The Brothers Lionheart

“We’ll make a campfire at our old place,” said Jonathan, meaning the cliff here we had been during the thunderstorm night, when I had seen Katla for the first time. I still shuddered when I thought about it, and I would have preferred to camp elsewhere. But we couldn’t go any farther now.

The horses had to be watered first before we could settle down for the night. We gave them some, but they didn’t want to drink. They were too tired. I was worried.

“Jonathan, there’s something peculiar about them,” I said. “Do you think they’ll be better after some sleep?”

“Yes, everything will be better when they’ve had some sleep,” said Jonathan.

I patted Fyalar, who was lying with his eyes closed.

“What a day you’ve had, poor Fyalar,” I said. “But tomorrow, everything will be all right, Jonathan says.”

We built a fire on exactly the same place where we had made our first one, and the thunderstorm cliff was indeed the best place you could think of for a campfire, if only you could forget that Karmanyaka was so near. Behind us there were high mountain walls, still warm from the sun, and shelter from all winds. In front of us, the precipice fell straight down into Karma Falls, and the side nearest the bridge was also a steep slope down toward a green meadow, which from here looked like a tiny green speck, far, far below.

We sat by our fire and watched dusk fall over the mountains of The Ancient Mountains and the river of The Ancient Rivers. I was tired and thought that I had never lived through such a long hard day in my life. From dawn to dusk, there had been nothing but blood and fear and death. There are adventures that shouldn’t happen, Jonathan had once said, and we had had more than enough of that kind that day. The day of the battle---it had indeed been long and hard, but now it was over at last.

Yes our grief had not ended. I thought about Mathias. I grieved for him very much, and as we sat by the fire, I asked Jonathan:

“Where do you think Mathias is now?