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The Brothers Lionheart

Tengil was sitting taut with fear on his horse, waiting. Katla was waiting too.

Once again Jonathan blew on the horn.

Then Katla screamed and turned in rage on the man she had once obeyed so blindly.

“Tengil’s time will come one day,” Jonathan had said, I remembered.

It had come now.

That was the end of the day of battle in Wild Rose Valley. Many people had given their lives for the sake of freedom. Yes, their valley was free now, but the dead were lying there and did not know it.

Mathias was dead and I no longer had a grandfather. Hubert was dead, the first to fall. He had never even got through the river gateway, because there he had met Tengil and his soldiers; and worst of all, he had met Katla. Tengil had brought her with him that very day to punish Wild Rose Valley for the last time for Orvar’s escape. He had not known it was the day of battle, though when he realized it, no doubt he had been glad Katla was with him.

But he was dead now, Tengil, just as dead as the others.

“Our tormentor is no more,” said Orvar. “Our children will be able to live in freedom and be happy. Soon Wild Rose Valley will be as before.

Chapter 16

No, Jonathan didn’t kill Katla. Karm did. And Katla killed Karm. In front of our very eyes. We saw it. No one else but Jonathan and I had seen two monsters from ancient times destroy each other. We saw them fight to their deaths in Karma Falls.

When Katla let our that scream and disappeared, at first we could not believe it. It was impossible to believe that she was really gone. Where she had sunk, we saw nothing but whirling foam. Nothing more. No Katla.

But then we saw the serpent. He raised his green head out of the foam and his tail whipped up the water. Oh, he was terrible, a giant serpent, as long as the river is wide, just as Elfrida had said.

The sea serpent of Karma Falls that she had heard sagas about when she was small was no more a saga than Katla. He existed and was a monster as horrible as Katla herself, his head swaying in all directions, searching.

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