Evil Legacy by Margit Sandemo

Author:Margit Sandemo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jentas A/S
Published: 2019-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

Except for the trance-inducing powders, which he tucked inside his shirt, he returned everything to the sack, threw it over his shoulder and walked on.

It was a long climb up from the old ruins of the cottages and barns, and he followed meandering paths left by generations of cows on their way to summer grazing, paths worn so deep that they’d be hard to wipe out.

After a while, he paused and gazed upwards. Somewhere above him, beneath a cliff with two mast-like peaks, was where he needed to go. The path seemed to be leading in the right direction towards the edge of a cliff.

Since Kolgrim was unfamiliar with this kind of extreme exertion, he grew hot as he walked. His clothes soon dried and he was sweating profusely. But in the valley a light drizzle started and as he climbed higher, he encountered occasional flurries of snow.

The climb was hard work and his breathing was becoming forced and irregular. Solitude surrounded him like an invisible cloak of fog, pierced only by the screeching call of a bird of prey circling far away above the lake, and the sound echoed along the silent valley. Close by, he heard the anxious, quivering call of a golden plover.

The wind tore at him as he reached the top of the rise, almost knocking him backwards. He crawled up on hands and knees to peer down over the edge and immediately felt dizzy and light-headed. His gaze was drawn to the pile of rocks far below – evidence of the crumbling cliff face on which he lay.

Slowly, he looked around, and in the distance below he could again see the Ice People’s ruined dwellings, some still blackened by soot from the terrible fires that had raged through the entire valley. Others were hardly visible, no more than stones covered with vegetation. At Tengel’s farm, the leafless branches of a single large tree shivered in the breeze.

With an effort, he hauled himself to his feet. Suddenly he wanted, more than anything else, to see living people in the cottages and farms. He wanted desperately to see live witches and wizards – people just like himself. Wallowing in self-pity, surrounded by such emptiness, he was blissfully unaware of the fact that his own grandfather, the despicable Heming the bailiff-killer, had been the cause of all this destruction. How would he have reacted if he’d known?

All this was beyond contemplation, but what he knew more clearly than ever was that he’d need all the courage he possessed to carry out his plans. He was determined to be strong as Tengel the Evil had been strong – that was his greatest wish. But it had all been so easy for Tengel the Evil, Kolgrim thought. The valley had been filled with people then. But now he was alone – completely, absolutely alone and nobody knew where he was.

He was tired of carrying the sack for now and decided to leave it where it was, on the cliff edge,

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