tengil pointed at. he pointed and pointed, and his cruel face was dark with evil; now I knew that the end of Wild Rose Valley had come.

I didn’t want to look, I didn’t want to look---at anything. Except Jonathan. I had to know where he was, and I saw him just below Mathias’s house, sitting there on Grim, pale and still, the storm tearing at his hair.

“Jonathan,” I cried. “Jonathan, can you hear me?”

But he didn’t hear me and I saw him spur on his horse and fly down the slope like an arrow, flying faster than anyone in heaven or on earth had ever flown, I know. He was flying toward Tengil...and he flew past him...

Then the battlehorn sounded again, but it was Jonathan who was blowing it now. He had snatched it out of Tengil’s hand and was blowing it so that it resounded, so that Katla should know that she had a new master.

Then it was quite quiet, even the storm was dying down. Everyone fell silent, just waiting.