Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 20 - Wings of the Raven

The Wings of the Raven

The Legend of the Ice People 20 - The Wings of the Raven

© Margit Sandemo 1984

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2018

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: The Wings of the Raven

Title number: 20

Original title: Korpens vingar

Translator: Nina Sokol

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-558-8

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, translation, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas A/S.

Acknowledgement

The legend of the Ice People is dedicated with love and gratitude to the memory of my dear late husband Asbjorn Sandemo, who made my life a fairy tale.

Margit Sandemo

The Ice People - Reviews

‘Margit Sandemo is, simply, quite wonderful.’

- The Guardian

‘Full of convincing characters, well estabished in time and place, and enlightening ... will get your eyes popping, and quite possibly groins twitching ... these are graphic novels without pictures ... I want to know what happens next.’

- The Times

‘A mixure of myth and legend interwoven with historical events, this is imaginative creation that involves the reader from the first page to the last.’

- Historical Novels Review

‘Loved by the masses, the prolific Margit Sandemo has written over 172 novels to date and is Scandinavia s most widely read author...’

- Scanorama magazine

The Legend of the Ice People

The legend of the Ice People begins many centuries ago with Tengel the Evil. He was ruthless and greedy, and there was only one way to get everything that he wanted: he had to make a pact with the devil. He travelled far into the wilderness and summoned the devil with a magic potion that he had brewed in a pot. Tengel the Evil gained unlimited wealth and power but in exchange, he cursed his own family. One of his descendants in every generation would serve the Devil with evil deeds. When it was done, Tengel buried the pot. If anyone found it, the curse would be broken.

So the curse was passed down through Tengel’s descendants, the Ice People. One person in every generation was born with yellow cat’s eyes, a sign of the curse, and magical powers which they used to serve the Devil. One day the most powerful of all the cursed Ice People would be born.

This is what the legend says. Nobody knows whether it is true, but in the 16th century, a cursed child of the Ice People was born. He tried to turn evil into good, which is why they called him Tengel the Good. This legend is about his family. Actually, it is mostly about the women in his family – the women who held the fate of the Ice People in their hands.

Chapter 1

The two men who disappeared without a trace in the year 1793 in the village of Stregesti in Siebenbürgen were not the first ones. On the contrary! Like whispers in the wind, legends were told about such people, who vanished never to be seen again.

But thanks to one of the descendants of the Ice People, those two became the very last to disappear.

The special talents of those of the Ice People who were “touched” enabled them to contact many shadowy creatures that ordinary people were unable to perceive. But none of the Ice People had ever experienced anything as frightening as what occurred in Stregesti.

It was a strange forest. It was as though it had been there for fifty thousand years and had fallen into a deep slumber, awaiting the sound of the trumpets on Judgment Day to awaken it.

Everything in the forest was completely overgrown. The ground, rocks and stumps were covered with moss and creeping plants, and the tree trunks were completely swathed in ivy, making the entire landscape look as if it were blanketed in a green, rolling, softly waving shroud.

“Shroud” seems a menacing word: unfortunately that description was very suitable in this instance ...

The mossy branches of the trees drooped sleepily in this primeval forest. There were no singing birds here. Not even the modest nightingale dared break the silence with its beautiful voice.

The forest stood in Siebenbürgen, Austria-Hungary’s easternmost outpost. This wild mountain country fostered the most incredible myths and legends, horror stories about vampires and werewolves and other forces of darkness so terrible that it was only with great reluctance that visitors ever ventured into the deep, secretive valleys.

The population was a hotchpotch of Wallachians, Magyar Szeklers, Saxons and Romanians, including the remnants of other peoples who in times past had immigrated as Goths, Huns, Gepids and central Asian Avars. But the Romanians made up the majority, together with the Magyars, better known as Hungarians.

The Romanians themselves called the land the Ardeal, the Hungarians called it Erdély and still others Transylvania. But its official German name, given it by its current rulers, the Habsburgs, was Siebenbürgen, in reference to its seven major cities.

The ancient forest surrounded a small, out-of-the way mountain village called Stregesti. It would be hard to tell how this village got its name, since so many different groups of people had travelled through the country, but one thing was for sure: the Italian word strega means “witch”.

The two strangers had lost their way in Siebenbürgen under strange circumstances. They were a French nobleman and his nephew, fleeing the revolution in their homeland that had now entered its fourth year. Many members of the aristocracy had become acquainted with the guillotine, but this gentleman, Baron de Conte, had been fortunate enough to escape it together with his nephew, Yves.

Perhaps the guillotine would have been a better alternative after all?

At first they had been so terrified of ending up in the hands of the French mob that they had not dared to speak to anyone, hiding themselves in forests and mountains as they fled. And for that reason they were unaware of the fact that they had crossed the French border.

The French Revolution had thrown all of Europe into turmoil. So the two noblemen just went on travelling farther and farther in the hope of reaching a more peaceful region. Eventually they became aware that they had entered foreign regions, but their nerves were so frayed they still could not trust anyone.

And that was when they strayed into Siebenbürgen ...

Well, it was most certainly quiet here! Nowhere could be more calm or peaceful than these silent, mysterious valleys.

It was easy to take the wrong road when coming down from the Mures Pass on the way to one of the big cities in eastern Siebenbürgen. The baron and his nephew, not knowing the area at all, made the same mistake as other travellers before them. Suddenly they were in the Transylvanian Carpathians ...

For two days they rode through valley after valley, each one deeper and wilder than the last. Every so often they would reach a small village, but the language barrier was too great and they could not explain their intention: to find a bigger, more civilized city, no matter which one. For they wanted to settle down in this country, far away from revolution and fear, but not out in the wilderness!

Then the day came when yet again they chose the wrong road and entered a deep gorge, a chasm, where the sun only barely reached the valley floor. It was a pass, situated high in the mountains, and when they emerged from it they found themselves in the bewitched forest.

They reined in their horses.